You don't have to be afraid of this — no one has ever profited from it alone, anyway:

As you probably know, last week I sent out a survey to my list, to get feedback on the upcoming title of my book.

If you were one of the people who responded to that survey, I want to say a very sincere “Thank you” for taking the time out of your schedule to give me your input and your well-wishes.

As promised, sometime soon I’ll publish the results of the survey along with the results of some Google AdWords I am testing, as part of this same process. This entire experience was very interesting, to say the least.

Since I also received so many good questions and comments, I’m going to continue answering them over the next few days. You too, may have thought about one or more of these comments and I hope my answers will help you in some way.

Question: “I think a lot of people, like myself, are fearful that they have missed the online revolution and won’t be able to catch up because we haven’t grown up with eBay, Facebook, Twitter etc. It would be reassuring to know that while the technology is different, the underlying principles are the same as ever.”

This is a great comment. I was listening to the audio version of Jim Collins best-seller, “Good To Great” in the car yesterday, and one of the things he found in his studies, was that technology alone, NEVER was responsible for any companies transition from good to great.

And this makes total sense if you think about it. You’re either doing things correctly, or you’re not doing things correctly. Technology can only expedite, automate, and improve those things you are doing correctly, but it can’t do them for you.

Kind of like doing cardio in the gym. If you’re only doing cardio, you’re unlikely to get results, but if you’re doing cardio, lifting weights or doing calisthenics, and eating healthy, all at the same time… then you’re on the road to success.

Plus, just to reassure you, I too, can’t keep up with technology. No one can. It moves and evolves faster than anything else. What I try and do is take the one specialty I have, which is emotional direct-response copywriting and marketing, and then use it in concert with one or two new technologies, whenever I can.

The most important thing is to always be making a consistent connection with your prospects, always be offering them great information, and always thinking about what you want to bring into the world, instead of what you want to get out of it.

“I already know who you are and follow you so I’m not sure if my feedback will help. But your hard-hitting in your face personality is definetly one thing that appeals to me.”

I put this one down because many people are afraid to “be themselves”or to be “some body” because they might alienate people by doing this. Let me tell you something — you are going to alienate people regardless, so why not attract people by giving them what you DO have to offer and by who you are, instead of worrying about who you aren’t and what you’re not?

Alienating certain prospects is healthy. Think of it as Darwin’s Theory Of Natural Selection, applied to your business. But if you don’t put anything out there to attract with in the first place, then you have nothing to stand on — no platform to define who you are and what you represent, right?

And how many people do you think will be attracted to a business with no soul?

Not many, right?

Be yourself, even if you’re a little scared, or at least be the best you can be, but offer something and stand for something regardless. The respect and loyal following you develop, far outweighs the few people who you’ll turn off.

And lastly, “Good luck with the book! Let us know how the results of this testing compared to what you expected and / or what your personal preference would have been from these choices (assuming you had a preference).”

Thanks, but interestingly enough, I really didn’t have any preference. My preference is to get the title that works best, which will allow me to sell the most books. After being involved with direct-response marketing for almost 9 years now, I’m beyond even trying to predict what works. I just put it out to the marketplace, and then… I let the marketplace tell me what direction to move in, next.

Now go sell something, Craig Garber

P.S. Check out these 22 Ways To Eliminate All Your Marketing Headaches, right now — over 160 minutes of Audio Now included: http://www.kingofcopy.com/22ways

Check out all the King’s products at http://www.kingofcopy.com/products

Follow me on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/kingofcopy

Comments? Leave them here on my blog — let me know what you’re thinking:


Posted

in

by

Tags:

Comments

One response to “You don't have to be afraid of this — no one has ever profited from it alone, anyway:”

  1. Angela Malejczuk Avatar
    Angela Malejczuk

    Hey Craig,

    You know it’s interesting what you said in your post today about keeping up with technology and many of us who feel like we’ve missed the boat on many of the technologies out there like Facebook et al.

    It made me reflect on something. My grandmother passed away just a few weeks after I was married (about 17 years ago). I think about the changes that she saw in her lifetime. When she was a young woman she lived in a remote fishing village that was not accessible during the winter. They were snowed in. Sure cars existed, but no one in her town owned one. At the time of her death there was the internet, debit cards, international air travel. Wow, really incredible changes to see in one lifetime.

    It’s always made me wonder what changes I might see in my own lifetime. I was never sure until I searched for “shift happens” on youtube recently. I think that this post really sums up the order of magnitude changes that we are seeing now in demographics and technology. It’s really heavy duty stuff.

    Jim Collins is right. Gosh it was great to hear you talking about that book. It’s an incredible read. Tehcnology alone has never been the instrument to take a company to greatness, but in these times I don’t think that it can be dismissed or taken lightly.

    Love your posts Craig. You are one prolific dude.

    Angela in Ottawa Ontario

Leave a Reply