The more “expert” that

marketing people 

claim to be, the less

they seem to know!

It’s like the woman telling her doctor that she couldn’t get pregnant because her husband is a marketing guy. “Oh, and why does that make a difference?” asked the doctor. “Well,” she said, “all he ever wants to do is sit on the edge of the bed and tell me how great it’s going to be!”

— ——————————–

Most marketing people have a talent for making enticing claims, but many have no clue about producing results.

Add to this dilemma, that 37 zillion web designers, SEO engineers, and social media gurus elect to anoint themselves as “marketing experts” or “marketing specialists” so they can laugh themselves silly all the way to the bank after handing over some incredulous invoice that looks like the product of a high-priced law firm . . . hourly fees, plus commissions, expenses, and hidden surprise extras. 

I was reminded today (by Southern CA-based author and Internet marketing pro Dan Joubert) on Twitter, of a Fred Allen quote that “An advertising agency is 85% confusion and 15% commission.” Having spent my first dozen years of business in what were then the world’s three most famous ad agencies, I can attest to this “85%/15%” quote being 100% true! 

In my estimation, the only truly worthwhile “marketing experts” out there are those who have started, owned, and managed their own business for at least ten years, and who have a lifelong track-record of being outstanding sales professionals.

Short of those qualifications, you’re kidding yourself if you think some cyberspaceface “marketing expert” group can do your business justice.     

                                                                                          

And that includes (especially) top MBA school graduates taught by MBA school graduates who probably know less than your youngest niece or nephew. Case history studies contain not even a whiff of reality. I could give you hours of documentation on this subject, but suffice it to say that the vast majority (if not all) of the world’s greatest entrepreneurs never got to, or through, college.

Where is all this cynicism headed? To your dreams of having an exceptional marketing program that triggers exceptional sales. To a marketing effort that keeps your investment of dollars reasonable, and your investment of time minimal. 

Here’s how to get where you want your marketing to go:

1. Decide early on to not fall prey to dog and pony show, song and dance, smoke and mirror acts foisted on you by endless parades of “expert” solicitors;
2. Set yourself specific, realistic, flexible, and due-dated criteria –in writing (and the importance of “in writing” cannot be underscored enough)– BEFORE you begin to search out the person or persons to help you pull your act together;
3. Spell out your expectations loud and clear, but listen carefully to the responses and input you get from your narrow-down-the-candidates process;
4. Require weekly “How Goes It” progress reviews and be accessible in between.                                                                                                                                                                                                 

Marketing is both an art and a science. Those who are best at it are also psychology-savvy. They are skilled writers and visualizers who know how to attract and interest your target market, how to stimulate emotional buying motives to prompt action, and reward consumer desires with an emphasis on benefits. 

If you’re really smart, you’ll do like carpenters and heart surgeons: measure twice and cut once, instead of working your way through a large chunk of those 37 zillion “experts” for little if any return on your investment.     

302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You.

 “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson] 

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

Tooting Your Own Horn

Starts With Having A Horn!

Simple, right? Wrong. Unless you are or have retained an expert writer and marketing professional, finding the right horn to toot can be a daunting task.

It means first having a Creative Action Plan and Production Action Plan built on Goals that are specific, flexible, realistic, and due-dated. Consider what must be done just to get that far.

Begin your Action Plan with a Branding Theme. (Best are seven words or less that tell a story with a beginning, a middle, and an ending, and that are persuasive!)

Find an experienced pro for this part of the journey, or be prepared to spend much more time than you could ever imagine…and still not have good odds for success.  

Integrate that Theme as the central focus of your Elevator Speech (a persuasive 30-second verbal presentation of what you do/sell/offer, as well as underscoring the benefits of purchase or ownership).

It needs to answer the two questions: What’s the deal? and What’s in it for me?)  

                                                                                                                                                        

Compose an ongoing series of news releases and feature articles that dramatically emphasize and highlight your Elevator Speech. Distribute your releases to hand-picked target media people.

Follow up with strong, respectful, helpful, and pleasantly assertive media relations efforts.

Follow up with more news releases, and more media relations, followed by more news releases and more media relations, followed by more news releases and more media relations, followed by more news releases, followed by more media relations… 

Just as research proves that management training program participants typically fail to retain what they “learn” after only 21 days without some significant reminders and ongoing reinforcement…your news release target market will also fail to recall your “story” within 21 days, unless you reinforce it continually.

In other words, for PR to work, it needs to be an ongoing commitment, not a “one-night stand” or “overnight sensation” announcement.

• You can try this yourself, but be prepared for rejection and misrepresented messages.
• You can hire a professional PR firm, but be prepared to spend $5,000 to $25,000 a month in fees, plus expenses.
• Or, you can find a “one-man-band” type professional who knows how to play the PR game and who will represent your interests for $1,500 to $4,500 a month.

Your PR efforts will produce a level of “BUZZ” (this century’s name for “word-of-mouth” advertising), and that BUZZ becomes your horn. Toot it on your website! Happy Tooting!

302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You.

 “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson] 

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

A stupid sign is a sign 

of a stupid business.

With thinner wallets being a sign of the times, and a business with no sign being a sign of no business, there is something to be said for what other kinds of signs seem to signify. Dirty and dingy may work for a hog farm, but not a restaurant. Slick and expensive might lead you into a bank lobby, but not a nonprofit charity center.

I recently saw a sign for an orthodontist that had broken uprights for over a year. It was big-time crooked. It was big-time duct-taped.

Hmmm, not so sure about my kids going there for braces on their teeth.

Not to be outdone, a few miles up the road, another broken sign, but this one was sistered up with scrap wood which was nailed to the broken section

…for a spine surgeon.  No thanks.

Even with all things being equal in terms of sign construction, illumination, materials and craftsmanship, it’s still just the frame for the message. So what’s the message? Right! Now you’re on target. Like a website or an ad, it’s the WORDS that sell.

Your Sign Checklist. Does it:

• Attract Attention?

• Create Interest?

• Stimulate Desire?

•  Bring About Action?

• Deliver Satisfaction?

However it may do these things, it must do all of these things to be a great sign. 

For some, the message is clever. I saw this great sleuth-outfitted cartoon character on a truck today. The Sherlock-Holmes-plaid-hat-and-coat-looking guy held stuff like a magnifying glass, handsaw, marker, blueprint, and might have had a tape measure in his teeth…Take a guess???????

A genius business name:

COUNTER INTELLIGENCE

Custom Kitchen Counter Installations.

For others, stupidity rules. A smart red, white, and blue sign GOIN’ POSTAL – Your Neighborhood Shipping Center (sporting small logos for Fed Ex, UPS, and USPS to the right of the name) was leaning against the building, having just been replaced by the same red, white, and blue color sign, but THIS one in bigger letters said GOIN’ POSTAL – Our Neighborhood Shipping Center (with no logos).

They took over the neighborhood? It used to be Your Neighborhood, you the customer. Now it’s Our Neighborhood, we the franchise. From customer-centric to self-centric (Oh sure, that’s a different way to sell these days).

To top it off, must be that the big-name logos had no value to justify keeping attached to them!

If you’re going to upgrade or repaint or revise or re-word your sign, don’t wing it! It is more important than you might think. Your sign is your business 24/7. It must communicate the exact right message in the exact right way. There’s no room for error.

This is not a task to leave up to the sign company; they are all about frames and appearances; they know nothing of words. When you want a true medical evaluation of your eyes, you go to an ophthalmologist (a medical doctor), not an optician who is all about frames and appearances.

Get yourself a professional marketing writer to come up with the exact right words. You’ll have to live with them for a long time. Get them right, right from the get go.

The best signs you ever saw never came from any sign business. Guaranteed. They came from professional marketing know-how and experience. How can you be sure? Because they work! 

Does yours?   

302.933.0116    Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You.

 “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson] 

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

It’s supposed to be

7 words or less, but

look what just 3 can do!

Take this 125-SECONDS business creativity stimulation test!

When you set out on the path to developing a branding line, slogan, themeline –whatever you want to call it– marketing experts suggest targeting seven words or less. Sounds easy until you realize they also prescribe that the seven words tell a story with a beginning, a middle, and an ending . . . oh, yeah, and by the way, be persuasive! Yikes!

Well, in case you’re not word-challenged enough (and willing to admit it) that you decide the best route is to find yourself one of those marketers of few words to create your verbal image, here’s a simple creativity stimulation exercise:

Allow yourself five seconds of what I call “Freefall Thinking” for each of the following 25 three-word sets.

(Yes, I know that’s a whole 125 seconds out of your life, but what the hey, you’re an entrepreneur who takes reasonable risks, right? So go for it! You might surprise yourself!).

Be aware that each three-word set could be a book title — so don’t dwell on any one of them. Breeze through the list as you scribble notes to yourself, but do make a mental note of appreciation for how MUCH each three-word set can conjure up in your imagination. 

Jot down (yes, on a real, live piece of paper) the first thing about your business that comes into your mind as you read each line. No you will not be required to pass these papers in; you can stick ’em in your pocket for 21 days though, and rest assured that your notes will make  you think of something VERY exciting!

Ready. Set. Read and Jot!

• Get it done!

• Girls are smarter.

• World Wide Web.

• Not Enough Time.

• Walk this way!

• You have cancer.

• New and Improved!

• Work. Work. Work.

• It’s A Boy!

• This won’t hurt.

• Take it away!

• Make it count!

• I Love You.

• Tow-Away Zone.

• One More Round.

• Up in smoke.

• I Pledge Allegience.

• Take a vacation!

• Dog Day Afternoon.

• Wine. Women. Song.

• Around the world.

• I don’t care! 

• Aw, come on!

• Health and happiness.

• Benefits, not features!

And the winner is . . . you.

There is no scoring here. Oh, I know that’s a terrible thing for you to have put yourself through and not have some way to rate your performance. The point is that you know how hard or easy this 3-word expression association test is for you.

And you know better than anyone whether you need just a little fine-tune coaching, or to dump the whole task in a competent lap and walk away because it’s too time-consuming, or that you get it and you’ve got it, and you’ll do it yourself!

If you really do this exercise, you will:  

A) Produce some awesome idea that will have major impact on your business, and maybe even your life! (No joke about the 21 days!)

B) Prove to yourself that you really DO have a way with words and should start attacking that 7-word themeline on your own or  

C) Underscore that you are a disaster with words and creative verbal expression and it might be a very good time to start shopping around for one of those marketing wordsmith wizards.

www.TheWriterWorks.com or 302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You.

 “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson] 

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

Daily Notes or Recordings

Work Wonders With

Business Pursuits 

They heal damaged ventures and egos. They explore new ideas and avenues of strategic planning. They reveal new awarenesses and cultivate creativity. They stimulate innovation and fuel productive relationships.

They save time, money and effort. They reduce stress and soothe neurological systems.They need never be shared with anyone. They don’t take more than 3-5 minutes a day.

No, “They” are not vitamin supplements or exercises or illusionist tricks. “They” are journals. When you keep a journal, you open yourself up to all of the above opportunities.  

Do they REALLY work? Yes. I have dozens of business (and personal) journals on my shelf. Referring to them and the notes I’ve made has accomplished everything noted in the opening paragraph, and more.

A great many college and management training session students I’ve prescribed journaling to, have told me it was the single most valuable tool they ever learned about and used. It can be a combination savior and rocket booster for any entrepreneur or small business owner or manager. It can be a major career and personal/professional development tool for anyone, regardless of business attachments. 

The best part of keeping track of my daily thoughts in writing –besides teaching me more about myself and my life and business choices– is that once thoughts leave my brain and travel down my arm and into my fingers and through my pen and onto paper, I no longer need to carry them around in my brain.

Once my thoughts are sitting in a notebook that I can pick up and look at anytime I want; there’s more room in my brain for focusing on what’s important that’s going on here and now (instead of recreating and resurrecting past experiences or worrying about or planning for or fantasizing about stuff that’s in the future, and that may never happen or show up anyway).

I can tell you firsthand that there’s no better investment of time you can make, over time. And your potential ROI paybacks can be staggering. On top of all that, it’s free!

Getting started . . .

1) Make the commitment to yourself that you will try it faithfully for 21 days in a row.

2) On every left-hand page, put the date. Across the top write “WHAT HAPPENED” and proceed to jot down an objective, rational, report of some incident(s) that occurred or thoughts or ideas you had.

3) On every facing right-hand page, write across the top “HOW I FELT” and proceed to editorialize, offer opinions, be biased, express your “take” on whatever is represented on the left-hand page.

What kinds of entries work best . . .

An idea. A thought. An observation. A word. A sentence. A paragraph. A diagram. An example. A poem. A drawing. Scribble. Your goals. Goal progress. A doodle. Spit. A coffee stain. Whatever is taking up valuable think space that you don’t want to forget, but that’s getting in the way of immediacy.

Does it have to be in writing? Can’t a laptop serve the purpose? Historically, writing stuff down on paper has always worked best. Tape recordings are next best. Laptops do not offer the same impact value. I really recommend to put it in writing on paper in a (preferably) bound blank book or (second best) bound notebook. (“Bound” because removable pages encourage time-wasting second thoughts, and nurture perfectionism, which is not productive.)

Stop worrying about how pages will look and put stuff down. Something (literally any thing) every day is better that writing volumes once or twice a week.

Keeping track of your daily thoughts may feel awkward at first, but reviews over time will prove that you have created true value from nothing, and serve to demonstrate how really smart you always thought you were but never had a way to back up your convictions. And who knows? Maybe it will end up a best-seller or full-length movie! :<)

Serious: Do it. Start today.

www.TheWriterWorks.com or 302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You.

 “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson] 

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

How you see

your business

is not how

others see it!

We see what we want to see. We hear what we want to hear. We feel what we want to feel.

How others experience your business and your business message has almost nothing to do with you. It’s all about selective perception.

Pretend your business

is sponsoring a special event . . . a charity fundraising reception, for example. Your biggest customer has donated a pile of merchandise for the feature event drawing. Your assistant has done all the decorations. Your major suppliers have donated hor’ devours and beverages, the local newspaper and TV news reporters are covering the reception. The Mayor is there.

Selective perception

dictates that your biggest customer heads directly to check out the donated prizes when she comes through the door (and to make sure the reporters get the charitable company’s name and address right), your assistant will be fussing with the ribbons and streamers and balloons, your major suppliers will head straight for the bar and foodservice trays (along with the media people who are only there for the freebies), and the Mayor is working the room for votes.

Most attendees are there to be seen.

Getting people to attend an event that they’ve contributed to in some way is easy. Getting them to pay attention to your message and the reason YOU wanted them to be there is not. And the people representing the charity think every one’s there to spotlight and assist their needs. But reality is that everyone who attends, attends for their own reasons, and searches out their own payoffs.

No, it’s not being cynical; it’s being honest. Most people will never admit that they go to or participate in a charity event for any reason other than to help the charity, but the truth is there’s something more in it for them. Nothing wrong with that because –in the end– the charity benefits, but don’t kid yourself into believing that others see things the same ways you do.

The charitable event is merely an example. Others fail to see your perspective in the ways you represent your products and services. Probably 100% of customers and prospects could care less about all the great product and service features you embrace. The “What’s in it for me” benefits are all that really matter.

Are you triggering their emotional

buying motives…or yours?

In fact, NO ONE sees things the same ways you do. No ones sees and hears and processes things in exactly the same ways as anyone else. The perceptual filters in every brain vary with age, health, environment, experience, and circumstances among other factors…and they can change at the drop of a hat.

Some people still walk around blaming a bad upbringing or poor potty training as reasons for certain shortcomings or personality defects. They don’t see the world (or your business) the same way you do.

Well, that may all strike you as fairly depressing news, but there’s nothing depressing about having a heightened awareness of the fact that you need to reach customers and prospects with the sets of words that appeal most to THEM, not you. That’s important stuff!

You might want to consider having a professional experienced, sales-focused  marketing writer with strong psychology training handle the creation and production of the words that represent your business. Your business messages need to feel solid to your target market. Having that happen is not a matter of luck.

Look for someone who knows how to capture and excite a broad spectrum of selective perception filters, who can help direct attention your way, and who can create messages that will trigger emotional buying motives for you.   

Hal@BusinessWorks.US

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You.

 “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson]

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

A Time To Yield To Experts.

There’s light at the end of the half-full glass, and no end in sight at the half-empty one! And you thought you were in a tunnel? Maybe you are. Maybe the glass is sitting empty on the shelf, or maybe it’s so full, it’s spilling over the top. Maybe that tunnel is one-way.

Confused yet?

How sure are you that your branding and marketing messages are not equally confusing to your customers and prospects? If what you are saying to your target market about your business is not transparently clear, you lose. Period.

Many entrepreneurs mistakenly believe they’re great marketers because they have a great idea. They think they can write great slogans because they’ve spent years getting back pats from warm, fuzzy, encouraging friends and family.

The problem with this is that support like that unwittingly lends credibility to the incredulous, and the entrepreneurs involved take the tacit approvals as further encouragement to pursue their hair-brained schemes and lunatic ventures. It fuels their ego fires.

And, yes, some of those ideas truly are gems–diamonds in the rough–and family and friend nurturing can lead to ill-founded yet awe-inspiring optimism that ultimately anchors many successful new businesses. 

BUT, if you’re confused about how to best express your business thoughts in a captivating manner, imagine how confused those you seek to captivate might be?

The vast majority of small business marketing messages are misdirected, convoluted, not memorable and overly braggadocio.You know the ones who thump their chests . . . 

“We’re the best, the greatest, the finest and most quality-conscious, the most economical, the most customer service conscious, the oldest, the largest, the most traditional, the most modern, the most forward-thinking. We’re the good ole boys. Our family business tradition goes back to the Ice Age (Stone Age?). We’ve been on the Internet since 1999. We support our community. We back up our promises. We guarantee our work. Count on us. We do it all!”  

WHOOP-EE for you, but sooo what? Nobody cares!! 

Being a positive, optimistic, and exceptional  business leader means recognizing that the customer IS always right WITHOUT– short of physical threats or violence--EXCEPTION. Successful businesses literally REVOLVE AROUND the customer.

Successful entrepreneurs are those who fully grasp and understand the need to nurture everyone (customers AND employees AND suppliers) around them in addition to their product and service ideas.

SUCCESSFUL Entrepreneuring…

• The successful business entrepreneur functions from a position of strength, but recognizes her or his limitations and takes steps to shore up those areas with other’s strengths. 

• The successful business entrepreneur sees people (as well as his or her idea) as the business’s most important asset.

• She or he makes a conscious effort to be positive, optimistic, straightforward, appreciative, and motivational in EVERY single encounter with EVERY person EVERY day. . . exercising authenticity, giving full attention, respect, empathy, and providing solution direction guidance. 

• This means understanding that being genuine 24/7 is not necessarily an easy behavior, but that behavior is a choice. 

Delivering confusing messages to a target market can be worse than delivering no message at all. People will not easily or quickly forget marketing message mistakes. So marketing is just one more place to recruit and rely on professional skills.

An experienced outsider will almost always do a better job of clarifying direction and eliminating marketing message confusion than the business creator.

www.TheWriterWorks.com or 302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You.

 “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson] 

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

She Tweets Me,

She Tweets Me Not,

She Tweets Me,

She Tweets Me Not,

She Tweets Me…

Howcum all we 30 million small business owners only ever hear about using Twitter and Facebook comes to us in useless abstract terms?

Do we really care about all the bundles of tech apps and clever little increase-your-overnight-income opps? And how credible are the sources that bombard us with such meaningless, time-wasting minutia? Is there really a business owner anywhere on the planet who actually buys into the daily onslaught of claims being foisted on us by self-anointed “social media experts”?

Surely those online businesses that promise 27,943 new followers a day or 16 million new fans a year can’t be serious? Why is it that mixed in with these thousands of clowns, there is only a handful of resources that truly teach the only information that’s really needed in order to be successful with social media marketing messages?

When was the last time you saw a

good run-down of things to avoid,

when trying to market your business

on Twitter and Facebook?

What’s acceptable as social media business content is far different than what you might put on your website, or in an email blast or a news release or a traditional ad or commercial. More importantly, it is far different than the “socializing” climate that most Twitter and Facebook users indulge in.

I have seen countless scores of respectable businesses stumbling through trying to manage Facebook content (text/words/copy/photos) that is tasteless, vulgar, trashy and often filled with curse words posted by disgruntled employees or vendors, and even by young adult children of the business owner or manager.

Marketing your business on Facebook requires persistent (often constant) ongoing attention and maintenance to ensure that others who don’t share your sense of business decorum are not invading your site with negative associations while you sleep.

Business users of Twitter are not as subjected to outside influence because Twitter is an outbound media vehicle, where people can –like ships in the night– respond to your passing business message with their own passing message but they can’t invade your business message space with negative input.

Facebook, on the other hand, is an inbound media vehicle that allows outsiders to post virtually anything they choose whenever they choose, and it ends up plastered right there next to your carefully constructed heartfelt business message, serving to undermine your business credibility until it can be spotted and removed.

What this distills down to is that business marketing applications in social media can be very effective when they are carefully planned and monitored daily. Yes, daily.

You may think you’re above all that, and are 

capable of simply “winging it.” Think again.

You can’t let other Twitter users provoke you into a debate (or even a one-time comment) about politics or religion unless these subject areas are part of your business foundation.

Don’t believe me? Try it once; your “Followers” will drop like flies. Business-focused Twitter users appreciate business-focused and/or motivational messages, but if those same people do not like your politics, or posts you might make about other taboo subjects (racial profiling, sexism, abortion, anything that’s highly-charged), they will cut you out of their contact base in an instant.

Like joining a game or contest that’s already in progress, enter slowly and politely until you have a clear reading on the unwritten rules. Then plan accordingly and be prepared to stay on top of it every day.

Oh, and please always remember to say “Please”

and especially “Thank you.” Thank you! 

 931.854.0474 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You.

 “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson] 

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

What keeps small business

owners awake at night?

With appreciation for the inspiration for this post to Meredith Bell info@2020insight.net (publisher of a great free weekly self-development newsletter titled GOLDEN EGGS), based on yesterday’s conversation with Meredith about what keeps CEO’s awake at night.

As recently as three years ago this past May, a respectable study identified worrying about the caliber and extent of employee skills to get the jobs done that needed to be done (I’m paraphrasing here) as the number one reason that CEOs were unable to sleep at night.

But the economic impact on business was nowhere near as catastrophic at that time, and consumers were nowhere near as rambunctious.

Today’s business owners and managers are losing sleep over the inability of their business’s marketing efforts to keep up with the break-neck speed of change in the consumer marketplace (and slightly slower-to-respond industrial and professional service marketplaces). Wasn’t it just yesterday that $137 Kindle electronic readers were $400?

Without belaboring what’s prompted all the consumer scrambling for better greener quality with better warranty coverage at lower prices and faster delivery with improved customer service –because everyone is acutely aware of the maddening pace of information access and exchange– suffice it to say that marketing tools, methods, approaches, and people must rise to the occasion.

The place to start is at the point of word creation. If the words you use to market your business don’t work, nothing else can work.

If the words you’re using aren’t doing the job, it doesn’t matter how dramatic your graphic designs are, how friendly your website is, what fantastic salespeople you have, how terrific your operations are, how low your overhead is, how many awards you’ve won, or how spectacularly your products and services perform.

It doesn’t matter.

What does matter are the words you use to get your prospects and customers to be aware of and buy into all of those assets of yours.

Business owners need to be evaluating their market performance daily, not quarterly or monthly, or even weekly.

In this centrifuge of market activity — unless you enjoy being thrown up against a high-speed spinning back wall, anything less than some form of daily analysis will not leave you enough time to adjust today what did or didn’t happen yesterday.

This doesn’t mean you need to get yourself caught up in some kind of delirium and start behaving like The Mad Hatter. It means you need to keep a sharper eye on the changes that are taking place, even as you read this, and be prepared to make adjustments if and when and as they become necessary . . . not a month later. 

Except for branding themes and policies, marketing words can be changed in a day! If your words are not doing what you need them to be doing this morning, change them tonight.

It’s true that one word is worth a thousand pictures. Not convinced? Consider how many images your mind can produce when you see or hear any of the following words:

• AMERICA
• TODDLER
• GORGEOUS
• STRESS
• FREE
• HAPPY
• HOME
• NOW
• HEALTHY
• NEW
• LOVE
• WATERFRONT
• BIRTHDAY
• PUPPY   

 www.TWWsells.com or 302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You.

 “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson] 

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

Do your business messages 

reach out and grab? 

Do they win meaningless awards?

Or do they just lurk quietly in the

shadows, sucking their thumbs?

Time and again , the slick-talking, 3-piece-suit, hot-shot marketing and ad agency “experts” came swooping and swaggering down into small town America from big city America, and stuck it to star-struck, bedazzled small business owners who learned the hard way that all that’s written doesn’t sell!”

                                                                    

Do your business sales messages sell? Have you been blaming the economy, the competition, the weather and your spouse for lousy words that simply don’t cut it?

Do the words and images your business uses to sell your products and services reach out and grab your ideal prospects and turn them into loyal customers? Or do they stand timidly in the shadows of your business entrance, with their thumbs stuck in their mouths, muttering quietly to themselves about how great your company is?

If your words aren’t getting the job done, you have a copywriting catastrophe, and you are paying dearly for it!

If the words you are using to market, promote, publicize and advertise your business are not attracting attention, creating interest, stimulating desire, prompting action, and promoting satisfaction, you have a copywriting catastrophe. And you are paying dearly for it with more money, time, and effort than your business can afford.

First, you have to ask yourself if the person or entity who’s creating and producing your business messages has the right kind of skill, experience, and attitude to put you front and center on the competitive stage you most want to dominate — your neighborhood, your community, your state, region, industry, profession, nation, planet, or cyberspace.

Next, you need to outline or bulletpoint your goal issues. Be specific, flexible, realistic, and have a deadline.

Then go shopping. But battle-hardened advice would suggest that you avoid flashy Las Vegas-style or upscale “boutique” organizations that ooze out of high rent districts in favor of down-home, in-the-trenches wordsmiths with lots of business background (but not necessarily in your specific industry or business specialty), lots of diverse success stories, and a clear positive attitude.

You want a person or team that is more interested in making sales for you than in winning awards for her/him/themselves. You want a person or team that sees the long-term promise of a relationship with your business and is willing to put a meaningful chunk of fee compensation on a performance incentive basis. A bonus for demonstrated results puts a fire under most butts.

Great copywriting will do more than win sales. It can ignite innovative thinking and create revenue streams. It can reassure existing customers while bringing new ones to your door. It can motivate employees and suppliers alike. The right words can renew. revitalize and pump up entrepreneurial spirits. But, sorry, they can’t make your coffee for you. Cream and sugar?

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302.933.0116    Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

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