Volume IV • Number 10 • October 2016 • $97
MANY’S BLOG: Good Grief! A Halloween Milestone
The Secrets of Writing Great Content –
FAST
Transform Your Biggest Failures Into Your Biggest Successes
expert interview with
,
NEIL KRISTIANSON Email Automation Superstar
October 2016
ABOUT STEVE
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
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
Steve Sipress The WOW Strategy™ Creator
To find out if you qualify to join The WOW! Strategy™ Mastermind Group, go to:
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.”
Email Automation
Superstar expert interview with
NEIL KRISTIANSON
Steve Sipress: Neil Kristianson, welcome to the Rhino Daily Podcast. Great of you to be here! Neil Kristianson: Well, thank you, Steve. Happy to be here on the show with you today. Steve: You are an expert in automating business. And you specialize in email, because that’s certainly something you can automate. I hate getting an automated email that says, “Dear customer,” or automated mail that says, “Dear occupant.” I hate that kind of stuff. Isn’t that not a good thing to do? Neil: If I had a dollar for every time somebody said, “Email is dead,” I’d be very rich. You hear that all the time and you hear that social is the way to go, and we should all be doing Facebook or Snapchat. Snapchat is what everybody is talking about this last week, and next week it will probably be something different. But I say that all those social media things are great… That’s great for meeting people, but email is where you go to sell. And automated email… Just because it’s automated doesn’t mean that it has to feel like it’s automated. Email is about scaling relationships. Email is still about relationships. The whole goal is still to get people to talk to
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EXPERT INTERVIEW
And automated email… Just because it’s automated doesn’t mean that it has to feel like it’s automated. Email is about scaling relationships. Email is still about relationships. you. It’s just a tool to get people to have a conversation with you, and to filter out the people who are interested from those that aren’t. Steve: All right, so you intrigued me. So tell me, how do you do that? Aren’t I going to feel that a robot is just talking to me, so it’s not going to make me buy, and it’s not a good thing? Neil: It’s going to depend on what’s in the email. We can send out an email that’s very generic, and very robot-like, and yeah, I would feel that way. But I advocate for writing emails like you would talk to a customer. All you’re trying to do is scale this relationship. If you have 200 leads a week, a month, whatever it is, you can’t possibly have a conversation with every one of those people. It’s just not humanly possible. It’s probably not a great use of resources, because who knows if those people are even really interested? Why did they email you? So, by scaling this conversation, it can still be very conversation-like. When I write emails like this, it’s still like I’m talking to just you, like I’m talking to just Steve, and what I’m trying to do is call out my target audience, or my WHO, as you like to say it. I’m trying to find my WHO and draw them out, so that eventually I can have a real world
conversation with them. But I can’t have 200 real world conversations. I can maybe only have, how many can you effectively have a week and still run a business, and still get out there and meet your customers and do all the things you have to do as a small business owner? How can you effectively do that with 200 people? You can’t. So, email allows you to scale conversations over time, is what I like to say. That’s the auto-responder part, that’s where that every day, or every week, or whatever the order and sequence is of things, you can continue this conversation, until you say something that that customer says, “Ah! That’s the piece I was missing,” and “Now I want to call them” or, “Now I want to take action” – whatever that is that you want them to do next. Steve: Okay, I’ve got it. Now this actually sounds like a really good thing. The art and the skill in what you do, is you can create entire sequences, entire strings of multiple emails going out. Day One, Day Three, a week later, a month later, whatever, and they sound like the person is talking to them. I know you can even do it so that you’re kind of responding. There’s a way to – based on their response to an email – you can automate whether they get on the next day, they’re going to get email “A” or “B.” Neil: Correct. Steve: So you can really get into automating this thing, right? Neil: Yeah. And that’s why it doesn’t sound robotic. It’s taking it up to the next level. But yes, sending automated email based on your customer’s or prospect’s actions, not just on what the day of the week is, or what you want them to get. It’s based on what they want. So, I like to think of email now as the concierge, but you are responding to their needs. It is not just a one-way puking of information. This can be
October 2016
segmented and targeted to people so that they are getting things that are very relevant to them. And the more we get that’s relevant to us, the less it feels robotic, the more it draws us in, and makes us want to buy or to respond, because it feels like you’re talking just to me. Steve: Now I really like this. I’m really liking this automation, because automation sounds like – done right – it’s not robotic, it’s simply putting a system in place. Neil: Right. And it’s not just email. You can automate your entire marketing and sales system. And you can bring that automation into the real world – not just email. You can bring it into postcards, you can bring it into mailings, you can bring it into phone calls… All that kind of thing you can automate, so that every prospect in your pipeline, or every customer in your pipeline, is all getting the same experience – or variables based on what they’ve done – but they’re all generally getting the same experience. So, you can have a system like a Papa John’s or a McDonald’s, exactly. But it’s
When I write emails like this, it’s still like I’m talking to just you, like I’m talking to just Steve, and what I’m trying to do is call out my target audience, or my WHO, as you like to say it. I’m trying to find my WHO and draw them out, so that eventually I can have a real world conversation with them.
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EXPERT INTERVIEW
for your marketing, it’s for your sales. Steve: And so, we talk about Papa John’s and McDonald’s, we’re not talking about a fine dining experience. So now, as a business owner listening to this, I’m going, “You guys don’t get it. I serve customers in million-dollar homes, unique experiences, custommade stairways, or $40,000 landscaping jobs, or whatever. It’s not a McDonald’s thing here. I can’t really automate this stuff.” What do you say to that guy?
I like to think of email now as the concierge, but you are responding to their needs. It is not just a one-way puking of information. This can be segmented and targeted to people so that they are getting things that are very relevant to them.
Neil: I say to that guy that I’ve helped landscapers, home remodelers, HVAC guys… I’ve helped them all automate their marketing. I’ve helped a pooperscooper automate her marketing, and her sales system. Steve: Now, there is a high-end business if I’ve never heard of one. Neil: Yeah, high-end on the low-brow. Steve: High-end in one way now that I think of it, because while they’re bending down to pick up their poop, their end is high up in the air. Neil: Exactly. Steve: But I digress. So, I guess your answer is, “Hey, kemosabe, give me a shot, because I’ll show you how we can automate anything.” Neil: Yes. Yeah. Steve: And again, we’re not talking about taking any human aspect out of it or anything, we’re just talking about allowing the business owner to make more money, and not lose leads. To me, the biggest thing is all the money we spend on attracting leads, and then, if you leave it up to a salesperson, we all know that they fall through the cracks. To listen to the complete interview, go to: RhinoDaily.com/magazine
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Neil Kristianson built his remodeling business from struggling to super-success by putting automated systems to work. He sold that business, and now he helps other business owners navigate the details of setting up their own systems, specializing in automated email marketing, so they can experience their own similar success stories. Get Neil’s Triple Loop Autoresponder email series for free by going to:
RhinoDaily.com/email
Transform Your Biggest Failures
Into Your Biggest Successes By Dan Sullivan
On August 15, 1978, when I was thirty-four, I was both divorced and bankrupt. I didn’t plan it that way; it was just how the timing worked out. It was also a day that began my journey to transform those two failures into the two biggest successes of my life.
A DEVASTATING TIME The months that followed were devastating. People stay away from you in droves in the aftermath of failures like these, which, for me, was enormously disheartening, but it meant I had plenty of time alone to think about where I had gone wrong. I can make jokes about it now, 40 years later, because it was such an unlikely situation for anyone to find themselves in. The fact that the divorce happened in the morning and the bankruptcy proceedings in the
afternoon also provided the additional opportunity to joke that this allowed me to have a very nice lunch once the divorce was taken care of, while I still had a credit card to pay for it. All joking aside, though, I assure you it wasn’t funny at the time. Thinking through these two experiences was painful. I had failed miserably. I had flunked the relationship course, and I had also flunked the course for being an entrepreneur with a viable business.
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October 2016
TRANSFORM YOUR BIGGEST FAILURES INTO YOUR BIGGEST SUCCESSES
A BREAKTHROUGH IN CLARITY Then, about three months into this period in my life, I had a moment of clarity that began to change everything. I could see that both of those situations happened because, quite simply, I had been very stupid. I hadn’t been learning the right lessons about creating a successful marriage and having a lifetime relationship with someone, or about creating a viable business. I suddenly understood that how I chose to handle those two failures would determine the quality and success of the rest of my life. What I did with this new clarity of mind was, first, to relieve every single person who may have been involved in either of those two situations of all responsibility for them. I knew that if I were going to learn anything from these experiences and achieve the breakthroughs that needed to happen, I had to take 100 percent of the responsibility.
I knew that if I were going to learn anything from these experiences and achieve the breakthroughs that needed to happen, I had to take 100 percent of the responsibility.
Second, I resolved to completely transform every aspect of my life so these two experiences of failure would become outstanding successes. Adopting the mindset that I would take 100 percent ownership of my mistakes became the foundation for all my decisions moving forward. To keep my mind focused, I started a journal in which, each day, I wrote down something I wanted — steering clear of using the word “because.” I believed that the reason I was getting myself in trouble was that I was always trying to justify what I wanted in my life.
A LESSON LEARNED These two decisions in 1978 led to two incredible successes later in my life. The single most important was meeting Babs Smith on August 13, 1982, which was the beginning of our business and our life relationship. The other is our company, Strategic Coach, with our wonderful team, coaches, and clients. The lesson I want to leave you with is this: When you think you’ve had the worst day of your life, capture the negativity of that day and use it to transform your mindsets, your capabilities, and your vision of the future in a way that, over time, your worst day becomes your biggest breakthrough.
Dan Sullivan is founder and president of The Strategic Coach Inc. A visionary, an innovator, and a gifted conceptual thinker, Dan has over 35 years’ experience as a highly regarded speaker, consultant, strategic planner, and coach to entrepreneurial individuals and groups. Dan’s strong belief in and commitment to the power of the entrepreneur is evident in all areas of Strategic Coach® and its successful coaching program, which works to help entrepreneurs reach their full potential in both their business and personal lives. He is author of over 30 publications, including The Great Crossover, The 21st Century Agent, Creative Destruction, and How The Best Get Better®. He is co-author of The Laws of Lifetime Growth and The Advisor Century. Dan is married to Babs Smith, his partner in business and in life. They jointly own and operate The Strategic Coach Inc., with offices in Toronto, Chicago, and the U.K. New workshops are also being held in Los Angeles and Vancouver. Dan and Babs reside in Toronto. To download your free copy of The 80% Approach digital book and audio, and to watch Dan’s presentation of The 80% Progression, go to:
www.StrategicCoach.com
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The Secrets of Writing Great Content – Fast
And the faster you can create this content, the more quickly you’ll enjoy the extra traffic, subscribers and sales.
By MaryEllen Tribby Remember one of my favorite sayings – MONEY LOVES SPEED! So here are three surefire tips for creating good content, super-fast…
1) Create a Good Outline If you start with a good outline, then you’ll stay focused because you know exactly what you need to write about. And this focus will help you write more quickly. This is particularly true if you’re writing something longer, like a report, an ebook or creating a product. That’s because it’s easy to get overwhelmed with the thought of writing something this long.
Your content is your livelihood. So whether you’re using your content to pull in traffic, or you’re selling content to fill up your bank account with cash, your business depends on your ability to create a lot of great content. And the faster you can create this content, the more quickly you’ll enjoy the extra traffic, subscribers and sales.
However, when you have a good outline, then you can think of each section on your outline as an article. Thus you can think of it as writing a series of articles rather than writing a book or product. Psychologically this makes it easier to write, so you’ll complete your content piece much faster.
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October 2016
THE SECRETS OF WRITING GREAT CONTENT – FAST
2) Use Speech-to-Text Technology This as been a true life saver for so many of my private high-end clients that have great stories to tell and content to share, but just can’t get started sometimes. Just run a search in Google and you’ll uncover several different software products to convert your speech into text. However, one of the most well-known of these is Dragon Naturally Speaking, which you can find at Nuance.com as well as your favorite retailers like Staples.com and Amazon.com. No matter what software solution you choose, you will need to do two things: Get a good microphone. Your software will work better if your words sound clear as you say them into your microphone. If you prefer, you can get a headset microphone for convenience. Train the software. Yes, you will need to spend some time training the software to recognize the way you speak (your voice, accent, etc). So while this does take some time upfront, in the long run you’ll save time once you’ve gone through all the training with the software.
While editing is necessary, it’s something you should do AFTER you’ve created the piece (not during the writing process). and make decisions about whether you’ve written a sentence or paragraph correctly. On the other hand, the actual writing itself tends to be more of a creative process where you come up with unique ideas and interesting ways of expressing these ideas.
as fast and furiously as possible during the allotted time. When the time is up, take a short break, reset your timer and do it again. You can even make a game out of it by challenging yourself to write more words during each 15 minute block of time.
Thus if you stop midway through the writing process to think logically about things like grammar rules, then you’ll just end up stifling your creativity. If you’re used to editing as you go, then it’s going to take practice to write without editing. Best thing you can do is set a timer for 15 minutes and write
When your content piece is all finished, then you can edit it. If you can learn to write faster, then you’ll get more done in less time. And the more content you can create, the faster your business will grow. Give these tips and try and see if they don’t help you increase your writing speed!
MaryEllen Tribby has helped thousands of people start a new business or grow their existing one. MaryEllen is the Founder and CEO of WorkingMomsOnly.com, the world’s leading newsletter and website for the empowerment of the working mom.
3) Write Fast Without Editing One reason that people often can’t write very fast is because they stop and edit nearly every sentence as they go. However, while editing is necessary, it’s something you should do AFTER you’ve created the piece (not during the writing process). Think of it this way… Editing is a bit of a logical, left-brain activity. That’s because it requires you to remember grammar rules, look at your sentence structure
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Prior to founding WMO, MaryEllen was Publisher & CEO of Early to Rise and President of Weiss Research, where she added millions to their bottom lines in just a few months. She also ran divisions at Forbes, Times Mirror Magazines, and Crain’s New York Business. MaryEllen is the best-selling author of Reinventing the Entrepreneur: Turning Your Dream Business into a Reality and co-author (with Michael Masterson) of Changing the Channel: 12 Easy Ways to Make Millions For Your Business. Get your free copy of MaryEllen’s The Ultimate Success Code by going to:
www.MaryEllenTribby.com
MANNY’S BLOG
October 2016
Good Grief! A Halloween Milestone
Did you realize that the TV special “It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” celebrates its 50th anniversary on October 27? It was an instant classic when it premiered on CBS. But if it were being made today, with the current CBS emphasis on police procedurals, it would probably focus on an endless loop of Linus’s “You didn’t tell me you were going to kill it!” line instead of the other antics of the “Peanuts” gang. (“I’ll bet there are forensic clues in that pile of leaves!”) The anniversary was brought to my attention by one of the show’s stars, my good friend, Snoopy. Yes, Snoopy and I travel in the same circles. Well, if you want to get technical about it, we both chase our tails. Potato, potah-to. But I really did meet him when his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame was unveiled last November, and he remembered to send me a press release about the anniversary. I know it’s amazing that Snoopy still looks so good (and is still alive) after all this time. He attributed it to having good genes. Ha! With all his money, he probably bought good genes! (“Have the CEO of Amazon deliver them personally, on the back of a Jurassic Park velociraptor. The round-headed kid can sign for them if I’m not around.”) Charlie Brown hasn’t held up so well. When the gang recently reunited to reprise the old “I got a rock!” trick-or-treating routine, all Charlie could muster was, “I got a kidney stone!”
1966 was quite a memorable year for Snoopy. His pal Mr. Ed the talking horse lost his job. (“A loan shark is a loan shark, of course, of course.”) He talked the Beach Boys into naming their album “Pet Sounds” instead of “Pet Smells.” He used the July 4 signing of the Freedom of Information Act as an excuse for freeing the information in the mailman’s pouch. And the Supreme Court announced the so-called “Miranda Rights.” But, try as he might, Snoopy never could get Lucy to exercise her right to remain silent! Snoopy wasn’t afraid to dish the dirt about the program. The scene with Lucy snatching the football away from Charlie Brown wasn’t even in the script; it was part of an insurance scam gone awry. And the iconic sequence with Snoopy as a World War I flying ace battling the Red Baron? Almost didn’t happen, because the Sopwith Camel airline wanted to charge for “extra leg” room, as well as a carry-on fee for Snoopy’s fleas! Spoiler alert: Snoopy revealed that Linus never did go on to have the most sincere pumpkin patch in the world. He did manage the most snarky squash patch in the district and the most cantankerous kale patch in the tri-cities area, but it just wasn’t the same. Anyhow, grab a Coke and some Dolly Madison cakes (the special’s original sponsors) and enjoy this year’s airing. Dolly Madison: the most sincere table scraps in the world. Hint, hint.
Manny (full name Emanuel or “Dog With Us”) brought non-stop joy, affection, and energy into the lives of Steve and Michele Sipress for over 13 years. He also shared his wit, humor and insights with readers here every month. Thankfully, as he got on in years and knew that his time on this Earth was growing short, he poured himself into his writing, leaving many, many columns behind, so that his fans can have the continued pleasure of being entertained and enlightened by him for a long time to come. He is no longer physically with us, but his memory lives on…
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RHINO MONTHLY Volume IV Number 10 | October 2016
www.SteveSipress.com/magazine
CONTENTS:
5
Transform Your Biggest Failures Into Your Biggest Successes
9
By Dan Sullivan
Good Grief! A Halloween Milestone Manny’s Blog
7 The Secrets of Wri�ng Great Content – Fast By MaryEllen Tribby
2
INTERVIEW WITH
Neil Kristianson Email Automa�on Superstar
Publisher Steve Sipress Successful Selling Systems, Inc. 20701 N Sco�sdale Rd Ste 107-509 Sco�sdale AZ 85255 (p) 773-236-8134 (f ) 847-232-1535 Ques�ons? Comments? Sugges�ons?
w w w.AskSteveSipress.com
Layout & Design Bobbie Miltcheva www.33graffics.com
Publisher’s No�ce: Copyright 2016 Successful Selling Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduc�on of any part of this work beyond that permi�ed by Sec�on 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 warran�es concerning the legal or ethical appropriateness of any of the marke�ng documents, materials or instruc�ons 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 instruc�ons, you should obtain competent guidance, just as you would with any marke�ng documents, materials or marke�ng plans you have develop ed or would develop on your own. In the interests of disclosure, we want to b e op en ab out how we may, from time to time, make money from this mag azine. 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.