Have you ever heard the fable of the blind guru? I don't know how you could have missed it. It's been bouncing around for at least 5...um, minutes...in my head.

Here's how it goes:

Once upon a time, there was a blind man in a small village.

One morning, he walked out his front door,...
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Last week, Ray Edwards posted an interesting assertion about truth in marketing -- I'm trying to decide whether to find it disturbing:

Myths are stories that teach us something about our best selves, that inspire us to reach for something better, or that caution us against grave error.

...

Marketing, in its pure and noble...
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Tomorrow is election day around here. Which party is the most successful at convincing people to vote could determine who's in control of the country for the next few years. Last week, I read a report about techniques used to get people out to vote, and it got me thinking about marketing.

In the run...
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There are two types of messages you can send to your list: "follow-ups" that are sent to each subscriber in a scheduled sequence, and "broadcasts" that go to the entire list at once. Each type has its strengths and weaknesses.

Follow-Up Messages

Follow-ups are ideal for sending a coordinated sequence of messages designed to turn...
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There are four ways to make more money from your website:

Increase the amount of targeted traffic coming to your site.

Convert more of your traffic to paying customers.

Increase your revenue per paying customer.

Decrease your costs.

Let's work through the list backwards.

Decrease your costs

In some ways, this is the least i...
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The peacemakers may be blessed, but do rabble rousers have more influence?

It's well-known that controversial blog posts make great traffic magnets. Get people riled up, and they'll post more comments, write opposing posts on their blogs (getting you more links), deride (and link to) you more in Twitter, etc.

Picking a charged topic and...
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One of the worst mistakes I ever made in my online business was waiting too long to start building a mailing list. My next biggest mistake was waiting too long to start using it right.

For several years, I gave away a free version of one of my products without capturing email addresses. Thousands of...
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In yesterday's post about the importance of good timing (or the lack thereof), I made an assertion that deserves to be backed up:

In the rare cases where someone manages to automate real value creation, they're usually better off keeping the tools to themselves, so you won't often find them for sale.

Let me share...
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When you pitch a product, you're asking the customer to change: from apathetic to interested, from ignorant to informed, from resistant to accepting, from passive to active, from satisfied to evangelizing.

Most people don't like change. Even people who want to change resist it. (In fact, people who want change the most are probably the...
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If you don't know how to reach the part of a customer's brain that has the most power over their decisions, you're like a tree falling in the forest. Philosophers may spend weeks ruminating over whether you're making any noise. But if the decision maker isn't listening, you may make noise, but you won't make...
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