MONEY- MAKING MONTHLY
Volume III Number 1 | January 2015 | $97
THE Monthly Magazine For Sharp Entrepreneurs
INNOVATE By Dan Kennedy
HOW TO CREATE YOUR OWN IDEAL SELF By Brian Tracy
EXPERT INTERVIEW
“The Entrepreneur’s Best Friend”
MARISSA BRASSFIELD
ABOUT STEVE | JANUARY 2015
About the Publisher, Steve Sipress
If you want to grow your business slowly – or just maintain it as is, you’ll have to do that all on your own. But if you want dramatic growth in your income and lifestyle, then Steve’s out-of-the-box and time-tested strategies and tactics could be the keys to your dreams. You can benefit from Steve’s coaching experience and expertise to revolutionize your business – yes, even in this challenging economy – at one of the many in-person entrepreneur events he hosts, OR from the comfort of your own home anywhere in the world. You can also learn basic and advanced direct response marketing strategies and tactics from 150+ hours of video instruction, plus use any or all of Steve’s multi-million-dollar, proven “done-for-you” marketing materials at SSSMarketingUniversity.com. That website has been called The Single Most Powerful Client Attraction Program Available Anywhere, and you could be using it to skyrocket your income anytime you want, 24/7, along with hundreds of other sharp, successful business leaders. If you’re just starting up your new business, you’ll want to take advantage of all of Steve’s training, guidance and resources at NewBusinessAcademy. org. Steve is a successful and award-winning serial entrepreneur, who has created and built nearly a dozen successful companies of his own, and he can help you do the same – more quickly and easily than you’ve ever imagined. In fact, you can immediately use plenty of his simple and powerful strategies and tactics that work especially well in this current frustrating economy. You can discover the basics of Steve’s powerful “The WOW! Strategy™: How To Solve All Of Your Marketing Problems” by watching a short video at www.SteveSipress.com. Steve is a celebrated author, speaker and business coach who has established profitable businesses and helped thousands of ambitious and aggressive business owners, entrepreneurs, executives and sales professionals all around the world. He has written numerous newsletters and articles on sales and marketing for a wide range of publications and has appeared on radio and television, helping millions of people along the way. For over five years, Steve was the #1 “Dan Kennedy Certified No B.S. Business Advisor,” and was Runner-Up out of 25,000 members for 2010 GKIC Marketer Of The Year. If you want the very best, hard-hitting, no-nonsense, caring advice and help you can get, then “Straight-Talk Steve” could be exactly what you and your business need most. Whether you’re a current or future business superstar, Steve can help you get exactly where you want to go as quickly, easily and powerfully as YOU want – with massive results both short-term and long-term.
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www.SteveSipress.com www.SSSMarketingUniversity.com
www.NewBusinessAcademy.org
www.Facebook .com/SmallBizHelp
www.Twitter.com/SteveSipress
“An Incredible Experience!” "When we first started, I was terribly in debt and we were just a few months away from bankruptcy. We started seeing a boost right away in our business, we took what Steve's given me and we just started implementing and implementing, and it's just totally transformed my business. Steve has helped me with my laser focus, he helps me implement, he's taken my business to a whole new level. We went from a half a million dollars to a million dollars in two years. It's just an incredible experience to know that where you think you're just dead and things are horrible, to now anything is possible. I can see taking this to a whole new three or four types of businesses -- it's going to be huge. Steve is all business, he is an unbelievably smart, brilliant man. I can't say enough about him. Everything he's told me, I've made so much money it doesn't matter what it costs. They don't make enough money in this world that somebody could pay me so I would stop listening to Steve. Steve is the exact reason why I have a retirement fund now. It's probably illegal how much fun I'm having!"
Jon Bockman
Owner, Bockman's Auto Care Sycamore, Illinois
HOW TO CREATE YOUR OWN IDEAL SELF | JANUARY 2015
HOW TO CREATE YOUR OWN IDEAL SELF
By Brian Tracy
What is your ideal vision of the very best person you could possibly become? How would you behave each day if you were already that person? Asking yourself these questions and then living your life consistent with the answers is the first step to creating yourself in your ideal image. Your self-concept is made up of three parts, each of which affects each of the others. Understanding these three parts enables you to put your hands on the keyboard of your own mental computer. When you learn to take charge of the development of a new and positive self-concept of selling, you can then control your sales destiny for the rest of your career. Determine Your Direction The first part of the self-concept is the “self-ideal.” Your self-ideal largely determines the direction in which you are going with your life. It guides the growth and evolution of your character and personality. Your self-ideal is a combination of all of the qualities and attributes of other people that you most admire. Your selfideal is a description of the person you would very much like to be if you could embody the qualities that you most aspire to.
Your Future is Unlimited Perhaps the most important thing for you to realize is that whatever anyone else has done or become, you can do or become as well. Improvements in your self-ideal begin in your imagination, and in your imagination, there are no limits except the ones that you accept. Action Exercises Here are two things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action… First, dream big dreams. Set big, exciting, challenging goals and ideals for yourself in every part of your life. Allow yourself to imagine a wonderful life ahead. Second, think about how you would act if you were an outstanding person in every way. Then, practice being this person, as though you were acting a role in a play. You’ll immediately notice a difference in your behavior.
Strive Toward Excellence Throughout your life, you have seen and read about the qualities of courage, confidence, compassion, love, fortitude, perseverance, patience, forgiveness and integrity. Over time, these qualities have instilled in you an ideal to which you aspire. You might not always live up to the very best that you know, but you are constantly striving to be a better person in light of those qualities that you value so highly. In fact, everything that you do on a day-to-day basis is affected by you comparing your activities with these ideal qualities and striving to behave consistently with them. Clarity is Essential Successful salespeople have very clear ideals for themselves and their careers. Unsuccessful salespeople have fuzzy ideals. Successful salespeople are very clear about being excellent in every part of their work and their personal lives. Unsuccessful sales people don’t give the subject very much thought. One of the primary characteristics of successful men and women in every walk of life is that they have very clearly defined ideals and they are very aware of whether or not their current behaviors are consistent with their idealized behaviors. Set Challenging Goals Part of your ideals are your goals. As you set higher and more challenging goals, your self-ideal improves and crystallizes. When you set goals for the kind of person you want to be and the kind of life you want to live, your self-ideal rises and becomes a greater guiding and motivating force in your life.
About Brian Tracy Brian Tracy has consulted for more than 1,000 companies and addressed more than 5,000,000 people in 5,000 talks and seminars throughout the US, Canada and 55 other countries worldwide. As a Keynote speaker and seminar leader, he addresses more than 250,000 people each year. He has studied, researched, written and spoken for 30 years in the fields of economics, history, business, philosophy and psychology. He is the top selling author of over 45 books that have been translated into dozens of languages. He has traveled and worked in over 80 countries on six continents, and speaks four languages. Brian is happily married and has four children. He is active in community and national affairs, and is the President of three companies headquartered in Solana Beach, California. Get your free copy of Brian’s “Goals! How To Get Everything You Want – Faster Than You Ever Thought Possible” by going to: www.BrianTracyFreeReport.com Volume III Number 1 | Pg 1
EMAIL SUBJECT LINES: 7 TEMPLATES TO GET YOUR EMAILS OPENED | JANUARY 2015
EMAIL SUBJECT LINES 7 TEMPLATES TO GET YOUR EMAILS OPENED By Heather Seitz
and curiosity and genuinely useful content. What offers value will depend upon what your subscribers are interested in. That said, if your subject line uses curiosity, a benefit, or a combination of both, you should get a good open rate.
If you want to assure your next email campaign succeeds, you definitely want to focus on writing irresistible email subject lines. As you probably already know, your email subject lines can make or break your campaign. It won’t matter how strong your body copy is or how great compelling your offer if your subject line doesn’t persuade your subscriber to open your email in the first place. So how do you write killer email subject lines? It’s easier than you may think once you have a reliable bag of tricks to draw upon. However, beware that many popular subject line writing strategies are dead wrong and can backfire badly. Before we go through the 7 Proven Ways To Create Email Subject Lines, let’s cover the essentials of effective email marketing to help dispel the myths. It’s important to always remember that on the other end of your send button is a person, not just a “subscriber” or a wallet. That person mostly likely is overwhelmed with personal and work email every day. If they subscribed to your list, then it is safe to assume they are also opting in to other lists, including those of your competitors. That they are an email subscriber suggests that they are the kind of person who is looking for solutions and helpful resources. This also underscores the first rule of email marketing: offer value. Unfortunately, too many marketers write email subject lines that are full of hype, or even deceptive, in a vain effort to get attention at all costs. While it is possible to trick someone into opening emails, if there is no real value inside then eventually subscribers tune out or unsubscribe. What offers value? Many things, including: Entertainment. A good deal. Helpful answers. A playful dance between suspense
Here are 7 Email Subject Line Templates that you can use to spark your imagination 1. How to [insert anything your target audience would want to know]. People always want to know how to do things that get them closer to what they want. If your list is about weight loss, a “How to…” related to that benefit will get subscribers to open. The more specific the “How to,” or the more difficult the task, or the more immediate the reward, the greater the interest in your email. For example, “How to lose belly fat in time for your wedding” is stronger than the generic “How to lose weight.” The “How to” has to have perceived value to be effective. 2. Don’t let [this] happen to you. This is a pure curiosity subject line. People want to avoid bad things, and will have to open the email to learn what it is all about. This subject line is an effective intro to a story about something bad that happened and how to avoid it. The only danger with a blind subject line is it will annoy your subscriber if you fail to satisfy the curiosity. The bad thing must be something your subscriber would care enough about to want to avoid, and the tip to avoid the bad thing must be credible. Of course, if your product or service helps people to avoid the bad thing, this can be a good framework for a sales promotion. However, definitely try to tell the story of what your subscriber should avoid and how to do it before pitching the product, for maximum perceived value and congruence. 3. Special offer for this weekend only. A good special offer is a tried and true sales promotion tactic. This can be an effective subject line when used in moderation. As you can imagine, if you have a special offer every day, then, by definition, the offer is no longer special, right? Also, if you have these deals too frequently, you can condition your subscribers to wait to buy
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EMAIL SUBJECT LINES: 7 TEMPLATES TO GET YOUR EMAILS OPENED | JANUARY 2015
from you only when you have sales, thereby reducing your potential revenue. The special offer is a simple and reliable tool in your arsenal of subject lines, if you keep it special. 4. Why [X] is better than [Y]. People like to hear strong opinions that help them make better-informed decisions. If you think the Paleo Diet is better than eating Vegan, tell your readers why. If you take a strong position on controversial topics or skewer sacred cows, then you’ll attract a lot of attention. You may, of course, offend some subscribers who disagree with you, but if done with respect and sincerity and some solid reasoning, the subscribers who stay with you will be all the more loyal and eager to open your emails. If anything, it is more dangerous to the health of your conversions if you never express strong opinions, because your message will blend into the background while more assertive voices stand out. 5. The best time to [insert benefit]. If you have a newsletter about gardening, and you send out a tip about the best time to plant tomatoes so that they grow big and plump, then your subscribers will open your email. Or if you have a dating newsletter, a tip on the best time to ask out someone to be sure of getting “yes” would be another way to use the timing angle in a subject line. Or “The best time to eat a brownie if you want to lose weight quickly.” That last example adds some extra curiosity by contradicting the expectation that eating brownies can only cause weight gain. Of course, it’s important to make sure that any curiosity you generate can be satisfied, so there had better be a way to lose weight eating brownies if you put it in the subject line. Curiosity without any real value is just hype. 6. Where to find [X]. As with the “Best time”subject line, everyone likes to know the best place to find deals, the best quality, or the best selection or the best place to find something rare. Of course, the best place may be your own products or services. If you are using this as a promotional angle, consider having the tip be genuine, unbiased news, and then have your product be a desirable complimentary purchase. For example, if you have an exercise program, you could let your subscribers know the best place to find the equipment they’ll need to follow your plan. You could use this for an affiliate promotion; however, you’ll want to disclose any compensation to avoid the perception that your definition of “best” is one where you make a profit. 7. I need your help. People like to feel like they are good and helpful. You can ask your subscribers to help you in many ways, such as giving you their opinion, which could help you develop better products or services. You could help raise awareness for a cause or charity. Doing so can help make a difference and also build good will with your subscribers.
It’s a good idea to keep the request for help within a range of things that would build good will and avoid seeming opportunistic. For example, if your pitch is that you need help to raise money to pay for your daughter’s college, then make sure that the offer is irresistible and heavily in your subscriber’s favor. Whereas a pitch begging for sales because marketing is hard and you need money will win little sympathy and a lot of scorn, as you can probably imagine. Those seven email subject lines can provide you with a wide range of possibilities and hopefully spark your own imagination. Again, the key to a good subject line is to combine curiosity and a benefit and then deliver in the body of the email. That will keep your future email subject lines interesting to your subscribers and get your emails opened first.
About Heather Seitz Heather Seitz started her career online back in 1999 during the Dot Com boom and worked at a number of startups prior to starting her own digital marketing company. She has sent millions of email messages and has learned what works and what doesn’t. Heather has built a highly successful email marketing and deliverability company, and works with some of the top marketers in the world on a daily basis. She has helped develop campaigns across a variety of industries and campaign types, such as marketing sales funnels, re-engagement campaigns, affiliate promotions, product launches, and more… With over 14 years in digital marketing, and email specifically, Heather is able to help take your email campaigns to the next level – AND get your messages to your subscribers’ inboxes! Sign up for the EmailDelivered Pulse newsletter for articles, tips, and recommended resources related to email marketing and email deliverability at: www.EmailDelivered.com Volume III Number 1 | Pg 3
EXPERT INTERVIEW WITH MARISSA BRASSFIELD | JANUARY 2015
EXPERT INTERVIEW
MARISSA BRASSFIELD
THE ENTREPRENEUR’S BEST FRIEND Steve Sipress: Marissa Brassfield, this is so exciting for me to have you on the phone, and to even have you taking this time out of your day, because I know that every second of your day, you are ridiculously efficiently getting a ton done. Thanks for being here. Marissa Brassfield:
It’s my pleasure, Steve. Thank you.
Steve: I want to get right into it with a question that… Everyone knows who knows anything about you that you are the right-hand person, the behind-the-scenes – in other words, as we all know – the person who actually does everything for Peter Diamandis, and really makes him tick. That is one of the biggest-thinking, big mind thought leaders that all of us look to in the whole world.
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THE ENTREPRENEUR’S BEST FRIEND | JANUARY 2015
I love the fact that Peter calls you his “A.I.” – his Artificial Intelligence system – because that’s just Peter talking right there. I wanted to start out by… Can you tell me, what’s the difference between an A.I. – an Artificial Intelligence – and just a run-of-the-mill personal assistant? Marissa: Sure. My favorite example of this is if you’ve ever seen Iron Man with Tony Stark and J.A.R.V.I.S., which is his computerized artificial intelligence system. The idea is, as Tony Stark is kind of going through his day, the J.A.R.V.I.S. A.I. system is intelligently kind of listening in the background, making entrances, pulling things together behind the scenes so that it feels really seamless and natural. What that looks like with Peter and I is, in a traditional, let’s call it assistant or project manager role, the entrepreneur would delegate out a project or task. Then the assistant gets it, they do it, and that’s it. It’s inherently sort of reactive, because it depends on the entrepreneur saying something to initiate action on the part of the assistant. With an A.I., it’s proactive rather than reactive. Before I kind of know from intuition and from working with Peter for the last couple of years, I know the kinds of questions he’s going to ask. I can anticipate the concerns that he’ll have, the big questions that I’ll need to look up to really make whatever project we’re working on successful. Before he’ll ask, I’ll just sort of do as much research as I can behind the scenes, and present that, and it really supercharges almost every interaction we have. I’ll kind of proactively think through what he might want or what he might ask, gather as much as I can, and then for what I can’t, there are some things that I just don’t know the nuances of some of Peter’s professional relationships, so sometimes I’ll pre-draft an email for him to send out, sometimes I’ll just ask three or four really targeted specific questions that are meant to accelerate action. One other thing: Every single interaction I have with Peter is meant to accelerate progress and catalyze movements, versus contextual questions or things that I might be able to look up myself. For the results, I am very, very reliant on effective email databases, because I’ll look back in time, and that’s how I fulfill my needs for additional context sometimes. That’s the short answer. Steve: As if I wasn’t already, I’m now extremely jealous of Peter, because I’m a pure entrepreneur that people would say ADD, which society thinks is a deficit or a disorder or something. The pure trait, the entrepreneur being the starter. I’m a pure starter – not a finisher, and I don’t even appreciate having to explain to somebody how to do something. I love the fact that somebody can anticipate and be more than, like you said, a project manager who waits for me to tell
them step one, two, three, or “This is exactly what I want.” I think every entrepreneur probably needs it, and if they knew it was around, they would probably want it. How did you get started with this whole thing? Marissa: With Peter, it’s funny. I had never really worked in any of the roles that I currently work in. My background, I managed restaurants right out of college, so it was always on my feet and interfacing with our guests, some of whom are very high profile. Managing… I managed 35 servers. So there were schedules, and the nuances of budgets, and all these little administrative things that had nothing to do seemingly with running a high-end restaurant, but actually had everything to do with its success. Then I have an editorial background. I was in journalism at the University of Pennsylvania. I thought for sure I would be a food writer. I thought for sure that would be my career. Then I was just absolutely allured with online, and that was 2006. Blogging was getting really big, and I just immersed myself in all of these emerging technologies. At that time, stuff like Blogger, that was really revolutionary, and WordPress and all that. I just tried to learn every single thing I could. Then I ended up working for another startup called TrendHunter. com. It’s the world’s largest trend-spotting site. If you wanted to know what the future of technology would be, or fashion, that’s where you would go for your trend reports. It was really there that I started to learn more about the entrepreneurial mindset, because there was only three or four of us, and it was this whole operation. It was 40 million views a month, and just keeping the daily issues going. I started really hacking my own personal workflows, partly out of sanity, and then a desire to create sanity in my life. Then partly because I wanted to figure out the most effective ways that I could do everything in my day. Whether it was writing an article or editing an article, those were two of my main job responsibilities at that point. I really just studied it. I had a little timer, and I would time myself writing and editing, and I broke down every single thing. As a result, my personal record I think was 46 articles in a day, and then 232 articles edited in a day. Those were two different days, of course. Steve: Hang on just a second here. I have to interrupt you now for a second. I have listeners and readers that are going to be showering my inbox with the fact of what a typo just came out and printed it in the magazine that said you wrote 46 articles in a single day. Is this where like you went to Alaska where the sun doesn’t set for six months, and you call that a day?
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EXPERT INTERVIEW WITH MARISSA BRASSFIELD | JANUARY 2015
Marissa: No, it was like a 10-hour day. A 10-hour day. I had to set benchmarks, and I had to set restrictions because of course I could have worked for 16 hours and crushed the goal that way, but then that’s no fun. Steve: No, of course not. Of course not. Who would be so slow an implementer, to take 16 hours to write 46 articles? Marissa: You know what’s funny? Right out of school, and as everybody remembers about your first job, you’re broke, you’re just wanting to make more money, and a powerful incentive was I was paid per article. So I thought, “Well, okay. I can double my income if I do this. I can triple my income if I do this.” Then I kind of reverse engineered how to do it. It involved… Of course I wouldn’t necessarily do this now for the introspective long-form stuff, but in terms of formulate, getting it done. In Tokyo, they’re wearing these types of shoes or whatever. It was come up with snazzy titles, and you had to collect links, you had to collect some photos, and you can kind of batch process a lot of that stuff. Then the editing is tripping up your programs to read sentences.
Even the word, “the:” If it’s t-e-h, our brains are just wired to reassemble that information in the correct order, even if on the page it actually appears incorrectly. Our brains are so good at that, and helping us put together information. If you beat that, and you find a way to turn that off for yourself, it’s surprisingly easy to recognize incorrect patterns in your writing, and edit faster. That’s a whole other thing. Steve: It is. Like I said, everyone is now going to recognize the incorrect number when I said you wrote 46 articles in a day. I still can’t get over that one. 46 articles is basically a book. At least, if not two. How many of my readers and listeners are sitting there going, “I want to start blogging, but if I blog once a week for a year, that’s 52 blog posts.” You could write all of those in 10 hours. Or “I really want to write my book.” Yeah, that’s 10 hours at the most, I know, for you. You glossed over it real quickly: “Oh yeah, sure. That’s what I do.” Is there any way other than just… Because you’ve got to be… Unless Peter is… I know Peter, so he’s not the craziest person on earth. You’re unhireable. Other than having you at our side as an entrepreneur, is there any chance in the world we can go about finding somebody like you? Marissa: Yes. We’re hiding all over the world. The kicker is to find… and you probably already have an A.I. on your team, and the secret is pretty much in how you motivate and incentivize improvement. A really key thing that I just discovered naturally on my own was… I’ve been an athlete my whole life. “Gamification” is, if you have someone on your team who is competitive… If you’re familiar with Clifton and Gallup’s “StrengthsFinder,” my top three fields are Maximizer (so I’m always inclined to make everything better), Achiever (so I’m always personally incentivized to do personally well and kick butt at everything that I do), and then the third one is Relater (so I can relate to and understand other concerns). The fourth one is Individualization, and then Strategic is my fifth one. StrengthsFinders are all different. The key there is, I’m really motivated by figuring out a way that I can become the best at something. For me, that’s gamification. The way that I do it (and anybody can do it), I would take a whiteboard or a piece of paper, and I would write down on the far left column, I would make three or four columns, and I would write down the task. Whatever task it was – writing an article. I would write down how long it usually takes me to do it. Maybe at the time, it was 15 minutes or so, and then I would make a little wager for myself like, “Okay, how much time do I think that I can get this task done in?” Then I would set a little reward for
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THE ENTREPRENEUR’S BEST FRIEND | JANUARY 2015
myself, whatever that would be. Sometimes it was as simple as, “I’m going to take a longer lunch today” or “I’m going to have a bubble bath after work.” Whatever it was, it was appealing enough that I was incentivized to really push for it.
So all of those things together, now money’s irrelevant. Because now, all day long I’m having fun, working hard on something that I believe is important, and I believe that my time is valuable, and valued by others.
One of the most powerful, powerful things I’ve ever done for my own productivity, is I took that simple little gamification sort of sheet, that little strategy, and I said, “Okay, I’m going to write down every one of my top to-do’s.” Maybe there was 8 or 9 or 10 things that I had to do. As soon as all those things are done, my workday is done. All of a sudden, I magically figured out everything was firing, and I was eloquent, and I can write effectively. Everything just falls into place when you have that “carrot” of free time.
That’s powerful. If you can create a situation like that for your high performance, and then create a compensation structure so that they are continuously incentivized to improve, not just to get better incrementally, but maybe there’s no ceiling to their bonuses if they achieve that sort of exponential growth, and then see what happens.
It kind of goes along with… You identify your high performers, and then you identify what motivates them. Dan Sullivan has a great framework for this, and it’s the Four Entrepreneurial Freedoms; Freedom Of Time, Purpose, Money and Relationships. I find that those hold true for high performers as well. For me, money is only a motivator until I’m comfortable. Then once I’m financially comfortable and I can do what I want within reason and can afford it, now I go to Time. Freedom Of Time is my biggest motivator. Do I have full control over my schedule, or 90% control over my schedule? If I’m having a particularly unfocused day where my brain is foggy (because I do have those days), do I have the freedom to say, “Okay, today is just not happening for me. I’m going to work… I’ll be twice as effective tomorrow if I take this time off and just rest.” Then Purpose; are you working on something that is personally significant? When I work with Peter, everything is personally significant because his “moon shots” are so… “Solve hunger,” and some of these big huge world problems, all of these companies are founded on the principal of the idea that we can solve all of them. Then with Abundance 360, which is my major project, I get to work with 250 entrepreneurs who are all successful, and just wanting to use their success to create significance in the world. Wow! What a cool thing! All day long, I get to talk to entrepreneurs who want to take on the world’s biggest challenges, and I get to talk with their team. So that’s fun. I have plenty of purpose and significance there. Then Relationships – Freedom Of Relationships. Does your team have the freedom to only work with “A” players? Or are they forced to interface with people who are draining their energy in their ineptitude? That’s another thing. I’m really thankful that all of my teammates are rock stars, and we work with amazing entrepreneurs. There are no opportunities for unpleasant relationships in my work day.
About Marissa Brassfield Marissa Brassfield is Ridiculously Efficient®. She’s the ultimate project manager for industry-transforming entrepreneurs – resourceful, proactive, and able to consistently deliver what’s needed ahead of schedule, under budget and above expectations. Marissa knows how to maximize entrepreneurs’ leverage and impact from the inside because she’s done it firsthand. As Peter Diamandis’ right hand and the head of his Abundance 360 entrepreneurs’ mastermind, she’s seemingly done it all, from orchestrating his book launch campaigns to filming and editing video, learning and mastering graphic design, and organizing the logistics and experience for multimillion-dollar events. In the first six months of 2014 alone, Marissa’s resourcefulness and attention to detail saved Peter more than 2x her annual salary while simultaneously saving him hours in hassle and management every week by optimizing the team’s communication. Peter describes Marissa as “a full-blown artificial intelligence system” due to her ability to manage concurrent projects, adding that “an AI like Marissa is a requirement for any bold entrepreneur.” While Marissa can’t be hired away, her coaching helps other industry-transforming entrepreneurs to unlock the best performance from their support staff. She leads the only productivity community by and for entrepreneurs’ staff at: www.RidiculouslyEfficient.com Volume III Number 1 | Pg 7
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MANNY’S BLOG | JANUARY 2015
Manny’s Blog
Manny’’’ s Guide To
Happy New Year! Welcome to 2015. Until I started researching this blog, I had forgotten that 2015 is the year in which much of the movie “Back To The Future Part 2” is set. Great Scott! Looks like the filmmakers overestimated a few things – unless YOU have self-lacing sneakers and flying cars lying around somewhere. I don’t think even Marty McFly on a hovering skateboard could keep up with the price of movie tickets nowadays. My poor, longsuffering Steve & Michele have been holding out for certain other flying devices ever since the 1989 movie came out. (“Just wait – one night in 2015 Johnny Carson will be on the Tonight Show interviewing the inventor of the flying pooper scooper!”) Did you know that the United Nations General Assembly has named 2015 the International Year of Light and the International Year of Soils? I hope Steve and Michele remember that and make LIGHT of it when they catch me digging in the SOILS of the flower bed. I expect to do lots of new things this year, but let’s not forget all the anniversaries and milestones awaiting us in 2015. For instance, January 1st marked the 30th anniversary of the debut of the VH1 cable channel. Remember the active MTV slogan, “I want my MTV”? VH1 was summed up by the more passive “Ahhh, the dog is sleeping on the remote. Guess I’ll have to watch THIS.” January 8th is the 200th anniversary of the Battle of New
Orleans. Colonel Andrew Jackson and his men don’t get enough credit. As the song by Johnny Horton goes, “In 1814 we took a little trip…” – but they didn’t even have the benefit of hanging their heads out the car window! January 20th is the 750th anniversary of the first English Parliament convening. Or is it the 750th anniversary of Prince Charles starting to groom himself for the throne? I always get those mixed up. Speaking of the Brits, January 24th marks the 50th anniversary of the death of Sir Winston Churchill. You remember Churchill’s famous 1940 speech: “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat—and, okay, these Beggin’ Strips in my pocket. By Jove, you’ve got a nose on you!” One hundred years ago on January 25th, Alexander Graham Bell placed the first transcontinental phone call. I think it was “Until somebody invents the internet, I’ll just have to vividly describe the cute mess my dog somehow got into.” January 28th marks the 100th anniversary of the U.S. Coast Guard. My pal Skeeter carries on the fine tradition of those seamen, announcing “The coast is clear!” every time a human leaves a steak on the grill unattended. January 31st marks the 75th anniversary of the delivery of the first Social Security check. No, no dogs interfered with the postal carrier’s appointed rounds. We figured “One less little old lady having to eat dog food – more for me!!!” Stay tuned for more 2015 highlights!
Manny (full name “Emanuel” or “Dog With Us”) is Steve and Michele Sipress’ crazy, rambunctious cocker spaniel. He has a weak leg (despite a mostly-successful back surgery), grey hair, is totally deaf and partially blind. But he still enjoys barking at the mailman and landscapers, pulling dead frogs out of nearby ponds and chasing after his beloved squeaker toy. He loves everyone (even the mailman and landscapers), and everyone loves him.
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INNOVATE | JANUARY 2015
INNOVATE Just the other day, I was listening to a recording of a speech by Joe Sugarman*, and Joe said, “One good path to success is to learn all the proven rules and meticulously follow them. Another path is to occasionally break all the rules, because breakthroughs come only from breaking rules.” This resonates with me; as you know, I wrote a whole book based on breaking rules. On one hand, I’m cautious about innovation; pioneers usually come home full of arrows; it’s often costly and time consuming…and I am always much more interested in “what works” than a new idea. However, as Joe said, OCCASIONALLY, or I might say, at a carefully chosen time, you have no alternative but to be the pioneer in order to move forward and in order to stand out from the crowd. It is, of course, the minority of times that you successfully innovate what you get noticed for, not the majority of times you successfully follow an already plowed path.
By Dan Kennedy
first big success with either a unique product or a distinctive way of doing business, although this breakthrough may not have come along until they had been in business for many years. Note the word “first”. I also know many companies that are able to subsequently build on that first breakthrough more conservatively, to grow and stabilize their businesses. The bottom-line, I guess, is that you’ve got to gamble. You try to gamble only when you must OR when circumstances look so favorable that it is irresistible, but you’ve got to gamble.
I think the best times to innovate are when you are absolutely convinced that the conventional wisdom; the already plowed path; the crowd - is wrong. Just as an example, when I was getting started in the speaking business, everybody seemed to operate under the policy of billing clients for fees and expenses after their engagements (anything else was viewed as impolite and unprofessional), and most speakers who sold product from the platform sort of begged the clients for permission, and often sacrificed that opportunity. Very early on, I determined that being in the banking and collections business did not serve my purposes very well at all – nor did speaking only for wages. So I insisted on a 50% fee deposit to take a date off the calendar, balance and travel expenses paid on site at the speech, and I refused dates where I could not also offer my materials. At the time, peers criticized me; told companies would never accept such terms; and were called ‘unethical’ by agents and bureaus. Today, my payment policies are the norm in the profession. Another example. At a time when every vendor in a particular niche was offering only very expensive services requiring longterm contracts, I copied their marketing method but used it to sell a substitute product at a very small price (and quickly took in a couple million dollars) – I was convinced they were idiotically leaving a lot of motivated but unsatisfied customers behind by not offering a low price option. An interesting survey of selected, successful, profitable large corporations turned up 74% that said they’d achieved their
About Dan Kennedy DAN S. KENNEDY is a serial, multimillionaire entrepreneur; highly paid and sought after marketing and business strategist; adviser to countless first-generation, from-scratch multimillionaire and 7-figure income entrepreneurs and professionals; and, in his personal practice, one of the very highest paid direct-response copywriters in America. As a speaker, he has delivered over 2,000 compensated presentations, appearing repeatedly on programs with the likes of Donald Trump, Gene Simmons (KISS), Debbi Fields (Mrs. Fields Cookies), and many other celebrity-entrepreneurs, former U.S. Presidents and other world leaders, and other leading business speakers like Zig Ziglar, Brian Tracy and Tom Hopkins, often addressing audiences of 1,000 to 10,000 and up. His popular books have been favorably recognized by Forbes, Business Week, Inc. and Entrepreneur Magazine. Check out Dan’s Elite Gold Crown Program and receive his Look Over My Shoulder Newsletter by going to: www.EliteGoldGrownProgram.com
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I help Small Business Owners who want A LOT more out of life systematically attract their ideal customers, clients or patients using The WOW! Strategy™, so they totally transform their income and lifestyle.
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Jon Bockman Sycamore, IL
“Steve is all business. He is an unbelievably smart, brilliant, brilliant man. I can't say enough about him. Steve has put probably more, I would say, thousands, and thousands, and thousands of dollars... I mean, I probably can't even put a true figure on it, because it keeps coming back, and keeps coming back, just more and more money all the time.”
“One suggestion that Steve gave me, well, without question, put $300,000 more in my bank account. And we are going to be using it forever. This is not a one-time deal. We’re going to be using this idea that Steve helped us with... and we’ll be using it until it doesn't keep working like it is. And so, the value over time could literally be way over even the $300,000 number.”
Mary Forte Bensenville, IL
Keith Lee Seattle, WA
“He's helped me learn how to market my business, and today I can say that we're more successful than we've ever been… I needed to learn how to market the business better to create more revenue, and that's what Steve has helped me with. The financial difference is considerable. We've probably close to doubled our revenues. We're on track now to do another close to $500,000 more than we did last year. So that's awesome. I do owe all of that to Steve.” Volume III Number 1 | Pg 11
BUSINESS LESSONS LEARNED FROM A HOSPITAL VISIT | JANUARY 2015
BUSINESS LESSONS LEARNED FROM A HOSPITAL VISIT By Steve Sipress My Mom had a seizure one night last month, so I flew from Chicago to New York on the first flight out the next morning to be with her in the Intensive Care Unit of her local hospital. As I spent the day at her bedside, a number of thoughts went through my head. Here are just two of them... 1. When doctors make suggestions, make no mistake that when the patient and/or his or her family agree to them, sales are consummated that often result in tens of thousands of dollars in revenue for the hospital. And yet, unlike almost all other salespeople, a d o c t o r ’s suggestions are rarely questioned or ignored. When a doctor says, “We want to keep you here for a couple of days to run some tests” (a pitch for a very big ticket sale), the patient and/ or his or her family rarely counter with statements like, “Well, I’ll have to think about it - can you write me up a detailed proposal?” or “That’s a big decision - I’m going to call around to a few other hospitals” or “What’s the lowest possible discount price I can get if I stay an extra night?” Of course not. Sounds completely silly, in fact, doesn’t it? So what makes a doctor’s suggestions so universally respected and almost unquestioningly accepted, while just about every other professional, small business owner or salesperson works
to figure out all kinds of sales strategies and tactics to use in order to convince their prospects to follow their advice? It’s because doctors are masters of authority-based selling (even though most of them don’t know it, or won’t even admit that what they do is selling). For example, when my Mom’s Multiple Sclerosis specialist first heard that she had suffered a seizure, he immediately suggested that she stop taking one of her many medications – something called “Ampyra.” At first, I was happy that he had so quickly isolated the cause of her seizure. But then I had to wonder, “How did he jump to such a conclusion so quickly?” So I did a Google search for “Ampyra.” Sure enough, the very first search result (after the company’s own website) was for a www.WebMD.com entry that contains the word “seizure” four times. It also says “You take one tablet twice a day, 12 hours apart” (which is what my Mom did for years, keeping careful track of every single time she took it). But then it also says, “Taking a higher dose or taking doses closer than 12 hours apart can increase your risk of a seizure.” What?? So if my Mom, who is 81 years old and suffers periodic memory problems (a very common issue for people with Multiple Sclerosis), ever failed to track this medication precisely and took a pill “closer than 12 hours” after the previous one, that could cause a seizure?
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BUSINESS LESSONS LEARNED FROM A HOSPITAL VISIT | JANUARY 2015
Why would she ever take such a medication (that clearly isn’t necessary, since her specialist so quickly ordered her to stop taking it)?
2. Spending a very long, stressful day there with my Mom in the Intensive Care Unit gave me a chance to reflect on a lot of great memories in my lifetime, thanks to her.
Only one reason: Because her doctor suggested she take it. Period.
My Mom played a major role in shaping who I am today, and what I do for my own businesses and those of my clients.
But as with most people, my Mom never questions the authority of her doctor. She even says she loves him, and that he tells her she’s his favorite patient.
Growing up, our household was always full of game-playing activities. My Mom was a contract bridge Life Master, and made sure that my sister and I never just sat in front of the TV, passively consuming whatever the networks decided they wanted to force-feed our minds.
Oh brother. I mean: “Way to go, Doctor!” So the question for you to study and take action on is... What can you do to position yourself as an unquestioned authority to your prospects, so that almost any suggestion you put forth is responded to quickly and positively, without question or concern? *HINT: You don’t have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars and years of your life obtaining a degree from some accredited university. Years ago, I founded a consulting firm that I called The Small Biz Doctor, so I could use some of the same authoritybased techniques as medical doctors, including wearing the standard doctor’s “uniform”: suit, clipboard, stethoscope and all (see photo in my bio), and using phrases in my marketing and sales scripts such as, “I’ll perform an examination of your situation, diagnose what’s causing your business to be not performing well, and prescribe a cure to get it feeling better than ever.” People are conditioned by their almost-blind faith in the entire medical industry to welcome an “examination,” a “diagnosis” and to say yes to the “prescription” of a “cure.” That definitely beats saying, “I need to ask you a lot of tough questions, have you give me a lot of information about you and your business, and then I’ll give you my sales proposal and ask you if you want to buy or not.”
Instead, we were always playing board games and card games as a family. “According To Hoyle” was always handy near our kitchen table, and one of the fun and challenging activities my Mom had us engage in was to randomly pick a page out of the thick rule book of hundreds of card games, then learn and play whatever game was presented there. This practice helped strengthen a skill that I’ve used over and over in the world of business: Looking at a problem or opportunity from multiple angles, and figuring out and executing a winning strategy to achieve success. I was also extremely active in sports, clubs and contests - always looking for the next competition, contest or tournament to enter, and win. And my Mom was always right there by my side, supporting me and cheering me on as I fought to overcome challenges and emerge victorious over whatever opponent I was battling. It was an honor and a pleasure to participate in the reversal of those roles last month, helping my Mom overcome the debilitating effects of her seizure and battle back to full health. We’ve still got a little more time and effort ahead of us to win this battle, but you can bet that my Mom is once again leading by example, showing me how to take a challenge head on and fight with everything you’ve got to overcome it and come out on top.
Here’s to my Mom, the biggest Champion I know. I love you, Mom!
To find out more about Steve Sipress and how he can help you have more fun and make more money with your business, see the Inside Cover Page. To get new money-making strategies and tips every weekday from Steve and other top business-building experts from around the world, go to: www.RhinoDaily.com
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MONEY-MAKING MONTHLY Volume III Number 1 | January 2015
www.SteveSipress.com/magazine
This Month’s Money-Making Info
1
HOW TO CREATE YOUR OWN IDEAL SELF By Brian Tracy
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EMAIL SUBJECT LINES: 7 TEMPLATES TO GET YOUR EMAILS OPENED By Heather Seitz
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MANNY’S GUIDE TO 2015 Manny’s Blog
INNOVATE By Dan Kennedy
BUSINESS LESSONS LEARNED FROM A HOSPITAL VISIT By Steve Sipress
FEATURE ARTICLE
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EXPERT INTERVIEW MARISSA BRASSFIELD: THE ENTREPRENEUR’S BEST FRIEND Publisher Steve Sipress Successful Selling Systems, Inc. 869 E Schaumburg Rd #237 Schaumburg, IL 60194 (p) 773-236-8134 (f ) 847-232-1535 Questions? Comments? Suggestions?
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Editor Michele Tiberio
Layout & Design JDO of SPX Multimedia spxmultimedia.com Publisher’s Notice: Copyright 2015 Successful Selling Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction of any part of this work beyond that permitted by Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 U.S. Copyright Act without permission of the copyright owner is unlawful. Neither the author nor the publisher make any express or implied warranties concerning the legal or ethical appropriateness of any of the marketing documents, materials or instructions in or enclosed with the magazine and/or your use of the same. If in doubt about the appropriateness or legality of any materials or instructions, you should obtain competent guidance, just as you would with any marketing documents, materials or marketing plans you have developed or would develop on your own. In the interests of disclosure, we want to be open about how we may, from time to time, make money from this magazine. Certain third-party links contained in this magazine may be affiliate links for which we get paid a commission if you buy the product or service through the affiliate link.