Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Time to Listen to That Voice

It's a cool day in Tulsa, but everything's blooming and turning
green. It's a time for rebirth and so I naturally get a little
introspective and wonder what parts of my business and myself
need to be transformed. Like many, I second guess myself a lot.
Should I change my business model? Should I be focusing on new
markets? Should I raise or lower my fees? None of this is easy, and
frankly, it's easy to drive yourself crazy.

Here's my advice: be quiet.

I know that sounds odd, but it has been my personal experience
that when it comes times to face life-changing decisions, you
need to be quiet to hear the voices inside your head clearly.
Failure to find quiet time and listen can make all the
difference in your success, failure and happiness.

What are these voices? Some will simply dismiss them as being
the voice of reason from your own sub-conscience. Others believe
it is a voice of divine intervention. Whatever your belief
system, shut up and listen.

I like to talk to myself -- a lot. In fact, I'm talking to
myself as I am writing this newsletter! It's become habit for me
over the years, perhaps because I was raised an only child and
spent a lot of time alone. Sometimes I don't even realize I am
doing it which can drive my wife and kids batty. But no matter,
it's a tool, a method that works for me to work things out. I ask
myself questions. I spend quiet time. And eventually I get
answers. Mind you, they are not always the answers I expected.
Many times the answers are a complete revelation to me.

So, if you are twixt and between careers, jobs, projects, homes,
relationships, use this Spring to sit back, be pensive, ask
questions of yourself, and then be silent and wait for answers.
They will come, I promise you.

....

So here's some news. Last week I mentioned I performed a magic
show for my church group and it went very well. This led to an
introduction to a young lady who runs a local comedy
improvisational group, and she's booked me to open up for them on
June 25.

If you'd have asked me a year ago if I would pursue this path, I
probably would have looked at you cross-eyed. But now I am very
excited to have the opportunity to perform for more audiences. I
had forgotten how much fun I have doing this; how it fills me
with joy and a feeling of moving the needle.

It gets me out of my 9-5 comfort zone and puts new possibilities
in front me. Possibilities I would not have considered unless I
learned to be quiet and wait for answers.

What is the one thing that you have thought about doing --
fleetingly -- that would bring you sheer and utter joy -- but
have held back on for a variety of stupid reasons?

Listen to the voice.

....

This week I had the good fortune to receive two emails from
friends who wanted to show me something important. I'd like to
share them with you.

The first is a free ebook entitled "Get Paid for Who You Are"
written by David Wood. I never heard of him, but the book title
intrigued me and the offer was forwarded from a trusted friend.
Here's the download link:

www.getpaidforwhoyouare.com/freebook/?se=info@schneiderman.net

The other item I rather liked is a new online ecover creation
tool called My Ecover Maker. I've written a review and posted it
here on my Cool Tool Awards web site:

http://www.cooltoolawards.com/software/multimedia/myecovermaker.htm

I hope you find value in these recommendations.

Read the ebook.

Then listen to your heart.

Until next time,


Steven


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Thursday, April 22, 2010

Don't Hold Back on Dreams

Good morning, friends, and I hope all is well on your side of
the screen. This past Saturday I had the good fortune of being
invited by my church to perform magic at a picnic gathering.

I am not a professional magician. I think the right term is paid
amateur. I perform from time to time for money. I got started in
magic when I was a kid, and was bitten by the bug when my Uncle
Harry made a quarter disappear and then pulled it out of my ear.

Harry used to own a magic and novelty shop in Manhattan, and my
Dad worked for him as a teenager. My Dad started teaching me card
tricks as a kid, and with the encouragement of him, my Uncle
Harry and my grandmother, my interests grew into circus arts
including juggling and fire eating.

By the time I was 15 I had become quite skilled and used to
performing in a variety of smaller venues from schools to private
parties and clubs. I had my heart set on becoming a world famous
magician.

Never happened.

Life got in the way: college, work, family, kids, money.

Poof: my dreams vanished in a proverbial puff of smoke.

When the odd opportunities do come up for a performance, I
usually jump on them, but they are scary because I am so out of
practice. The best way to become a great performer is practice,
practice, practice.

So when my church asked me to perform at their picnic a few
months ago, I panicked. I said, "Yes" but my heart started
telling me "No, no, no. You will fail!"

For the next few weeks, I tried hard to pull an entertaining
show together.

But even the day before the performance, a little voice inside
my head was telling me to save myself the embarrassment and failure
and to hire a magician to perform in my place instead. I didn't
listen and with the support of my kids, I went ahead and did it.

And it went very, very well.

People were amazed by the magic, laughed in all the right
places, and I received a standing ovation for my performance.

It was a good day.

As a result of this performance, I have been invited to chat
with a local theater/comedy group about a potential regular gig on
Friday nights. I find this rather exciting and I am anxious to
see where this may lead.

I'm not looking to walk away from my consulting practice though
the exposure as a performer could result in work. It's more for
personal enjoyment and satisfaction -- a way to prove to myself
that I can do it.

Which brings me to today's life lesson, class.

What dreams are you holding back on because of the little voice
deep inside that tells you that you will fail?

The clock keeps ticking and we don't get any younger.

The time to act is now.

Take the chance.

You never know what lies behind the door unless you step through
it.

Do you have an idea for a new product, service or business? Do
you have an idea for how to turn a hobby into a profession? Do
you have a desire to radically redirect your life in a new
direction or career?

It would be my pleasure to assist you on your journey.

918-810-5233 or info@schneiderman.net.

Class dismissed.

All my best,

Steven

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Thursday, April 15, 2010

The Importance of Facebook to Your Business

Good day and I hope things are going well for you and yours on
the other side of the screen. Last time I wrote to you, I talked
about the need to look for -- and appreciate -- lucky pennies
wherever you find them.

Today I want to share a lucky penny with you, and hopefully
you'll pick it up instead of walking by and leaving it in the
gutter.

I see a lot of folks who are stumbling all over themselves,
trying desperately to make a living online. I'm going to exclude
folks who are trying to resell someone else's product or who are
promoting other people's products through affiliate programs.

This time I want to zero in on people who are trying to launch
and sell their own product -- mostly an
info-product/ebook/video/membership site type business.

I'm not going to berate people for giving it their best on a
limited budget or with limited ability, but there's a myth that
is still being perpetuated -- that if you build it, they will
come. In the case of the Net, the majority of people still seem
to think that if you write an ebook and build a site, people will
come to the site and buy it. Without any promotion.

There's a bit of ego involved here, so forgive me if I hit a
nerve.

The truth is unless you have written an ebook about a niche
topic which is incredibly hot, unless you are first to market in
this niche, and unless you happen to be extremely lucky or
blessed, the odds of you selling many copies of your ebook is
pretty darn low.

Pop. Pop. Pop. Sigh.

OK, I hear bubbles being popped. Relax, don't worry.

You may even invest the time to learn how to write a great sales
letter and design a terrific ebook cover -- or you might hire the
best people to do this for you. Good for you. You are taking the
right steps. But you need to take it further.

Promotion.

At the end of the day, your site is a needle in a haystack and
you need a promotional strategy to help people find your site and
ebook or whatever type of product or service you are selling.

In the beginning, 15 years ago, banner ads were the proverbial
way to attract attention for your products. You'd create a banner
ad, find a site to advertise it on, and then watch as people
clicked-through and visited your site and made their purchase.
Banner ads were THE way to generate traffic. A virtual sales
magnet.

But over time, banner ads have lost their glamor. Nowadays you
are lucky if you can manage to get .5% click-through. People have
moved away from static banners to animated ads to Flash
interactive ads. The latter may still work depending upon what
you are trying to sell and who you are trying to sell it to.

Then Google came along and changed everything.

Their Google AdWords network made it possible to get your text
ad displayed on page one of search results and people came out of
the woodwork to leverage the power of Google's search engine and
ad network. The problem with this is two-fold.

First, with more and more people competing for the same keywords
in their text ads, the cost of advertising on Google AdWords has
risen to unprecedented high prices and there are a lot of similar
ads which only adds to the noise on the Net and confuses would-be
buyers.

Secondly, people no longer click-through the text ads with the
veracity they once did. This means less ad revenue is being
generated for webmasters who serve Google's text ads through
Google AdSense.

So where should you focus your time and money to promote your
product?

The answer may surprise you.

Facebook.

Now if you are trying to get your site to the top of the search
engines -- Google is still the way to go but it's going to take
time and usually a great deal of money.

But if you want to laser-target your ad messages for your
product -- then Facebook is it.

But it's tricky and before you start plunking down your credit
card and allowing Facebook to suck every last penny from your
bank account, you need to educated.

Here's a new ebook I highly recommend to anyone -- yes, you --
if you want to promote your product or service online:

http://www.resellerproducts.com/facebooksocialadsexposed/


And if you purchase this within the next 24 hours, I will send
you a second download link for the best ebook about how to use
Google AdWords.

Act now while the lucky penny is still there!

Until next time,


Steven

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Wednesday, April 07, 2010

Lucky Pennies

Greetings from Tulsa, and I hope your Easter weekend was
blessed. As I pulled into my office's parking lot this morning, I
couldn't help notice a shiny penny laying heads-up on the ground
beside my car. "A lucky penny," I said with a smile, and bent
down to pick it up.

When I was a child, my father would always point out lucky
pennies laying on the ground, and I always picked them up and
added them to my collection, maybe eventually saving enough for a
pack of baseball cards and a stick of bubble gum (anyone else
remember when you could actually buy something for a nickel?).

But at some point in my life, I either stopped looking down for
lucky pennies or stopped picking them up? What inside of me
changed? As a child I believed in luck, but as an adult I only
believed in myself. Luck had nothing to do with my success. It
was all about me.

Then about 10 years ago, I started noticing things that would
happen for which there was no earthly explanation. For example,
when my family and I got hit by an 80,000 lb. tractor trailer in
our Expedition, we were all rushed to the hospital. My wife had
broken her ribs and leg, I escaped with just some bruises, and
the kids were remarkably unharmed.

Luck?

At the time, people who saw the accident said they saw me smash
through the rear right passenger window (I was not wearing my
seat belt), and that I was barely hanging on to the car door
before the car stopping spinning.

Luck?

Only moments before the accident occurred, I had jumped from the
front passenger seat to the back to quiet my one year old son who
was crying from his doctor's visit. The truck hit the front
passenger side and crunched and rammed it into my wife who was
driving. Had I stayed upfront, I would have died on impact.

Luck?

When my daughter was being examined in the hospital, they
removed and handed me her gold necklace and cross. I placed it in
my wallet, but when I got home, it was missing -- lost forever.
We had purchased it at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York, and I
had always considered it to be like a lucky penny for my
daughter. But now it was gone.

My wife tore my wallet apart, and it was indeed missing. We
surmised it had fallen out of of my wallet or pocket at the
hospital and that it was lost forever. We were all sad about
losing it. We felt unlucky.

Then about two weeks later, I walked into my home office to grab
my wallet so I could run some errands. My wallet was standing up
and was partially opened like a book I might have been reading.
Hanging over it was my daughter's necklace and cross.

I screamed and went running for my wife.

"You found Alex's cross!" I exclaimed. "Where did you find it?"

My wife looked at me quizzically and told me she didn't know
what I was talking about.

We walked back into my home office together and stared at my
wallet with the necklace hanging over it like a jewelry store
display.

Luck?

As you take your daily walk, always be looking out for the lucky
pennies but remember where they come from.

And if I can do anything to help you along the way, please let
me know.

All my best,

Steven

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Friday, April 02, 2010

Building Credibility with Prospects, Part II

Greetings to you on this rather wet April day. I hope things are
going well for you in all of your endeavors. Last time I wrote to
you, I spoke about how to build your equity with others, and I
mentioned that one way I do this is to provide a limited amount
of free consultation.

As the years have passed, this has expanded from a single
one-hour meeting to several hours or meetings. I will also
typically include a free review of a prospect's web site and even
include a list of suggestions for improvement. This is how I
demonstrate credibility, authority and value. It helps
differentiate me from everyone else out there and also positions
me to ask a higher price for my higher quality services.

Remember, there's a lot of noise out there from people who are
competing for the same audience in your space. For instance, my
competitors range from ebook cover artists to copywriters to web
developers. That's a large body of people. Of course, in most of
those cases, my competitors can not provide all of the services
that I can provide, and one-stop shopping is very attractive to
many people.

One way I market this diversity of services is to use multiple
web sites all cross-linked to each other. This is an old but very
powerful strategy originated and made popular by SEO expert
Michael Campbell.

For instance, EbookCoverArtist.com promotes my product design
services for ebook covers and related products. It cross-links to
EbookCoverCreator.com where I review and promote product creation
tools for those people who would rather do it themselves. The
site is also cross-linked to my publishing site, EbookoMatic.com,
because just about anybody wanting an ebook cover designed also
wants ways to improve their visibility for their ebook and my
publishing service does just that.

I promote my copywriting services for sales letters, email
series and press releases on Marketing-Cowboy.com. This site is
also cross-linked to EbookoMatic.com since many of the people
needing copywriting services are promoting an ebook they have
written.

And there's dozens of other sites that are aligned with various
areas of my subject matter expertise. Each of those sites focuses
on a niche or a need, and provides free advice and product
reviews and all are cross-linked to each other in one way shape
or form.

The longer I can capture a prospect's attention and keep them in
my world, the better the chance that they will eventually become
a client.

The longer they spend time on my sites and learn about the depth
and breadth of my knowledge, experience and gifts, the more
credibility I build with them, too.

I always recommend to my clients, no matter what business they
are in, to secure multiple related domain names and cross-link or
redirect them back to their main site.

Consider the possibilities.

OK, there's a new graphic tool out that is surely going to
become a must-have item for folks who like to develop and design
their own business logos, icons and graphics.

It's called Easy 3D Icon Maker and with just a few clicks, you
can select and customize ready-made graphics in the blink of an
eye. Watch the video to learn more here:

< http://www.resellerproducts.com/easy%203d%20icon%20maker/ >

Until next time, have a wonderful Easter Sunday and remember the
price He paid for us and the gift he gave us through his pain and
suffering. It truly is a miracle.

All my best,

Steven

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