The Simple Mind “Hack” That Can Earn You Millions is a post from: Breakthrough Marketing with Loren Woirhaye

Reading time: 4 – 6 minutes

Selling something is the only way to make moolah in the marketing game. Duh, right?

I’d like to take a couple minutes (well, maybe 3) of your time to give you a few tips – stuff that took me years to figure out, distilled to a drinkable, yet buzz-inducing brew.

Here’s how you can:

Also:

Sound good?

Let’s start then.

Writing Is The Core Skill

Marketing is a writer’s game. Even if you market by cold-calling, you still work from a script. All writing is just expression of clear thinking, ]]> The Simple Mind “Hack” That Can Earn You Millions is a post from: Breakthrough Marketing with Loren Woirhaye

Reading time: 4 – 6 minutes

Selling something is the only way to make moolah in the marketing game. Duh, right?

I’d like to take a couple minutes (well, maybe 3) of your time to give you a few tips – stuff that took me years to figure out, distilled to a drinkable, yet buzz-inducing brew.

Here’s how you can:

1. Adapt the mindset of the best salespeople to your own personal quirks and interests.

1. Discover how to stop wasting energy marketing what you want to sell and start selling what people want to buy. There’s a subtle, but meaningful difference.
2. Become a marketing sleuth to locate areas where you can make money with your present skills

Also:

1. The simple daily way I grow my writing skills, market my services, and blunder into good ideas – all simultaneously – and easily expand them into articles and sellable information products.

Sound good?

Let’s start then.

Writing Is The Core Skill

Marketing is a writer’s game. Even if you market by cold-calling, you still work from a script. All writing is just expression of clear thinking, and effective writing wins the dollars in marketing.

Mindset

I prefer to write mostly about the nuts-and-bolts marketing stuff I know best, but I do believe your beliefs and mindset have a lot to do with the results you get in business.

Nowhere is the quality of your mindset more apparent then when you try to sell something, like your services, in person or on the phone. If your price is cheap enough you can shuffle your feet, look at the ground and do the “awww shucks” routine” and you’ll still make sales because you’re giving away your product.

However – When you want to command market-parity prices or prices higher than the competition, salesmanship matters.

Salesmanship skill is complex. There is no simple secret to winning at sales. But be diligent about refining your game, and persistent about working the market and you’ll always win.

The correct mindset is “never quit”.

Some people think that “never quit” means you should be stubborn and always follow your own internal counsel, as if success in business is a matter of a mentoring dialog between you and yourself.

I don’t agree with this at all. Often to succeed at selling you’ll need to get real about the marketplace. That means selling what people want to buy. Finding out what people want to buy can be a trial and error process that costs you a lot of time and money, or it can be a methodical, research-oriented process.

Both methods have merit. With trial and error you may blunder into ideal opportunities where your interests and skills intersect with market demands. You can find some real sweet spots this way so always be on the lookout for good ideas.

I get a lot of ideas for good stuff to sell by browsing and commenting in online forums. The WarriorForum is my favorite for marketing info. If somebody likes something I wrote and thanks me for it I often copy and paste my own forum comment and expand it into an article or blog post. String a few articles together and you’ve got the beginning of an ebook product you can sell – and this sort of thing evolves in a gradual and fun way.

The thing about the serendipity approach I enjoy most is the thinking and writing happens naturally (it’s unforced) and often my own ideas are nicely expressed. Clear writing beats rambling volume in today’s marketplace, so when my own rambling habits go well, I hold onto those ideas and try to expand on them.

The other approach to finding profitable niches and ideas for your own products is niche research. I have to confess I don’t like the keyword research part of internet marketing at all. I find it tedious, finicky, boring – a necessary evil.

If you’re at all like I am, you’ll want a system to make the time you invest in market research as effective as possible.

That’s why I’ve put together a comprehensive course on niche market research.

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–> To get the discount:

1. Just go to http://zerodollarmarketer.com/nichesleuth

2. Read the letter to make sure it’s the right product for your needs, then click on the order button.

3. Enter your email on the order page, click through and enter this coupon code on the next page: NICHE

4. Click on the “Update form” button and the price will go down from $37 to $27.75.

That’s it! You’ll get instant download of the whole 116 page course. It’s breezy reading, yet rich in detail so you’ll find it very useful. If you don’t, there’s a 60 day money-back guarantee so you’ve got nothing to lose.

Cheers,

_Loren Woirhaye

The post author, Loren Woirhaye writes sales copy and creates marketing systems for business clients who want to slash customer acquisition costs and position their businesses For 20%-30% sales growth in the next 12-18 months. He writes regularly about marketing and life at his Entrepreneur Blog.

I Wish I Listened To My Mother More is a post from: Breakthrough Marketing with Loren Woirhaye

Reading time: 2 – 4 minutes

(part 1 of 5)

(If your mom is crazy or mean, you may have good reasons not to listen to her, but my mom is a cool, peace-loving person, so her advice tends to be constructive.)

When I was in college my mother reminded me to “do your reading” from time to time.  I was more interesting in having the kind of fun that didn’t involve books.  You (probably don’t) know the catch tune by the Scottish band the Proclaimers:“Come on nature, I don’t want to read a book or talk about the world Come on nature, I just want to spend some time being boy to the girl”

Well, those randy Scottish lads just wanted to get busy in the clover.  While the group is still active and probably making money, the lads are in  their late 40s now and I bet are a bit more interested in books than chasing girls.

In any case, in college I majored in English for some odd reason I’ve forgotten.  I had a lot of reading to do, and much of it was long, tedious 19th ]]> I Wish I Listened To My Mother More is a post from: Breakthrough Marketing with Loren Woirhaye

Reading time: 2 – 4 minutes

(part 1 of 5)

(If your mom is crazy or mean, you may have good reasons not to listen to her, but my mom is a cool, peace-loving person, so her advice tends to be constructive.)

When I was in college my mother reminded me to “do your reading” from time to time.  I was more interesting in having the kind of fun that didn’t involve books.  You (probably don’t) know the catch tune by the Scottish band the Proclaimers:

“Come on nature, I don’t want to read a book or talk about the world
Come on nature, I just want to spend some time being boy to the girl”

Well, those randy Scottish lads just wanted to get busy in the clover.  While the group is still active and probably making money, the lads are in  their late 40s now and I bet are a bit more interested in books than chasing girls.

In any case, in college I majored in English for some odd reason I’ve forgotten.  I had a lot of reading to do, and much of it was long, tedious 19th century novels.  To be fair, I did get exposed to some excellent old-fashioned literature but it was a bit much.  For years after I mostly read how-to books and very little fiction or literature.  I also became very involved in playing music – which never took the shape of any cogent career thing, so at best I can call myself a skilled hobbiest musician.

“So You Want To Get Rich, eh?”

In studying successful entrepreneurs you will find that there aren’t many of them who are making their money in one field and also functioning at a high-level in another field as a hobby.  Their efforts are undiluted.  They are often work-a-holics, addicted to their careers.  In short, it’s hard to do two careers at the same time – it splits your efforts.

This is not an easy lesson if you want to be very successful or even wealthy.  Felix Dennis, who is this crazy-rich British publisher, wrote a book called “How To Get Rich” and in it he actively discourages the reader.  See, Dennis made almost a billion dollars for himself in publishing.  He says if knew what he knows now he would have focused less on making money and more on other things.  To make amends he writes poetry and plants a lot of trees these days.  His youth is gone forever, and he has remained a bachelor married to his career and without children of his own (no, he’s not gay).  He sacrificed many of the things “regular” people get in order to get more money than he could possibly ever spend.

The post author, Loren Woirhaye writes sales copy and creates marketing systems for business clients who want to slash customer acquisition costs and position their businesses For 20%-30% sales growth in the next 12-18 months. He writes regularly about marketing and life at his Entrepreneur Blog.

Poor People Have Big TVs – Rich People Have Big Libraries is a post from: Breakthrough Marketing with Loren Woirhaye

Reading time: 2 – 2 minutes

(part 2 of 5)

“Poor People Have Big TVs. Rich People Have Big Libraries.”

The late Jim Rohn said that often.  It sounds like a glib statement to be sure.  and it might offend you if you enjoy your TV.  That’s not the point.  These days, many rich people do have big TVs of course.  The point is that successful people continually invest in developing their minds and creative pursuits, while unsuccessful people just seek instant self-gratification, which tends to default to doing stuff like watching junk television.

A secondary point is that when you buy a TV or any other toy or new car or even a house, it won’t make you more money – in fact it will usually either decrease in value (TVs, Ipods, computers) or it will cost you money to maintain (houses, boats).

Of course with real-estate your investment may be worth more in the future,  but if you buy more than you can afford, you’re investing in a liability that sucks up your monthly cash, not an asset.  Of course you need a ]]> Poor People Have Big TVs – Rich People Have Big Libraries is a post from: Breakthrough Marketing with Loren Woirhaye

Reading time: 2 – 2 minutes

(part 2 of 5)

“Poor People Have Big TVs. Rich People Have Big Libraries.”

The late Jim Rohn said that often.  It sounds like a glib statement to be sure.  and it might offend you if you enjoy your TV.  That’s not the point.  These days, many rich people do have big TVs of course.  The point is that successful people continually invest in developing their minds and creative pursuits, while unsuccessful people just seek instant self-gratification, which tends to default to doing stuff like watching junk television.

A secondary point is that when you buy a TV or any other toy or new car or even a house, it won’t make you more money – in fact it will usually either decrease in value (TVs, Ipods, computers) or it will cost you money to maintain (houses, boats).

Of course with real-estate your investment may be worth more in the future,  but if you buy more than you can afford, you’re investing in a liability that sucks up your monthly cash, not an asset.  Of course you need a place to live, and having more space than you need can be a pleasant luxury – but the truth is making money as an entrepreneur almost always involves using the money you have to get leverage.  If your money is tied-up (or spent) on luxuries, it’s not liquid and you cannot use it.

I don’t personally much care what you spend your money on, but I do care about being a rational business writer so here it is: the smart play is to invest your money  in assets that are likely to either increase in value and be sellable later or assets which you can use to create more income.

Making money isn’t the only thing in life and even disciplined asset-oriented entrepreneurs  have our little indulgences. That’s okay, but if you’re splurging most of your income on things that amuse you but which are going to lose value and become obsolete, you’re headed in the direction opposite to wealth.

The post author, Loren Woirhaye writes sales copy and creates marketing systems for business clients who want to slash customer acquisition costs and position their businesses For 20%-30% sales growth in the next 12-18 months. He writes regularly about marketing and life at his Entrepreneur Blog.

Why Cash is King is a post from: Breakthrough Marketing with Loren Woirhaye

Reading time: 2 – 2 minutes

(part 3 of 5)

“They” say “cash is king”-  presumably because when you’ve got cash you have superior negotiating power in your money-making activity.

I used to buy and sell machinery – and I always bought low because I wouldn’t even look at the machine unless I knew I could sell it for more than I paid and had cash in my pocket to buy it on the spot.

One of my weaknesses is I’m not a very aggressive price negotiator – I want the other guy to feel good about the deal too.  But if a seller ran an ad and said he wanted $600 for a machine,  I would call up a seller and say “I’ve got $500 in cash and I’ll come and pick up that machine today if you’ll sell it to me for that,”  – I never even went to look at a machine unless I knew I could take it home right then.  I was “Johnny on the spot with cash”.

When making deals, you do need to strike when the iron is hot.  In buying, you’ll get your best advantage ]]> Why Cash is King is a post from: Breakthrough Marketing with Loren Woirhaye

Reading time: 2 – 2 minutes

(part 3 of 5)

“They” say “cash is king”-  presumably because when you’ve got cash you have superior negotiating power in your money-making activity.

I used to buy and sell machinery – and I always bought low because I wouldn’t even look at the machine unless I knew I could sell it for more than I paid and had cash in my pocket to buy it on the spot.

One of my weaknesses is I’m not a very aggressive price negotiator – I want the other guy to feel good about the deal too.  But if a seller ran an ad and said he wanted $600 for a machine,  I would call up a seller and say “I’ve got $500 in cash and I’ll come and pick up that machine today if you’ll sell it to me for that,”  – I never even went to look at a machine unless I knew I could take it home right then.  I was “Johnny on the spot with cash”.

When making deals, you do need to strike when the iron is hot.  In buying, you’ll get your best advantage by finding a motivated seller who will make a deal on the spot.  If you want the advantage in selling, to get top-dollar for what you’ve got, you need to be more patient or better at salesmanship.

Buying Is Easy, Selling Is A Bitch

Buying is easy, selling is hard.  If you want to get money, you generally have to sell something – yet because selling is a hard thing to do for most people you’ll want to find some easier ways to do it.  Truth is, most people love to buy stuff, but they despise obvious salesmanship (most people are ignorant and  consider sales sleazy and manipulative).  Thus it’s easiest for you to sell, when you conceal the art of salesmanship and focus  on making it easy for other people to buy.

The post author, Loren Woirhaye writes sales copy and creates marketing systems for business clients who want to slash customer acquisition costs and position their businesses For 20%-30% sales growth in the next 12-18 months. He writes regularly about marketing and life at his Entrepreneur Blog.

Steve Jobs No-Pressure Selling Secret – Revealed! is a post from: Breakthrough Marketing with Loren Woirhaye

Reading time: 2 – 2 minutes

(part 4 of 5)

If you’re looking for a way to make a lot of money without the pressure of making sales calls, direct response marketing is the most low-pressure form of selling there is.   No sale will actually happen without pressure.  Direct response is so  low-pressure in fact, you have to elicit the sales pressure within your prospect, which is the selling skill that  trumps all others and all master marketers have it.

Apple computer actually uses direct response marketing methods like perceived scarcity and elitism, which is an emotional hot-button in some people.  Apple claims they cannot meet demand for their latest products, Ipads or whatever, which causes people to be desperate to be the first person they know to get one.  It’s a bit of reverse psychology really and also very well integrated with the intentional elitism embedded in all of Apple’s branding and advertising.

When you buy the pressure you feel is your own desire to get an advantage for yourself or meet some basic need.  Without pressure coming from either outside of you (your spouse pressuring you, for ]]> Steve Jobs No-Pressure Selling Secret – Revealed! is a post from: Breakthrough Marketing with Loren Woirhaye

Reading time: 2 – 2 minutes

(part 4 of 5)

If you’re looking for a way to make a lot of money without the pressure of making sales calls, direct response marketing is the most low-pressure form of selling there is.   No sale will actually happen without pressure.  Direct response is so  low-pressure in fact, you have to elicit the sales pressure within your prospect, which is the selling skill that  trumps all others and all master marketers have it.

Apple computer actually uses direct response marketing methods like perceived scarcity and elitism, which is an emotional hot-button in some people.  Apple claims they cannot meet demand for their latest products, Ipads or whatever, which causes people to be desperate to be the first person they know to get one.  It’s a bit of reverse psychology really and also very well integrated with the intentional elitism embedded in all of Apple’s branding and advertising.

When you buy the pressure you feel is your own desire to get an advantage for yourself or meet some basic need.  Without pressure coming from either outside of you (your spouse pressuring you, for example), or inside of you (need to keep up with the Joneses, perhaps), you aren’t going to buy anything.  People who don’t feel pressure in some way aren’t inclined to take any action at all.

The brilliance of what Jobs and Apple did is create a rich psychological template customers could be part of.  Apple customers tend to identify with the brand – they may even think themselves superior to PC users because they chose Mac.  I’m saying Mac isn’t a good product, just that the marketing is brilliant because the company put an actual identity into the product that buyers could slip into like a pair of jeans.  They turned a functional tool (which is all a PC is) into a “gotta have it” fashion accessory for a large number of people.  These people willingly pay much more than they need to for the computing power they get in order to participate in the shared reality of Apple’s brand.

It’s all a bit surreal, don’t you think?

The post author, Loren Woirhaye writes sales copy and creates marketing systems for business clients who want to slash customer acquisition costs and position their businesses For 20%-30% sales growth in the next 12-18 months. He writes regularly about marketing and life at his Entrepreneur Blog.

How To Stop Selling, Yet Make More Money is a post from: Breakthrough Marketing with Loren Woirhaye

Reading time: 2 – 2 minutes

(part 5 of 5)

Learning direct response marketing gets you out of person-to-person selling.  The only reason to do it is because it lends itself to  automation and leverage because you can reach a lot of people with one effort.   The internet is the most perfect medium for direct response marketing ever because people can pay on the spot with a few clicks.  The internet makes buying deliriously easy for consumers.

The problem is the internet has matured a  bit and now the selling environment online has become competitive. There’s no easy or straightforward path to internet riches these days  (sorry to burst your bubble), but if you educate yourself about proven direct marketing principles.

Just because the internet is the perfect medium for direct marketing doesn’t mean it’s the best. That’s because the barrier to entry with internet marketing is low so there’s a lot of competition.  With direct mail, your costs will be higher but the competition tends to be sparser.

Most of the best copywriter/marketers are also intense students of human nature and salesmanship.  We read widely because you really ]]> How To Stop Selling, Yet Make More Money is a post from: Breakthrough Marketing with Loren Woirhaye

Reading time: 2 – 2 minutes

(part 5 of 5)

Learning direct response marketing gets you out of person-to-person selling.  The only reason to do it is because it lends itself to  automation and leverage because you can reach a lot of people with one effort.   The internet is the most perfect medium for direct response marketing ever because people can pay on the spot with a few clicks.  The internet makes buying deliriously easy for consumers.

The problem is the internet has matured a  bit and now the selling environment online has become competitive. There’s no easy or straightforward path to internet riches these days  (sorry to burst your bubble), but if you educate yourself about proven direct marketing principles.

Just because the internet is the perfect medium for direct marketing doesn’t mean it’s the best. That’s because the barrier to entry with internet marketing is low so there’s a lot of competition.  With direct mail, your costs will be higher but the competition tends to be sparser.

Most of the best copywriter/marketers are also intense students of human nature and salesmanship.  We read widely because you really cannot learn to be a great direct marketer at school – you have to teach yourself.

If you bumble into internet marketing like I did, made some money and thought “Wow!”, good for you.  What usually happens though is most people who do that have a tough time re-creating their early good fortune.  The market will go shift on you and then the money you were making isn’t there anymore.

To be a steadily successful marketer you have to get it together on a bunch of different levels.  It’s not all easy and you cannot learn it all fast.  But if you keep up with your learning, you’ll gradually come to a better understanding of what’s going on with the marketplace and how to exploit opportunities that come along.

The post author, Loren Woirhaye writes sales copy and creates marketing systems for business clients who want to slash customer acquisition costs and position their businesses For 20%-30% sales growth in the next 12-18 months. He writes regularly about marketing and life at his Entrepreneur Blog.

Do Take Care of Yourself – Good Things Will Come Of It is a post from: Breakthrough Marketing with Loren Woirhaye

Reading time: 4 – 7 minutes

Lately there’s some upheaval under my own roof and considerable conflict in my live-in partner’s family and between her and me as well.  Everybody’s pretty stressed-out by an unpleasant and costly family-court matter and when folks get stressed out they often look for ways to dump on others to try to get relief .   I’m presently working on some things that require me to act very confidently.  Call me over-sensitive, but when I’m experiencing conflict at home, it’s hard for me to perform at my best when working with people.   Confidence is like standing on a log – you can get knocked-off balance and lose it.

I’m processing these conflicts today,  so I went for a walk to get sun in my eyes and on my skin.  I live in a big loft on the 4th floor of a converted factory.  There are no balconies so I have to go downstairs to get fresh air and so forth.  Working as I do with computers, I’m prone to getting absorbed and neglecting to go outside, especially ]]> Do Take Care of Yourself – Good Things Will Come Of It is a post from: Breakthrough Marketing with Loren Woirhaye

Reading time: 4 – 7 minutes

Lately there’s some upheaval under my own roof and considerable conflict in my live-in partner’s family and between her and me as well.  Everybody’s pretty stressed-out by an unpleasant and costly family-court matter and when folks get stressed out they often look for ways to dump on others to try to get relief .   I’m presently working on some things that require me to act very confidently.  Call me over-sensitive, but when I’m experiencing conflict at home, it’s hard for me to perform at my best when working with people.   Confidence is like standing on a log – you can get knocked-off balance and lose it.

I’m processing these conflicts today,  so I went for a walk to get sun in my eyes and on my skin.  I live in a big loft on the 4th floor of a converted factory.  There are no balconies so I have to go downstairs to get fresh air and so forth.  Working as I do with computers, I’m prone to getting absorbed and neglecting to go outside, especially when the weather is nice.   If you go out wearing sunglasses all the time you’re depriving your body of important vitamin D which gets synthesized when you get sun in your eyes, even if you’re in the shade.  I don’t want to argue with your choice of eyewear – but I usually wear a hat when I go out to shade my eyes and it works for me.  I know from experience that getting unfiltered sunlight on my skin and eyes helps get rid of headaches I get sometimes.

My Fasting Friend

On my way back from a park down the road I run into a friend who is Jewish.  He tells me he’s going to synagogue for a meal and to celebrate Yom Kippur with a 25-hour fast.  Additionally he’s planning to walk home from the synagogue tonight because he won’t drive a car when he’s in prayer this way.  I’m not Jewish and don’t intend to convert, but we talk about some things and he reminds me of the value of prayer, especially in hard times.

If you’ve been following my activity as an online marketer for awhile you’ll notice that I’ve seldom mentioned faith and spirtuality before recently.  The truth is I led a very spiritually-centered life for many years but over the last few I’ve been so absorbed with my  marketing career I kind of let prayer fall by the wayside.  This was a mistake I now know I need to rectify – at least for me.

Whatever Works For You…

I’m not into pushing my values onto other people – I’m a live and let live kind of person. I figure you should do whatever works for you to make yourself happy as long as you’re not doing avoidable harm to others.  Business is competive and if my business outmarkets yours mine may prosper while yours doesn’t,  but on a person-to-person level I’m in favor of being gentle with others because that’s the way I prefer others to be with me.  Make sense?

Avoiding Burnout

Lots of people get triggered by words like God, prayer, and religion – these words mean different things to different people. If you’re an athiest or whatever  that’s cool:  I won’t try to tell you how to pray or even if you should,  just that to succeed as a whole person – perfecting your dance with money, looking after your body’s health, and cultivating nurturing  relationships and so forth – takes a lot of energy and if you don’t have a way to replenish that energy, you may very well burn-out and face the consequences of not functioning well at all.  I say it’s good to study your own nervous system and the way you react to stress and find ways to be in the flow with energy on a consistent basis.  To me, prayer is making some quiet time within yourself to recharge your batteries.  Whatever system or non-system you use to do that is fine, but if you make the time to be centered for yourself you’ll always be happier and usually healthier, so it’s a good idea, no?

Caffeine and Sugar

My opinion is  caffeine and sugar have some cool qualities and they can give you mental energy.  They also take their tole on your kidneys if used to excess.   Drinking a lot of coffee and sugar is like going on a credit card spending spree with your  own vitality.  You get a thrill, but eventually the bill comes due, with interest.

I’ll admit  I often drink coffee in the morning and it’s an enjoyable thing for me, but it’s a diuretic and makes you lose more water than you’re drinking.  Colas are the same way – they dehydrate you.  So if you drink coffee or soda, and you want to live a long, healthy life, be sure to drink plenty of unadulterated, pure water too.  Plain water helps flush out your kidneys, which are the seat of vitality and stable energy.  The adrenal glands sit on top of the kidneys and produce adrenaline, which in a normal day in a healthy body gives you ongoing energy and vitality.

“Today, Remember To Treat Yourself Well, Because Good Things Will Come Of It”

The post author, Loren Woirhaye writes sales copy and creates marketing systems for business clients who want to slash customer acquisition costs and position their businesses For 20%-30% sales growth in the next 12-18 months. He writes regularly about marketing and life at his Entrepreneur Blog.

Mean People Suck! (How To Not Let Toxic People Beat You Down) is a post from: Breakthrough Marketing with Loren Woirhaye

Reading time: 3 – 5 minutes

Mean People Suck!

If you want to write your own ticket, run your own show, you’re gonna have encounters with people who want to stop you.  On the surface they may believe they love you and are trying to save you from humiliation and failure.  The slap sometimes comes in a velvet glove.

Almost everybody tries to project their own values onto other people.  That’s how insecurity manifests, usually.  The person doing the projecting (onto you) is feeling ,”I can’t value what you do because I’m scared and don’t understand,”  and so they say and do things to discourage you.

My first tip is not to enter into direct confrontation with the naysayers until and unless it is necessary.  However, if the negative person’s influence on you is especially toxic or over-bearing, there may be no way to stop their energetic encroachment except a confrontation.  The problem with making a confrontation with such a person is they’ll probably unleash a lot of bad feelings towards you and if you’re not strong, you’ll feel it and ]]> Mean People Suck! (How To Not Let Toxic People Beat You Down) is a post from: Breakthrough Marketing with Loren Woirhaye

Reading time: 3 – 5 minutes

Mean People Suck!

If you want to write your own ticket, run your own show, you’re gonna have encounters with people who want to stop you.  On the surface they may believe they love you and are trying to save you from humiliation and failure.  The slap sometimes comes in a velvet glove.

Almost everybody tries to project their own values onto other people.  That’s how insecurity manifests, usually.  The person doing the projecting (onto you) is feeling ,”I can’t value what you do because I’m scared and don’t understand,”  and so they say and do things to discourage you.

My first tip is not to enter into direct confrontation with the naysayers until and unless it is necessary.  However, if the negative person’s influence on you is especially toxic or over-bearing, there may be no way to stop their energetic encroachment except a confrontation.  The problem with making a confrontation with such a person is they’ll probably unleash a lot of bad feelings towards you and if you’re not strong, you’ll feel it and it will hurt and affect your resolve.

Energetically, the person abusing you may be saying ,”I need you,” – as in “I need you to validate the way I feel about the world,”.  Usually you’re not allowed to disagree with such a person without offending them or hurting their feelings.  Such people are common, and the hooks they get into you are emotional in nature.

Thus, in order to set limits on toxic people who drag you down, you’re going to need some psychological tools to set limits with them.

The most useful tool, in my experience, is emotional detachment.  Don’t let the conflict rile you up, or at least try to keep your  energy as quiet and centered in the moment as you can.  When you detach and set limits with a toxic person, they may heap abuse on you and it will be hard for you to just take it without fighting back.  Unless there is a physical assault happening, don’t fight back verbally.  As long as the attack is verbal only, don’t try to defend yourself and don’t try to hurt the mean person who attacks you verbally – because when you do you just meet their energy and feed into it.

This brings me to another useful tool:  silence.

There is power in silence.  It works on many levels.  Only when you shut up can you truly hear what’s going on around you.

A toxic person who has his or her hooks in you and won’t make an effort to understand what you’re doing or try to see things from your point of view will resent you anyway.  Don’t give them too much information.  Remember, they are looking for vulnerabilities in you in order to draw you into their own insecurity.  If you know a person who will eventually use everything you reveal to him or her against you – and we’ve all known them -  learn to keep your thoughts to yourself.

If you live in a household, for example, where another person criticizes your entrepreneurial plans but makes no sincere effort to understand those plans well enough to be constructive, learn to keep your plans to yourself.  Silence is power.  You have no idea how powerful silence is until you start to use it as a tool to build and preserve your own strength.

Of course the other person may accuse you of witholding to hurt them, but just turn the conversation away from you and towards what the other person is interested in.  For example, if the toxic person is needling you to get information about your entrepreneurial plans in order to criticize you (you’ve seen it before so you know the signs), turn that person’s attention elsewhere – towards food for example.  Say “I wonder if there’s any ice cream in the freezer” or something.

Napoleon Hill in his classic book “Think and Grow Rich” writes about the importance of keeping the details of your plans to yourself until and unless you find somebody who supports and encourages you in a totally positive way.  You should seek such people out, but don’t try to reform a toxic person into a supportive person; it won’t work.

The post author, Loren Woirhaye writes sales copy and creates marketing systems for business clients who want to slash customer acquisition costs and position their businesses For 20%-30% sales growth in the next 12-18 months. He writes regularly about marketing and life at his Entrepreneur Blog.

Ozzy Ozborne, Malibu Freaks, Yoga and The Universal Laws of Abundance and Prosperity is a post from: Breakthrough Marketing with Loren Woirhaye

Reading time: 5 – 8 minutes

JMUMM7FSB8X5

Sooner or later, you may come to the conclusion that I am not a safe-n-sane online marketing-expert dude, but really some sort of crazy freak.  That’s ok – because from my point of view non-freaky people are a bit dull.  If you were to become a client or friend of mine you’d find out sooner or later, so I might as well admit it.

While not in the class of freaky, the truth is I prefer playing guitar and reading fiction to the fussy business of how you make money with all this crazy website stuff, but we all have to make a living, don’t we?

Photo by Lululemon Athletica

Before 4 or 5 years years ago making a lot of money was not high on my priority list at all.  Even though I’d been selling on Ebay since 1999, I treated it mostly as a hobby, not a career.   It wasn’t that I saw making money as being un-spiritual or bad – I was just involved in stuff where money wasn’t the big ]]> Ozzy Ozborne, Malibu Freaks, Yoga and The Universal Laws of Abundance and Prosperity is a post from: Breakthrough Marketing with Loren Woirhaye

Reading time: 5 – 8 minutes

JMUMM7FSB8X5

Sooner or later, you may come to the conclusion that I am not a safe-n-sane online marketing-expert dude, but really some sort of crazy freak.  That’s ok – because from my point of view non-freaky people are a bit dull.  If you were to become a client or friend of mine you’d find out sooner or later, so I might as well admit it.

While not in the class of freaky, the truth is I prefer playing guitar and reading fiction to the fussy business of how you make money with all this crazy website stuff, but we all have to make a living, don’t we?

Photo by Lululemon Athletica

Before 4 or 5 years years ago making a lot of money was not high on my priority list at all.  Even though I’d been selling on Ebay since 1999, I treated it mostly as a hobby, not a career.   It wasn’t that I saw making money as being un-spiritual or bad – I was just involved in stuff where money wasn’t the big criteria.

I was  involved in yoga, music, shamanistic “healing work” between the ages of 23 and 35.  In fact, I lived in Malibu, California for several years (hence the blog name), which is a veritable hotbed of freaky people activity compared to which my own freak-ness is quite tame.  I could tell you some stories… but we’ll save that for another day.

Incidentally, Malibu is as much a state of mind as a place and furthermore, there are two Malibus:  “the movie star” sandy beach Malibu where Ozzy Ozborne and Britney Spears have homes,  and the “coyote ate the cat” Malibu which is more of a mountainous coastal desert region.  I lived in the mountains.

“The trip I get hung-up about is that if I get into the spiritual field of looking at things, I think I’m not being pragmatic or practical.  Thus I have this ongoing push-pull with my freaky self and my pragmatic, results-oriented self.”

On closer examination and growing a bit more sure of myself however, I’m now ready to declare my beliefs to you:  You can be spiritual and metaphysical and also very much in the mix and making money.   The two do indeed mix well, but you’ll have to do some experimenting to find the formula that works best for you. Your spiritual side doesn’t have to hide when your money-making hat is on and vice versa – both sides can co-exist and help each other to grow.

My transition to a hard-nosed “results oriented” direct marketing type did not come suddenly, but eventually I did make a change – curtailing my  Bohemian behavior to focus on developing my skills as an online marketer.  For me the shift involved a jettisoning of habits I’d had for several years and a new seriousness of focus on the nitty-gritty of my new chosen career (I made my living as a carpenter before).

All this shifting has been part of my life’s journey and a largely positive thing, though not un-painful in some ways.  Recently I’ve reconsidered some of my old notions,  but in a new context coming from my experiences as a marketer and freelance copywriter/consultant.

New Age Nuttiness…

Even though I’ve been around the new age scene and had some extraordinary experiences, I don’t buy into all the wild ideas that “new thought” or “metaphysical” type people sometimes talk about.  In particular,  pertaining to making money  I’ve been critical of a lot of the “laws of abundance” and “law of attraction” stuff going around, but I also try to keep an open mind.

For example: in no way will I tell you that if you sit in your bedroom and wish for somebody to give you a million dollars will you get it.  I will tell you instead that it’s a very good and useful exercise to get a specific idea in your head about what you want to achieve.  Then you have to take action in the marketplace of life to create the reality where somebody would write you a million dollar check, provided you had an idea worth that amount of money and the skill to sell it.

There’s a thing I learned in studying NLP (neuro-linguistic programming) that goes by different names but I prefer “evidence procedure“, which means the set of feelings and visualizations  you can project into the future to show your mind what the outcome of your goal is going to be like.  Rather than focusing on the goal, you tell your mind to fetch the specific outcome and the subsconcious mind takes care of lots of nitty-gritty details in between.  You direct your mind to fetch the outcome, like a dog fetching a thrown stick, and your marvelous subsconscious brain works out many of the details of getting the outcome for you.  It’s quite elegant and useful and worth learning about.

Napoleon Hill, if you’re familiar with his writing, was very specific in his book “Think and Grow Rich” that you can establish whatever intent you want in terms of the money you want, but in return you must also have a plan to deliver value to the marketplace.  Furthermore, Hill repeatedly admonishes that in all probability many of your plans will fail to bear much fruit but that if you want to acquire monetary wealth you must persevere with great intensity.

The advantage of seeing success through a somewhat “spiritual” lens is that it can help you keep balance while you’re working hard to create prosperity for yourself.  Your spirituality, if you call it that, can help you be both energized and relaxed about the whole process of making things happen for yourself, which can be a lot of work.  Work without meaning becomes tedious and a chore.  The thing about being an entrepreneur however is you have to maintain enthusiasm and creative flexibility and energy over  a long period of time.  A spiritual or philosophically grounded way of seeing success as a journey and a process can help you stick to your vision, stay empowered, and persevere for as long as it takes you to succeed.

The post author, Loren Woirhaye writes sales copy and creates marketing systems for business clients who want to slash customer acquisition costs and position their businesses For 20%-30% sales growth in the next 12-18 months. He writes regularly about marketing and life at his Entrepreneur Blog.

Google Whackness: How The New Instant Auto-complete Suggestion Feature Warps Search Trends is a post from: Breakthrough Marketing with Loren Woirhaye

Reading time: 3 – 4 minutes

Good old Google has unleashed some new whackness into our lives with it’s new “instant auto-complete” feature. I’m not sure what it’s really  called, but whatever it is, if it sticks around the roll of search marketing optimization as a traffic source will be changed.

In brief, the auto-complete suggests key-phrases based on what you type in for your first word.  Google has had something like this before but it was vulnerable to manipulation. Phrases like “why won’t my parakeet eat my diarrhea” would pop up in Google’s older auto-complete feature—which may just be a slower version of Google’s new suggestion tool.

Aside from the parakeet thing being gross, it’s hard to believe that more than one person ever typed in that search phrase sincerely looking for an answer to such a question.   Two theories about why the phrase showed up in Google’s trends are that either somebody at Google put it there as a joke, or a bunch of people got together and conspired to search Google with that phrase or create content and links ]]> Google Whackness: How The New Instant Auto-complete Suggestion Feature Warps Search Trends is a post from: Breakthrough Marketing with Loren Woirhaye

Reading time: 3 – 4 minutes

Good old Google has unleashed some new whackness into our lives with it’s new “instant auto-complete” feature. I’m not sure what it’s really  called, but whatever it is, if it sticks around the roll of search marketing optimization as a traffic source will be changed.

In brief, the auto-complete suggests key-phrases based on what you type in for your first word.  Google has had something like this before but it was vulnerable to manipulation. Phrases like “why won’t my parakeet eat my diarrhea” would pop up in Google’s older auto-complete feature—which may just be a slower version of Google’s new suggestion tool.

Aside from the parakeet thing being gross, it’s hard to believe that more than one person ever typed in that search phrase sincerely looking for an answer to such a question.   Two theories about why the phrase showed up in Google’s trends are that either somebody at Google put it there as a joke, or a bunch of people got together and conspired to search Google with that phrase or create content and links containing it.  Either way, it’s not really the kind of content Google wants to be serving up in general.

Now you can check out Google’s new version of auto-complete for yourself.  I think the main difference is that it’s faster, as in almost instant. If you go to Google.com and type “why” into the search engine, you’ll get something that looks like this:

why search

Some of those results are pretty odd.  The raven one from the Mad Hatter in “The Adventures of Alice in Wonderland” by lewis Carroll.  Of course it seems like nonsense popping up in your Google search, but it is a rather famous riddle.   Furthermore, not making sense was the author’s point.

The thing about poop might seem odd, but I can imagine quite a few people wonder about why their excrement comes in funny colors sometimes.  I’m sure the answer to this question has assuaged concern in more than one child so I figure some good is being done with Google’s calling it up as a search phrase.

How This Affects Online Marketers Like You and Me

By redesigning the auto-complete feature to be instant (or at least much faster) Google is in effect steering millions of people towards the most common searches.  This in turn will make those search phrases more popular.

The concern among marketers, both SEO people and Pay-per-click people, is that this move by Google will steer much of the so-called “long tail” traffic towards the more popular terms.

This means Google is making up our minds for us.  Google is choosing what we want to search for.  Maybe this isn’t all bad because it does make some types of general searching easier for the average Google user.  For Google, the effect will be to consolidate more traffic towards a tigher grouping of key-phrases which will—when those key-phrases are monetizable with advertising—cut the long-tail Pay-per-click marketers out of the zone where profits are made and create Pay-per-click  bidding wars for the keyphrases being pushed by Google.

It’s very clever really, if Google’s motive is to increase and consolidate Pay-per-click revenue.

In addition, Google has recently gone on a rampage of banning direct response marketers from it’s Adwords Pay-per-click program.   In effect Google keeps putting up new roadblocks to  making direct sales from web-pages advertised with Adwords.  My theory is that Google wants Adwords to be more of a corporate advertising engine and get rid of us direct response marketers, as we’re viewed as troublemakers.

What do you think?

The post author, Loren Woirhaye writes sales copy and creates marketing systems for business clients who want to slash customer acquisition costs and position their businesses For 20%-30% sales growth in the next 12-18 months. He writes regularly about marketing and life at his Entrepreneur Blog.