Top Ten Reasons To Write A Sales Letter For Each Product Part 1

Writen by Judy Cullins

Authors/publishers are great at getting their books written. Entrepreneurs know their products. But after the initial one-year honeymoon, sales slow down. To counter this make sure your ebook, product, or service you offer will keep on selling from the first day, the first year, even for life. Write a short sales letter for each product or ebook.

Whether you have a Web site or not, you can write a first class, must-buy-now sales letter. Write one for each teleclass, eBook, product, or service. I even write one for my bookcoaching services.

If you are like me and have a Web site, it is content driven. Why? Because that's why people come to any site--to get free information. You must also give them a reason to buy. Most home pages say too much about the author or the book instead of intriguing their potential buyers with a benefit-driven headline, which in turns leads them to the benefits of their books--the sales letter.

My first Web site had many fine books and kits in personal growth and book writing and marketing. Sales never went over $200 a month. To correct that, I created a new site and paid special attention to its sales language (without hype) for each teleclass, eBook, and book coaching opportunities to suit each income and need. Sales were $75 the first month, and in four months they reached $2265. The next year they went around $3000 a month.

What Every Sales Letter Needs to Pull Orders and Profits

You can write each sales letter in less than four hours the first time. As you practice, you can write them in two hours.

1. Start the Letter with a Benefit-Driven Headline.

Include these headlines throughout your sales letter. "Want a quick and easy way to quadruple your Online Income in Four Months?

If you answered, "yes" to yourself, the headline succeeds, because you will keep reading. If you said "No, I don't believe this, " but I'm curious where this is going," the headline still succeeds. You win when your headline seduces your potential customer to read on in your sales letter to discover your product[']s benefits and features, some fine testimonials, and finally to click "buy now" which takes them to the order page.

2. List the Top Five Benefits of your Product or Service in bullet form.

To define your top benefits start with a list of problems your client or customer wants solutions for. Each specific problem you answer can be labeled a benefit. If you are not rock sure of who your audience is, your sales copy dribbles away and doesn't meet its target. Keep redefining your audience and know as much about them as you can.

Remember that one benefit is the top undeniable benefit—usually more money easier, more clients faster, more profits from Web sales, better relationships, and health.

If you have more than five benefits collected in a list, sprinkle the rest throughout your copy. How will your book make someone's life easier, richer in time or money, help their personal growth, provide additional income, entertain them? How will your product or service make them a better business person, more attractive, feel better, avoid catastrophe, sickness, or surgery?

3. Address your Potential Buyer's Resistances.

Remember to tell a background story of where they are NOW so they will emotionally connect with your solutions (the product or service). Let's say they want to write an eBook or print book to make themselves the "expert," make life-long passive income, or share their unique message.

Many people don't write a book because they doubt it will sell well enough for all the effort, it may not be significant enough, it will take too long, cost too much money, and they really aren't writers. One, by one, your sales letter addresses their concerns and shows these potential buyers how they can become an excellent author and make their books more saleable, while building their profits.

4. Sprinkle Testimonials Throughout your Sales Letter.

Potential buyers who visit your site or another one that sells your products are more pulled to buy when they think other people have already. If other people are happy with your product or service, they will be too.

Include testimonials from experts in your field, celebrities, man/woman on the street, and other people who have profited from your advice. Learn how to approach influential contacts through email friendly notes and requests. Ask them to look at and give their opinion on your table of contents, one chapter, and your back cover or sales letter information

Make it easy to buy. Add a few sample phrases and benefits they can use to save these busy people time.They want to help, but consider it's difficult to create testimonials, or it will take them away from their priorities.

Give as you receive. Give that person something of value. Study their Web site or read their ezine, and send them a short helpful tip or joke.

5. Offer your potential clients three or four chances to buy.

They may have already decided to buy before coming to your sales letter, so offer a "Click Here," "Buy Now" near the top of the letter. Offer more buying opportunities along the way after a list of benefits, what's in this book (features),and testimonials.

Without a sales letter to guide your potential buyers on your Web site, you leave them bored, uninspired, without enough information to make that decision to buy. Your Web site and ezine must entertain, inform, and give enough benefits to convince your readers to order your book.

For all email promotion campaigns, without a short or long sales letter for each product, your unique, useful and inspiring information will not get read, people won't know you as the expert, and you won't make the sales you want.

Judy Cullins 2004 All Rights Reserved.

Judy Cullins, 20-year Book and Internet Marketing Coach works with small business people who want to make a difference in people's lives, build their credibility and clients, and make a consistent life-long income. Author of 10 eBooks including "Write your eBook Fast," "How to Market your Business on the Internet," and "Create your Web Site With Marketing Pizzazz," she offers free help through her 2 monthly ezines, "The Book Coach Says..." and "Business Tip of the Month" at http://www.bookcoaching.com/opt-in.shtml and over 155 free articles. Email her at mailto:Judy@bookcoaching.com.

medical health hospital

Top 7 Reasons Why Women Business Leaders Are Needed

Writen by Brian Kirk

That's what they say…but business is being done a new way. Massive technological connectivity and access to tidal waves of information is causing a shift in society, workers attitudes and how business is done.

Rapid changes in technology are causing disruption in the way corporations do business. Communication is now digital. Products are now digital. Marketing and delivery of product and services must be done in a different way.

Added to that, the evolution of global business environments has significantly increased competition and stress on the traditional corporation.

One other important shift is that now the "knowledge worker" (skilled and experienced) is now becoming the most valuable asset of the corporation versus capital equipment and they are leaving corporations by the thousands.

So what is a corporation to do? Find and retain the best people.

I believe a new, better corporate structure is evolving and it will take women of ability paired with men of ability to make it the best and most profitable business. However, few women make it to the top management positions.

This is where many women's development programs have failed. They simply addressed the soft skills of mindset and confidence for women.

The truth is that successful business is led by people of experience with specific business skills AND the right mindset.

This is why we must develop women managers further through learning experiences, coaching and training that insure the results a corporation needs to obtain highly skilled women leaders.

Here are some reasons why we need more women as leaders in business:

1. Women, on average, are terrific communicators and tend to be better at it than men. It's the information age and it's highly competitive. This means companies will need more skilled communicators involved in all aspects of business where good, clear communication is critical to generate revenue, control expense, manage top talent and build a loyal customer base.
2. Global business will require expanding business networks. Women are natural networkers.
3. Diverse viewpoints can result in better, more creative solutions to business issues. Both women and men are needed to address business issues effectively.
4. Keeping a talented knowledge worker will require relationship strategies. Women instinctively care about building relationships which is why they tend to gravitate toward jobs where building relationships is a major component such as Marketing or HR.
5. Increased competition will require the resources of creative thinkers to develop new products and services that meet the needs and desires of the marketplace. The talent pool of creative leaders is doubled when more women leaders are available.
6. Rapid change in technologies requires more flexibility. Women have extensive multi-tasking abilities as evidenced by women who manage business and families at the same time.
7. Half of the workers available today are women. Women in leadership roles can act as mentors to develop other potential women leaders just as executive men have done for years.

With all this said, women are still not reaching top levels in management. There are several reasons for this.

Part of the reason is societal in that women were often not included in business conversations as they were growing up so they did not have the opportunity to learn. Part is that the corporate structure was invented by men for the way men think and work. Part is that women are still the primary managers of the family and cannot always dedicate all their time to the company.

In a recent survey conducted by Womencorp, there were some striking differences between what men believed and what women believed about the "why" women are not succeeding as corporate business leaders.

Of the female respondents, 68.3% believe that lack of flexible options for work is holding women back. 51.7% believe that lack of confidence is also a contributing factor. 45% believe that women aren't given a chance because men stick together.

This was what one woman had to say about that subject: "This is a very complex issue. What I have found, after seven years at {a major corporation}, is that men seem to internally denigrate qualified technical women (perhaps because of jealousy). They do form cliques and do not wish to 'include' women in their cliques. They are group-oriented, no doubt. They will hang with other guys, just because they are guys. There are individual males who communicate well with women, but they are few. Despite years of emphasis on including women, promoting women, and hiring women, I feel that the disparity of women in the business world is growing, not shrinking. Still, both men and women do not seem to 'get it'. I wish I had something more positive and constructive to give, but I do not."

On the other hand, 53.7% of men believe that lack of flexible options is holding women back. 32.3% said they feel the glass ceiling is still firmly in place and just 17.9% believe that women lack confidence.

Perhaps men don't realize women lack confidence, whereas women know how they feel. This mindset can be altered with a proper development program for both women managers and men who manage women.

This comment from one male participant is noteworthy: "Capable women are often unfairly fast tracked early in their career to positions that may demand experience to be successful over a prolonged period. Found wanting, they are then niched in dead-end executive roles. Rather like moving a ball player to the majors too quickly because of their native talent. Their "rookie" mistakes occur with too much exposure and can prove fatal."

But what difference does it make as to why few women have achieved top leadership roles in business? The reason to know why is because we can then use this information to develop solutions.

The bottom line is that more women need to be in leadership roles for many reasons including the 7 listed above. The challenge is to find new ways to enable them to succeed at top levels.

For both men and women respondents, they seem to feel that coaching, mentoring and multi-day workshops are quite important to help develop women leaders to their fullest potential.

The Womencorp Team agrees and is working to make a difference for women in business. Would you like to help? Just take a moment to fill in this quick 30 second survey:

For Women
For Men

CONTACT INFORMATION:
Brian Kirk
Womencorp
(205) 835-8167
http://www.womencorp.org

7 Steps Toward A Better Website

Writen by Matthew Keegan

Creating a website is one thing, making it better is another. Matt shares 7 steps to help you gain a better website.

1. Update your content. Stale content will certainly drive your regular visitors away. Add fresh content at least twice a week; couple relevant feed with ezine articles if you are not particularly adept at writing.

2. Swap out pictures. Freshen your photographs regularly. Add new pictures, toss old ones that are no longer relevant.

3. Overhaul your site. No, you need not gut your site, instead create a new template and move your current information over. Do this at least once per year.

4. Add a forum. If your site is geared toward one particular topic, consider adding a forum to generate additional traffic. Count the cost as forums can be real time eater.

5. Add a storefront. OS Commerce offers a free, easy to use storefront. Couple it with Paypal, hire a dropshipper, and you are ready to go.

6. Go after advertisers. Besides the usual PPC schemes, sell banner advertising space to companies. Make sure the ads are relevant to your visitors.

7. Run contests. Give something away on a regular basis and your guests will know that you have a "happening" site.

By being proactive with your site, you will gain a regular supply of new visitors, retain your regulars, and make some money in the process. Keep your site interesing, informative, and fun; grow what you own or risk getting beat out by someone much more motivated than you.

Matt regularly refreshens his 15+ sites and he constantly is looking for ways to generate new traffic. Samples of two of his sites are here:

http://www.integrityflightcrews.com

http://www.aviationemploymentboard.net

The 7 Costly Stalling Tactics Of Sales Professionals

Writen by Tammy Stanley

If it were easy to find prospects and get them to buy, there would be no need for sales professionals; thus, it stands to reason that the primary need for sales people within a company is to contact prospects and convert them into clients. The problem? Most sales professionals fear making sales calls, which ultimately leads to several or all of seven costly stalling methods.

There are plenty of programs designed to assist sales professionals overcome their sales call anxiety with better sales approaches and scripts, but few get to the heart of the problem — showing how to get past a little inner critic that continually tricks one into any of the following stalling tactics:

1. Waiting for the right time to call
Sales professionals constantly find reasons why now isn't a good time to call — it's too early in the morning, it's too close to lunch, it's too close to closing time, it's the day before a holiday, it's a holiday, it's the day after a holiday. They even convince themselves that there's no use calling prospects, when it's 20-30 minutes before an event or meeting. They justify that they'll just get into the swing of things, when it will be time to go.

2. Preparing the perfect script
It's hard to argue that carefully chosen words don't stand a better chance than "shooting from the hip." However, too often sales professionals spend their time crafting and re-crafting a script, instead of using their telephone to connect with and listen to their prospects, as a means to develop the most effective script.

3. Organizing
Sales professionals are often found cleaning their desks, devising the perfect calling regimen, and arranging a superb filing system, convincing themselves that they need to be really organized to handle all the new business that prospecting will generate. Instead of using their prime time to make prospecting calls, they spend time getting ready to make prospecting calls.

4. Becoming a training junkie
"The trained will always do more than the untrained" is a great philosophy to hide behind, when one feels too uncomfortable to make prospecting calls. In lieu of making prospecting calls, sales professionals attend the newest sales seminar or read the latest sales book on prospecting, with the hope of discovering how to end the sales call anxiety they feel.

5. Finding more important things to do
Sales professionals almost always justify doing any other task before making those prospecting calls — checking email, brainstorming with coworkers, keeping in touch with current customers, attending networking meetings, etc.

6. Waiting for the prospect to call back
If it only required one call to get prospects calling back to become clients, many companies wouldn't bother hiring a sales force. Waiting for a prospect to call back, after leaving a message or two is simply an excuse not to call, which only prevents the selling process from advancing.

7. Affirming that everyone hates pushy sales people
Many sales professionals will do anything to avoid being considered just another pushy sales person, even if it means never picking up the telephone to call a prospect. In the attempt to escape being "pushy," they actually avoid making calls at all.

Making any of the above common stalling mistakes simply means that one experiences what most sales professionals experience. The best way to break free of these costly stalling mistakes is to stop waiting for a magic panacea to end all sales call anxiety.

Placing focus on sales call anxiety only increases it. Almost all sales professionals relate to the little inner critic that nags at them to go get a cup of coffee before making that first prospecting call, or to get better prepared by first attending a sales seminar. They know what it feels like to be busy all day long but never doing what they originally set out to do.

The key is to move the focus from call reluctance to call willingness. Instead of mindlessly obeying the inner critic, sales professionals must learn to counteract it. Then the process to move from call reluctance to call willingness is easier than one thinks.

Tammy Stanley, founder of Carpe Phonum, shows how to seize the phone even without courage. Learn her 5 steps to move from call reluctance to call willingness, available free at http://www.carpephonum.com

Top 7 Reasons You Should Back Up Your Data Online

Writen by Sol Spencer

How much is your data worth to you? In this modern electronic-age we rely more than ever on our computers to supply us with the information we need. Chances are every piece of data you might ever rely on to make an important decision has been reduced to a digital format and resides somewhere on your computer's hard drive. Improved functionality and productivity are the benefits, however, on the flipside, one wrong click, one nasty virus, one untimely power surge or unhappy employee and that data is gone forever!

Online backups (also called offsite or remote backups) are a great solution for almost any small business or individual computer user.

1. The Statistics say you should.

a. Among the companies that experience data loss, 50% never re-open and 90% are out of business within two years.

b. 20MB of accounting data takes 21 days and costs $19,000 to reproduce.

c. Causes of data loss – 42% Hardware Failure, 30% Human Error, 13% Software Corruption, 7% Computer Viruses, 5% Theft.

2. Easy. Online backups are a simple way to protect your data. Online backup services provide the software application, server space and customer service in one turnkey solution. There are no additional software applications or equipment specifications to learn. The installation and set-up is quick and painless. Your backups can be scheduled to run automatically at any time you desire. There is no media, tapes or hardware to deal with.

3. Security. Believe it or not, online backups are generally more secure than in-house backup solutions. If your computers or data are affected by natural disaster, power failure/surges, viruses, vandalism, theft, human error, etc., your in-house backup will suffer the same consequences. Another unfortunate thing about tape backups is that they are not generally encrypted, and not very secure. Almost anyone can read them and gain access to your clients, sales, prospects, notes, billing records, payroll, tax info, and anything else on your computer.

Online backups encrypt (up to 448-bit) your data before transferring it to the remote server. Most backup servers are housed in secure locations with security guards, generators and the latest state-of-the-art security technology.

4. Inexpensive. Online backups give you more "bang for the buck." Setting up a traditional data protection plan requires software, hardware, media and the man-hours necessary to set-up and protect your data on a daily basis. Online backups combine all of these functions in one easy service for a low monthly or annual fee.

The cost? If you or your staff spends as little as 10 minutes per day running a tape backup or burning a CD, figure just the cost of labor at about $100 per month. Add on top of that, the cost of CDs, or tapes and you're spending 4 or 5 times the cost of the average online backup fee, which requires "no time" daily once your initial setup is done. You can start an online backup account for as little at $5 - $15 per month.

5. Quick File Restores. In the event you need to restore your lost data, you simply select the applicable files or volumes and with a click of the mouse all of your data is transferred to its original location. Your data is ALWAYS available 24 hours a day – 7 days a week. You can recover a single file or all of your files in a matter of minutes.

6. Peace of Mind. Knowing that your data is safe, secure and always available is enough reason to check out an online backup solution.

7. The Alternatives. You can't afford the alternatives! Computer users spend millions of dollars annually to recover lost data. The data recovery industry is HUGE and continues to grow. Assuming that your data is even recoverable - expect it to be an expensive and time consuming ordeal. Obviously, it is best to be prepared in the first place.

Sol Spencer helps computer users have the peace of mind that only a secure, online backup can provide. What would you do if you lost all of your data today? With Safe Harbor Data, you can restore your entire computer with one download! Amazingly affordable and effective, Safe Harbor protects your data with state-of-the-art encryption. Whether you run an online business, work from home, use your computer for online banking, school or more, your data isn't safe until it is backed up and stored in a safe place away from your home or office. Get the peace of mind that comes with secure, online backup today for only pennies each day. http://www.safeharbordata.com