Even more importantly, how much do you love helping your clients?

How passionate are you about it?

I have met so many business owners over the years who are just not very passionate about what they do or sell.

This makes me wonder, “Why did they go into business in the first place?”

Having passion for your business is an essential part of successful marketing.

In fact, the passionate drive to succeed is a huge factor in the success of any business.

If you love what you are doing, then your success will be so much greater than what you will achieve if you don’t.

Whether or not you are truly excited about what your business has to offer will be very evident to all of your customers and prospects. It will come across in every¬thing that you do, in all of the words that you write, and in how you speak about the products/services that you offer.

If you really believe in your business, then your intensity will be transferred to your employees in the amount of effort that they put forth, and to your cus¬tomers and prospects in a way that will increase their interest in your products/services.

If you are passionate about what your business does, the result will be more sales. It does not matter what motivates your passion, whether it is making money, or loving the “in-charge” feeling that you get with self-employment, or enjoying the freedom of setting your own hours.

If you maintain a love and passion for your business, you will find that many people will want to do business with you, both now and in the future. Passion breeds success, and success breeds more success.

If you don’t love what you are doing—if you are not totally passionate about it—then go find something else!

“Passion is everything.”
-David Copperfield

People will have a hard time believing you if you don’t have passion for what you are doing. Your clients and prospects can sense it in you when you don’t believe in what you are marketing.

You might fool them once, but you won’t fool them twice.

Be passionate about your business. It will catch on fire.

What are you doing to show how much you love what you do and the things that you sell?

Or, having to hire an ad agency who’s primary goal is to sell expensive media and win awards that make them look good and lead to more client’s for them.

Be careful; Ask trusted advisior for recommendations when looking for qualified advise.

This morning wasn’t much different then any other morning.

Except for voting…

Now, I made it to the polls by 7:45am and was out by 8:20am
Small voting district. Short lines.
Saw a neighbor that I had not seen in a while.
Got the latest neighborhood news.
Births. Deaths.
You know what I’m talking about.

While standing in line to vote, it hit me.

“We vote every day of our lives”

We vote for cereal or eggs.
We vote to work or goof off.
We vote to prospect or not.
We vote on who we want to see that day
We vote on what projects to work on
We vote to hit the enter key
Who to work with
What route to take home
On and on and on.

Every decision we decide is a vote.
A choice to move forward, stay the same or move backwards.

Besides all the political candidiates, what did you vote for today?

Here are a few quick voting ideas.

• Vote for your family members success.
  Give them praise for anyting well done and you will help them grow even stronger

• Vote for your client’s success.
  Do everything in your power to help them succeed and you will succeed.

• Vote for doing something. Anything.
  Nothing happens until something moves. Get the pendulum moving, momentum makes things easier.

• Vote for YOURSELF.
  Forge you own path and be willing to stand alone because your life in no way depends on what others think, say or do.

• Vote for Forgiveness.
  Forgive yourself and others for honest mistakes of the past.

What will you decide today that will change someone life?

Happy Marketing
Sandy Barris
Business Marketing Services
Author of ’97 Marketing Secrets to Make
More Money: Your Secret Guide to Growing
Your Business”

P.S. Your Invited To Join (By Invite Only) Our Next  Monthly How To Market Profitably Teleseminar Hosted by List Expert Jerry Bresser.
For Details Click Here:  www.HowToMarketProfitably.com

Are you are waiting for everything to be absolutely perfect? The perfect product to sell, the perfect marketing effort to start, the perfect sales staff, or the perfect distribution network—you will wait forever.

Perfection equals paralysis.

You need to be willing to act.

Just realize that you are going to make mistakes: Everyone does.

You may market to the wrong target or pick the wrong mailing list.
You may make the wrong offer or use the wrong media.
Sometimes, even when you think that you’ve done everything right, things don’t work out the way that you hoped they would.

Mistakes happen.

The key is what you let yourself learn from them.

I once sent out a broadcast fax to 5,000 businesses for a local co-op, business-to-business mailing. The only responses that I received were 83 requests that said “Take me off of your fax list.” I did not get one positive response: nada, zip, and zilch. It happens. Luckily, it was a small test. At least I didn’t fax 50,000 businesses and get the same results. Now, I can change my message, or try a different marketing approach.

The important thing is that I tried something and learned from the experience.

If I had decided to wait until I had perfected everything, I’d still be waiting.
I wouldn’t have learned anything.

Remember: you can’t learn if you don’t act.

If you keep on trying and keep on testing, your efforts will succeed.

What you decide to do doesn’t have to be perfect, it just needs to be done.

Action is the key. Decide to act!

Are you allowing perfection to paralyze your marketing efforts?

Well, then, why not create your own “best-seller list”
and feature it prominently in your marketing efforts?

People buy what is popular.

The higher up on the best-seller list that an item is
—i.e. the more “popular” that it becomes—the more that sales for the item will climb.

For example, if you own an ice cream parlor, create a best-seller list of the most popular flavors of ice cream that you sell.

Post the list at several highly visible locations.
When folks come in, watch the sales of your best-selling ice cream soar!

You can create a best-selling list for any
product/service that you offer.

The power of suggestion helps people who do not know
what they want as well as those who are having trouble choosing what they want.

Many people just can’t make a decision
(sometimes even a life-saving decision), so why not help
them along by showing them what other folks like the best?

Some clients of mine (a husband-and-wife team who run a
carpet-cleaning service) were having trouble selling their service.

We created a best-seller list of the services that
the company offered by using good, better, and best offerings.

This list helped the couple’s prospects to choose the
services that they wanted based on what other people had done in the past.

The sales and profits on these “best-sellers” have increased dramatically.

This means that the sales and profits for the company
are up overall, which was our goal in the first place!

How can you create a “best-seller” list for your products/services?

How many people send you a complimentary letter or email?

You love letter may arrive by way of the U.S. Postal Service, via a fax or e-mail, or through a voice-mail message.

There are two great reasons why you should save a copy of every love letter or “white mail” (positive messages) that you receive.

Here’s the first:

When clients tell you what they like about your product or your service, you’ll discover you may have the ability to improve the things that they like.

If they approve of a product, then you can make or acquire more of it.

If they like your service, then you can make sure that you maintain its quality.

Odds are good that if one customer takes the time to send a message to you, then the way that they feel would apply in a similar way to many other customers.

Negative comments can also be turned positive.

How? They  show your honesty.
They show you are not perfect.
They show you are human.
People know mistakes happen and that nothing is perfect.

The second reason for hanging on to your “Love Letters” is to use its comments as positive testimonials about your product/service.

Unsolicited remarks tend to be more open and honest than testimonials for which you have to ask.

If you want to use a customer’s comments in your promotional material, you should ask for his/her permission.

Oh. By the way. It’s okay to paraphrase and/or edit a testimonial so long as you do not change the meaning of the message.

Or you could pull out a short phrase. Even a word or two and use as a testimonial.

Give him/her credit in your marketing by including name, city, and state.

Phone numbers, e-mail addresses and photos also are extremely beneficial.
However, only use them when your client gives you specific written approval.

Sometimes, I’ll use a stock photo of a different person that fits the same age range if I can’t get permission.

Some people are overly concerned about their privacy, but most people probably will grant you the permission that you seek.

I can’t stress it enough:
Testimonials are a great tool. Use them to your advantage.

When you talk about how great your product/service is, people assume that it is part of your marketing and salesmanship—and rightly so.

However, when someone else praises your product/service, it sends a much more powerful message.

Now, what are you going to do with the Love Letters that you receive?

This statement also applies to your business.

What if you have developed a marketing campaign that is working well?

What if your marketing is bringing in all kinds of sales leads and increasing sales and profits for your business?

What if you have tested and proven your list and your headlines?

What if your offers in this campaign are the best that they can be?

What if no other marketing effort that you have tried has beaten its results?

Wouldn’t it be insane to change it?

You would think so.

However, many business owners get bored with using the same marketing message over and over again.

Consequently, they change their campaign midstream.

These owners never get the full benefit of their campaign.

This, folks, is insanity.

Sometimes the reason that these business owners change their approaches is that they listen to their spouse, employees, family members, friends, clients or someone else who has gotten tired of the campaign.

As a result, the business owners changes his marketing before they should.

Whatever the reason, if something isn’t broken, don’t fix it.
If a marketing campaign is working, then stick with it!

A profitable marketing campaign must be allowed to run its course.

You will know when it is time to change or develop something new when your current campaign stops working.

Again, if it’s not broken, don’t fix it.

You can see this mistake made over and over in many businesses.

Advertising and direct-marketing efforts that are working are abandoned midstream for the “next big thing.”

Don’t waste the money, time, and effort that you have invested in creating a marketing campaign by making this same mistake in your business.

How sane are your marketing efforts?

Be inventive, creative, or even outrageous to capture a bigger share of the available business.

Boring is and will always be boring.

Creative marketing will help you to crush your competition.

Follow your gut.
Go with your hunches.
Do it smart and careful.

Keep an eye on what your industry competitors are doing.

Many times it makes sense to do the opposite of what they are doing.

Do your own strategic marketing, it will set you apart.

Your future clients will notice that you are a unique business with different ideas.

What ideas do you have to out-market your competitors?

• Call your competitor on the telephone and pose as a prospective client.
• Talk to their sales staff
• Ask the right questions and most salespeople will tell you exactly what you want to know about their business. Many salespeople love to talk about themselves and their business. This can help you with your research.
• Collect your competitors’ brochures, ads, and sales letters.
• Record their voice messages and their radio and TV commercials.
• Visit their booths at trade shows and go to their showrooms.
• Also, check out their Web site(s).
  Most Web sites will give you a lot of information about how the company does business with its clients. The site may even provide a list of clients, which can become a great “target list” for your own sales efforts.
  While visiting the Web sites of your competitors, request more information regarding their companies and their products/services. Then, keep an accurate record about how quickly they respond.