Tuesday, August 31, 2010

What's Your Position?

Greetings, my friend. I hope your summer was relaxing and
prosperous. If the economy were only as hot as the temperature,
we'd all be doing much better. I heard talk this morning of a
double dip recession or even a depression. These are not
comforting thoughts. Most every client I know is suffering from
reduced business, no matter what the industry.

Many people tell me they are doing what they always did to try to
bring new business in, but even things that worked in the past no
longer seem to work. I believe this calls for a different
approach to doing business, and it starts with understanding the
customer's needs and then being flexible in your pricing to allow
the customer to engage you. Once engaged, as your value is being
proven, you can begin to do more work and increase your billings.

Now typically, being nice like this and being customer focused
like this, is not how many businesses operate. Many businesses are
there to take your order and call that customer service. I
liken it to something more biblical.

At the end of the day, we are either Jesus offering to help the
crippled beggar into the healing pool, or we are the crippled
beggar asking for help. At one time or another, we are in one of
these positions -- either in the position to help someone or in
the position of needing help. And businesses and customers need
each other for obvious reasons.

What your stance? Are you trying to take orders or are you trying
to help people? Are you flexible? Lord knows I've had to adapt
and so have most of my friends and clients. When faced with an
extraordinarily poor economy, you must take extraordinary
measures to compel people to do business with you.

For instance, some charge for proposals. I give mine away most of
the time. Some designers charge $117.00 for an ebook cover. I charge
$49.95. Some copywriters charge $3000.00 for a sales letter. I
price it based upon what the need and budget may be.

I'm not suggesting you giveaway the shop -- we all must maintain
a satisfactory (note I did not say healthy) profit margin -- but
you can be more flexible in how you approach prospects during
these trying times.

Now onto tools. Two items crossed my desk this past week I want
to share with you.

The first is Diskeeper 2010, a utility which helps keep your hard
drive stay healthy and run at top speeds. The last time I reviewed
this tool was back in 2004. It's come a long way, and it is
definitely worth looking at. I had not defragmented my hard drive
in 2 years and the sucker was running slow! Took forever to boot
up and open applications and files. Not anymore. I have witnessed
a 37% increase in speed. I'm blown away by the "set it and forget
it" technology. You can read more about it here:

http://www.cooltoolawards.com/software/utilities/diskeeper2010..htm

The second thing is a new ebook called Facebook Power Ads,
Version 3. This is a fairly extensive 98 page ebook about
Facebook advertising -- the how-to's, the what not to do's, and
the things you better do if you know what's good for you! You can
read all about it here (and yes, this comes with reseller
rights):

http://www.cooltoolawards.com/ebooks/facebookpowerads.htm

That's it for now. Think about your position with regard to your
prospects and customers. Changing that position a little could
stimulate your business in new ways.

Until next time,


Steven

P.S.: Please click the link below to forward this newsletter to a
friend:

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Monday, August 23, 2010

Strategies and Tools for a Depressed Economy

I hope this edition of my newsletter finds you and yours well. I
apologize for missing a week or two recently, but life has gotten
hectic as the kids have returned to school and after-school
activities. The combination makes for precious little down time
to focus on anything other than family.

My daughter has entered 8th grade and is already taking her
second year of Chinese as well as High School level Science. My
son has started 6th grade and is taking pre-Algebra, Chinese and
he is very excited about starting the Clarinet.

My daughter made the 8th grade pom squad and has been in training
all summer. Their first game is in another week and we've
purchased tickets for the season. She also returns to point
ballet -- I think this is the beginning of her 11th year in
ballet. So she's pretty stoked and booked solid every day and
night of the week.

My son has continued with his tennis lessons and things are
really clicking for him. His trainer says he's ready to start
playing against his peers. The high school in our district has a
huge tennis academy, so we're hopeful that if he sticks with this
sport he might position himself for a college scholarship when
the time comes.

Of course, my wife and I are busy with our respective careers and
hobbies (hers - dental hygienist/tennis, mine - consulting/magic)
and it seems we're always driving one of the kids some place!

It's hard to find down time to just relax and be alone to think
about things. Does that sound familiar?

Sometimes, when things are not going our way, that downtime seems
more depressing than like solitude. But quiet time is necessary
to refocus, change gears, and revitalize. It's easy to get caught
up in what's not going well, but how many times do we actually
acknowledge where things are going right?

Of course, it's not easy knowing who to turn to for advice
either. These days everyone is an expert. And much of what the
experts say tend to contradict one and another. In the online
marketing world, one guru says social media is King and another
swears by list building and SEO. Who do you listen to?

I don't have all the answers, but I've got some ideas.

First, just because the economy stinks for most of us, doesn't
mean you should become invisible by taking a marketing vacation. While
it's true that most people and companies are not buying anything
right now - products or services - this could be a good time to
draw the wagons in a circle around your existing customers rather
than go after new business. It's time to go into protection mode
and start sharing success stories with them. Let them know how
grateful you are for their business, and let them know what
you've done for other customers. It's a good time for a customer
appreciation seminar. Get them all in a room to listen to
speakers who can help them to understand how to survive in a
challenging economy. Get them on stage talking about how you have
helped them. Let them leave without the pressure of buying
something from you, but with good feelings towards you.

It's a great time to start a newsletter and build your mailing
list. Encourage existing customers to subscribe and add a
subscription form to your home page. Start sharing success
stories, tips, and advice. Send it out weekly, ask questions,
make personal calls to follow-up, provide free advice, and to let
people see you as a trusted authority so that when the economy
changes direction, you will be the first person they call.

Planting seeds for the future is very important during times of
economic famine.

Now here's some things you can do on the cheap to help educate
yourself about trends in search engine optimization and social
media that will help position your web site and company for the
future, too:

Magic SEO Book
http://www.cooltoolawards.com/ebooks/magicseobook.htm

Twitter Explosion
http://www.cooltoolawards.com/ebooks/twitterexplosion.htm

Facebook Social Ads Exposed
http://www.cooltoolawards.com/ebooks/facebooksocialadsexposed.htm

350 Social Media Tactics
http://www.resellerproducts.com/350socialmediastrategies/

Until next time,

Steven

Schneiderman Marketing, LLC, 1811 South Baltimore, Suite 203, Tulsa, OK 74119, United States

Thursday, August 05, 2010

Back to School, DropBox, and Seeing the Light

Greetings to friends old and new and I trust everything is going
well on your side of the screen. The oven-like heat that has been
assaulting us here in Tulsa is about to cool off a bit with some
storms passing through in the next day or so. It's been so hot,
it is pretty hard to do anything but stay in the house or office.
All work and no play does make Jack -- or in this case -- Steven
-- a very dull boy.

Meanwhile the kids are getting ready to return to school and I am
looking forward to falling back into a more predictable schedule
that isn't built upon keeping the kids busy. Trust me, during the
school year they keep pretty busy without much help from us. My
son is starting Clarinet and he is very excited. My daughter made
the 8th grad pom squad and has been hard at work training all
summer.

One of the more interesting things my kids taught themselves this
summer was stop motion animation. It all started out of "Gee,
Dad, we have nothing to do." The next thing I knew, they had
somehow used their digital cell phone cameras to record a series
of stop motion animation videos featuring Lego mini figures and
footage they had captured from video games.

I must admit I was VERY surprised by what they created. So much
so that I gave my daughter my drawing tablet to see what she
could do and my old Hi-8 video camera to my son to see what he
could do. She's busy drawing Japanese Manga animation now and he
is video recording everything he can find. They've made a few
movies and appear to be having a very good time. I just picked up a
new software tool for us to play with called Anime Studio Debut
which enables you to create your own animation. Pretty cool.

Meanwhile back in the office, I have been constantly running out
of online storage for my larger video and graphics files. My
friend, Adeel, told me about DropBox and I strongly recommend you
read the full review here:

http://www.cooltoolawards.com/services/dropbox.htm

It's a free service that starts you out with 2 GB of online
storage and easy ways to move and share files with other people.

A few months ago, I asked a question about what was holding you
back from being happy and successful. Some of you responded with
a variety of answers but the overwhelming sentiment were
financial pressures and a general feeling of hopelessness.

I understand. Trust me I do.

I've had money and I've had none. And I still think it's better
to have some money. And with the economy such as it is, it is hard
to see the light at the end of the tunnel sometimes. But you need
to know the light hasn't gone away and that it is still very much
there waiting for us to find it. But you need to search for it
with all your heart and soul. Or else you'll never get there. Or
get to enjoy what it's like to live in the light. So my advice is
simply this: believe.

If you have questions about this or want to chat, please feel
free to drop me an email at info@schneiderman.net. It would be my
absolute pleasure to get to know you better.

Until next time, I wish you much happiness in life,


Steven

P.S.: Do you know someone who would benefit from my marketing
advice and my life stories? Please click the link below to share
this newsletter with someone you care about:

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Schneiderman Marketing, LLC, 1811 South Baltimore, Suite 203, Tulsa, OK 74119, United States

Sunday, August 01, 2010

Pass It On ...

Good evening, friends. Hope all is well with you and yours. Our
downstairs air conditioner went out last night during my wife's
party for her girlfriends. Of course, as luck would have it, this
had to happen on the hottest day of the year -- 104 degrees
yesterday. Even the shade was hot.

Luckily, my heating and air conditioning service man came out
this afternoon after church, and it turned out only to be a loose
wire. When I asked him what I owed him, he said nothing. I was
amazed that he came out on his day off and fixed it in this
extreme heat. Talk about quality service. I'm not used it or
kindness.

So about an hour later, as I was watching a movie called The
Gospel of John I saw the local fruit merchant parking in front of
my house. "Oh no," I thought. I hate telling this guy "No". He
talks a mile a minute and always has the coldest, best fruit
already sliced and ready for me to sample before I even open the
darn door.

I really didn't need a case of fruit even though the samples were
quite good. Funds are real tight right now, but something from
the movie I just watched and the kindness of my A/C guy told me
it was time to pass it on, so I bought a big old box of fruit. He
smiled and walked off happy, and my wife just kinda smiled at
me. I am an old softy at heart most of the time.

So the lesson today is pass it on, pay it forward, do onto
others, etc.

I wanted to pass something else on to you. My bud, Max Rylski,
creates some really cool and affordable software tools and
graphics libraries and today he just released another one that
simply can not be beat. It's called the Amazing Mini Site
Template Version 2.0 and it's even better than the first one!

Check it out right here (copy and paste between the brackets):

http://www.resellerproducts.com/amazing%20mini%20site%20template%202/

I know many of you are trying to create your own mini sites to
market your own products. This is a very good solution and cheap.

If you are creating web sites for others, this is a good
solution. If you are promoting other people's products through an
affiliate program or reselling them, this is a perfect solution.

Only $27.00 for a bunch of great web site templates PLUS a
library of great graphics PLUS all of the original PhotoShop PSD
files so you can customize everything.

Just the way you want it.

And if you order right now, I will also send you a link to my
ebook Mad Scientist at Work which lets you inside my crazy
creative process for creating new products.

Until next time,


Steven

P.S.: Pay if forward, please, and pass this newsletter onto a
friend.

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