My mother is convinced that the cosmic forces of the universe conspired to set in motion an amazing coincidence on her special day.

Because my Mom lives 1,000 miles away, I shopped online for her Mother’s Day gift.

The day before Mother’s Day, she received notification of a package delivery. Lo and behold, when she went to claim her package, she discovered that she had not one, but two deliveries – one from her son, and one from her daughter.

Now for the amazing coincidence…

Both packages were shipped from the same address – even though the gifts themselves were completely different, and were from different brands.

“What are the chances of that?” she exclaimed with delight while telling me the story.

I wasn’t surprised at all, however – because I’m a student and teacher of successful business and marketing strategies.

I knew that the company I used to ship my Mom’s gift is home to six different gift brands, and does a tremendous amount of smart marketing for each of them, especially around the three biggest traditional gift-giving American holidays: Christmas, Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day. So I didn’t think it too far-fetched that my sister got her gift from a different one of these six brands.

Maybe you’ve seen some of their television commercials, or heard them on the radio, or gotten an email, postcard or catalog from them. You may have seen their banner ads all over some of the most popular internet websites, or had their “pay-per-click” ads pop up when you did an online search for any kind of “gift.” Maybe you know that all six brands are connected. Or maybe you don’t.

The fact is that all six of these brands are marketed extremely well, with compelling headlines, offers and deadlines. They also have excellent follow-up marketing – I use them quite a bit for my own business gift-giving, and I receive emails and direct mail from them every few days with their latest offers.

So when my Mom told me of the “amazing coincidence” that both my sister and I had sent her gifts from this same family of brands, all I could think of was how effective and persistent their marketing efforts really must be.

Think about it…

If you knew of someone with both Coca Cola and Dasani water in their refrigerator – would you be surprised? What if their two-car garage housed both a Buick Regal and a Chevy Impala? What if they had both Chips Ahoy cookies and Ritz Crackers in their cupboard?

I think you get my point. Each pair of brands is part of the same parent company, yet each is clearly marketed as its own separate product.

Many big companies produce and market more than one brand of similar products. They use the concept of synergy to cut their costs and boost profits – while they also make sure to have entirely separate and distinct marketing strategies and messages for each of their products and services.

Many small businesses actually do the same thing – but the problem is that their owners don’t look at it that way. They call themselves “Kitchen and Bathroom Remodelers” or “Heating And Air Conditioning Guys” or “Full-Service Lawyers,” etc.

What they should do is treat each one of their deliverables as separate for purposes of marketing. They should have separate ads, flyers, brochures, business cards, websites, etc. for each one – because people search for and buy specifics and specialists (and we pay more for them, too).

Not only is it a way to collect premium fees, but it’s also much easier to craft a compelling message if it is focused on solving one specific problem for one particular target market.

Perhaps you’ve heard the saying, “There’s riches in niches?” That means that entrepreneurs should present themselves as experts in very narrow markets in order to gain a competitive edge and attract more and better customers, clients or patients.

See if you agree…

If you lived in a multi-million dollar home and were looking for someone to take on your $80,000 kitchen remodeling project, who would you choose: a “Kitchen Remodeling Specialist,” or a jack-of-all-trades handyman whose yellow pages ad is cluttered with a blurring bullet-point list of dozens of competencies, from drywall to painting to roofing?

If you were arrested on a DUI charge, who would you want to defend you: a lawyer whose ad says he’s the go-to guy for DUI cases, or one whose ad lists everything from real estate to wills to divorce to personal injury – and, by the way, DUI defense?

I’m not suggesting you need to provide only one deliverable – just that for each product or service you do provide, you should do what works best: Provide your prospects a separate and clear, compelling, unique message for each one.

Your results could be miraculous.

My beautiful wife Michele and I are season-ticket holders of a suburban theater, and we also enjoy going to see plays put on by the theater departments of some of the many colleges in the Chicagoland area that have well-developed theater programs.

Last week we went to see “American Buffalo” in the Drama Lab at Harper College in Palatine.

When I first read all about it in Harper’s “upcoming events,” I was surprised that I had never heard of the play. But based on what little I read before purchasing the tickets, I was excited to go see it.

First of all, it was written by Chicago native David Mamet, who won a Pulitzer Prize for writing one of my all-time favorites, “Glengarry, Glen Ross” (an absolute MUST-see for everyone involved in sales in any way). Mamet was also nominated for a Best Screenplay Oscar for “The Verdict,” a movie starring future entrepreneur extraordinaire Paul Newman as a down-on-his-luck, alcoholic, Boston College-educated lawyer. The movie debuted the year I first became a student at Boston College Law School myself (not to mention the same year that Newman first started selling his iconic salad dressing).

American Buffalo was billed as “a menacing, humorous and philosophical masterpiece,” and its promotional flyer featured a simple-but-impressive quote from The New York Times: “Gripping drama.” (That Times critic, Frank Rich, even hailed it as “one of the best American plays of the last decade.”)

It debuted at the Goodman Theater in 1975, then moved to Broadway, winning an Obie Award in 1976 for Best New Play and the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for best play of the 1977 season.

Over the years, its stars have included Al Pacino, Dustin Hoffman, Robert Duvall, John Savage, J.T. Walsh, William H. Macy and Dennis Franz.

As if all of that wasn’t enough to make me want to go see it, the entire play happened to be set inside a 1970’s small business, starring a Chicago resale shop owner and providing what the promotional materials promised to be “an unusual twist on the concept of free enterprise.”

Sold! I bought my tickets, added the show date and time to my calendar and started looking forward to the evening’s entertainment with great anticipation.

That evening, we showed up at the theater early, because all tickets were “General Admission” and I wanted to make sure we got great seats (as it turns out, we may have arrived just a bit too early, because there were only 4 other people there before us).

We settled into our front-row seats, read our Playbills, and had fun checking out all the various “junk” and memorabilia strewn about the set – much of it bringing back fond memories of our childhood. We counted down the minutes to the start of the show, written by an award-winning, Chicago-born playwright, based on a Chicago business, and promising to feature a humorous and philosophical view of free enterprise…

But then came the play itself.

I wasn’t menaced. I wasn’t humored. And not only wasn’t I “gripped,” but I couldn’t wait for it to be over.

Now I’m no theater expert, so I can’t tell you exactly why I was so thoroughly disappointed.

Maybe it was just that the three amateur actors weren’t up to delivering the script as it was meant to be. That is certainly understandable – after all, this was a “drama lab” production at a small college, and one of the cast members was acting in his first-ever play.

(That reminds me of way back in my homeless/dead broke days, when I would get my hair cut for free at a nearby beauty school. The experience often left much to be desired, but how could I complain?)

For whatever reason, my expectation that I would see a play about business, or business philosophy, or “free enterprise” was completely unfulfilled. Instead, the play is about three low-life criminals and their inability to pull off even a simple robbery.

When I got home, I did some extensive research into reviews and critiques of the play, searching for reasons why my expectations were so ridiculously far off-base.

Sure enough, a couple of reviews agreed with my assessment, calling it “a poor excuse for a play” and “too superficial to waste time upon.” But the overwhelming majority of critics gave complimentary critiques.

My personal opinion is that my disappointment is the result of my eternally optimistic, heroic view of small business owners and entrepreneurs and the vital role they play in our society. Mamet’s view, however (just as in his other works that I mentioned above, when I carefully thought about it), appears to be completely contrary to mine.

As one critic wrote, “These three failed crooks are the waste products of the American belief in free enterprise.” Another claimed that “the author has proclaimed that he had in mind nothing less than a general indictment of American business ethics.”

No wonder I didn’t enjoy it. Unlike Glengarry, Glen Ross, I didn’t sense even a shred of humor or sarcasm. And there’s just no way I could possibly enjoy someone’s attempt to suggest that small business owners and entrepreneurs are basically evil and soul-less.

How about you? Have you seen the play? What did you think?

I’d love to read your response in a comment below.

Dan Kennedy, The Millionaire Maker

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.”

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 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 that you get noticed for, not the majority of times you successfully follow an already plowed path.

(*In case you don’t know, Chicago native Joe Sugarman is a mail-order pioneer: first to sell electronic calculators via direct-response ads, first to use 800#’s. You may know him via his infomercials or QVC appearances for Blu-Blockers. But his JS&A ads and catalogs preceded The Sharper Image and led in selling various electronic gadgets.)

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 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 long-term 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 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 gotta gamble. You try to gamble only when you must OR when circumstances look so favorable that it is irresistible, but you got gamble.

DAN S. KENNEDY is a serial, multi-millionaire entrepreneur; highly paid and sought after marketing and business strategist; advisor to countless first-generation, from-scratch multi-millionaire 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, for 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. His NO B.S. MARKETING LETTER, one of the business newsletters published for Members of Glazer-Kennedy Insider’s Circle, is the largest paid subscription newsletter in its genre in the world.

WE HAVE ARRANGED A SPECIAL FREE GIFT FROM DAN FOR YOU including a 2-Month Free Membership in Glazer-Kennedy Insider’s Circle, newsletters, webinars, audio CD’s, and more, plus free membership in “Chicagoland’s Sharpest Entrepreneurs”. For information and to claim your free gift, visit:

www.TheMostIncredibleFREEGiftEver.com

Yesterday was “Save The Rhino Day.”

Officially, the purpose of the day is to encourage people to be aware of, and support efforts to save the rhinoceros from extinction.

A noble concept, indeed; but to entrepreneurs, the day has additional meaning.

Over 30 years ago, Scott Alexander published the first in a three-book series, titled “Rhinoceros Success.”

When I discovered Alexander’s classic about a decade later, I was struggling during the very early days of what was to become a 9-year career in door-to-door sales.

All of us were independent contractors, who would meet at a warehouse every morning, purchase a supply of merchandise, mark it up and take it to the streets to convert into a daily profit. We were all therefore running our own businesses, and some of us even grew our one-person operations into multi-million dollar chains of our own warehouses.

One evening, after a particular rough day while I was still in training, a colleague handed me a tattered, worn-to-the-spine copy of Alexander’s book. It was a page-turner of only a little over 100 pages, including about a dozen fun, two-page-spread illustrations, and despite my utter exhaustion I tore through it in only about an hour.

Its basic premise and lessons hit home with me immediately, and have stuck with me ever since. Over the years, I’ve met many fellow entrepreneurs who have also been profoundly affected by it.

Alexander reveals his central theme right in the opening sentence of the book:

“The secret of success is, naturally, becoming a rhinoceros.”

According to Alexander, there are two kinds of people in the world: rhinos and cows.

The rhinos are the aggressive, audacious, action-taking achievers who are making everything happen. We’re the ones who are building businesses, becoming wealthy and having a great time charging towards our goals. We sacrifice the security and complacency of the pasture to live a life of excitement and adventure in the jungle, doing things most people aren’t willing to do and having the two-inch thick skin necessary to put up with the rejections, frustrations and setbacks that all successful people overcome.

Then there are the 95% of people who are the cows – the complainers and rationalizers, who are always depressed, always blaming, always making excuses about why they’re not successful. They are lazy and contented, happy to follow the herd and remain safe in the pasture, needing a “farmer” to be in charge of everything they do and everywhere they go.

Cows are always looking for the easy way, but they give up easily (all it takes to keep a cow on a farm is a single, thin wire around the pasture). On the other hand, rhinos are not afraid of hard work; we always keep charging and persisting; taking massive action.

Alexander explains that a key characteristic separating rhinos from cows is being results-oriented versus excuse-minded: “Rhinoceroses have no excuses. There is no excuse for not wildly charging every day. There is no excuse for not being audacious or not being alert for new opportunities… There is absolutely not one bona fide, genuine excuse for not being super-successful.”

Rhinos also know that the more successful you want to become, the more value you have to give. Cows, however, don’t think in terms of giving – they want to have everything given to them.

Alexander strongly encourages rhinos to hang out with other rhinos, while also acknowledging that the vast majority of people will always be cows, which is just fine. After all, rhinos need cow manure to fertilize our farms and gardens, we need milk to enjoy ice cream sundaes. “Cows in the country provide a scenic view on our Sunday drives in the Rolls Royce,” Alexander writes, and “cow hides make attractive looking wallets.”

Is he too harsh on the cows? Not if you realize that anyone can choose to be a rhino – it’s just that most don’t. After all, life on a farm is certainly easier and safer than life in the jungle – even if the possible rewards can’t compare.

I highly recommend all three of Alexander’s rhino books for all entrepreneurs. They’re quick, fun reads, and bound to have you nodding your head throughout at the simple but profound truths. Read just a few pages of any one of Alexander’s books, and you’ll be more ready than ever to charge after your goals.

And next May 1st, you’ll look at “Save The Rhino Day” in a whole new light.

Country music star John Rich was the winner of Donald Trump’s Celebrity Apprentice show last season.

He’s written over 2000 songs spanning a 20-year career, but until last Thursday, he had never been asked to speak onstage at an event.

I was fortunate enough to be in the audience for his first-ever public speaking engagement, at the world’s #1 annual event for direct response marketers: the Glazer-Kennedy Insider’s Circle SuperConference in Dallas, Texas.

You may have been to a business conference with a celebrity speaker, so you can imagine that the audience didn’t expect much from Rich in the way of meaningful, actionable content. And we didn’t expect him to be a true entrepreneur.

We were wrong.

Rich instantly connected with the crowd of about 1,000 entrepreneurs, small business owners and sales professionals by declaring, “The greatest thing you could be is an entrepreneur in America.” He then shot a big, fat grin and said, “I hope some of those evil one-percenters come out of this room!”

He went on to establish an even deeper connection by sharing his “rags-to-riches” success story full of ups and downs – something every entrepreneur can relate to.

Rich grew up in a trailer park home, and set out to chase his dream when he was 18. As he put it, “20 years ago, I was one guy, with one guitar and one piece of paper.”

He explained that he lost three record deals early in his career, repeatedly failing to achieve success in his first attempts. He wrote 500 songs, in fact, before one stuck.

As an entrepreneur, can you relate? How many times have you felt like giving up? As Rich encouraged, “You have to be a relentless maniac about your business. If you want to win, you figure out a way to win – to do better for yourself, your family and your country.”

He also had something to say to those small business owners who start to experience success, then become satisfied and stop pushing: “When you get the ball rolling, don’t ever just watch it roll. Get up there and kick it forward, and then hire people to kick it even more.”

That’s advice I wish I had heard – and followed – decades earlier. I had built my first multi-million dollar business from scratch to the largest in its industry; but then I lost my drive. I failed to re-set my goals higher, and “put my feet up.” Sure enough, the business started to stagnate. Then it declined, and finally disappeared, taking everything I had with it. I had let my ball stop rolling.

Rich showed us his blue alligator boots, relating them to what are called “hooks” in music writing: “doing something so memorable that people remember you.” He knows that the worst thing to be seen as in business is just another ______________. Every small business owner must provide something unique – something I wrote about in this space two weeks ago.

After his talk, some of the event VIP’s got to line up for a photo opportunity with the superstar entertainer and entrepreneur. When I reached the front of the line wearing my outrageous, big, obnoxious red cowboy hat, Rich cracked up and congratulated me for following his advice, telling me, “I’m never gonna forget that big, red hat!”

How about you? Are you following the advice of successful entrepreneurs who have come before you? Are you setting big goals that motivate you to do whatever it takes to persevere and succeed, and surrounding yourself with successful people who can help you get things done?

As John Rich says, “the best way to serve your country is to build a successful business and hire people. Generosity breeds success: successful people helping people, instead of the government.”

Oh, and one last bit of advice from a true-blue, down-to-earth, 100% real American entrepreneur success story: “Don’t forget to have fun and celebrate.”

Yee-haw!!

Just when you thought last month’s non-stop media circus surrounding the largest-ever Mega Millions lottery jackpot was nothing more than a memory, the story is back in the news again, now that the final winner has come forward to claim the remaining one-third share of the record $656 million prize.

One popular routine used by the news media every time there’s a large lottery prize about to be won is the obligatory “man on the street” interview session with people waiting in line to buy tickets. There might as well be a script, because the questions – and answers – are basically the same every single time it’s done:

The reporter shoves a microphone in front of an excited ticket buyer’s face and asks the classic question, “What will you do if you win?”

The immediate response is almost always the same: “I’ll quit my job.” (Sometimes there are slight variations, such as “I certainly won’t go in to work tomorrow – that’s for sure!”)

The politicians must not be watching any of this, because all they keep talking about is creating more jobs.

A couple of weeks ago, my sister-in-law Lisa took a full week off from work to spend time with my beautiful wife Michele and their mother, while I attended a business conference.

All week long, everyone took notice of how happy Lisa was (and she even has what people would call a “good job”), and she herself was constantly counting down the remaining hours of her freedom before she had to go back to work.

Lisa also had extra time to read her daily newspaper, which consistently contained stories and headlines about America’s “need” for more jobs.

It’s a well-accepted fact of American life: People “just try to get by” all week long, so they can spend two straight days without having to work. There certainly isn’t a popular restaurant chain called, “Thank God It’s Monday,” is there?

Over the years, popular song titles have told the same story:

• “I Don’t Like Mondays”
• “Working For The Weekend”
• “Friday” (Everybody’s lookin’ forward to the weekend)
• (Monday I have) “Friday On My Mind”

And of course…

• “Take This Job And Shove It”

And yet the American people continue to allow themselves to be brainwashed into believing that “we need more jobs.” Almost all politicians will be positioning themselves as “job creators” for the next six months or so, preying on people’s pathetic lack of ambition to try to get themselves elected.

The facts are indisputable that Americans hate their jobs (even most of those who have “good jobs”), and that the government is horrible at “job creation” – creating too few jobs, and almost zero “good jobs.”

I thoroughly enjoy being a coach and consultant to aggressive, forward-thinking, action-taking entrepreneurs. They are motivating, exciting people to be around.

That’s why although I accept the fact that most typical Americans choose to settle for a life of conformity, mediocrity and general dissatisfaction by adopting a “job mentality,” it makes me sad to see the majority of small business owners choosing the same limiting lifestyle by settling for being merely “self-employed” instead of striving to become wealthy.

I had the pleasure of attending an intimate gathering of some of Chicago’s top thought leaders yesterday, featuring a talk and Q&A session by Ziad Abdelnour, author of “Economic Warfare: Secrets of Wealth Creation in the Age of Welfare Politics.”

As Mr. Abdelnour writes:

“America was created to be a land of opportunity, where the individual could take an idea, develop it, and create wealth in the process. Unfortunately, not everyone agrees with this notion.”

Somewhere along the line, we’ve become a society where the vast majority of people have no real desire to become wealthy – or to help others do the same. Our teachers, politicians and even parents focus on teaching us to conform and strive for nothing more than a comfortable, upper-middle-class-at-best existence.

Creating wealth requires work. It requires drive. It requires passion. It requires sacrifice. And most of all, if requires the guts to take risks.

This country needs more people to step up and lead the way out of our economic funk. It needs more “wealth creators” – not more “job creators.” And those leaders are our nation’s true entrepreneurs.

As Mr. Abdelnour observes, “Just once, I’d like to see a politician saying he wants to create more millionaires instead of saying he wants to create more jobs.”

How about you? Are you one of the few small business owners who truly wants to be wealthy, and to help lead this country back to being the wealthy, admired, respected, world-leading power that it used to be?

A few years ago, when the economy was booming, businesses could survive just by “being there.” People were spending money very freely, with little thought and even less discretion or care.

Cities and towns were filled with plenty of examples of “just another plumber” or “just another lawyer” or “just another restaurant” (Does every town really need a TGI Friday’s and a Chili’s? and an Applebee’s?). Despite this “blur of sameness,” there were plenty of customers and clients to go around for everyone.

But then came The Recession.

For the past four years, and likely continuing for at least the next few years, we’ve all been much more thoughtful and careful how we spend our money. We’ve become much more demanding, insisting on personal attention and memorable experiences in all but the most routine situations.

As a result, it’s been harder than ever for businesses to attract customers or clients. The days of “just being there” are long gone, if you want to survive – let alone succeed. In today’s economy, every small business owner must figure out a way to differentiate his business from his competitors, if he wants to avoid the stress and frustration characteristic of the life of most small business owners these days.

That was, in fact, the central theme of one of the best marketing books of all time, Jack Trout’s Differentiate Or Die, written over a decade ago.

Trout’s message is more important than ever for all small business owners today.

One of the most common responses I get when I explain this to groups of small business owners is, “Okay, Steve. I get it. I need to differentiate. So how do I stand out from the crowd when there’s nothing really special about my business?”

There are plenty of resources to help you craft your own Unique Selling Proposition, the best of which, in my opinion, is Bill Bodri’s excellent 176-page guide, “How To Write A Million Dollar USP.”

Finally, there’s a killer “bundling of services” strategy that I’ve used myself, and have helped clients implement many times. It takes work, but it’s a surefire path to separating yourself from your competition, and positioning yourself as a leader in your community to boot:

Take it upon yourself to gather together a group of your fellow small business owners, who serve a similar target market to yours.

Once you do that, you can benefit in a number of ways. Here are just two of them:

1. Put together a Package of Services to offer as a bonus to your customers, clients or patients. Prospects won’t even think about comparing your competitors to you when your own offering includes thousands of dollars worth of free and discounted additional services (provided by these other businesses), such as “one free week of lawn maintenance,” “one free room of carpet cleaning,” “buy one meal, get one free,” etc.
2. Co-host a special seminar, “trade show” or other event with these other business owners. All the participants can share the costs of putting on and promoting the event, and everyone will benefit from being able to introduce themselves to each other’s prospect lists. Those prospects will love the convenience of a “one-stop shopping experience” for related services, making you a hero to them and your fellow business owners.

A recent CNBC.com article detailed an excellent example of a couple of sharp businesswomen who recently employed this second strategy with tremendous results.

I highly recommend you orchestrate something similar. Your first event doesn’t have to be nearly as involved or extensive as this what these women put together – just get started by doing something.

Because you really can’t afford to do nothing, and continue to be seen as just another ___________________.

Today I’m attending the third and final day of the annual conference of a software company, even though I’m far from what anyone would call a “techie.”

Infusionsoft helps thousands of small and mid-sized businesses around the world compete with their larger competitors, without the need for a bloated marketing budget or a huge staff. That’s what makes their annual gathering a hotbed of enthusiasm and celebration for the world’s best and brightest small business owners and entrepreneurs.

And that’s why I make it a priority to be here every year, along with about 1500 other geeks and non-geeks alike.

Speaking of a non-geek who made it a point to be here…

One of Monday’s keynote speakers was best-selling author and social media expert – and a superstar entrepreneur in his own right – Gary Vaynerchuk.

As even the most casual “Gary V” fan knows, he is an unabashed New York Jets fan who has made crystal clear his firm intention to buy the team at some point in the future. That’s why it was a blast to sit in the front row wearing a Jets t-shirt, and then “Tebow” for him right in front of the stage when he thanked me for making him feel welcome.

Which leads me to the main point of his message:

Your great-grandparents had a better idea about how to do business right than you do today, because they took the time and effort to find out what their customers really wanted, and then delivered it in a personal way.

Today, entrepreneurs are far too caught up in always looking for “the newest shiny object,” thinking and hoping that internet technology will allow them to automate the entire process of “doing business” and bring them untold wealth and success. Or, they think that they can continue to use outdated marketing methods of just a few years ago to achieve success in today’s economy.

Big mistakes, cautions Gary V.

As he writes in his new best-selling book, “The Thank You Economy”:

Gone are the days when a blizzard of marketing dollars could be used to overwhelm the airwaves, shut out the competition, and grab customer awareness. Now customers’ demands for authenticity, originality, creativity, honesty, and good intent have made it necessary for companies and brands to revert to a level of customer service rarely seen since our great-grandparents’ day, when business owners often knew their customers personally, and gave them individual attention.

Or, as he told the live audience on Monday, “As the world gets more Jetsons, we need to get more Flintstones.”

That’s bad news for big and small companies alike that fail to continually adapt to an ever-changing reality, and for people who insist on looking for the easiest or laziest way to build a business, instead of being willing to do whatever it takes to get results.

I myself have never been afraid of hard work. In fact, an early mentor of mine taught me that “Easy is never good.” That was during my 9-year career in door-to-door sales, where I learned more about people (including myself), the power of goals, perseverance, determination and most of all how to truly connect with customers – than any schooling or life experience could ever come close to teaching me.

I also learned that the key to selling anybody anything is to first listen to what they want, and then simply give it to them – instead of the common misconception of a good salesperson as someone possessing the ability to push anything onto anyone, regardless of their wants or needs.

Thriving in the Thank You Economy means going the extra mile to get to know your prospects and customers on a personal basis, and interacting with them in a caring, authentic way.

Technology – namely social media – can definitely help us to do that on a larger scale than ever before. But only if we use it properly: to listen, instead of as a platform merely to randomly spew our own self-serving sales messages into cyberspace.

A powerful message from a persuasive presenter.

If you’re not making it a priority to attend real live events like this on a regular basis, so you can associate with and learn from sharp, positive, action-oriented, forward-thinking entrepreneurs, then you’re likely to make other disastrous mistakes as well, such as hiding behind technology, not properly adapting to today’s constantly-changing times and ignoring the fact that what made businesses successful 100 years ago is the key to success in today’s world, too.

I hope to meet you in person at a live event soon, and discover your deepest desires for yourself, your business and your family. Hopefully I can help you achieve them, by helping you to connect with and help more prospects and customers.

Thank you for reading my post, and thank you in advance for posting a comment below.

Dan Kennedy, The Millionaire Maker

“Testing” is an ugly topic.

Why? Because testing variables in advertising, direct mail, phone scripts and sales presentations requires discipline, diligence and patience. To get it right, you can only test one variable at a time. This means that if you change a headline, you can’t change anything else. Plus you have to make sure all other variables remain the same, like the mailing day or a war breaking out that has everybody watching CNN day and night or another politician getting caught again with his drawers down or a hurricane hitting.

Frankly, most business people will just not go through the “detailitis” required to test – which is why it’s a very good idea to model proven promotions. And in some cases where you’re only going to use something once or twice or you’re dealing with a very small number, it’s just not worth testing; instead, you take your best shot. But let’s assume you’re working on something you intend to use over and over and over again in some significant quantity, so that it’s worth real effort to fine-tune it…

I have some tips for you: first of all, there’s non-testing testing – huh?

Well, I describe that in my book ‘The Ultimate Sales Letter’ (available online Here and for a discount at all Chicagoland’s Sharpest Entrepreneurs events), where I talk about the steps to take with a finished sales letter before you actually mail it.

Second, there’s split testing, which is the fastest way to test and get to a reasonable conclusion. Let’s assume you have a postcard and you want to leave everything the same but test four different headlines, and you have 4,000 similar addresses to mail to. You do “nth name testing”; that means Headline #A goes to every 4th name, Headline #B to every 4th name, Headline #C to every 4th name, etc. So you evenly divide the list without bias among the headlines being tested. Some media (like Val-Pak or MoneyMailer) will let you split test within a single buy.

Third, there’s testing against a control. A “control” is a marketing strategy that already works well and you’re using it on a continuing basis – maybe it’s a series of letters you mail every month. You have been using it long enough you know what it produces. You have a “known” to measure against. Now you can start trying to improve that control, ideally one step or variable at a time.

If I’m trying to beat a control, here are the “hot” variables I’ll look at closely, to see if there’s room for improvement:

1. The offer
2. The guarantee(s)
3. The urgency of response
4. The big idea or big promise
5. The overcoming of skepticism i.e. credibility and believability
6. The style or tone of the writing itself
7. The look of the piece

By the way, little, very testable things DO sometimes make very big differences. Recently I showed an example in my newsletter of a guy who just added four rubber-stamped words to the outside of his envelope, and beat his control by 300%. I once brought a TV infomercial back from the dead by raising the price of the product.

Gary Halbert saved the Pearl Cream advertising by adding a particular bonus. In 1984, after attending my seminar, a dentist in Sacramento changed five words on his Val-Pak coupon and went from getting two or three new patients a month to 15 to 20. This is the sort of thing that makes direct-response advertising as frustrating as golf. (Remember when golf pro John Daly scored an 18 on a single hole? Ugh.)

Obviously, you can’t test if you can’t, won’t or don’t collect accurate data. You have to code every offer, and track where every ounce of business comes from. If you have employees who are lax about this, you must educate them about the importance, discipline them if they goof it up, and ultimately can ’em if they won’t do it right 100% of the time.

I confess that I fly by the seat of my pants in my business more than I should, but I can’t fire me, God knows there are days I should. Anyway, I can assure you: the clients I have with the best profits and incomes possess the best information about where their business comes from.

Let me switch gears and talk briefly about another aspect of “testing”. This is actually how all highly successful entrepreneurs view everything they do…as testing. They do NOT see things in the context of “success” or “failure” like ordinary people do, and as a result they do not become “de-motivated” like most people do. See, most people drain all the vitality, courage, optimism and git-up-n-go out of themselves by focusing on all the things they do that don’t work out well, as a compilation of failures.

But successful people understand the powerful impact of that negative reinforcement on their own self-image (somewhat akin to the impact of pouring a gallon of toxic waste into a pint of clear water, drinking the result, and wondering why the stomach backs up into the esophagus). Instead, they carefully organize the things they do into a series or sequence of experiments, testing options, and focusing on the ones they find that work. And they fully expect to go through any number of experiments that don’t pan out before walking away from the lab with a winner. This not only has practical relevance, it has profound psychological ramifications.

Just like a little tweak in thinking can make a big difference in the results of say, an ad or a flyer, a little tweak in thinking can make a giant difference in the life results experienced by an individual.

DAN S. KENNEDY is a serial, multi-millionaire entrepreneur; highly paid and sought after marketing and business strategist; advisor to countless first-generation, from-scratch multi-millionaire 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, for 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. His NO B.S. MARKETING LETTER, one of the business newsletters published for Members of Glazer-Kennedy Insider’s Circle, is the largest paid subscription newsletter in its genre in the world.

WE HAVE ARRANGED A SPECIAL FREE GIFT FROM DAN FOR YOU including a 2-Month Free Membership in Glazer-Kennedy Insider’s Circle, newsletters, webinars, audio CD’s, and more, plus free membership in “Chicagoland’s Sharpest Entrepreneurs”. For information and to claim your free gift, visit:

www.TheMostIncredibleFREEGiftEver.com

This past Sunday, millions of Americans watched their 67th college basketball game in two weeks, as the number of teams was whittled down to The Final Four.

Later that night, millions watched the fifth season premiere of the television series Mad Men.

Small business owners can learn important lessons from both:

David vs. Goliath

This year’s NCAA Tournament has been filled with upsets – even more than usual. In the same way, small business owners who focus on executing the right strategies can often out-perform their competitors who relax and take their battle lightly – even if those competitors are big and well-established.

Lesson: In business, just as in sports, an “underdog” can often defeat a “favorite” – no matter what “the experts” think or say. However, if you feel entitled to success but fail to give it everything you’ve got at all times, you may find yourself “knocked out of the tournament,” even (or especially) if you thought it was going to be easy to beat your competition.

Advertising Victims

If you do any kind of advertising for your business, watching Mad Men can give you an excellent glimpse into how the game works from the perspective of the advertising agency. You’ll see how the ad salesperson’s job is much more about convincing the advertiser that his or her idea makes sense than about creating an ad that convinces prospects to do business with the advertiser.

Lesson: Advertising salespeople are heavily trained in how to sell, and know very little – if anything – about effective advertising or marketing. Your advertising sales rep is not “working with you,” but instead has his or her own self-interest in mind – and often that self-interest is extremely short-term (as in making as much commission as they possibly can every time they talk to you, instead of helping you build a solid, sustainable, long-term successful business).

The Only Constant Is Change

The Greek philosopher Heraclitus made that observation over 2500 years ago, and it has never been more true than today.

Over the past decade, we’ve seen the meteoric rise of several startups becoming some of the most powerful and well-recognized companies in the world, including Google, Amazon and Facebook. We’ve also seen the disappearance and bankruptcy filings of many former giants of the business world, including Bethlehem Steel, TWA, Arthur Anderson, Polaroid, Enron, Worldcom, Lehman Brothers, Woolworth’s, Chrysler, GM and Chicago’s own Tribune Group, just to name a few. Oh – and there’s that little issue about the United States of America’s credit rating being downgraded for the first time ever.

Five years ago, Mad Men had yet to make its television debut. Since then, it’s taken the television world by storm, winning the Emmy for Best Drama Series in each of its first four years of existence (the only basic cable show ever to win it even once). Similarly, no college basketball player in this year’s tournament was there five years ago.

In fact, these days the top players only make a one-year pit stop in college on their way to the pros, thanks to a 2006 NBA rule change. Because of this “revolving door” rule, next year’s tournament will feature an almost entirely new crop of stars, many virtually unheard of today.

Lesson: All business owners must constantly be rethinking and reinventing what their business is all about. As the world’s #1 small business expert, Dan Kennedy, says, “If you seek to be in the same business three to five years from now, doing business as you do it now, you won’t be in business…. In short, you need to be looking for change, not waiting for change.”

I’ve consulted with thousands of small business owners over the past decade – around 1200 or so since the economy took a drastic turn for the worse nearly four years ago. Most of these are good, honest people who provided excellent products and services for many years. But the majority of them refuse to make necessary adjustments, choosing instead to simply blame “the economy” or “the government” – or any other available scapegoat – for their own negligence as their businesses struggle, if not collapse entirely. They continue to associate with the wrong people and get the wrong advice, mainly because that’s just so much easier than squarely facing the fact that all of us must constantly make fundamental changes in our businesses.

Wouldn’t it be so much simpler if things would just stay the same and not change much? But as small business owners, we must recognize that such a fantasy world just doesn’t exist. It didn’t in Heraclitus’ time 25 centuries ago, it doesn’t in the world of television or college basketball. And it certainly never will in the world of business.

The only question is: How will you handle this fact in your business? Will you embrace it, and “March” ahead towards prosperity? Or will you ignore it, and descend into financial “Madness”?