The significant challenges that we face today cannot be resolved by the same level of thinking that created them.

Hi. Can you believe you are already one-third of the way through January already? I hope everyone is sticking to their business plan to make 2004 a year to remember. You only have 49 more weeks to do that!

Welcome to our new readers. We're happy to have you join us. Be sure to jump right in and post your comments in the 'Comments' section below or you may contact me directly using our private messaging system. We call it QMTP for short. The message will come right to me - no email necessary.

I started talking about people being resistant to change and realized I had a bit more to say about the concept so I posted a separate item A Resistance To Change. The whole point was just because you started publishing your ezine using email as your delivery method, doesn't mean it has to stay that way. When one method - one tool stops being efficient, it's time to take stock and find a better tool that works for you. I really would be interested in your comments on the topic.

Today's Feature Article comes to us from Charlie Cook. Is Your Marketing Message Holding You Back is an excellent message for any business owner whether online or off. When you are asked "What do you do for a living?" - do you have a ready answer? You should have. Your marketing message is like a key. If you have the right one, it can help you unlock doors to new business. If not you'll be locked out in the cold and your revenue will suffer.

Pamela Heywood presents a real case study of how small business owners are losing money in How Serious Is Online Fraud? in today's Special Feature. It's not just the scammers you need to keep an eye on - it may be your own customers. Pay close attention and make sure this isn't happening to you.

And if you are keeping track, I had 10,823 messages try to get into my Inbox this week and of those 9,164 were spam. So as you can see, my prediction that email spam would get worse before it gets better has been all too true. Unfortunately.

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Is Your Marketing Message Holding You Back?
by Charlie Cook

Your marketing message is like a key. If you've got the right one, it will help you unlock doors to new business and start the process of converting them to clients. If you've got one that is the wrong size or poorly crafted you'll be locked out in the cold, wondering why your business isn't growing faster.

Unfortunately too many independent professionals and small business owners market with messages that just don't work. They may be too long, too short, too common, too dull, or too self laudatory. The result is they don't open enough doors to new business.

Your marketing message, elevator speech, unique selling proposition, value positioning statement or whatever you call it needs to describe what you do and the problems you solve in one or two sentences. This may seem like a small part of your marketing effort, but in fact it is one of the most important elements and costs the least to fix.

If your marketing message helps prospects understand how you can help them, you are in business. If it doesn't then you'll never reach your revenue potential.

Too Long or Too Short

When asked what they do, most people either come up with a short label, or a long-winded description. You may tell people you are a lawyer, a therapist, in sales, a management consultant or a systems analyst. The problem with labels is that they don't really tell your prospects anything about what you do or how you can help them.

Regardless of your specific capabilities, when you use a label to describe yourself, people tend to assign a stereotype, based on opinions and assumptions. Say lawyer and people may shy away, say banker and people think boring, say therapist and people think of shrinks, say management consultant and people have no clue what you do.

Your marketing message should help you distinguish yourself and your unique capabilities. Use a label and you'll be assigned to a category which may or may not be favorable to you, and won't help your prospects understand the value of your services.

Some people try to avoid using a label by launching into a monologue listing their services and credentials. One management consultant I met, when asked what he did, said he would be happy to explain, but he'd need at least a half hour. Get and keep people's attention, start a conversation with a marketing message that rolls quickly off your tongue or the page.

Most people, your prospects included, scan verbal and visual content searching for relevant information that will help them solve a problem or meet a need. If your marketing message is too general or takes too long to hear or read, you are history. Your prospects won't take the time to find out that you may really have the perfect product or service for their needs.

Take a look at your marketing materials or your web page.

- Are you doing the same thing as the management consultant above?

- Are you spending valuable time and space describing services and credentials when you could be leading with a succinct marketing message that actually explains the problems you solve?

- Or do you let yourself get stereotyped with a label?

Use A Brilliant Marketing Message

Whether you are talking to someone in person or in your marketing materials, your objective is to engage them, to get them thinking about their needs and wants. Do this successfully and they'll soon be wondering how they can't live without your products or services.

Your marketing message should be the catalyst to conversation. When you use it a connection should be made between your services and your prospect's needs. If you had a brilliant marketing message that resonated with your prospects wants and needs you'd have more and more qualified prospects contacting you and more and more business.

Does your current marketing message:

- Tell people what you do?
- Start a conversation?
- Create a perception of need?

My marketing message is, "helping small business owners attract more clients and be more successful". When I use it I get one of two responses. If I'm talking to someone who isn't a small business owner, they usually want to know how I do what I do. If the person is a small business owner they want to learn how I can help them and I'm on my way to converting a prospect into a client.

If you want to attract more prospects and grow your business, the first step is to create a brilliant marketing message, one you can use in the elevator, on your business card, on your web site and in your voice mail message.

It is not easy to describe all you do in a sentence or two. Capture the essence of who you serve, the problems you solve and the solutions you provide and you'll have a brilliant marketing message.

Don't let your current marketing message hold you back. Make sure you have one that works as a key to attracting attention, engaging prospects and opening the door to new business.

2004 © In Mind Communications, LLC. All rights reserved.

The author, Marketing Coach, Charlie Cook, helps independent professionals and small business owners attract more clients and increase their earnings with the 5 Principles of Highly Effective Marketing. Sign up to receive the Free Marketing Guide and the 'More Business' newsletter, full of practical tips you can use at http://www.charliecook.net

If you are a visual type of person, you can truly appreciate the genius behind Marketing Dashboard

Picture yourself in the pilot's seat on an airplane or in the driver's seat of that car you always wanted. In front of you is a marvelous dashboard full of buttons. Each of these buttons will do something special.

The short version is that the Marketing Dashboard provides a comprehensive guide that will walk you through the steps to create a successful and powerful marketing campaign.

It's geared to be covered six days a week for six weeks but you can work at your own pace. And everything you need is there in front of you - on your dashboard so that you don't miss any of the steps. Also includes audios to walk you through the process.

Excellent tool for anyone who needs to market effectively. Marketing Dashboard

We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing; others judge us by what we have done.
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Good work done little by little becomes great work. Your house of success will be built brick by brick.
- Max Steingart

Remember where you were when you began. It increases your compassion for people just beginning.
- Unknown

Every day you hear about some purported online scam which is supposedly ripping thousands off innocent buyers. There are whole sites set up to inform and report on these matters, which is great, but it tends to paint a one-sided picture.

Without wishing to sound unsympathetic, in a very large majority of cases, it is because buyers fail to see warning signs (like lack of contact information on the sites they purchased from), didn't check them out to see if they were members of agencies that could verify their integrity, or simply because they wanted to believe the impossible, i.e. that they'd get rich overnight for a $29.95 "investment".

Identity theft and major fraud get plenty of press, but what seldom makes the headlines is the amount of petty fraud perpetrated by the general public upon small online merchants. Particularly in respect to instantly downloadable digital goods: i.e. software, eBooks, etc.

Fraud committed by your visitors is a far more prevalent problem than you might imagine and, I believe the simple reason for this is that it's far too easy to carry out.

Oh, forgive me if I don't explain EXACTLY how! :-)

On the one hand, merchants & website owners don't concern themselves with the details and pretty much put their heads in the sand. Maybe they even imagine that security products; scripts, information, etc., are just another way of trying to squeeze a buck out of them, by using scare tactics to pretend to solve a problem they don't know they've got.

Well, too right, they don't know they've got the problem if they aren't tracking or doing something to protect their sites and downloads ... that would show up where thefts are being made. If they were, they'd know that this is a very real problem that is growing at an alarming rate.

Someone who wouldn't dare steal from a traditional store, but who understands the very basics of HTML can, and will, take the goodies and run. They wouldn't have the guts to do so face to face, but they imagine they can get away with it, with the anonymity they think they have online.

It isn't quite that simple to be invisible. If you capture the IP address and the exact time of any fraudulent access, the amateur perp can often be caught. A quick note to their ISP -- who will know which of their customers were attached to that IP address at that time -- will ferret them out.

Just to see for myself, I recently carried out an experiment using a low-ticket item. Normal payment links were in place and I set up some rudimentary tracking that would let me see where the payment process was bypassed, but I deliberately didn't implement any special security to prevent it.

I sent out my advertising and certainly didn't have to wait long for *takers* -- in all senses of the word.

Almost the moment my solo ad hit my subscribers' inboxes, emails for payment receipt transactions and notifications that the product had been downloaded began to arrive.

And the numbers didn't match!

It was a small sample, but one in five, 20% had downloaded without paying. No, I can't say if this percentage would translate to a larger sample, because, quite frankly, I'd rather not find out thanks, but clearly it does go on.

Whatever the percentage, it's serious enough and taking some measures to prevent fraud will increase your profit by at least that amount. Every percentage point helps these days.

If the ticket price and volume are sufficient, this could be a very significant slice of your profit that's currently leaking right out of your hands. And I know whose hands I'd rather have it in, if it were mine!

Copyright © 2004 Pamela Heywood
Start your own online business the right way with our free home business newsletter and original fast-track online business course ... you can't get this anywhere else! Send a blank email to; mailto:allgoodthings@aweber.com Or visit: http://www.pamela-heywood.com

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