Ultimate Dads Success Ezine 007
It was one of those weeks.
My folks are in their late 80’s. Lots of their friends are dying… and living in a nice retirement community doesn’t shield them from that!
Last week my folks had THREE memorial services to attend; I took them to two of them, having known the person as well.
One was Mom and Dad’s next door neighbor, Jane Richards. She was such a sweet person. Mom knew her not only because she lived next door in this huge complex but because both women loved to play bridge.
The second that I went to was for Ronnie Porter (also affectionately known as RKP). Ron was a former President of Jackson-Cross Company (as was my Dad) and he was the one who interviewed me.
I had worked at J-CC two summers while in college, mostly helping in the sales end (though not licensed to sell yet). And when I was out of grad school, working in St. Louis, and thinking of returning to the Philadelphia area, Ron interviewed me for the Manager of Marketing position.
A gentleman all the way. Terrific salesman. The award named for him, The RKP Award, was for a top professional who also served the community. I was proud to win that Award not only for the recognition but because he meant so much to me.
Mom says, “Getting old’s a bitch.” She should know, I guess. And then we lose good people like Jane and Ronnie.
Gone… but not forgotten.
Charlie
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Turning the First Buying Signal Into a Sale In Jeffrey J. Fox’s 2006 book, Secrets of Great Rainmakers: The Keys to Success and Wealth, he offers some succinct insights into marketing in our digital age that anyone, with any business, can benefit from. For example: “The customer already knows his present supplier is a good company with good products. The customer already knows something about your products, and he knows your products have higher prices than what he is currently buying. So why did the customer agree to see you? “He agreed to see you because he has a problem, and he thinks you might be able to solve it!” When you begin to see yourself as a problem solver, not simply an order taker – and as you begin to shift your thinking from “employee” to “business owner” – you greatly enhance your value. Figure out what’s bugging the customer, offer a resolution and you may have won a customer for life. Fox goes on to explain, “What the first-meeting customer is really saying is, “Look, I made a mistake hiring my present supplier. But I can’t admit the mistake or it will hurt my career. I have a problem and I need a dramatic solution that I can bring to my company before this bites me in the butt. Please, please help me.” This highlights another important point. If your solution can help make your customer look good, you further position yourself as a valuable player in your customer’s business, rather than simply a vendor. Fox concludes, “Customer buy signals are acts in words or deeds that suggest a propensity to agree, to continue, to buy. Buy signals include customer smiles, nodding heads, agreements to test, technical questions, scheduling another meeting. “But the first buy signal is when the customer agrees to see the salesperson, to make an appointment, to take the meeting. “In today’s busy world, decision makers do not schedule sales calls unless they have a need…..If the customer agrees to meet, the customer has a need.” It’s time you turn the first “buy signal” into a sale for you! If you have a favorite marketing method and will share it with all of us, I'll be sure to include your name and contact information here in our Ezine. Share Your Marketing Ideas Here! |
Twitter For Business: Top 37 Steps You Should Take Immediately
By Charles Seymour Jr
Too many people don’t understand how to use Twitter for business, but that hasn’t stopped them from blogging about it.
Twitter, the micro-blog that lets you send 140 characters across the Internet to anyone who has followed you (and then be resent (ReTweeted) by others), is a highly-targeted tool for marketers – and it works well with other social media marketing tools.
For those of us old enough to remember party-line telephones, it’s like listening into the conversations of your neighbors and then adding to their chat only when you have something that applies to them. No need to send messages about photography to people interested in politics or television. So in THIS way, Twitter lets you laser-target your messages.
For me (and I admit there are other ways to approach this), I have 10 Twitter accounts, each based around specific keywords. For some of my accounts I’m building a list of followers who are interested in businesses I already have operating. For others, I’m building lists around topics that interest me and will figure out later how I will monetize them.
After all, having a LIST of interested prospects is the most important part of marketing and running our businesses.
So, with that as prologue, here are my top 37 steps you should take immediately to use Twitter for your business.
Get Set Up
1. Set up an account at Twitter.com, using a keyword phrase as your username. You have 14 characters, so be succinct. (Two of mine are UltimateWAHDads and PhotoCharlie)
2. Add some personal information to it – people like to do business with people they like and they like people who are like them.
3. Add a photo – not one of you and you cat, not one that twirls around (I guess those folks are trying to attract more attention, but most people find them distracting), but one of YOU that shows you clearly.
4. Add your business’s website URL (you DO have a website, right? If not, stop this, find another blog about setting up your own website that includes a lead generation name capture form, and come back to this one!).
5. Step away from your computer, grab a pad of paper, and write down at least FIFTY keywords someone might use to describe what you do and use when they search for someone like you in Google. Most people skip this step and never come back to it… and then wonder why they aren’t successful.
6. Purchase this very inexpensive but VERY helpful product so that you can speed up the growth of your list. Bill’s Twitter Traffic Machine http://budurl.com/fnhm You’re reading a post about using Twitter for Business, so you must have interest in it. Why take the next three weeks to begin to build a list when Bill shows you how to do it mostly on autopilot. I use it, I recommend it, and I’ve gotten to know Bill. Do this now. OK, so it will cost you a little bit: get over it. I just upgraded my screen capture video software today and it was $149 (and it’s the 6th version I’ve used!). Bill’s is WAY less than that: check here!
To see the rest of this article: Twitter For Business – See Full Blog Post Here!
What do you find is working on the Internet? If you have a short article or suggestion to share with others here, please let us know. Share Your Internet Marketing Ideas Here!
Five weeks ago I mentioned how I tell people that I’m “on a deadline” so that I won’t be asked to waste time that I should be working toward my goals. Four weeks ago I gave you a tip that I got from Dan Kennedy years ago: Only accept SCHEDULED telephone calls from clients. Three weeks ago I present something that I’m “famous” for (and the envy of many of my friends stuck in a “job”: my DPS Time – Dreaming, Planning, Scheming. Two weeks ago I told you about SKYPE. Last week I told you how to work with a calendar. Today? No TV, Radio, or Newspapers before Noon. I even wait until 6:30 PM for the national ABC News. Why follow this suggestion? I have a marketing guru say once that if you poured dirt into you car engine every morning, it wouldn’t operate too well. Neither will your mind. If you keep hearing about a recession or war or pandemic or killing in the next town over, you’ll begin to “believe” that the world is falling apart. You don’t need that… not you, someone working on his own. You need inspiration, motivation, steps to make your life easier. Stay away from the news. Watch or listen for 30 – 60 minutes a day max. And watch some mindless TV or read a magazine or a good book. These will help you relax. But don’t start your day off with the downward spiral of the economy or the world. Let others get discouraged – YOU will see that you can make your own reality. So… believe in yourself, keep going forward, keep taking your Dreaming, Planning, Scheming times. Things are looking up! What do you find toughest about working on your own? Tell us what we can do to help. |
Marketing Power of Bit.ly – Use Bit.ly To Shorten And Track Your Links
When you use Twitter or when you want to shorten a link for whatever reason, you’ve probably used a link-shortening website. I want to recommend Bit.ly (that’s it… no dot com or anything. Just Bit.ly)
The metrics you can get from this (the numbers you can get from this) after using a shortened link and having people click on it) are terrifically helpful when running our businesses.
For instance, look here: http://bit.ly/qA32s+ This is all the information built around this blog post and it shows you how many people clicked on my link and when.
Read the blog post and start using Bit.ly.
Blog By Charlie Seymour Jr – Marketing Power of Bit.ly – Use Bit.ly To Shorten And Track Your Links – Click here to read!
If you want to write for one of our blogs, please send us a short email telling us the topic you want to write about, giving us a writing sample of 250 – 500 words. Here's My Writing Sample – I'd Like To Blog With You!
Insider’s Secrets. I have devoured TWO versions of this course. Started by the legendary Corey Rudl before his death in a race car zooming on a practice track, this course is clear, to the point, and extremely powerful. If I had created it myself, I couldn’t be prouder of what it does for people. And if you invest in it through me, I’ll help you if and when you need some. So, look at this: Insiders Secrets – a great course about building your own business online. For The Best Work At Home Course About Building Your Own Business Online, Click Here! http://bit.ly/k8Wh3 |
What's going on? What would you like to share? What great tidbits of information will you share with the rest of the group? We'll publish it here: Around The Water Cooler Information – Click Here To Share Your Ideas And Comments!
 From 50 Universal Truths About Men By: Bob Grant, L.P.C. “The Relationship Doctor” 21. The woman I love is easy to please. She appreciates the effort I put into making her happy, even if I get the details wrong. Did you just hear something from a woman and thought it needed translation? Did you recently say something that was totally unintelligible by your spouse? Share How Men And Women Speak Differently – Click Here To Email Your Thoughts! |
Send us some of your favorites!
Here’s something amusing, if not “funny.”
Here are the winners of this year's Washington Post's Mensa Invitational which once again asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter and supply a new definition:
7. Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very, very high
8. Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.
9. Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.
more to come!
Share Your Favorite G-Rated Joke or Quote – Click Here To Email!
 HOW DO YOU KNOW WHEN YOU’RE GETTING OLD? Does this apply to you? To a parent? You don’t mind telling your age – but you don’t remember it. LITTLE BOOK OF BIG QUESTIONS: Answers to Life’s Perplexing Questions by Diana Booher Illustrated by Michelle Allen Publisher: Thomas Nelson, Inc. 2001 |
Tell us: what are your three most pressing needs as you work at home? Write to us and we'll see what we can do to help you either directly or here in our ezine: 3MostPressingNeeds.
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Charlie has studied with some of the best direct response marketers on the planet – one on one, in the classroom, at seminars, and with work at home courses. He is no stranger to thinking big. He is an entrepreneur with a variety of interests and abilities, mostly focused on families and the Arts. He honed his skills as a business marketer and entrepreneur after earning his MBA in Marketing and Management from The Wharton School in 1975 and his BA in Economics and Music from Tufts University in 1973. He sold $247,368,657.97 as a salesman and marketed more than $1 billion as the Vice President of Marketing for Jackson-Cross Company. Charlie is featured in the new book, Dream Inc, about 32 Philadelphia-area entrepreneurs and their million dollar secrets to success, and The Ultimate Success Secret by Dan Kennedy and Michael M. Capuzzi. Artistically his life has also been rich by directing musical theater when not working. He is a frequent speaker and author about Marketing, Work At Home, and Web 2.0. He runs his own photography and video business; is an online community builder; and has been an Ultimate Work At Home Dad for nearly 20 years. In addition to his major online projects, Charlie created http://LizSeymour.com to assist his daughter as she produced her first music CD. His personal portal site is http://CharlesSeymourJr.com. |
Charlie Seymour Jr is an Ultimate Work At Home Dad, an entrepreneur, and a marketer with a heart for families, children, the arts, and how they tie together. He createdthough frequently permission is granted for use for ezines, blogs, radio programs, TV news, and magazines.
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