Smart realtors know that there can be abundance for all and they strive to be the best they can be without boundaries. They know that creativity is unlimited. That the application of creativity to everyday needs is the basis of providing value, which in turn creates wealth. They live in balance. Their life is a life devoted to living and sharing abundance through service that allows them to give their unique gifts--for the benefit of themselves, their families, their communities and the world. none of us exists in isolation.

Greed is the belief that there is not enough for everyone, so you’d better grab yours now.

websites they suggest http://www.oneminutemillionaire.com/resources/

http://www.kiplinger.com/magazine/archives/2004/04/fsbo.html Proven ways to skip the agents

another for Real estate pros http://homebuying.about.com/library/bl/bl_prosmap.htm

8 universal and irrefutable principles

#1 - Prospects Do NOT Want to Be Sold. Prospects Absolutely Will NOT Hear What You're Saying
Unless You Tell Them What THEY Want to Know. What is in it for them.

#6 - The ONLY Way to Transform Your JOB Into a BUSINESS is to Work ON Your Business Rather Than IN it. If All You Ever Do is "Do, Do, Do", You'll Never Gain the Perspective of How to DO BETTER.

#7 - The ONLY Way to Avoid Trading Your Time For Money is to Understand and Use the Concept of Leverage. Leverage Is The Power To Maximize Your Results With The Least Amount Of Energy, Time, Money And Risk.

#8 - Without a System, You Will Reinvent the Wheel Every time. Effective Systems Will Save You
Time and Money, and Help You Achieve Consistent And Predictable
Results.
Developing a business plan, marketing strategy, pricing strategy, a profit and loss comparison each year, figured on what advertising was or was not working.

http://www.quicken.com/cms/viewers/article/taxes/54174
Tax benefits for home ownership

Top 100 Producers in Real Estate and how they do it

Success didn't come by happenstance. Take just one area and become the best, take an area where no one was specializing or had more than 20 percent of the market such as downtown condos.

If you choose such a housing niche, research first. "Check the turnover rates for the area and pick a location with a manageable size but not smaller than 750–1,000 houses or units. You can always expand later,. "Select an area you're comfortable with and believe in, where the valuations aren't going downward. Then learn everything about the area. Chose your niche, stick to it. "Some sales associates spread themselves too thin. It's better to give business away than to work on a sale in an area you don't know," he says.

In order to grow his farm area, gives service he describes as "above and beyond what people expect."
"When I started, I did everything in person,""I brought contracts to customers personally, even if I had to fly to their home city."

He continues his specialized service today by resolving customer issues before his promised deadlines: "I overdeliver. If I tell them I'll give them something tomorrow, I try to get it done today."

use every free moment to stir up business throughout his farm area, which he estimates has almost tripled since 1979. He makes about 100 calls a day. return all listing calls right away

I don't just list and sell homes,I create a dream for my clients. I change their financial destiny."

As to her own financial destiny, last year Martinez closed 312 transactions for a volume of nearly $153 million. The key, is maximizing transactions. In addition to handling both sides of many of her sales, she deals extensively with investors.
turn sellers into buyers," call my past clients and say, 'Guess what—you have x amount of dollars in equity sitting in your home. Why not put it to work by buying some income-producing property?' "

One listing can quickly lead to three or four other sales. "I do a lot of analyzing of what my customers have and what they can do with it. "In many ways, I'm closer to being a financial consultant than a salesperson."

The overwhelming majority of her business is based on referrals: "Without exception, I prospect every day from 10 a.m. to noon. From 10 a.m. to 11 a.m., I call past clients and ask for leads. From 11 a.m. to noon, I call the leads."

Her goal is five new listings a week. She also prospects for buyers, though not first-time buyers. "I don't have time for that," she says.

Martinez has a nine-person staff—two buyer assistants, one broker, a listing assistant, three escrow assistants, an office manager, and a part-time bookkeeper. "My job is to prospect for more clients, write contracts, and handle negotiations."

Martinez traces her success to two things. The first is a belief in goal setting. The other is her faith. She is a member of North Valley Baptist Church in Santa Clara and is also funding the construction of a new commons building for a nearby religious college. "I believe everything I have and everything I do—even the clients I have—are the result of putting God first in my life," she says. "I believe in miracles."—

Three simple rules for success: Hire great people, focus on your strengths, and care about your customers.

Applying the Golden Rule, will help you develop the Midas touch

Homes will sell themselves if you market them properly. STAGING!! The main thing that sets you apart is customer service."

Hit on a real success formula. But she freely admits she hasn't done it alone. Her husband, is her partner, handling the marketing and business operations. Together the two have crafted a finely tuned support system.

Her team includes 10 full-time assistants (eight licensed), who are managed by Robert. The assistants specialize in specific areas, such as business, contracts, advertising, listing, and communications. However, each is knowledgeable enough to step in for a coworker without missing a beat.

Winning listings comes down to capitalizing quickly on opportunities when they arise as the staff can turn around a market analysis and other research material in a matter of hours. If she receives a call from a potential client in the morning, she can schedule a listing appointment for the afternoon and carry out other appointments while her staff prepares her presentation.

"I don't spend much time in the office," she says. "Ninety-five percent of my time is spent with clients, showing homes, or networking with other practitioners."

Specifically, her day involves creating marketing plans, analyzing marketing situations, problem solving, and tending to the emotional needs of the parties.

Besides knowing your market, set goals. "What's important when you're setting your goals is to compare how many houses you've sold with how many you've listed,. "Having a larger area to farm doesn't mean you'll have a higher number of sales."

communicating with and educating clients and customers is the most rewarding aspect of her job.

saw an uptick in condominium demand—and set about tackling a market that, up to that time, was pretty limited. "There wasn't a lot of condo building when I started," he says. "Now it makes up 40 percent of all construction in Seattle."

In hindsight, the condo market's growth might seem inevitable—a by-product of traffic congestion, high rents, and growth management initiatives, Gottlieb says. However, spotting the trend in its infancy and cultivating condo builders as repeat customers have been key factors in his success. "Builders don't want to change subcontractors constantly—they want to find a system that works and keep using it," he says.

—organized, reliable, and attentive to detail. He provides weekly sales demographic reports to builders and carves out time each day to spend with builder clients.

In addition to the on-site salespeople, Gottlieb has three assistants, who help him with contract administration and marketing. He spends most mornings meeting with builder clients and goes on-site at each builder's project about every other week. In between, he's developing marketing plans, providing market research for builders, and assisting in product planning and land acquisition strategies. His afternoons are less structured, he says, giving him time to address unexpected events, such as market shifts, that can shake builders' confidence.

Strives for balance, usually maintaining a 40-hour workweek. The quality of your work and the effectiveness of your system are what's important, he says, not your hours.—Chris Leporini

Delegating and organizing have helped Debbie Schrader, owner of RE/MAX Excels in Geneva, Ill., do what she does best: rustle up sales.

And in 2000 she rustled up quite a few: 243 closed transaction sides for a volume of $62 million.

Schrader has worked in real estate sales for 23 years in the Geneva area, about 40 miles west of Chicago, selling homes ranging from $150,000 to $1.5 million. She says she delegates work every day to her three assistants so that she can check out listings and make important calls to existing and prospective customers.

"We talk about what happened the previous night that they need to know about," "I look at the checklist to see what I can delegate and what fires can be put out only by me."

Schrader's listing manager gets information from customers, gives them feedback, helps execute price reductions, and coordinates showings. Schrader's closing manager works with attorneys to make sure all the financial papers are in order for clients.

Schrader's third assistant is her husband, John, who entered the real estate business in 1994 and does accounting and computer work.

"People should hire assistants as soon as, or even before, they can really afford them, "After I hired assistants, my sales really took off."

In fact, Schrader estimates that her income went up by more than $50,000. Realizing the benefit of a team, she opened her own office in 1997 based on the teamwork idea.

REMEMBER:

1. You cannot service too much, educate enough, inform too much, offer too much follow-up and follow-through, make calling or coming into your business too desirable

Aggressively advertising your successes (your accomplishments). "It's not enough to just advertise yourself or your business. "When I was the No. 1 seller in the area for my company, I put that in an ad. When I was 58th in the world at my company or selling on average one house every 1.6 days, that information went into an ad."
Schrader has one other piece of advice: "Always try to learn more about the business. Learning keeps you focused on becoming a better sales associate, which makes you feel more capable of dealing with the ups and downs of real estate sales."

Get testimonials from clients... a very easy way to do this...called an exit survey. Clients want to fill this out.

Know the sellers

Not all prospects respond to the same type of presentation. After talking with the sellers and observing their surroundings, you may decide to pull out all the stops and use every piece of technology at your disposal … or you may want to keep all your gadgets in their cases. Some sellers want every last sales statistic, while others want only to know how quickly you can sell the house and for what price. You must come prepared for all types of sellers and be flexible enough to accommodate them.

Don’t neglect the basics

Your listing presentation is more than the information you present and the questions you ask and answer. It includes your demeanor, your appearance, and other business basics. You can make a good first impression with the following tips:

Call ahead of time to confirm the appointment.
Show up on time. If you will be even a few minutes late, call to let them know.
Do not overdo it with strong perfumes and colognes. Some people are allergic and others may simply be annoyed.
Dress well.
Make sure not to neglect one person in favor of the other(s).
Turn your phone and pager off. Taking calls during a listing presentation tells your prospects they are not important to you.
Do NOT park in their driveway.

Put the focus where it belongs HOW TO GET THE LISTING!!

Don’t make the mistake of thinking a listing presentation is about you. The presentation is about how to sell the home for the highest price in the shortest amount of time. If you demonstrate that you know how to do that better than anyone else, the sellers will select you as their agent.

Name their price

After presenting your competitive market analysis and discussing how the sellers’ property fits into the current market, explain the importance of choosing a price. You can give sellers a range within which you think the property will sell. Then explain the relationship between price and time on market. If possible, use recent examples from your market to show how long homes took to sell versus how close the purchase price was to the listing price.

You can also use the following bit of information, which comes from a 1995 NAR report: Houses purchased within 1% of their listing price sold in four weeks or less; houses that sold within 5% of their listing price took four to 12 weeks to sell; homes sold for more than 10% below their listing price were on the market longer than 24 weeks.

Last is the close! They want to be with someone who is in control so be in control.

Please understand that, statistically, until you start to work on your business, nothing will change - zero improvement.

Go to courthouse and get list of marriages- will give age and address. divorce records?? They might be selling.

College grads out of paper, engagements and marriages out of paper,

Circle of influence-

Teach kids about reason to keep credit clean What your parents didn't tell you FICO

Webster Students, not the rich

how to pay off early-saving you money

10 Ways to Make it EASY and Fun for Prospects & Clients to Do Business With YOU

Use words like Danger! and Beware! Caution!

28 IDEAS TO INCREASE YOUR SALES & PROFIT
by Joe and Maria Gracia

Growing your business doesn't have to be difficult or expensive. These simple, cost-effective ideas are designed to help you increase your sales and profit, without draining your budget.

1. FOCUS ON HELPING, INSTEAD OF SELLING- You shouldn't be trying to force people into purchasing your product or service. You should find people who want your product or service and then focus on offering any helpful information to them so that they can make an informed decision. What is in it for them? They need a compelling reason to do business with you.

2. TARGET- If you're trying to target everybody, then chances are, you're not targeting anybody. For example, if you're selling something that homeowners would want, as opposed to renters, then target homeowners. State your target clearly in all of your marketing materials. Select your target market so you can focus your marketing efforts and be more efficient.

3. STOP SPENDING MONEY ON INEFFECTIVE MARKETING- One great way to save money is to stop wasting it on marketing and advertising that isn't producing for you. Don't forget to track the number of responses you are getting from whatever method you use. If you're not reaching your goals, then your strategy needs to be revised. Test it. Try direct response advertisng.

4. NETWORK- Networking is a great way to get your message out to a large number of people, for free. Since each person knows about 250 other people, you can spread the word about your business pretty quickly. Go to your local Chamber of Commerce meetings. Shake hands at business functions. Exchange business cards with associates you see in stores, churches and community events. Homeowners association or be a speaker somewhere. HS parents or college

5. SET GOALS AND DEADLINES- Collect your thoughts for a moment or two, and set goals and deadlines. These are vital to your business success. State your goals as specific numbers. (e.g. 10 new accounts, 11% increase in sales, etc.)

6. FOCUS ON BENEFITS NOT ON FEATURES What is in it for them?-Spend your time focusing on how your prospects will benefit if they purchase your product or service. For example, if you're selling central air conditioning units, don't sell the power of the unit. Sell the benefit of comfort. Selling insurance? Don't sell the coverage amount. Sell the benefit of security.

7. WRITE TIPS ARTICLES-Newspapers and other publications are always looking for helpful tips articles that would be of benefit to their readers. Submit simple, problem/solution type articles related to your product or service. State the problem, and then share some insightful tips that can help to solve the problem. Always include information at the end of your articles so that people will know how to contact you to receive more information about your services.

8. BE PERSISTENT-Persistence is power when it comes to increasing your sales and profit. Far too many firms fail because they don't follow-up long enough to produce results. Most sales are made after the seventh or eighth contact--the sale is rarely made after just one contact.

9. SUBMIT PRESS RELEASES -
Press releases are a very cost-effective way to get your message out to many people . . . for free. Submit your press releases to a wide variety of publications for immediate release. Keep in mind that the newspapers will usually only print releases that are of interest to their readers, rather than of a selling nature.

10. OFFER TO BE A SPEAKER-Business and civic organizations are always looking for speakers for their meetings and get togethers. Make yourself available by contacting these groups and offering to talk about your area of expertise.

11. GIVE A FREE DEMONSTRATION -If possible, give free demonstrations of your product or service to those that might be interested. Follow-up with these prospects in a timely manner to attempt sales conversion.

12. DISTRIBUTE SAMPLES-If possible, get samples into the hands of people who may be potential customers. People like to try before they buy.

13. DISTRIBUTE INFORMATIVE LITERATURE-
Make sure that you get your product benefits, features and ideas into the hands of your prospects. If people don't know what you have, how can they make a decision to purchase it?

14. USE THE TELEPHONE-The telephone can be one of your most effective, and least expensive, sales tools. Call people who you would like to do business with. Ask for a few minutes of their time so you can show them how your services can help them save time, cut costs, increase sales, etc.

15. GENERATE REFERRALS-Referrals are a great way to generate new business. Don't just wait for people to refer you. Proactively ask for referrals from existing customers, acquaintances, family and friends. Don't forget to graciously thank anybody who refers your business to someone.

16. HAVE FUN-Frustration and stress will slow you down. You will succeed far better when you're doing something that you love.

17. TALK TO YOUR CUSTOMERS ABOUT THEM AND THEIR NEEDS-Most company publications, ads, letters and sales literature are filled with words, photographs and information that do nothing more than toot the company's horn. Talk about your customers needs instead. Rather than using the words, "I," "me," "my," use "you" and "your."

18. DEVELOP CUSTOMER-ORIENTED RELATIONSHIPS-Take an interest in your prospects and customers. Send them helpful articles that you think would interest them. If you know of an event that your prospect or customer will be celebrating, such as an anniversary or birthday, send them a card or small gift. They will appreciate your generosity and will think of you when they need your service, or if they know someone else who may need your service.

19. TELL YOUR PROSPECTS AND CUSTOMERS WHAT TO DO-Getting your message into the marketplace is important, but getting prospects/customers to respond is the real test. Tell your prospects exactly what you want them to do next (e.g. call for your free brochure, drop your reply card in the mail, etc.)

20. TAKE ADVANTAGE OF TESTIMONIALS-Whenever an existing or potential customer says something positive about your company, ask them if you could use their statement in your marketing materials. Your company's credibility will increase with the use of testimonials from happy customers. Exit surveys or testimonials

21. MAKE IT EASY FOR PEOPLE TO DO BUSINESS WITH YOU-Your customer is not going to work for you. You have to work for them. Do anything you can to make doing business with your company easy and a pleasure. (See #16)

22. CONTENT FIRST, FORM SECOND-When developing your sales materials and literature, spend less time worrying about the graphics and colors, and more time working on the content -- what's in it for your customers. As long as your message is enticing, black ink on white paper could work just as effectively as expensive four-color materials.

23. GIVE TO GET-There's an old saying, "You can get everything you want, by helping enough people get what they want." Listen carefully to your prospects and customers so you'll know exactly what they want and be generous in your offers. That way you'll be sure to reap the maximum rewards.

24. LEARN A NEW TECHNIQUE EVERY DAY-Read, go to seminars, listen to audio tapes. Continuously improving your sales and marketing skills will help you to increase your sales and profits.

25. ASSOCIATE WITH POSITIVE, SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE-Talking to and learning from people who are always striving for and meeting their goals, will help you commit to and achieve your own objectives.

26. BELIEVE IN THE PRODUCT OR SERVICE YOU SELL-If you don't believe in the quality and benefits of your product and service, your prospects won't either. Present the benefits of your product/service with confidence and enthusiasm.

27. FOCUS ON THE LIFETIME VALUE OF YOUR CUSTOMERS-Don't focus on generating one-time customers. Build a relationship so that a prospect becomes a repeat, lifetime customer.

28. LEARN FROM SOMEONE WHO HAS EXPERIENCE -Marketing is an important skill based on both knowledge and experience. The fastest way to gain that knowledge is to find someone who knows what works and has done it successfully. Ask about his or her specific experience in generating marketing results, as well as references, or testimonials. Reasonably priced marketing materials, like books, courses, workbooks, newsletters, audio cassettes, etc. can be excellent resources, that allow you to learn and apply effective marketing systems at your own pace.

Use postcards as opposed to some other marketing tool, such as advertising in my local newspaper?"

Don't stop advertising in the paper, if that has worked for you in the past. But if you're like that business owner described at the beginning of this article, you don't have a lot of money to spend on advertising experiments. With this thought in mind, let's look at the Top 10 Advantages of Using Postcards:

1. Postcard marketing is affordable, even for the smallest of businesses.

2. When you're marketing with postcards, your competition doesn't know it. But they'll sure know it if you're advertising in the newspaper!

3. It's easy to track your results. Your card can tell recipients to bring the card into your store for a special discount. Or it can ask them to use a special ordering code when purchasing from your website.

4. Postcards are versatile. In a single mailing, you can seek business from prospective customers, and solicit repeat business from existing customers. Better yet, a postcard isn't just something to send through the mail. You can use postcards as oversized business cards, hang tags for your products and mini-information sheets.

5. Your postcards can "brand" you and your business in ways that most marketing materials cannot. If you start and stick to a regular postcard mailing program, you and your business will gain quite a reputation, perhaps even a little notoriety.

6. Testing an offer with postcards is easy. Just send your card to a small group of people and see how many of them respond. If you're satisfied with the results, then roll out a bigger mailing!

7. Postcards don't waste people's time—they don't even have to open an envelope to read your message.

8. Postcards don't take up a lot of space. Your customers can carry them in their pockets, or carry them in their pocketbooks, for that matter. Hey, some of them might even create a postcard display on their refrigerator door!

9. Postcards are inexpensive to print.

10. Postcards are easy to redeem. If you're asking your customers to bring your postcard into your store for a special discount, all they have to do is show up with the card.

You could include a special tracking code with each card mailing. Just ask recipients to enter that code into the order form on your website, or give it to the operator when they place a telephone order.

The idea behind "Bring this card for a discount!" or "Use this code and get an additional 10% off on your order!" is to give people an incentive to do business with you.

Two Keys to Postcard Marketing Success

I've found that there are two keys to postcard marketing success:

1. Being persistent. I send 10-12 postcards to my mailing list each year. I'm also pretty diligent when it comes to staying in touch with key clients and prospects between postcard mailings. Over the long run, this effort does pay off.

2. Planning the mailing before doing it. This topic merits some in-depth coverage.

Seeking publicity
Sending postcards
Advertising
Offering free samples
Giving and getting referrals

The Top 10 Ways to Make Your
Web Site a Marketing Hub

The best web sites for professional services business are "Marketing Hubs" that enable you to leverage all your marketing efforts. It's not really hard, but it does take a fair amount of work. Here's the top 10 things you need to do.

1Web site clear, concise and complete. communicate about exactly how you help your clients. You need more than a few bullet points and pretty graphics. First focus on solid, in-depth content and then create a site that's easy to navigate. Get help with your site design, unless you're willing to spend hundreds of hours in getting it right. Forget about all the fancy bells and whistles. Make it look nice but let your visitors get to the meat quickly and easily.

2. Use headlines on your web pages that promise benefits. Don't just put "Services" on your services page but "Strategies to Increase Profits" or whatever your key benefit is. Make the content on your site easy to read. Use the standard size font and use bold text at the beginning of paragraphs. Sub-heads in an alternate color also draw the eye and make your pages easier to read than solid black text. At the bottom of each page, lead your reader to the next logical page on the site. Don't just let them hang, wondering where to go next. Make it informative, easy and fun to visit your site.

3. Design your site to lead the visitor to your "Most Wanted Response." Make it very clear that you have services to offer and make it very easy for them to take the next step to learn about those services. Your most wanted response might be a qualified prospect calling you to do business with you, the next might be an inquiry about your services by email and the third may be a sign-up for your email newsletter. In other words, know what action you want people to take and design your site so that action happens more often.

4. Promote your site through as many off-line mediums as you can afford. web address on all your printed materials, in your yellow page ad, on handouts for talks and at the bottom of articles you write. Send people to your site for reports and articles. Talk about your site when you give a presentation. After a networking event, send those you met an email pointing to a valuable article on your site. Tell your clients to send those they refer to your site first. Put almost 100% of your marketing effort on getting people to your site. People that know more about you are much more likely to contact you and do business with you.

5. Make sure you are listed in the top search engines. Even though your main business will come from you directing people to your site, in time, people will start to find you on the web if you list yourself on Alta Vista, Excite, Lycos, InfoSeek, Web Crawler, Northern Light, Lycos, Hot Bot, MSN Search, Direct Hit, Global Search and, of course Yahoo. Re-list at least once a quarter. Also look around for industry specific directories will send the right type of prospects to your site.

6. Put key words on your site so you're easier to find. The most important place to put keywords is in your "title tag," next are in your "meta tags" and also in the body of your page. Put in words and groups of words that people are likely to use to find you. If your name is BizTech Solutions, that doesn't do you much good as nobody will use that as a key word. However "Business Technical Solutions" will probably work better. Look up other similar sites and see what key words they're using by checking View>Page Source in Netscape or View>Source in Explorer.

7. Put your email address in your email signature. Make sure to "hot-link" your URL so that just by clicking, they will go right to your site. And add a reason for visiting your site: "Visit our web site for cutting edge management ideas." If you belong to an industry specific mailing list, every time you send an email, everyone on the list sees your signature. When you send a comment or answer a question on this list you can also point to your site: "I have an article on my site that goes into this in detail." and then provide a hot link.

8. Establish an email newsletter. will become the number one way of promoting your site and your services. First, sign up everyone you know and launch your "Ezine" with as many people as possible. Grow your email list by having a simple sign-up form on your website. Automate your sign-up and list maintenances by using a listserver such as DataBack (they have great service and are very affordable). Make it a priority to work at increasing the size of your Ezine list. With more people on your list, you will have more visits to your site.

9. Use the Ezine to establish value and credibility and generate new business. Your Ezine should contain interesting, informative articles that prove you know your stuff. Don't overcrowd it with a lot of superfluous fluff and dozens of links. At the end of the Ezine, simply point people to your site to learn about various services.

10. Use your Ezine list to promote specific services. If you give people good solid content once a month, your subscribers usually won't mind if you tell them about a service once in awhile. One way to do this is to send an email pointing to a new article on your site. Then that article points to a service that addresses the issues raised in the article. Think soft-sell and multi-step for marketing your services using your web site as a "one-stop marketing hub."

Focus on your prospect and their needs . Fancy, cutesy, and non-compelling frivolity is another sin of much of today's advertising From brochures to flyers, and sales letters to advertisements, your marketing message should let your prospects know that you are concerned ONLY WITH WHAT THEY WANT! Anything about you should always come last. Your clients, should always come first. Any marketing documents you create should start out by focusing on the prospects' wants. Every sentence should show that you understand the prospects' wants.

test any portion of their marketing, and then compare the test results. They "place all their bets" on arbitrary, prejudiced decisions and conjecture. . First, we don't have the ability or the control to prejudge and decide for ourselves what the marketplace really wants, what is the maximum fair price the market will pay to get it, what kind of package they'll be most receptive to, or what approach will be best accepted. It's not our right to make arbitrary decisions concerning what our customers and prospects want. It's our obligation to test and then let the market tell us what they really desire as they "vote with their pocketbooks" the only kind of vote that counts in marketing ...because it's totally "honest"). When you test, you effectively "make up the ballots" and "set the stage" for your prospects and customers to give you their unbiased votes. It's important to test prices (one price against another), headlines (one headline against another), guarantees, ad concepts and offers, plus where (and when) you place your ads and offers, but these are the most important aspects to test (and they'll have the most impact on your responses... and on the increases you'll see in your "bottom line"). proven true time and time again). When you test the above aspects (always one at a time and with a small but representative segment of your market) and then carefully record and analyze your results, you'll almost always discover that one of your test prices, headlines, guarantees, etc. always seems to "outpull" all the others in your test by a substantial margin. Think about what this means to your profit potential...now with the same amount of effort and expense as before you can begin using this same approach to more of your market and enjoy a multiplication of your previous results. (But do exercise caution at this point and gradually expand to include the rest of your market ...small tests need to be verified with larger tests before you decide to "roll-out" to everyone). When you systematically test in this way you "leverage" your marketing and begin to demand (and get) maximum performance from every marketing "dollar" and amount of time spent. What if your salespeople out in the field average 8 or 12 or 16 calls a day...? to experiment and discover the outstanding sales pitch or special offer that gets you twice or three times as many sales per call and/or increases your average order by a significant amount (yet requires little or no extra time or expense to make the sale). To quickly begin enjoying dramatic increases in your sales and profits, you've only to start a program of systematic testing. Begin tomorrow! You could, for instance, start to test with your sales staff. Have them try alternate sales "pitches" and experiment with different "bumps" and special offers made at the point of sale. Devise alternate follow-up offers and construct different reduced-price "packages" for them to sell. Then analyze and review the results of each test and track the results. After your tests show one marketing approach is "out-pulling" all the others by 25%-50%-75% or more then have a few others in your staff begin to use this same approach. As the results continue to justify it... rapidly progress to having all your sales staff do it. One at a time...begin to systematically test all your sales variables. Pay careful attention to any significant change (either positive or negative). Close observation of these changes will help you to do what is right for you, and you'll dramatically begin to increase your "bottom line" like never before. At this point you may be tempted to "rest on your laurels", but (if you want to truly maximize your marketing), you'll keep going and find out just how you can "be all that you can be" (as the Army recruiter would say). Through testing and analyzing your results, you'll have established your "controls". Now comes the fun as you try to "beat" the controls (using them as your profit base you can continue to experiment to develop better and better ones). The definition of a control as applied to marketing is any approach which you've established through your testing as the very best performer. It's consistently proven itself to give you the highest profits and you can rely upon it to provide you with a substantial income. It's your "bread and butter" approach. You'll keep it in use to produce a reliable income while you're continuing your testing in some segment of your market and working to better it. Those serious about maximizing their marketing results will first establish reliable controls and then hold onto each control while they continue to test. When a test proves itself as being more profitable than the current control, it then replaces that control, and the procedure continues. If this seems like a lot of work... consider...as controls get better and better, profits move higher and higher. One of the variables you'll want to test early-on is prices. When you begin to systematically test prices you'll be astounded at some of the totally unexpected results you'll see. You might expect a lower price to always out-pull a higher price on the same item...but..."it ain't necessarily so" and the margin between what different prices will yield can be enormous. $19 has outpulled $25 by 300%. $195 has outpulled $245 by huge margins. $295 has outpulled $195 on certain offers, which netted a cool $100 more per sale! It's really conjecture to speculate as to why one price would produce a better return than another. It could be because of a multitude of reasons, perception of value created in the mind of the buyer being a very important one. Some in marketing theorize there are various price points beyond which it's not wise to cross, but every situation can yield different results, so never assume you've established the right price until you test several (and even then remember your best price is only your control and another may come along later and prove even better). Here's some more ideas on what you'll want to test... any media, test different headlines, different hot-button emphasis, different approaches. Some people react best toward a negative approach, some a positive approach...discover which approach is best for your market. Test different packages, different rationales, and different special bonus offers you've tacked-on to your basic offer. In addition to any free bonus offers you make, you might also want to test some bonus items for which there is a small extra cost, because...that small extra can prove to be very profitable for you in many instances. Test different directives to the reader or listener or viewer on how to respond (experiment with advising what actions for them to take). In newspapers, magazines, etc., test positioning (if the editor will allow it). Generally tests have proven for a small ad the best place for it is in the upper right-hand corner of the page (and, of course, the front or back cover of any section is even more desirable). Try to avoid having your ad appear below the fold in a newspaper (and especially avoid having it below the fold on the left-hand side unless your ad is on the inside cover sheet of a section...even then, above the fold is the place you usually want to be). In radio and TV...test where your commercials run. Now, these are the questions you'll be seeking to answer as you analyze your various test results for each separate control: 1) what has been the average cost-per-prospect to get you a prospect? 2) what has been the average cost to turn a prospect into a customer? 3) what has been the average amount of sale each prospect has returned? 4) what has been the conversion rate from prospect to customer? 5) what has been the average profit-per-sale? After you've computed and compared number five...the average profit-per-sale, you'll know which approach to keep as your current control (and the one you'll want to continue to use until a better approach beats it). The suggested top three testing order is: 1) Headline 2) Price 3) Offer You must have a strong headline always! Your headline is your "ad" for the ad. If people are not drawn into the copy by a strong, compelling headline, then you'll have wasted your effort. A headline is not just there to attract attention to itself. It must talk in terms of a benefit to your prospects along with a promised solution to a problem and thereby convince the prospects it's well worth their time to look at (or listen to) the rest of your promotion. Begin tomorrow and start a systematic testing program. It will make you a "marketing genius".

Determine Specifically Who Your Market Is And What Their Wants And Needs Are. Ninety percent of the businesses out there rarely make the attempt to determine who their market is, and what their market's desires, needs, wants, and passions are. This is a grave mistake. The successful marketers can tell you precisely who they're marketing to, and what their prospects and customers want in a product or service. They can tell you the age of their best prospect, who this person is, where this person is, educational and income levels and other critical information. You must know who, then you can find out the "why". Why does your customer buy from you? What do your customers want or need most in the products or services you offer? You need to probe and discover what the "why" is so that you can focus your marketing efforts to show your prospects you can meet the "why" in the most satisfactory fashion. Think about it...How can you expect to adequately fill someone's needs if you never take the time to get involved and understand them? Yet few companies ever bother to seek to meet their customers' needs. Companies that are a success with their marketing understand their customers' needs and attempt to satisfy those needs better than the competition. If you want to own your market, find out what your customers real wants are. Discover their desires. Search out their passions and needs. Once you have this information you will be armed to corner your market.

Capture Your Customers & Prospects Names And Addresses. Of all the marketing mistakes to make, I feel that this has caused the loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars every month more than any other. Yet it is by far the simplest mistake to correct! Why a company would spend hundreds and thousands of dollars to get a customer in the door and them let them walk out without getting their name and address and any other information from them is beyond me 90% of the businesses in America don't ever bother to keep track of their loyal customers, let alone any prospects! Your mailing list, or customer database is your biggest source of lifetime profits! Here's why you should keep track of every customer and every prospect: 1) According to Fortune Magazine, it costs 5 times as much to generate a new customer than to resell an existing customer. Existing customers are almost as good as money in the bank! 2) Your existing customers already trust you and know you. They've bought from you and (have had a positive experience with you. Sales resistance is low. 3) They know you'll deliver on your promises, because you've delivered before with energy and promptness. All you need to do is develop a systematic way of keeping track of them, and asking them to buy from you more often. Computer databases are easy to come by, and more affordable than ever. If you don't want to bother with computers, that's OK. Just make-up and hand-write on a customer index card, that has your customer's name, address, and phone number on it. A simple 3 X 5 card would do nicely. You should also include vital information like: what they've bought in the past, what they'd like to buy from you, etc. A list like this or to developing a profitable, long-term relationship. Do you see how valuable this list becomes? When I consult with a business, one of the first things I do is ask if they have a customer list. If they do, then I know I can increase sales dramatically in just a few short weeks. To make a list profitable, recent studies show that you should contact them once every 21 days. A minimum of once a month. Here are some ideas for staying in touch: 1) Sponsor some kind of information-based event. A workshop, seminar, luncheon with guest speaker, etc. Anything that would be of interest to your customers and prospects. 2) Send a postcard announcing a private sale with special discounts or added services exclusively for your loyal customers. 3) If you work with businesses, send them information that will help them become more successful (for example, a copy of this report) along with a personal note..."I thought you might benefit from this". This report is under Copyright but as long as you give it away FREE (and include ALL of it with your gift), you may feel free to copy and distribute the file and/or file printout to anyone you choose. 4) Send a postcard with problem-solving tips on it for easy, quick reference. By collecting the names, addresses and phone numbers of your customers and prospects, you will be in a position to increase the profits earned from each customer anywhere from 35-200%. >>>

Sell Your Customers Something Else On The "Back End". Your hottest prospect is someone that has just bought from you. This is your best opportunity for another immediate sell. The key to successfully doing this is having products that offer solutions to problems that your prospects have. Related problems and related solutions equals increased opportunity for sales. How simple it would be for the cashiers at the local discount store to suggest another product that may help solve the customers' problem. All they have to do is notice how related the products are that the customer is currently buying, and be knowledgeable enough about what the store has to offer to be able to suggest another product that could help the customers' problem become solved. The buyers that just bought from you offer you a prime opportunity to sell again. Your products must be good, however, and you must prove to them that your "back-end" product will also solve their problem. Here again we are talking about knowing your prospects wants and desires. Your job isn't over once you've sold your customers their first product. You and your people should constantly be striving to ascertain what problems your prospects have, and then be creative in developing and proposing the appropriate solution to it. If you are focusing on what your customers want, and are offering them another solution to a related problem, they will not resist as you try to "up-sell" them. They'll be grateful for your desire to solve their problems. Just remember: your customers are never "hotter" than when they first order. Immediately acknowledge their first purchase and tell them how appreciative you are. And then, offer them something else so they'll have the chance to solve more of their problems and to spend even more money with you! You should look for logical product or service extensions to offer your customers. Using the back-end will turn one-shot sales into repeat customers. Amazingly, few businesses try to sell their current or previous customers anything again. The really smart marketers do it constantly.

Make Doing Business With You Convenient, Easy, Appealing, And You're Not Ready To Sell When Your Prospects Are Ready To Buy. Most businesses almost make it difficult for a prospect or customer to buy from them. Most businesses do business from 9 to 5. That's fine. BUT, you must be prepared to do business when your prospects are ready to do business. With technologies that are now available, there's no excuse for a business not to have a 24 hour phone service center. Even a simple answering machine can work wonders in this area if utilized as a marketing and sales tool. You must be fanatical about servicing your customers and causing positive impact on your prospects. You must focus on their needs consistently. Think of how you want to be treated when you do business with someone. I mean...really think how you'd like to be treated. Then, treat your customers in that way. Most businesses never "walk a mile in their prospects' moccasins". Why else would they make doing business with them so difficult? If someone walks into your store, how well prepared are the sales clerks to help them? Have you spent the time and prepared special dialogs, questions, and little booklets full of advice for your people to ask or offer to customers? When a customer or prospect calls your company and first talks to your switchboard operator, is your operator able to give them what they ask for (and more) in a cheerful and compelling manner? Are you and your people willing to answer questions and provide truly helpful and informative advice in a friendly way (even when it may not result in an immediate sale)? Is it easy for your customers and prospects to find your business... and can they easily find things once they're in your store? Do you consistently keep customers updated on the status of their orders, or back orders? These are questions that you must answer on a regular basis so that you can keep on top of the flaws your prospects and customers see every time they do business with you. By making it easy, appealing, and convenient to do business with you, you'll attract more customers, more customers will consistently return to your business, and you'll get more referrals.

You Are Persistent And Willing To "Stick It Out" Until You've Contacted Your Prospects Enough Times To Warrant Dropping Them, Constantly Testing And Trying New Approaches Until You Find The Hot Button That Sells. Too many businesses rely entirely too much on the hoped success of one advertisement or one direct mailing. Marketing success is not an event ...it is a process. Processes take time. Therefore you should never put your faith in one ad, one mailing campaign, or one TV spot. You must commit to connecting with your prospects a minimum of 7 times in 18 months. If you are not willing to pay that price, then you shouldn't even start to promote to those prospects. You need to decide that you are willing to connect with your prospects time and time again and hit them with the same benefit packed points over and over again - from every conceivable angle - in a determined attempt to motivate your prospects to take action! Remember that any single marketing event will not ordinarily produce outstanding results, not now-a-days anyway. It used to be true that a person could make a fortune off of one ad, one promotion. But today, it's just not going to happen very often, and you should NEVER plan on it. You must know precisely who you are marketing to, what their desires are, and you must resolve to connect with them again and again and again, until they either prove that they are not a prospect, or until they see that you have the best solution for their pressing problems. Marketing requires persistency to say the least. You must work at it on a daily basis. Some days will be downright discouraging for you. But, you cannot give up. If you have done your homework, and you realize that you have the solution to your prospects' problems, if you have focused precisely on your target, then you must not let discouragement get in your way. It can keep you from succeeding. If your prospects are not responding, then you need to refine your approach. You need to refine who you are trying to connect with. You may need to approach them from several different angles to find the approach that works the best...indeed, you will need to test constantly, always trying to improve your "take". In short, you must persist so that your prospects never have the opportunity to forget who you are, and what you can do for them. Realize, the only ways to discover your prospects' "hot-buttons" are to test and to test continually. You can't afford the luxury of prejudging what your marketplace wants, what the best price is, the best pulling headline, the best selling "package-offer", or the best approach. As a marketer, you have the obligation to find out from your market what they really want through testing...one marketing approach against another, one ad concept against another, one headline against another, one TV or radio commercial against another, one price against another, and the list goes on and on! Testing is an ongoing process. You should always be trying to "out do" your best results...because you never know when results are at their best! The point is that you cannot guess what your market will buy. It is something to be discovered... You must demand maximum return from every marketing dollar you spend. Testing is what tells you where to demand more. Remember, an ad costs you the same amount of space, production time, or air time whether it produces 10 prospects, 100 prospects or 1,000 prospects. It only makes sense that you should test different ad approaches to maximize your investment. You must not sleep at night until you know you're getting better results than last week. Testing takes persistence. It will pay-off big if you do it. As I mentioned earlier, marketing is NEVER an event, it is always a process. Keep this in mind when you consider selling something to your market.

Marketing Plan To Guide Your Business To Financial Success. On dozens of occasions I consult with businesses and discover the morbid fact that 90% are flying by the seat of their pants, with no direction for tomorrow, no idea how much they're going to make in the next 365 days, and no written plan whatsoever. ...Let me say this as strongly as I can... Your business will never succeed on any type of a large scale unless you commit to writing a plan that guides you to success. This is a fact that all too many businesses will never accept, to their own demise. If you don't have a marketing plan, you'll never reach any truly substantial objectives. If you're without a plan. grab a piece of paper and pencil right now, and let me help you get off to a good start. Your plan must include the following:

1) A specific, clear, precise, dollar objective for each year, for each of your products or services. Break this dollar amount down into how many widgets you must sell to reach that amount. Next, figure out how many sales that means you need to make. Next, figure out how many prospects you must connect with in order to sell XXX amount of widgets, based on your past experience. If you have no past experience, use a 20% closing ratio to figure with.
2) A specific dollar amount for each month, for each of your products or services. Do the same things as above, except figure the totals on a monthly basis.
3) An objective evaluation of all of the different marketing alternatives that will help you reach your monthly and yearly goals.
4) An exact indication of which marketing alternatives you have decided to use, why, in what ways, and how often, and how much these alternatives will cost you in money, time and materials.
5) Techniques to use that will help you capture and keep track of your customers and prospects.
6) Techniques to use to help you sell the "back-end" to a new customer.

Mind you, these are the bare bones basics that you need in your plan. With this information alone, you'll probably perform head and shoulders above your competition. If you want to take the plan further, make sure you include precise deadlines for each step. Then take each of these steps and break them down into the action steps that you can take on a daily basis to reach your monthly and yearly goals. The key words here are "daily basis". Marketing should be a daily activity for you, like eating and drinking. It's not a difficult thing to draw up a simple marketing plan like this. I think the problem is that most companies feel like they have to have graphs and charts and demographic specifications and all of this other mumbo-jumbo that just confuses people. That stuff is NOT going to motivate you or help you follow a path to success. Realize the power of this simple, easy to do marketing plan. It's so easy! And it will bring you success! Without a specific marketing plan ON PAPER, you cannot expect your business to have massive successes. Yes, you do need to put it on paper. Why? On paper you have focus. If you keep your ideas in your mind, you'll lose focus on your objectives. Believe me I know, I've made that mistake before. Get your plan on paper. Even though it's on paper, doesn't mean you can't change it. Be flexible. Understand that as your business grows and succeeds, you'll want to update your marketing plan. I re-evaluate my plan on a weekly basis. I ask myself:

Is this plan taking me where I want to go?
Is there any part of the plan that isn't focused on the desired end objective?
What can I do to update my plan to gain more focus on my end objective? Questions like these on a weekly basis will help you reach your objectives quicker, and in a smoother way. Remember, without a written plan, your success is highly unlikely.

Know How To Write Or Produce Persuasive Marketing Documents That Get Your Prospects To Buy NOW, Or To Get Your Customers To Buy Again. If your car was having a problem, and you knew NOTHING about cars, (except where to put the gas in) would you open the hood and try to fix it? NO! Why then, do so many businesses try to write their own advertisements, their own brochures, their own flyers, and other marketing communication when they don't know how to do it? It doesn't make sense. If you don't know what you are doing then you shouldn't be doing it, or else you'll mess things up worse than they were before! The real problem comes, however, when someone thinks they know what they're doing when in fact, their efforts are usually self-centered and unfocused on the needs and wants of their prospects and customers. Larger companies have entire design and marketing departments that do nothing but put together and create their marketing documents. Though, in my opinion, most of these "Madison Avenue Types" do terribly wasteful, institutional advertising...I feel that everyone can always learn how to communicate better with their prospects. No one has all the answers, but I do believe that a company is better off to hire an outside consultant to come in and do the job right. Maybe I only feel this way because my associate and I are such consultants, but...I think it's better because the consultant can look at things (usually) from a prospect's point of view easier than an "insider" from the company can. Because the majority of companies don't know how to put together a persuasive marketing piece, most marketing documents:

1) Focus on the seller, instead of the buyer and the benefits that the buyer gets.
2) Are terribly boring, dull, and uninteresting.
3) Don't excite the prospect to want to take action NOW!
4) Don't ask for any action from the prospect.
5) Don't tell the prospects "what's in it for them" if they act right away.
6) Assume that the prospect is as interested in the product or service as the seller is.
7) Brag on and on about product and service features, when all the prospects really care about are the benefits they'll get from the product or service.
8) Try to be creative and "clever", thinking that "clever" sells when actually clever does nothing to motivate a prospect to buy NOW.
9) Try to be "professional" and worry about their image...when really ...the only thing that matters is relentlessly focusing on your prospects' desires. You must focus on the benefits that your prospects are wanting you to tell them about. You need to worry about delivering on your promises, improving your product or service...and forget about the "professional" image. These are just a few of the problems that you'll see every day around you when you look at typical marketing communications going on. It's terrible. It's a waste of paper, money, time, energy and other valuable resources. Don't fall prey to this game. Find yourself a professional copywriter and designer that can deliver what your prospect wants (or at least get hold of some good books on the subject and make a thorough study of what sells and what doesn't in "copy"... applying the basics you've learned in this report is an excellent start, but there's more, much more to "effective" marketing). Your investment in a good copywriter will be worth more than anything else you'd ever spend your marketing on.

Mistake #10: Determine What It Is About You That Makes Your Prospects/Clients/Customers Want To Buy From You Because They Can't Get What You're Offering Anywhere Else. (Establishing Your Unique Selling Proposition...Very Very important to you!) What advantage is there for your prospects or customers to do business with you? What makes you unique? Your unique selling proposition (USP) is the unique advantage you hold out in all of your marketing, advertising, and sales efforts. It's something that a customer usually can't get anywhere else. It's the very foundation of your business-customer relations, and it's essence should be ingrained in everything your business does. To create an effective USP (unique selling proposition) you must first answer the question..."what specific market niche do I want for my company". It's almost always a mistake for small to medium sized businesses to try to be "all things" to their customers and prospects. The business which has carved out (and "owns") their own segment of the market is the business best able to thrive and prosper. Does your company sell only the highest grade products in the industry? Make that a large part of your USP. Is your company able to sell your products at the lowest prices. Maybe that should be your USP. But be careful with this USP (those who "live by the sword" can "die by the sword"). It's better to at least augment this USP with something else your customers or prospects want and can only get from you (you never know when a "Superstore" is going to suddenly decide to open its doors to your market). Can your company sustain 24-hour, 7-days-a-week service (including holidays) for your customers. That would be a great USP (customers would love this...and who could compete)? If this is an impossible task for you, perhaps some modification would work which wouldn't overly tax your resources (but will be much better than what your competition could or would provide). Is your company able to respond exceptionally quickly to your customers and prospects? If you could guarantee a response time of days when your competitors are taking weeks and hours when your competitors are taking days, that's another USP worth "its weight in gold" to you (and one you should be "shouting from the rooftops")! Perhaps you have the wherewithal to be able to maintain a full stock at all times and can guarantee your customers and prospects will never have to wait or have their orders placed on "backorder". Use that in your USP. Maybe your business carries the most complete stock of any competitor and you're able to satisfy almost any request (especially for the smaller items which are difficult to find). Tell that story and make it your USP. Most companies are "me-too" companies. They look just like everyone else. They sell like everyone else. They carry the same products as everyone else. They develop nothing to make them unique that creates a desire in the prospect to have that special uniqueness. Too many companies are just out there to sell. You need to commit to becoming a company that's dedicated to solving a client's problem. In fact, a well articulated declaration of your company's dedication to solving your customer's problems could be your USP! The USP can carve you out a market so quick you won't believe it! So, figure out what your USP is and start promoting its benefits to your customers and prospects today! >

Change is difficult. Change can be tough. When you try to be different, do things differently, or make waves, people get uncomfortable. U. Don't try to overhaul your business if you are making a lot of these mistakes. Instead, after you've read these ideas, pick out JUST ONE that you need to work on the most. Focus your energy on changing just one at a time. Put up notes to remind you of key concepts. Re-read this report over and over again. Whatever you do, decide to make the changes that'll better your business along. Once you think you've got the first change down, determine your next step. Decide what you want to change next. Focus on it...and change. The toughest thing about change is when it involves other people. They're in a comfort zone that they've gotten used to. Now you're gonna come along and suggest change. Motivating your people to change will be the toughest part. But don't give up. Be strong. Be the example of a successful marketer. With or without your people, you can make your business a success. The easiest (and usually the very best) way to come up with a great headline is to sit down and read a large number of highly successful headlines, and then let your mind run free to innovate and meld together hybrids. The idea isn't to steal someone else's words, but to develop your own sense of what elements make the most profitable headlines -- (realize because your headline is in reality the "ad" for your ad, all of the headlines you use are critical to your marketing success. Did you know it's been proven...if the bodycopy is "good", it's possible to increase ad response by up to twenty-one times simply by changing the headline and nothing else? (that's 2100% potential improvement!!!). How can you know which ad headlines have been the really profitable winners and are worthy of your study (and which have been real "dogs" and certainly not what you want for your ads)? It's a good question to ponder, because many times the best "looking" ads don't yield anywhere near the best results ("award-winning" ads can be BIG losers). In her Forward to "The 300 Best Headlines Ever Written",

However, a less considered but equally important factor is your viewing audience. Disregarding your audience results in the problem of "selling air conditioners to Eskimos." It just doesn't generate much interest. A reader who has no interest in your advertising material is not part of a qualified audience" and is not a potential customer.

Classified ads placed in the appropriate section for your product will naturally draw a qualified audience of potential customers. Ad placement within the section is the single most important factor determining whether or not your ad is seen within the section. Secondly, the content of your ad will determine which (and if) potential customers do in fact actually read your ad. When placing classified ads on the web some rules of thumb are:

1) Choose classifieds that have the largest number of ads because, this is generally a good indicator of how much reader traffic there will be for your classified.

2) Determine how the ads are ranked or sorted within the sections and attempt to be listed at or near the top.

Develop reader stopping ad content.
DESIGNING AN AWESOME CLASSIFIED
The four essential ingredients of an awesome classified are: ATTENTION - INTEREST - DESIRE - ACTION
If your ad is missing any of these it is not an AWESOME Ad!
ATTENTION: You must first get the readers attention. Picture him scanning the section of the classified page in which your ad is listed. For him or her it is much like which ride at the amusement park to take next. Something about your ad must grab their attention, to directs their focus toward your product.

Since classified ads usually lack graphics, it then comes down to something about the words you use, or about the way you use them. Some web advertisers seem to think that if you use lots of !!! (exclamation marks)or *** (asterisks) or maybe MAKE IT ALL CAPS that this will draw their attention. The problem here is that:

Everyone knows it's glitter and meant to get your attention. This may often interfere with the readers ability to take your words seriously. Subconsciously he may even expect your ad to be some kind of gimmick. Right or wrong, stereotype or not, my advise is let your words speak for themselves and steer clear of such tactics. We will discuss guidelines for choosing the right words later.

INTEREST: The ad must have appeal. This is a good place to state the benefits or some attractive features of your product. Knowing the demographics of your readers or the category section your ad is placed in, helps in nderstanding their interests. What benefits of your product or service is most likely to appeal to this group? Develop a mental picture of some of the customers who would come from this demographic group, and will buy your product. What kinds of jobs do they have, cars do they drive... are they young, old, single, married...

Having a mental picture of your audience is important when you want to understand their interests and know what benefits of your product you should spotlight.

DESIRE: But appealing to their interest is not enough. The ad must then "further stimulate your reader." While interest can generally be obtained by the practical properties of your product, desire needs sparking by a more emotional reaction. Is there something about your product that will make them feel good, excited, confident, secure, hoperul or powerful? Think about what other emotions your product can ignite. Does your product appeal to a particular sense. Can the reader taste, hear, smell, see or hear your product. Realize that most actions which we take are sparked by desire and most desire is stimulated by feelings. We don't really desire money.

We desire the feelings that we think money will bring us, whether they be happy, secure, or powerful. Yet, the word "money" may trigger the desire that triggers the feelings which we value and want to experience.

ACTION: If your reader does not take action, then you are dead in the water. How do you get your reader to act? Believe it or not this is the simplest step. Simply use a directive. Psychologists tell us that when given a directive (unless obviously harmful) our first instinct is to comply. Turn to the person in the seat next to you, and in a slightly commanding voice say, "give me your pen for a minute"... chances are they will, and usually, without question, for no other reason than "you told them to." Don't say... "will you give me your pen for a minute" because now they have to think, and if they have to think they may refuse. In your ad simply say: "call this number now", "email me for details", "go to our website" etc. If the first three ingredients (attention, interest, and desire) have been well done, and the reader is a qualified customer.... they will most likely take the action you direct them to take.

>WHAT TYPE OF AD SHOULD YOU USE

There are three ad types: Qualified - Partially Qualified - and Blind

The qualified ad is specific and includes more detail about the product you are selling. Some products lend themselves to qualified ad content better than others. Hair pieces for men is an example. If your product is particularly "person dependent" use this type. Qualified ads will receive the least response but more of the responses which are received will result in sales.

The partially qualified ad offers a special benefit, such as money or self- improvement. The readers have some idea of what you are offering, but don't know the specifics. If they are interested and desire your product they will follow your directive and send for more info. If you know where a partially qualified ad response comes from, you may be able to tailor your response to increase the percent of resulting sales.
Blind ads offer only a few details, they are short, and bring in the largest response. However, blind ads produce the lowest percentage of actual orders per reponse, they are often answered just out of curiosity.

ADDING WORD POWER TO YOUR CLASSIFIED AD

Some words are more powerful than others. Saying, your ad must "spark your readers interest," is more powerful than saying, your ad must "get the readers attention." Why? because by using "spark," you can see something igniting within the reader, flaming their interst, and sense they are feeling some excitement. Yes, getting them to have feelings about your words is what you want to accomplish. It is the feelings that are attached to the words that give them power. Look at the list of words below and see if you can recognize the feelings behind the words, that give them power. If you are haveing trouble finding power words to use in your ad, it is probably because you are conce trating to hard on what words you want to use instead of what sorts of feelings you want the reader to feel. Decide on the feelings first and then experiment with the words that best convey them. Researchers at Yale University say that the twelve most POWERFUL words in the English language are:1. DISCOVER 2. EASY 3. GUARANTEE 4. HEALTH 5. LOVE 6. MONEY 7. NEW 8. PROVEN 9. RESULTS 10 SAFETY 11. SAVE 12. YOU 13. FREE - ( I just had to add this one in ! )The above list contains the type of attention getting words that you should try to include in your classified advertising ad title. Scan a bunch of classifieds (as many as necessary), picking out other such words from the title of the ads that attracted your attention. Do this until you have a list of about 50 words. Try to pick out the individual words and not the phrases. Phrases will come later. Keep this list at hand when you are designing your classified ad. Glance at the list occasionally while writing down possible titles for your ad. The title is the most important part of the ad. You may need to spend 90 percent of the time it takes to design your ad, just on the title alone.

Now write down every word that you can possibly think of which describes a particular feature or benefit of your product. What do you always tell the customer about your product? Benefits - benefits -benefits! Features - features- features! Verbs and adjectives are great. Verbs because they show action and adjectives because they are descriptive. Active and descriptive words tend to have more enertia and cause us to react with feelings.
Now let's put it all together and create a simple classified car ad.
Want a Dependable Used Car that Looks Fantastic and Drives Great? 1994 Olds Cutlass - low mileage - automatic transmission - radio plays CD's -- tinted glass - factory air - great gas mileage - So "cherry" people will stare with envy when you drive by - Call today 555-5555 ask for Joe.
Well, this one I did quickly. Maybe you can make it better. Anyway, now review the ad. Does the title grab the reader's attention. Does the ad offer features or benefits of interest to car buyers? Is some emotional desire created to further stimulate the reader? Does the ad direct the reader's action?
Now go to it! Create your own awesome classified keeping the above thoughts in mind. Review your ad and check to see that all the important ingredients of a good ad are present. Find a classifieds site on the web with plenty of ads in a category related to your product. Get your ad listed first if you can. And wait for the response. "If you are not getting responses, then either change the title of the ad, change the wording, or Advertise in more locations!

38 Ways to Use FREE, the Most Powerful Word in Any Language.

Secrets of Envelope Teaser Copy Which Can Double Your Response. If you send out a sales letter and it doesn't get opened, you have no chance -- zero -- to get a response. There is no possible way. Or make a sale. Ted reveals his amazing techniques that practically compel the receiver to open the envelope.

33 Secrets of Successful Sales Letters

Best Headlines Ever Written. It's impossible to prepare great advertising copy without "killer" headlines. Ted Nicholas has put together a selection of the best headlines ever written. Before you write a word of copy, you can preferably use this invaluable collection of proven winners to stimulate your own copy.

Benefit statements start like this… "Enjoy…"
Take advantage of…"
"Stop missing…"
Reduce unwanted…"
Cut down on…"
Hypnotic words and phrases-

If you're like me...
eyebrow raising
first rate
untouchable
I know you're skeptical...
mint condition
hard hitting
legitimate
I'll personally
guarantee
only (no.) made
mind rocking
serious bids only

You might be thinking...
never been released
outrageous
limited edition
What if I told you...
authentic
revenue enhancing
shameless pleasure
This fact is verified by...
autographed
sought after
star studded
I'm sure you heard.
hand made
breakneck speed
unbeatable offer
How anyone can...
free shipping
rare opportunity
collector's item
I have a confession to make..
rare opportunity Use these "proven" order pullers in your ads! These words create Excitement, Curiosity , Motivation , and above all Action ! When your writing your ad, be sure to refer to this list. Don't just "blow through it"... look at it... think about it. Think to yourself how you can incoporate these headlines, and words into your own ad. Remember to test different headlines, and be sure to measure your results. Keep fine tuning and testing to maximize your results. Your ad is your lifeline to success !

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