Why is Copywriting Important? Top 4 Reasons

Why do some copywriters get paid $100,000 retainers and 40% of gross sales for spending just a few days writing copy for a product? Why do those who write headlines for major magazines get paid 10x more than those who write the actual articles inside of the publication?

Here’s another question: What is the difference between a $1 bill and a $100 bill? The answer: The message on the paper is the only difference, this is proof that a small change in the message can make a piece of paper be worth over 100x as much as it may otherwise be.

and now the most important question…What are your messages worth? $1,000 or $100,000 each?

If you are ignoring the copy within your sales letters, emails, opt-in pages, or website you are probably only realizing 3-5% of the response that is possible with the use of the right words. Studying and investing in your copywriting skills could be the most important decision you make while either improving profits of a company or launching your own small business. We have personally seen products which were producing $15k month start producing $30k+/month after implementing some proven copywriting techniques.

Top 4 Reasons Copywriting IS Important:

Most of your competitors ignore or underestimate the importance of writing great copy
The majority of copy, once formed may be used hundreds if not thousands of times – you get a great bang for your buck vs. other short-run expenses such as a TV promotion or banner ad placement agreement
Every company needs great copy, no $1M companies operate without sale letters, email blasts, newsletters, or written communications of some type
If done right you can lower your refund rate and increase potential cross and upsells by connecting directly with the fears, needs, and goals of your clients

Tags: why learn copywriting, the importance of copywriting, why be a copywriter, why hire a copywriter, is copy writing important? the importance of great written copy

William Edwards Deming

One person who has affected me in business has been William Edward Deming. He has a quote that says "If you can't describe what you are doing as a process, you don't know what you are doing"

I think this also goes along with another popular business quotes "What gets documented gets improved"

Most businesses that I have worked with do not have an investor or customer cultivation process or pipeline drawn out as a process. They do not have their ongoing client communication strategy documented, and in many places the only documentation of their investment process is at a very high level within their marketing materials. I think many small business owners could benefit from using PowerPoint or a free program such as Bubbl to document their processes.

This documenting of critical processes takes little time and costs nothing to do but allows you to step back from the process and evaluate it, improve it, or delegate where appropriate. Our firm recently used Bubbl and PowerPoint together to describe a business process we were completing ourselves and we were able to not only use this internally but also externally as we trained a third party that we decided to outsource some of this work to.

The processes I have found to be valuable to document are:

Customer Acquisition Process
Current Customer Communication Strategy
Hiring New Employees
Managing your product development on an ongoing basis

Tags: William Edwards Deming Quotes, Quote by Edward Deming, W. Edward Deming, Quality Management and process improvement tips, documenting business processes for improvement

Kick Your Own Ass

At our Chicago networking event last month a fund manager brought up my recommendation of reading Jeffrey Gitomer books. We were discussing how making sales is tough right now, nobody wants to spend time discussing expenditures. The individual was looking for a new technique that would allow him to do well despite the poor economy. I think in tough times the principles of sales gurus like Jeffrey Gitomer are more true than ever.

Tags: Kick Your Own Ass, kicking your own ass in sales, sales advice, marketing and sales tips for investment marketers, third party marketing capital raising tips and strategies

Power of Focus

Below is a quote I used while speaking with an investment fund manager last week that was looking to raise capital, they were doing so by approaching every investor they could possibly speak to. They were explaining how their firm has so little resources compared to their $1B competitors.

“You can take a $5 disposable camera and take it out of the box, stand 10 feet from a building and take a great picture that will be developed and look good if not great. You could stand in that same position with a $10,000 camera with every gadget, lens, and a tripod and it will not take as good of a picture if you do not do one thing, focus.”
- Brian Tracy

The Point: You can beat your competition with a smaller staff, with less financial resources, and less experience if you just learn to focus. Focus on your top prospect investors, focus on local potential investors, and focus exclusively on the types of investors which are most likely to make allocations to your fund. If you can dial-in on these three areas your hot prospect list, local investors and the right investor mix (family offices, wealth management, pension funds, etc.), than you can really cover a lot of ground quickly.

Tags: The Power of focus in sales, Sales Focus, focusing on the right customers, time management and focus

Presuppositions: How to Use a Presupposition

Today we are going to talk about presupposition, this is something from the world of Neural Linguistic Programming (NLP) and it is very applicable to day to day business marketing and sales activities.
Presupposition can be defined as the way of marketing in which you assume that the audience is going to be buying your product. For example we are coming out with a Influence Skills Training program next year which we haven’t named yet, below is a marketing pitch for this using the presupposition approach”

Example: The Influence Skills Training DVD product consists of 6 DVDs, a workbook, a cheat sheet, 2 audio CDs and flash cards. After you have purchased the product we will email you your membership details and you may begin using our training materials online. It will then take approximately 6 days to receive your box of training materials in the mail. Once these materials are received you will have the option of using the hard copy materials or the digital copies available online.

Many times in the paragraph I referred to actions the person “would take,” I did not refer to actions that the person might take or “might take if they decide to purchase.” The importance here is assuming they will be purchasing your product, if you have something truly valuable then you will be speaking directly to individuals who will in fact buy your product. The power of this thinking is that it helps build momentum towards making the sale, it moves them closer to completing the order form.

Warning: If you do not have a good relationship with your list or are you brand new to the industry the over-use of this tactic can come off as cheap and look like hucksterism, use it lightly. Also, this tactic is not a magic bullet which when used means you can ignore standard copywriting, risk removal, product samples, and testimonials. This is one of 20-30 tactics which when all used together raises the response you may receive from traffic on a website or mailings sent to a list.

I hope this post helped, we will be writing many more like this over the next few months.

Tags: Pressuposition, Presuposition, presupposition, How to use presuppositions, copywriting help, how to be a copywriter, copywriting examples, training on copywriting, NLP training, NLP tips

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Influencing your Business and Self through Creativity

Being more creative is an important and valuable part of influencing oneself. One of the best ways to be creative and more effective in improving your business or career is to do the exact opposite of what would seem logical.

If you run a small business, try looking at how the airline industry or how Google advertising and obtains new clients and try emulating those models. Applying diverse ideas and applying it your industry may allow you to come with unique sets of customer acquisition strategies which are hard to detect and replicate.

If you are stressed out from working 15 hours a day try working 3 hours a day for a full week. You will freak out the first two days, but then mostly likely realize there are a few tasks which are absolutely critical while many others are not. By the end of the week you will be completing your most critical tasks within that three hour work period. Tim Ferris, author of the 4 Hour Workweek suggests a similar tactic for tackling an over-ruling Email Inbox, he suggests only checking your email twice a week. This may be extreme to some but would only checking your email once or twice a day kill you? It may save you hours/week in distractions and non-emergency urgency tasks.

If you are looking for new business opportunities consider taking an industry where something has always been very expensive and time-consuming to create and create a way to make it the opposite experience. Industrialize and streamline a relatively complex process into something more easy to implement or understand. Select an industry which is stuck in a traditional expensive approach to completing a complex process and streamline it, document it, refine it, and use this for consulting, your own business, your position at work, or your future business plans. Most professionals will not take the time to do this and many will tell you it is not possible. I did not realize it 2 years ago but this process alone is the #1 reason why my own business has become profitable with an over 150% growth rate for the last two years.

If you are looking for more ideas on how to be creative checkout ThinkerToys by Michael Michalko, the absolute #1 best book you could buy on being more creative. It costs less than $20.

Tags: creativity, creative business ideas, creative business development ideas, creative marketing ideas, creative sales ideas, building a business based on creativity, influence, persuasion

Quick Tips on Becoming More Influential

I believe there are a number of ways in which you can become more influential in everything you do. One of the benefits of reading 15-20 books on the topic of influence and persuasion is that you start to ingrain these lessons into your ever day decisions without having to think of them. Here are a few ways to become more influential:

State both the negative and positive sides of any argument, sometimes over-stating the negative upfront and then balancing that with the positive aspects can show that you have done your research, realize that you are not the cure to all cancers and trouble in the world and it adds a sense of trust or legitimacy to what you are suggesting.
Always act with integrity and be genuine, it is more simple than trying to act a certain way or act "the right way."
Think Long-Term: You will influence more decisions and long-term outcomes by thinking long-term. Try to act and treat others as a long-term investor might, not as a day trader. In other words can increase your ability to influence decisions by thinking of both your long-term interests as well as those you are attempting to influence.
Interview, Quote and Associate with Experts. There is no substitute for the knowledge, wisdom and benefits received from networking, being mentored by or working with a group of absolute experts in your field. Don't have access to them right now? Write a book by interviewing 10 of them and analyzing the common ground between their stories. Don't have a book offer on the table? Self publish.
Read and Invest in Your Brain 1 hour a day. When you work hard 50 hours a week you feel like you deserve an hour or two of movies, ice cream or intoxication. Sometimes this is needed but if you really want to break through and be more effective you should spend at least one hour each day learning more about time management, self improvement, positive psychology, influence and persuasion and specialized knowledge related to your field. If nothing else, who does not have the time to learn more about time management?
Do the hard work. Ideas are cheap, hard consistent work is rare. Speak with your actions and invest your time in taking actions towards meeting your goals, stop planning and start failing so you can learn and improve on what you have started.

Tags: tips on how to be more influential, influence, influence and persuasion

Dr. Robert Cialdini Interview Video

Here are some good questions and answers about the psychology of influence and persuasion. This interview was completed in London in 2009.

Tags: Robert Cialdini, Dr. Robert Cialdini Interview, Interviews with Robert Cialdini

Dr. Robert Cialdini Questions & Answers

Below please find a video of Dr. Robert Cildini answering some classic questions on the psychology of influence and persuasion. He is a great speaker and his points review several of the most important questions asked and answered within his previous books on the topic. Here are the videos:

Tags. Dr. Robert Cialdini, Robert Cialdini Video, Interview with Dr. Robert Cialdini, influence, influence and persuasion

Influencing Others Through Focus & Expertise

Influencing Through Focus & Expertise

Today's business world is competitive, most professionals and companies do not want to spend money on generic resources, generic tools or generic consultants. They do not need generic education and training or generic solutions. The future of influencing others is through provide very niche focused products to clients. Most business professionals already know this but I believe that they don't take it far enough.

I believe that many companies could become first movers within the smallest of niches if they look to become more granular than any of their competitors have been in the past. For example a California based company that I know provides hard copy books or directories of contact details to their clients for $477 to $1,400 a piece. Their competitors have all provided generic resources which cover 8-12 niches within a single solution, but this company has recently seen a spike in sales by catering to each of these 8-12 niches with separate websites, distinct focused products and separate launches. There is something to be said of making the high dollar sale and up selling customers but if your firm is seeing stagnant growth I would recommend looking into positioning your firm as THE expert resource or guide on a very small niche topic, doing so may be easier than you previously thought.

How could you be more influential by being literally 10X more focused than your competition?

Tags: Influencing Others in Business, Earning Expert Status, Marketing to Niches, Influence, persuasion, influence and persuasion

Influence Skills Training Program | Details

Influence Skills Training Program

Below please find various articles related to our upcoming Influence Skills Training Program:

Tags: Influence Skills Training Program, Influence Skills Training, Influence Training, Persuasion Training, Persuasion Skills Training, Online influence and persuasion program, influence certification

Influence and Persuasion Psychology Research

Below please find reviews of important historic as well as recent scientific research on the psychology of influence and persuasion. Sometimes these studies will discuss things such as compliance, social influence, persuasion, or principles of influence. Please see our definitions page first to learn more about what these terms mean.

Research on Psychology of Persuasion and Social Influence

Tags: Persuasion Psychology Research, Social Influence Psychology Research, Psychology Research, Influence and Persuasion Psychology Research, Research on the psychology of influence and persuasion

Books & Movies on Influence and Persuasion

Below please find links to articles we have posted on books and movies related to the psychology of influence and persuasion:

Tags: Books on persuasion, books on psychology of influence, influence and persuasion books, influence books, persuasion book, influence book, influence persuasion book, cialdini book, persuasion movies

Influence & Persuasion Techniques and Strategies

Influence & Persuasion Techniques

Below please find links to numerious articles which explain how to use and apply influence and persuasion techniques to business and sales situations:

Tags: Influence Techniques, Persuasion Techniques, Persuasion strategies, influence strategies, how to use influence and persuasion, influence and persuasion strategies, influence and persuasion techniques

Business & Sales Case Studies Persuasion & Influence

Business & Sales Case Studies

It can sometimes be hard to apply examples of influence and persuasion techniques from books or experiments to real life. Below please find various articles by our team which explain various practical applications of influence principles to real life business and sales situations:

Tags: Business Case Studies, Persuasion Case Studies, Influence Case studies, Sales Case Studies, Sales Case Study, Business Case Study, Persuasion Case study, Influence Case Study

Persuasion & Influence Movies and DVDs

We are collecting a list of influence and persuasion related movies and DVDs that are available for purchase. If you have a favorite movie related to these subjects please so send it to us and we will post a link to it here for everyone to benefit from. For now please see the resources collected below:

Tags: Persuasion movies, Persuasion DVDs, influence and persuasion movies, influence and persuasion dvds, psychology of persuasion and influence videos, movie on influence and persuasion

Research on the Psychology of Persuasion & Influence

Influence & Persuasion Psychology Research

There are hundreds of easy to understand books on influence and persuasion. At the same time there are hundreds of harder to read journals, scientific reports and seminars based on the primary research related to this field.

So why read journal articles and reports of the latest scientific research within these fields? Why should professionals who are serious about implementing tactics of influence and persuasion case about the granular research done on various techniques and strategies?

Reading the latest reports on persuasion and influence research is the only way to gain unfiltered insight into what has recently been confirmed or rejected through rigorous scientific studies vs. someone's intution or guess on how things work.
What makes the areas of influence and persuasion so interesting is that so many things work on an unconscious level in ways we would not have expected. If we only relied on our guesses on how things worked based on personal experiences we would be decades behind on what tactics and methods actually work.
Combining lessons from research with mainstream books and articles will lead to the most complete and comprehensive understanding of the industry.
If you are in the business of training or coaching within the areas of influence or persuasion you owe it to your students to read the primary sources on on related research so you can be assured that you are instructing professionals using the latest knowledge, discoveries and theories which are supported by rigorous research methods.

Tags: Persuasion Psychology Research, Influence Psychology Research, influence and persuasion research, scientific research on influence and persuasion, graduate degree level research on social influence

Influence Course Offered Online

Influence Course

As you may have already read here within other areas of the website our team is developing a home study influence course for sales professionals, business owners and business professionals. In the past our team has created a business analysis matrix for analyzing the effectiveness of businesses in applying lessons of persuasion and influence to their business practices. We are starting with this framework and including various other influence best practices to create something which is relatively easy to learn and implement within many businesses and industries.

The details of the course to date include:

Training and best practices collected from our development of a 50 point influence and persuasion matrix tool
100 hours of required study need to complete the program, read the required materials and pass the exam that will be included within this course
Our team will be providing a certification to those who do pass the program, certifying their knowledge within these areas of influence and persuasion.
To complete the program you will have to complete a project where you apply these principles to your own sales practice, business operations, marketing plans or strategic plan for your own career or organization.

Tags: Influence Course, Home Study Influence Course, Course on Influence and Persuasion, Influence Skills Course, Influence Courses, Persuasion Course, influence training program

Setting up a Goal | Tips and Experiences

Setting Up a Goal

Through InfluenceGuru.com I have spoken in the past about how to influence others you must first influence yourself. If you read enough self help, positive attitude and goal setting books you will come across the theme of setting goals and specifically setting one specific chief goal. I believe one the best ways to influence yourself immediately is to decide on one main goal which if you reached would move you forward towards your other goals and fulfillment more than anything else. This has worked for me in many cases, here is an example:

I used to work for a boss who was always upset, paranoid and mad. He lived a mad life and working under him made me nervous and on edge. I decided while working for him that I should work for myself so I would never be trapped under such a tyrant ever again. While making this decision I realized there were several ways in which I could start a new business so I narrowed these down to two ideas, starting an online business and performing consulting and pursued both in any way I could. I sent out cold emails, contacted past consultants that I knew, applied for positions, wrote daily on niche industry blogs that I started myself and found ways to make at least enough income to pay my bills in case I wanted to quit my job. I wanted to run a business more than anything else so all of this work paid off, within 6 months of starting this process I was making $1,800/month from my part time side activities and I could see the light of making a full time living off of this same work for myself if I quit my job. It so happened that at this same time my boss discovered one of the websites I was building and asked me to delete it or quit my job, I happily quit and never looked back. I don't believe that I would have been able to achieve this goal of working for myself if I had only half-heatedly pursued the goal, been going after 5-6 other goals such as writing a book, running a marathon, or volunteering 20 hours/week for a homeless shelter. There are many great things you can do with your time, but what one thing should you be looking to tackle right now that will change your life in 6-9 months?

What if you:

Started your own business
Doubled your sales
Grew a top 3 most respected niche industry website for your business?
Wrote a book
Gave 20 speaches around the country to industry associations and clubs?
Surveyed all of your customers for new product ideas and launched an outsourced product which took only 3 hours of your time a month to maintain?

Tags: setting up a goal, goal setting, Goal setting theory, Goal setting tips, how do I set a goal, what is a goal setting plan, steps to setting a goal, goal setting ideas, motivational goal setting

Influence Theories Explored |

Influence Theories Explored

There are a number of leading theorists within the field of influence and persuasion. Some are introduced to the topic through Michael Hogan, others through Robert Cialdini and many more through the field of NLP. If you have been brought up on influence and persuasion from a little known author or expert who you believe truly offers something unique please do email us.

We are completing book reviews and adding components to our business tool which helps us evaluate businesses and their effective employment of influence and persuasion methods and techniques.

Thanks in advance for the help.

Tags: Influence Theories, Theory of influence and persuasion, Michael Hoan on influence and persuasion, Influencing others through NLP, NLP Techniques, Influence and persuasion tactics

Influence Skills Training | Register to Learn More

Influence Skills Training

I am starting to build a list of professionals who would like to receive business oriented influence and persuasion training. I am working with a small team of professionals on a project related to this and would like to see how much interest there is in the market for such a program.

If you would like to

Increase how your business influences other through the internet
Increase the impact of your marketing materials
Learn how to become more visible in ways which will influence others to do business with you please complete the form below:

The Ability To Influence Others | How To Do It

The Ability to Influence Others

What has been interesting about working with influence tactics and earning my graduate degree focusing on psychology of influence and persuasion is the theme of first changing yourself before changing others.

Here are some examples I have seen over the last 5 years:

In sales many teach to be confident in yourself, being sold on yourself and your product before you can sell others.
In a positive psychology course we learned that to make others happy you generally need to make yourself happy first.
My favorite sales author Jeffrey Gitomer stresses that to have a positive attitude and work successfully with others you need to first serve yourself well and meet your own needs.
What I have found with influence and persuasion is that you need to first be able to influence your own actions, influence yourself before you will be able to effectively influence others in many areas.

Are you ignoring yourself while trying to sell or influence others? What could you do to develop more self discipline, control and enjoyment at the same time which would lead to a snowballing effect in influencing others? You could create a list of 5 things you need to complete every single day, write a book over the next 4 months, travel to places you have always dreamed of going, or commit your time and money to launching your new business on a small scale right now.

Tags: Influence Others, Influencing others, How to Influence others, how to influence others in business, how to influence others in sales, The Ability to influence others, influence over

How to Have a Positive Attitude

Positive Attitude

How to Have a Positive Attitude

Here is a short video by sales trainer Jeffrey Gitomer on sales and positive attitude. Gitomer is one of my favorite sales trainers and in this economic environment I thought this was a great video. Gitomer suggests:

Surround yourself with positive people
Expose yourself to positive books, magazines and movies
Say all things in a positive way
Start now and work on it every day

I've read five of his books and met him in person while in Boston. The best tip I have gotten from Gitomer on positive attitude is to read 15 minutes worth of positive reading every morning right after you wake up.

Tags: How to Have a Positive Attitude, Positive Attitude, Power of positive attitude, power of positive attitude, positive mental attitude, positive attitude quotes

Business Opportunities in 2009 | Business Ideas

Business Opportunities in 2009

What is amazing about the depression that America is facing in 2009 is how many business opportunities still exist. I know of dozens of professionals who run small businesses that are growing almost too quickly for their own good. It seems that if you have carved out a unique niche, deliver genuine value to your clients and provide thought leadership marketing the growth of your business can't be hurt much by a large recession or depression.

Perhaps now, during a depression is the best time to evaluate your own and your competitors use of influence principles within your business practices. In high tide all boats stay afloat but during low tide perhaps the active employment of appropriate principles of influence could make the difference between breaking even or grabbing market share from your competitors.

Here are some depression-era influence tips:

Give away your best advice and knowledge within blog articles, newsletters and an e-book - ideally all created off of the same core content.
Only pitch your customer after the 7th touch - yet always be ready for those who are ready to buy.
Offer help and deliver value before asking for your potential customers to open their wallet.
Speak at events, conferences and within video posted to your own website once a week.
Create more personal bios for your website, a more professional website template and re-invest in your team earning designations or certifications which align their knowledge with your industry or typical customer.
Provide ample social proof related evidence of your firm's activities on your business cards, website and marketing materials.

Tags: Business Opportunities in 2009, Business Ideas in 2009, Business Ideas for Depressions, What business do well during depressions, what business to start during a depression

How to Grow My Business | Tips

Influencing yourself is more important than anything you could read about influencing others. Influencing your own actions is more important than winning new customers, selling your business or finding new joint venture partners. Influencing yourself means working in a more focused manner, thinking positively, constantly innovating and growing your knowledge, evolving your personal value and goals to match your challengs and enjoying what you commit to.

Here are 5 Tips for Influencing Yourself:

Write within a journal each morning. Within this journal reflect on your personal and business life within two separate sections. Each time you write discuss your personal goals, challenges, great things which have happened to you, etc.
Regardless of whether you write in a journal write 5 things you are grateful for every day and your top 5 goals in life
Decide on your Major Definite Purpose as Brian Tracy calls it. This means to decide on what one thing would move you ahead in life more than anything else and focus all of your energies on accomplishing that one thing. Do something every day which work towards that goal.
Read daily. Turn off the TV, throw out your local newspaper and focus on gaining specialized knowledge on sales, influence, your service niche and what your customers read. After 2 years of reading these types of materials every day you will be one of the most knowledgeable professionals within your industry.
Write daily. Write 5 pages a day. Write trend analysis articles, editorials or interviews of highly experienced professionals. Write for a newspaper, your own blog or start working on a book to be self-published. If you do this for 3 years you will be seen as a national expert on your topic. I know this is true because I did it in 18 months within my niche. After 18 months I am now paid to fly to Belgum to speak for one hour on my topic to an audience of industry professionals. Do I have more experience than them? No. Am I more intelligent? No. I have written more so I have set up structures so that I am see as THE expert within the space. You can do the same, within any industry.

Tags: Influncing yourself, daily business management tips, how to improve myself daily, business coaching tips, advice from a business coach, how to increase my business profits

Small Business Branding Online | Tips

Branding for Small Businesses

Branding is sometimes seen as somewhat of a dirty word for small or online businesses. Why? Because it seems to imply spending large amounts of capital to create an attitude or awareness about your company as opposed to directly feeding leads into your sales pipeline. I don't believe these two areas need to be separated. If branding is setup appropriately than you should be able to create a strong sense of authority and trust through all stages of the lead development process towards making a sale.

Here is an example. Website visitors to an online university website would like to see detailed information on courses, interviews with the teachers, Grade A professional logos and easy to access faculty. There are literally over 250 resources, characteristics and customer service functions which must be in place to handle large volumes of traffic to such an online business and these all together create your brand and user experience to your visitors.

While this may seem overwhelming from the start there is no need to invent the wheel. No matter what industry you are in you can always look at your top 10 or top 20 competitors, take an inventory of their best practices, pricing strategies, and unique resources offered online and create the most robust and unique website within your industry. This takes hard work but it then positions your brand well to compete against others who may have been around longer.

Online I believe branding is all about user experience, how quick do you return emails and phone calls? How professional does your site appear? How experienced and diligent is your team?

Tags: Influence of Branding, Branding Tips for Small Businesses, Small Business Branding Strategy, Online Branding Strategies, How to brand your business online, online business tips

Reciprocation & Freenium | (Part 2 of 2)

Freenium (Part 2 of 2)

As a followup to our first post on reciprocation and "the free line" also known as Freenium, we are now publishing this list of tactics that corporations or individuals may use to attract new customers and followers. The goal in all of these cases is to over-deliver on value and provide something extremely targeted and useful to your target group. Here are a list of ideas my team has used or recently seen used with much success:

Instruction videos explaining how to use a tool, resources or program
A free e-book which is 30-200 pages long on one single niche topic
Start and maintain a daily EDUCATIONAL blog on a single niche topic. Build the only website out there which provides daily helpful advice on some high value niche area that your business serves.
A live video stream where you take phone calls, emails and IMs from your website visitors asking questions about your business and you reply "on-air" for everyone to hear and benefit from.
A recorded audio or video clip of the above offering or past conference call or conference which you participated in. Website visitors love to watch video and listen to audio if it is done professionally and delivers a lot of unique value to your target individuals
Write a book. Forget big publishes, write 8 pages a day for two months on a niche topic within your industry and then visit Lulu.com. Self publish this book and market it through your website, blog, at events and through your client contacts. This positions you as an expert and helps you build relationships 24/7.
Interview one industry expert on your specialty area each week. Publish this interview to a website and over time your site will contain well over $100,000 worth of business or career knowledge which others may now enjoy for free. This is a win-win for everyone involved as long as you make good use of your interviewer's time.
Publish a weekly video reviewing what has happened within the industry - try also developing a series of strictly educational video posts. Over a year of doing so you are sure to build up one of the top 10 largest collections of original video on any topic.
Create flowcharts or process maps showing how your clients can implement a marketing program or idea which will help them increase their profits or success
More to come. We have used dozens of variations on the above ideas and will soon be posting

With all of these tactics you will want to collect email addresses in exchange for access to these free resources. This helps you build fans and a loyal email subscription list which you can email over and over again.

Did you miss Part 1 of this series? If so please click here to go back and read part 1 right now.

Tags: Freenium, Reciprocation, Uses of Reciprocation, How to use Reciprocation, influence in business, influence tactics in business, attracting new customers online

Moving the Free Line | Freenium (Part 1 of 2)

Freenium (Part 1 of 2)

The single most important key to my business and online success has been learning how to employ one of the most common principles of influence, reciprocation.

The principle of reciprocation simply means that when you give someone something that individual will feel some sort of debt to you or compulsion to act to help you in return. Examples of this may be found in stores where free samples are given away, free flowers handed out, or free return address labels provided in hopes of securing your interest and serving you as a new customer or donor.

I once heard someone say that if you try to get $1 from a million people you will always be poor but if you try to deliver $1,000 worth of value to 100,000 people, 1,000 of them will purchase your product for it's $1,000 value and that will make you a millionaire. The numbers within this example don't matter - the point is that to become wealthy you must make others wealthy with your knowledge, service or experience.

There are many ways to deliver value. One would be to serve your current clients or any future ones so well that by word of mouth your business grows. Another way is through providing huge value to anyone who visits your website or joins your free email newsletter. This tactic involves sharing your valuable expertise without charging for it, showing everyone how they may benefit from your advice. This positions you as the expert, builds your authority and eventually will start showing signs of social proof as more individuals learn of what they can get at no cost.

Within every industry there are 1-2 leaders who are giving away in-depth white papers, newsletter subscriptions, and information websites at no cost. These businesses are the "free line leaders" and they often have a large following which is not only hungry to consume their current products, but they often help shape future product offerings. To become one of these leaders you must realize that your expertise and knowledge is only valuable when shared and if you are scared of giving away your advice and expertise at no cost than you will be an expert that nobody knows. The trick is to become THE expert that EVERYONE knows.

The more you give away the more your firm will receive in return. Take your most valuable secrets and release them within an e-book, free of charge for anyone who will provide you with their email address. My firm as done this and to date we have over 20,000 email addresses of potential customers from this tactic alone. Each day we get over 100 new leads into our database that we can grow relationships with.

To view Part 2 of this blog post please click here. This second part reviews 10 ideas on how you can implement these types of strategies in your business. Click here to read it now. For more information on reciprocation please see my post on Robert Cialdin's social influence principles here: Robert Cialdini Book on Influence & Persuasion

Tags: Moving the free line, the free line, the line of free, offering products for free, freenium, freenium products, Premium, Reciprocation, influence, persuasion, influence guru

Power of Persuasion | Uses & Applications

While earning my degree on influence and persuasion the most frequent question I got was, why spend 2 years studying the psychology of influence and persuasion?

Here are the 5 reasons why I am studying influence and persuasion and trying to learn as much about this topic as possible.

There are over 100 specific tactics of influence and persuasion which may be applied to business, sales, relationships, and career management.
Mastering just 2-3 principles of social influence may result in a competitive advantage over your competition which may often be too busy to learn about these tactics.
Most of influence and persuasion tools are simply communication patterns or areas of focus which naturally occur within day-to-day conversations. By learning about influence and persuasion you can be more cognizant of how your competitors are marketing their products and pick up innovative yet subtle marketing tactics of leading companies within other industries and then apply those lessons to your own business.
I have read over 200 articles and books on influence and I have found most influence tactics relatively easy to understand and implement. The problem is there are so many tactics choosing the most effective ones for your business may be challenging. This is part of why I have started InfluenceGuru.com, I want to identify the most effective methods of influence and provide a list of ways in which professionals may easily implement these.
I believe the power of persuasion if far under-appreciated, all but ignored within most business schools, and gaining a cult-like following among sales professionals and online marketers.

tags: power of persuasion, the power of persuasion, power of influence and persuasion, how persuasion works, how to use persuasion in business, how to use influence and persuasion

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