The Army of Mary cast out by Vatican

Calling it a "very grave situation," the Vatican has excommunicated members of a controversial Quebec Catholic movement, the Army of Mary, for their heretical beliefs that derive from the writings of Marie-Paule Giguère, an 86-year-old mystic who claims to be a reincarnation of the Virgin Mary.

In a judgment delivered to the group on Monday, and announced yesterday, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith ruled that the ordinations of six priests in the Army of Mary this past June were illegitimate, because they were performed by a priest rather than a bishop. As a result, at least one recent marriage, performed by one of these new priests, is now regarded by the Vatican as null.

Further, the ruling says that anyone who participates in the Army of Mary, which has centres in Quebec City and Lac-Etchemin, Que., is in schism with the Catholic Church, and therefore automatically excommunicated.

The group has been in conflict with the Vatican for at least 20 years - its members claim to be fully Catholic, but with extra beliefs - and so it received the ruling with equanimity, calling it the "will of God."

"In 1958, our foundress received from above, heard from above that she would be crucified by priests and bishops. It's only the realization today of such a message," said Father Eric Roy, Superior General of the Sons of Mary and a leading figure in the group. "We cannot go against our conscience."

Founded as a prayer group in 1971, and recognized by the Archbishop of Quebec four years later, the Army of Mary has been a headache for Canadian Catholic bishops ever since.

In her writings, Mme. Giguère described visions and messages she received from God, explaining that Mary, the mother of Jesus, is fully divine, and also that, as her modern incarnation, so is Mme. Giguère. Rather than the traditional Catholic Trinity - in which God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit are each fully divine and part of a three-part deity - the Army of Mary now speaks of a "quinternity," including Mary and Mme. Giguère.

This reverence of the charismatic Mme. Giguère, and the inevitable comparisons to Joan of Arc and Teresa of Avila, helped it to spread beyond Quebec, with missions across Canada and in France, the United States, Austria, Jamaica and Italy. At one time it claimed 20,000 members, but that number is now far lower, although Fr. Roy would not estimate.

"There was always this suspicion that was around them, that they were doing something on the side, you know, teaching other things. It was always hard to tie them down, and I just tried to get them to come out and admit things," said Terrence Prendergast, Archbishop of Ottawa, who was appointed in 2003 by Pope John Paul II to be a mediator in the dispute.

"They would say that they would not subscribe to some of the limitations that we would put on the creed.

"They would say we hold everything that the Roman Catholic Church teaches, and then some things that the Church is not yet ready for," he said.

Yesterday, he criticized the belief that God has somehow willed their excommunication, which he called "victim theology."

"It's one of those ironies that they have been waiting for this and hoping for it. And probably their foundress has predicted it [but] I would have to find out after the fact, because that's usually when we find out that she's predicted something," he said. After 9/11, for example, she claimed to have envisioned the falling towers several years previously.

"The Church has been very patient with them. I've been very patient with them," Archbishop Prendergast said. "It's a kind of cult. I think they are very much under the sway of the foundress. Whatever she says counts for more important than what the Pope says."

Archbishop Prendergast's predecessor, Bishop Gilles Cazabon, had tried for five years to resolve the schism and made little progress.

In fact, until this week, things stood pretty much as they were 20 years ago, when in 1987 the late Cardinal Louis-Albert Vachon revoked the Army of Mary's status as a Catholic organization, which was meant as a warning of future excommunication. In 1999, Bishop Cazabon was appointed as Pontifical Commissioner, a sort of Papal envoy, but things remained stalled until 2001, when the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a doctrinal note in 2001 stating that the Army of Mary is not a "Catholic association."

Since then, Archbishop Prendergast said, the group's status has fallen among mainstream Catholics, and so the trend among Army of Mary devotees outside of Quebec has been to either recant their heretical beliefs and become fully Catholic, or to return to Quebec.

Things came to a crisis this June, however, when a leading Army of Mary priest called Father Jean-Pierre Mastropietro ordained six new priests, including a father and son. Under canon law, only a bishop can ordain priests.

"He simply accepted Marie-Paule Giguère's idea that you are now appointed to be Father John of the Church of John," Archbishop Prendergast said. "He calls the Church of Rome the 'Church of Peter' [Peter was the first pope and one of Jesus' 12 apostles]. And the Church of Peter, which is the Church of Authority I guess, is being 'transmutated' - that's the term they use - into the Church of John, the Church of Love. And that's where, of course, the Catholic Church can't agree."
He said he regrets the failure of the efforts at reconciliation, because most of the Army of Mary's priests - there are 39 at the Lac-Etchemin centre, for example, in addition to brothers and sisters of the order - are legitimately ordained, one even by the late Pope John Paul II.

But now that Fr. Mastropietro is wearing a Byzantine crown and "acting like a pope" himself, the final line has been crossed.

"I did my very best with these men," Archbishop Prendergast said.

"I like them. I would like them to be Catholic priests. We need Catholic priests, but we have to have Catholic priests who obey what the bishops say ... [But] once you decide Heaven can tell you what to do, it can tell you all kinds of things that go beyond the boundaries."

[via - canada.com]

Hands-on with the Palm Centro

Shortly after Ed Colligan himself talked up Palm's latest Palm OS-based handset, we had the opportunity to check it out. It's small, it's bright red (or black, if that's your thing), and it's got a speedy EV-DO connection -- but is it the best Palm OS device ever?
Check it out!

[via - ENGadget]

Mom births her 12th baby — 17-pound Nadia

Siberian woman unaware of newborn’s weight until Caesarean section

BARNAUL, Russia - A Siberian woman who gave birth to her 12th child — doing more than her fair share to stem Russia’s population decline — was stunned to find that little Nadia weighed in at a massive 17 pounds, 1 ounce.

Nadia was delivered by Caesarean section in the local maternity hospital in the Altai region on September 17, joining eight sisters and three brothers, a local reporter said.

“We were all simply in shock,” said Nadia’s mother, Tatyana Barabanova, 43. “What did the father say? He couldn’t say a thing — he just stood there blinking.”

“I ate everything, we don’t have the money for special foods so I just ate potatoes, noodles and tomatoes,” she told the reporter, adding that all her previous babies had weighed more than 11 pounds.

The Guinness World Records lists a 22 pound, 4 ounce baby boy born in Italy in 1955, and a 23 pound, 8 ounce baby boy who was born in the United States in 1879 but died 11 hours later.

The average weight for most healthy newborn babies is around 7 pounds, 6 ounces, according to World Health Organization figures.

[via - msnbc]

Ten Timeless Persuasive Writing Techniques

Want to convince your readers to do something or agree with your point of view?

OK, that was a silly question. Of course you do.

Persuasion is generally an exercise in creating a win-win situation. You present a case that others find beneficial to agree with. You make them an offer they can’t refuse, but not in the manipulative Godfather sense.

It’s simply a good deal or a position that makes sense to that particular person.

But there are techniques that can make your job easier and your case more compelling. While this list is in no way comprehensive, these 10 strategies are used quite a bit because they work.

Repetition

Talk to anyone well versed in learning psychology, and they’ll tell you repetition is crucial. It’s also critical in persuasive writing, since a person can’t agree with you if they don’t truly get what you’re saying.

Of course, there’s good repetition and bad. To stay on the good side, make your point in several different ways, such as directly, using an example, in a story, via a quote from a famous person, and once more in your summary.
Reasons Why

Remember the power of the word because. Psychological studies have shown that people are more likely to comply with a request if you simply give them a reason why… even if that reason makes no sense.

The strategy itself does make sense if you think about it. We don’t like to be told things or asked to take action without a reasonable explanation. When you need people to be receptive to your line of thinking, always give reasons why.
Consistency

It’s been called the “hobgoblin of little minds,” but consistency in our thoughts and actions is a valued social trait. We don’t want to appear inconsistent, since, whether fair or not, that characteristic is associated with instability and flightiness, while consistency is associated with integrity and rational behavior.

Use this in your writing by getting the reader to agree with something up front that most people would have a hard time disagreeing with. Then rigorously make your case, with plenty of supporting evidence, all while relating your ultimate point back to the opening scenario that’s already been accepted.

Social Proof

Looking for guidance from others as to what to do and what to accept is one of the most powerful psychological forces in our lives. It can determine whether we deliver aid to a person in need, and it can determine whether we muster the courage to kill ourselves.

Obvious examples of social proof can be found in testimonials and outside referrals, and it’s the driving force behind social media. But you can also casually integrate elements of social proof in your writing, ranging from skillful alignment with outside authorities to blatant name dropping.
Comparisons

Metaphors, similes and analogies are the persuasive writer’s best friends. When you can relate your scenario to something that the reader already accepts as true, you’re well on your way to convincing someone to see things your way.

But comparisons work in other ways too. Sometimes you can be more persuasive by comparing apples to oranges (to use a tired but effective metaphor). Don’t compare the price of your home study course to the price of a similar course—compare it to the price of a live seminar or your hourly consulting rate.

Agitate and Solve

This is a persuasion theme that works as an overall approach to making your case. First, you identify the problem and qualify your audience. Then you agitate the reader’s pain before offering your solution as the answer that will make it all better.

The agitation phase is not about being sadistic; it’s about empathy. You want the reader to know unequivocally that you understand his problem because you’ve dealt with it and/or are experienced at eliminating it. The credibility of your solution goes way up if you demonstrate that you truly feel the prospect’s pain.
Prognosticate

Another persuasion theme involves providing your readers with a glimpse into the future. If you can convincingly present an extrapolation of current events into likely future outcomes, you may as well have a license to print money.

This entire strategy is built on credibility. If you have no idea what you’re talking about, you’ll end up looking foolish. But if you can back up your claims with your credentials or your obvious grasp of the subject matter, this is an extremely persuasive technique.

Go Tribal

Despite our attempts to be sophisticated, evolved beings, we humans are exclusionary by nature. Give someone a chance to be a part of a group that they want to be in—whether that be wealthy, or hip, or green, or even contrarian—and they’ll hop on board whatever train you’re driving.

This is the technique used in the greatest sales letter ever written. Find out what group people want to be in, and offer them an invitation to join while seemingly excluding others.
Address Objections

If you present your case and someone is left thinking “yeah, but…”, well, you’ve lost. This is why direct marketers use long copy—it’s not that they want you to read it all, it’s that they want you to read enough until you buy.

Addressing all the potential objections of at least the majority of your readers can be tough, but if you really know your subject the arguments against you should be fairly obvious. If you think there are no reasonable objections to your position, you’re in for a shock if you have comments enabled.

Storytelling

Storytelling is really a catch-all technique—you can and should use it in combination with any and all of the previous nine strategies. But the reason why storytelling works so well lies at the heart of what persuasion really is.

Stories allow people to persuade themselves, and that’s what it’s really all about. You might say that we never convince anyone of anything—we simply help others independently decide that we’re right. Do everything you can to tell better stories, and you’ll find that you are a terribly persuasive person.

As I mentioned, this is in no way a complete list. What other persuasive writing strategies work for you?

[via - copyblogger]

Why You Should Not Be Ashamed Of Being Home Based

LYNNE KILLEY followed the advice books when she opened a spa and started producing a line of natural skin care products out of her home in Pagosa Springs, Colo.: she tried to make her one-woman operation look bigger.

“I referred to the company in the third person,” she said. “I made a logo, Stella, and sometimes billed things out under Stella’s name.”

Then, last summer, Ms. Killey’s publicist organized a trip to New York so she could meet with magazine editors. In describing her business, Queen Bee Skin Care, Ms. Killey revealed that she made her products in her own kitchen. Even as she spoke, she said, she realized that perhaps her home-based model was a selling point and not something to hide.

“Here I was sitting in front of people that I needed to impress, and they just loved that I was making the stuff in my kitchen,” she said. Right about then, she rethought her strategy.

With about 50 percent of businesses in the United States based out of the home, this kind of transparency is likely to become more common. “Place honestly doesn’t matter anymore,” said Maggie Jackson, author of “What’s Happening to Home” (Sorin Books 2002).

“It is no longer a faux pas to have a life at the other end of the telephone line.” Ms. Jackson said. “It can make you feel like you’re dealing with a holistic person. And it is just another sign that we are moving away from the industrial age in that we no longer have two totally separate spheres called work and home.”

Just as customers, vendors and other outsiders are getting a chance to peek behind the curtain into home offices, home-based entrepreneurs are also getting more opportunities to interact with each other. StartupNation, an online hub for small businesses, is running a contest, the Home-Based 100, that will rank home-based businesses according to various criteria, including “the top financial performers,” “the greenest,” “the wackiest” and “boomers back in business.”

“Home-based businesses are out of the hiding part, but when we talk about business, we still talk about the Fortune 500, but not the half-trillion dollar economy of home-based businesses,” said Richard Sloan, co-founder of StartupNation. “This new community will also allow home-based businesses to connect with each other, get inspired and share best practices.”

Chris Elam, the founder and choreographer of Misnomer Dance Theater, runs the company out of his Brooklyn apartment, and he is a big proponent of transparency. His company videotapes rehearsals and even office meetings for posting on its video blog, which allows audiences to get a behind-the-scenes look at what it takes to run a dance company.

“Dance audiences traditionally interact with a dance company for only two hours a year and maybe get a couple of postcards,” Mr. Elam said. “But so much happens outside the performance, and we are trying to find ways of making the whole function of the company more open-source.”

Margot J. Tohn is another home-based business owner who thinks there is no point in hiding. Her decision to start a publishing business came after a disastrous evening of trying to find parking in the theater district in Manhattan. She thought she would write a book about finding parking in New York, and since she was staying in her childhood home in Larchmont, N.Y., it made sense to start her business there to keep her start-up costs low. She could also store books in the garage.

The book, “Park It! NYC”, is now in its second edition. She also works as a consultant for small financial advisers serving affluent families.

Around the same time she started her business, Ms. Tohn, 43, and her two sisters bought the house from their parents, who had moved to Florida for their retirement. Even with this rather unusual housing arrangement, Ms. Tohn says she has found that being candid often worked to her advantage.

“If the local bookstore runs out of my book, I can easily run some over,” she said. “My consulting clients know that I am unusually accessible. It isn’t uncommon for a client to call at 8 or 9 in the evening. It used to happen at 7 in the morning, but we put a stop to that.”

Clients also know that she often leaves the office midday to play tennis or tend to her garden, and leaves the cellphone behind. “When you start work 10 minutes after waking up, it’s healthy to take real breaks.”

Still, Ms. Tohn does not want to confuse her openness with a lack of professionalism. When she brings in a team of interns to help with a project, she sets them up in dining room where everyone can spread out around the table. “It’s all about creating a separate area from where I live,” she said.

She is also a stickler about noise. “I’ve learned from watching my two sisters keep home offices while raising their children,” she said. “When the door is shut to the office, it is shut, and they can’t be interrupted unless it’s blood or death.”

Debra M. Cohen, 40, by contrast, says she designed her business, a contractor referral service for homeowners, around the idea that she might be on the phone for business and her children might be making a ruckus in the background. Her company, Home Remedies of New York, has become so successful, she says, that she now offers consulting services to others who want to copy her business model in their communities. Ms. Cohen says she has home referral operators running her programs in nearly every state and Canada.

When exploring ideas for a business, she ran every idea through the “can it be done from home with kids underfoot” test, she said.

Working from home may allow for certain informalities, but it does not necessarily signal the size of an entrepreneur’s vision. Ms. Cohen’s business passed the million-dollar revenue mark four years after its founding. Bradley Rhine, 46, who works out of his home in San Jose, Calif., is a chief executive of Cogentes, a virtual consulting firm specializing in the information technology industry. Cogentes plans to hire 100 to 200 employees over the next several years.

The company has nine employees, in Atlanta, San Jose and Boston, and as it expands it does not consider where a person lives. “Our ongoing proposition as to find the best people wherever they are,” Mr. Rhine said.

He said his firm’s business model makes sense because it is now possible to outsource many aspects of a business’s operations. The company uses outside firms for payroll, benefits, human resources, recruiting and marketing.

No one commutes, and everyone can live where they want, he said. “It is just a ridiculous waste of time and resources. It is both wasteful and stressful,” he added. “Plus, it is bad for the environment.”

[via - NY Times]

Joe Sugarman's Triggers - Turning Money Poop into Shinola

Just as it is important to show your dirty laundry early for your prospect to see, it is equally important to clean it as well. The examples in the preceding chapter all involved first determining the negative features or the objections to the sale and then bringing them up right away.

But then comes the hard part. You’ve got to resolve the objections. For example, if I were selling a thermostat (as I mentioned in the previous example) and the prospect was required to install it, I would bring up the installation issue right away, at the beginning of the ad. I know from my experience with other sales that consumers do not relate to installation of an electrical product where live voltages and wires are involved.

By bringing up the possible objection and then resolving it, I’ve removed a major obstacle blocking the sale. In the installation example, I brought it up and then explained that the thermostat wires were only 24-volt—not enough to hurt anybody. I mentioned that the wires were all color-coded, making it easy to install.

In contrast, I’ve seen many of my competitors avoid bringing up an objection, and never resolving it either. I’ve watched their ads fail, too.

Here’s a very important point: You can’t just resolve an objection without first raising it. Let me give you an example of this from my own observations.

I was piloting my own private plane and was about 50 miles from Palwaukee airport in Wheeling, Illinois, where I was scheduled to land. The weather was perfect for flying. It was a bright, clear day—one of those rare days when you could see for miles. But the air traffic controllers were unusually quiet as I approached Palwaukee.

As I got closer to Palwaukee, I could see, off in the distance, a big fire near Chicago’s O’Hare Airport. I landed my plane, parked, and walked into the airport flight office where I learned from a television broadcast that American Airlines flight 191 had just crashed on takeoff from O’Hare and that all its passengers had died.

That was May 25, 1979, and it was one of those memories that remain indelibly etched in my mind. The plane that crashed was a DC-10—one of McDonnell Douglas’s largest and most popular aircrafts. Immediately after the crash, it was determined that there was a hydraulic problem that, under certain circumstances, could cause loss of control and consequently a crash. McDonnell Douglas quickly corrected the problem, but for a while all DC-10s were grounded.

As if that wasn’t enough, the DC-10 was involved in two more crashes within a relatively short period of time. The last two were not related to any fault of the airplane, but the stigma of the American Airlines crash was still on the minds of the public. McDonnell Douglas realized that it had to do something to offset the negative publicity.

They picked Pete Conrad, a former astronaut, to write an advertisement and address the public concern. But instead of raising the issue of the plane crashes (as you would an objection) and then resolving it, the objection was totally ignored. The resulting ad was hollow. It talked about how safe the DC-10 was and how it was built to exacting standards and how 18 million engineering man-hours had been invested in the plane’s development. It went on and on. What was missing was the simple sentences, “No doubt you’ve heard of the recent series of DC-10 crashes. Well, there’s a few things you should know.”

I would then have brought out a number of things. First, that an unusual circumstance involving the hydraulic system caused the crash. Second, I would have explained what had been done to fix it and then gone on to reestablish trust in the plane’s safety by explaining the inspections and recently installed fail-safe systems.

In short, I would bring up the objections—thoughts that would come up in consumers’ minds—and then resolve them through the proactive measures that were already being taken.

Then I would say the things Pete Conrad said in his ad. Instead, the entire ad was focused on resolving perceived objections about the quality of construction of the plane, when that wasn’t what was on the minds of readers. Although Conrad resolved the issue of quality construction of the DC-10, he missed a major opportunity.

You are wasting your time resolving any objection unless you raise it first. And if you don’t raise the real objections that your prospects have in their minds, then you’re totally wasting your time.

The ad agency that created the DC-10 ad and the company who approved it may have had a different purpose in running their ad—more from a legal angle than from a marketing sense. But the ad nevertheless clearly failed to accomplish its intended purpose.

In the selling process, it is important to bring out an objection very early in the sales
presentation. It is equally, if not more, important to figure out a strategy for resolving the objection. By so doing, you solidly anticipate the resistance to your sales pitch and quickly resolve that resistance while getting respect from your prospect.
No matter what the problem is with your product or service, no matter how bad it may seem and no matter how badly you want to hide it, you must bring it to the surface early in the sales presentation and then resolve it. So the real question here is basically, “How can I take this problem and turn it into an opportunity?”

Very often, within a problem lies an opportunity so big it dwarfs the problem. Your job is to find the opportunity. Let me give you a few examples.

I was selling an ion generator. This product produced negative ions, which attached
themselves to micron-sized pollution particles and then precipitated the particles out of the air. The unit I was selling was sleek—a black, shiny cylinder with a slanted top that normally would look like a great art piece. But stuck on the very top of the unit, right in the middle of its slanted top, was this piece of metal that looked like steel wool. It was plain ugly and an eyesore. The problem was the eyesore—it did not make the unit look like it was an advanced space-age product.

The resolution was simply to title the ad, “Miracle Fuzz” and call attention to the piece of steel wool (or “fuzz” as I called it) as being the miraculous secret in the entire process. After all, it was the emitter for the ions and played a critical role in the product’s performance. The perception of the ugly fuzz was immediately transformed in the mind of the consumer from being a funny piece of steel wool into a miracle and the basis of this new appliance’s effectiveness. The ad ran for years and was one of our most popular ads.

Whenever I have come up with something I can call a problem, it triggers a reaction in my mind that says, “Where’s the opportunity?” One of the most satisfying things my customers used to tell me about my advertising was that it was totally disarming. They appreciated my raising problems with products that nobody else would consider raising and then resolving them in a completely satisfying way that transformed the problem into a major benefit.

You can do that easily in the selling process. Just list on one side of a sheet of paper the objections your prospect might have about your product. Then, on the other side, list ways you can resolve those objections and turn them into opportunities. But be careful. Here is where common sense comes into play. If you raise an objection that really isn’t much of an objection in the mind of your prospect, you are raising a red flag that doesn’t need to be raised, let alone resolved. The objections should be the serious concerns that your prospect typically will raise. It could be about competition, pricing, delivery—whatever the objection, raise it early in the sales presentation and then resolve it with a creative and proactive solution.

If your prospect raises an objection you totally didn’t expect or even realize could be a problem, you have the opportunity in the personal selling situation to resolve it right on the spot. Then, the next time you sell the same product to a new prospect, you’ll have a resolution ready for that objection if it is mentioned again. It won’t be a shock.

In my mail order ads, I had to anticipate all the objections my prospects might have, or I would not make the sale. But in personal selling you have the tremendous advantage of knowing precisely what the objection is, if indeed the prospect brings it up.

What happens when something unexpectedly bad happens during a product presentation?

The bad thing that happens then automatically assumes the role of the objection in the mind of the customer. You now have to creatively resolve it.

A good example of this happened to me in August, 1998, while I was appearing on QVC in London—an affiliate of QVC in the U.S. I was selling BluBlocker sunglasses to an English audience when my show host, Rob, decided to show how strong BluBlocker sunglasses are.

In the past, he would throw the sunglasses on the floor and then step on them with his large foot. Nothing would happen to the BluBlockers, proving how durable and strong the sunglasses really were.

On this day, something totally unexpected happened. Rob threw the BluBlockers on the floor, stepped on them with his big foot and broke a pair right at the hinge. Right there and then, as the broken pair of sunglasses lay on the floor, the objection in the minds of consumers was raised big time. But if you recall, I mentioned earlier that each problem has an opportunity and each opportunity is often much more powerful than the problem. Here’s what happened.

While Rob was literally speechless, I laughed and then said, “Rob, I’m glad you broke that pair. I really am. Lots of people watching might think that many of the demonstrations we put on here on QVC are rigged and not really truthful and here we have one that shows that indeed this is live television and that these tests aren’t rigged. Furthermore, notice where the sunglasses broke. Right at the hinge, which I’ve been saying for a long time is the weakest link in the entire pair.”

I then picked up the two pieces of BluBlockers and said, “You see the broken hinge area and how it is reinforced? Despite the reinforced hinge area, the sunglasses still broke, but this is about the only part of a pair of BluBlockers that can break and if it does, then you simply return it to the BluBlocker company and we will send you a replacement pair during our one-year warranty. Even if it is your fault.”

I used this dramatic moment to resolve several objections that were raised in the minds of consumers and maybe a few that weren’t even there but appeared as a result of a demonstration gone bad. And I resolved them promptly and quickly, proving that we were human, that we indeed were on live television, and that we back our product no matter what happens to it. We even had the opportunity to dramatically show how much reinforcement we put in the hinge area.

The broken sunglass demonstration was the talk of many of the other hosts at QVC that day, but most of the commentary was how I got out of it in a positive way.

Keep this very important story in mind when the worst thing happens in a presentation and something goes wrong. Remember that what went wrong just raised an objection and it is now time to creatively resolve it. If you do, the prospect will have much more respect for you than he or she had without the episode happening, as was my experience at QVC. In fact, sales of that particular pair of BluBlockers were greater than normal, which we directly related to the demonstration that went bad.

Resolving an objection does more than build confidence, inspire respect, and reflect your integrity. It resolves a conflict in the mind of the consumer that must be resolved to consummate a sale.
Trigger 5: Objection Resolution

[via - Triggers]

New Niche - Helping Seniors Relocate

Seniors are among those most likely to move, as they downsize or head off to sunny retirement digs. Yet moves can be especially hard on them, with heavy lifting and countless details to deal with, from emptying an attic to reconnecting an entertainment system. Adrienne Simpson, founder of Smooth Mooove, has staked her claim in what could become an attractive new industry.

Like so many entrepreneurs, she recognized a business opportunity after personally discovering a need. While moving her parents from Georgia to Michigan, she searched without success for a specialized company that would be able to help. Thanks to Simpson’s hard-knocks lessons, Smooth Mooove’s clients can now choose from a lengthy menu of services within three basic moving plans.

Services range from cleaning up vacated homes once all household items have been loaded on a truck, to hanging drapes and shopping for new items for a client’s new home. Although any move is costly, Simpson says Smooth Mooove can actually save time and money. Since family members often have to take time from work to help a parent move, the company isn’t just marketing its program to seniors, but also to corporate clients, as an employee benefit for children of aging boomers.

Smooth Mooove, based in Stone Mountain, Georgia, joins a growing list of concierge-like services focused on seniors, including other moving companies that are starting to serve this market. As populations age throughout the industrialized world, the need for similar services will expand, creating plenty of room for new competitors to differentiate themselves through innovative services or by segmenting the senior market in any number of ways.

Plush retirement communities, for example, might contract with a moving service as an added inducement to buyers. In the end, the success or failure of moving companies for seniors—as with any high-touch service enterprise—will hinge on how well they manage the details. And, equally important, on the respect, consideration and care given to their clients in the process.

[via - Springwise]

How To Become A Millionaire Sawing Stage Curtains

http://sewwhatinc.com/

Megan Duckett, 35
Sew What? Inc.,Rancho Dominguez, California

Projected 2007 Sales: $4.6 million
Description: Manufacturer of custom theatrical draperies and distributor of flame-retardant fabrics

Finding her way: After immigrating to the U.S. at age 19, this native Australian found work as a technician for a concert production company--and started sewing in her spare time. Her first gig was sewing fabric coffin linings for a Halloween show. "I rented a [sewing machine] and lined 10 coffins," recalls Megan Duckett. "[I discovered] that I had a talent and an ability to manipulate the fabric in a craftlike way, and I really enjoyed it." Duckett worked evenings and weekends on her craft business, and in 1997 she quit her full-time job, rented a warehouse and officially incorporated.

Building Buzz: Not one to wait for the phone to ring, Duckett used every inexpensive marketing tool she could, such as mailers, fliers and handmade business cards. She also chatted up her company's services every chance she got. "Everyone was a potential customer," she says. That grass-roots marketing led to her making draperies for theater, concerts and special events worldwide.

Creative Coverings: Manufacturing the custom draperies for Rod Stewart's latest concert tour was a highlight for Duckett. "We made about 1,500 yards of the Stewart family tartan," she says. "We made it into this enormous design that would register onstage with the audience--it was totally unique." The work of Sew What? has also graced the tours of such legends as Gwen Stefani, Prince and Fleetwood Mac, to name a few. But despite a packed schedule, she still makes time to help the community: Duckett founded From Stages to Students, a program that provides free or low-cost draperies to school theater programs and community rehabilitation centers that teach sewing.

Follow Her Lead: Chat up your new business every chance you get, as you never know where leads will come from.

[via - Enrepreneur Magazine]

Working Mother Top Ten

Working Mother Top Ten

• Baptist Health South Florida
  
• Booz Allen Hamilton
  
• Ernst & Young
  
• General Mills
  
• IBM
  
• KPMG
  
• The McGraw-Hill Companies
  
• PricewaterhouseCoopers
  
• UBS
  
• Wachovia

Those who dare to climb Mount Everest battle brutal winds, freezing temperatures and dangerous paths, all because they want to reach the top of the world. Like other peak performers, our Top 10 know that it takes special qualities to reach the pinnacle of innovation in the area of family-friendly benefits—perseverance, ingenuity and courage. It also takes listening. We asked human resources execs at our Top


10 what female staffers say they need most.

The companies' responses show an unusual level of mindfulness. Whether it's cutting-edge time-off options at General Mills, a growing career development focus at KPMG or ramped-up networking opportunities at Wachovia, each of our Top 10 enacts programs that make women feel like they are being heard.

Baptist Health South Florida
Kathryn M. Fisk / Corporate Vice President, Employee Services & Human Resources
"The health-care profession asks a lot of its employees. We've heard from our working moms that they love their jobs, but they need a little extra help. We responded with our Great Place, Great People initiative and have introduced a housing benefit, special retention and appreciation bonuses and a backup child-care and elder-care service."


Booz Allen Hamilton
Horacio Rozanski / Vice President & Chief Personnel Officer
"Women at our company have been asking for flexibility—not only in work arrangements but in choices, too. We've revamped our paid-time-off structure for greater flexibility. We've created a new part-time career model, and we've introduced a series of initiatives aimed at increasing representation of women in the pipeline. We're committed to finding ways to say yes."


Ernst & Young
James L. Freer / Vice Chair of People
"This past year we heeded the advice of our women employees and enhanced our parental leave policy to include six weeks of fully paid leave for primary caregivers, in addition to six weeks of fully paid short-term disability for birthmothers. The firm also introduced the Working Moms Network to help women make the transition back to work following parental leave."


General Mills
Kelly Baker / Vice President of Corporate Diversity
"While our vacation benefits are among the best—with 90 percent of employees recommending us as a great place to work—flexibility in managing work/life balance continues to be a big concern for women when deciding where to work and whether or not to stay. We created new time-off options to help staffers maintain balance, including flex vacation and sabbaticals."


IBM
Ronald C. Glover / Vice President, Global Workforce Diversity
"Women have been asking for greater flexibility in where, when and how they get their work done. They're also asking for tools that enable them to network with colleagues, develop their skills and grow their career. To help them, we offer a range of programs, from flexible work schedules and meeting-free Fridays to online resources that identify job and learning opportunities."


KPMG
Bruce Pfau / Vice Chair, Human Resources
"Our female employees have asked for more opportunities to have meaningful discussions about their careers. This year we launched Web-based training for employees and managers to help them have more productive conversations about career development. We also introduced an interactive website to help staffers identify steps for building more satisfying careers."


The McGraw-Hill Companies
David L. Murphy / Executive Vice President, Human Resources
"We acknowledge and facilitate the powerful contributions of our female employees by providing resources such as parental leave, adoption assistance, elder-care case management and flexible work arrangements. Our rich portfolio of resources supports and addresses employees' needs at every stage of their lives, fueling their career aspirations and their personal fulfillment."


PricewaterhouseCoopers
Roy Weathers / Partner & Chief Diversity Officer
"Women want more time—whether to bond with a newborn or adjust to their role as a parent. Our leadership recognized this as an opportunity to make a significant investment in our people. As a result, effective January 1, 2007, we gave mothers three extra weeks of fully paid maternity leave, which can be used at any time up to one year following a child's birth or adoption."


UBS
Mona Lau / Global Head of Diversity
"To ensure career success for talented flex employees, we have been rolling out a Managing Flexible Workers workshop for managers globally. These programs give managers tools to support flexibility within their teams. We've also focused on ensuring that women are adequately represented in our talent pool identification and career development programs."


Wachovia
Shannon McFayden / Director, Human Resources & Corporate Relations
"Our female employees repeatedly speak to the need to connect across our organization. The company's leadership panels allow women to get advice from other women. Our affinity networking gives women a chance to connect with others who have similar interests. And our annual balance event enables women company-wide to share how they align work and life."

7 reasons to choose credit over debit

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- It's a question we face daily that still leaves most of us mystified: "Debit or credit?" Here, courtesy of Consumer Reports' Money Advisor, are seven reasons to opt for credit:

1. Credit costs you less. Some banks charge customers for so-called in-store "PIN-based" debit-card transactions. Fees range from 25 cents to $1, depending on the bank, Money Advisor reports. By choosing a "signature-based" transaction, you sidestep these fees.
2. Credit won't result in a hold on your account. When you use a debit card to reserve a hotel, rent a car or even fill up your tank, vendors sometimes put a "block" on your checking account until the transaction is processed -- and the amount of the block can significantly exceed the purchase price. Using your debit card to buy $25 worth of gas, for instance, may result in $100 of the money in your account being "blocked." If you're running a low balance, this can result in punishing overdraft charges.
3. Credit makes it easier to cover your bases. If you haven't been keeping a close eye on your bank balance, it may be a good idea to choose the credit option on your debit card because it takes longer for the money to be debited from your account (usually around two days). This gives you a little time to make sure you have enough in your account to cover the charge.
4. Credit offers better rewards. While some debit cards now offer rewards, such as air miles and cash-back bonuses, credit-card rewards tend to be far more generous, according to Money Advisor.
5. Credit allows interest to accrue. If you religiously pay off your balance at the end of the month, you stand to make more money by paying with a no-fee credit card. Why? Because you can allow your money to grow in an interest-bearing account until your bill comes due.
6. Credit gives you an out. Using a traditional credit card makes it easier to reverse the charges if you get into a dispute with a merchant or vendor.
7. Credit shields you from liability. If someone gets hold of your credit card and wracks up a laundry list of charges, you're typically responsible for only $50 worth of fraudulent charges. If you're unfortunate enough to have your debit card stolen, you may be liable for as much as $500 in unauthorized purchases, unless you report the theft within two business days.

Homeowners Just Don't Understand Value Of Homes

A new survey out today from Reuters/University of Michigan looks at homeowners’ perceptions of their own homes’ values. When the survey flashed over the wires this morning, my email lit up with all the “Alert” desk folks at CNBC saying, “Omigod, this is huge.” I don’t agree. I say it’s not huge enough.

The survey’s headline says, “A record 26% of U.S. homeowners say the value of their homes has fallen during the past year.” Further, 21% of homeowners polled in September expect the value of their home to decline in the year ahead. The survey finds even bigger numbers if you look at folks just in the West, but that’s an overall national picture.

Ok, so 26% is a record, but I have to ask, why isn’t it higher?? The latest survey from S&P/Case Shiller, which looks at the nation’s top 20 metros as well as a full U.S. National index, shows nothing but negative now, and given the trend, into the near future. The national index shows a price drop of 3.2% from a year ago, with the 10-city composite down 4.1% and the 20-city composite down 3.5% from a year ago.

So why do 74% of American’s not get it? Look, I know I’m always whining on TV that all real estate is local, and we should be careful with these big national figures, because there are always exceptions in certain local markets. Seattle and Portland for example, are doing quite well, but even their price growth is slowing. When I look at the 20 largest cities in America, only five of them are in the positive year-over-year.

With all the trouble in the credit markets, continued adjustable-rate mortgage resets, and rising foreclosures, not to mention continued sky-high inventories, what exactly makes ¾ of Americans think they’re going to make big bucks on their homes this year??

This is precisely why homes aren’t selling. Sellers are stubborn; they just don’t get it. Prices during the boom were unsustainable, affordability is now ridiculous, and continued price appreciation makes no economic sense in the current atmosphere. The boom-time price inflation in homes was thanks to a faulty mortgage system, which is now in the process of righting itself, and home prices rightfully have to fall in line. Do I like writing those words? Hell no! I own a home. I like money. I also like logic. Sue me.

[via - CNBC, Inc.]

Open the Door to Brand New Opportunities

We have all experienced the long toil to find employment. Searching endless hours through newspapers, job advertisements, job centres and writing to companies asking to keep our cv on file. We ask ourselves whether there is an easier way to find the position we are looking for, for many it can be a demoralising experience going to many interviews and experiencing many knock backs. Most of us spend our time trawling instead of finding recruitment agencies which potentially could open doors for you. I am not saying that if you sign up with a recruitment agency you are guaranteed instant success but it could possibly be a supply of new vacancies which you never knew existed. This is how it works.

Recruitment agencies are not only there for candidates (jobseekers) searching for employment they are also there to help companies and businesses find staff or advertise vacancies within there employment. These vacancies can be in any job industry, of which there are many to choose from.

Industry sectors for example may include, commercial, industrial, accounting, technical or hospitality and leisure. These industry sectors will each require several different skills, abilities and competences, therefore catering for a wide and very diverse range of people from apprentices with none or little work experience to full time positions for managerial positions with experience being essential, temporary opportunities arise to cover sick leave or extended holidays, and there are vacancies for skilled and semi-skilled tradesmen.

Enrolling with a recruitment agency can take some of the hard work out of a job searching; an initial interview with the recruitment agency in many cases will take place to further investigate the kind of work you are looking for. This not only helps you but makes it clear to the recruitment consultancy which jobs would be suitable for you and which would certainly not, for example if you are looking for a job as a cashier you are not going to find the right job in a warehouse who are requiring for forklift truck drivers. It just defines which areas are suitable and which clearly are not. Note: You may still need to provide the a current CV (Curriculum Vitae) and references from previous employers

In additional your primary interview will provide you with the opportunity to seek advice about the interview technique, simple suggestions such as arriving is vital, so if you are not sure of the location, travel arrangements and time it will take to get to the interview, it would be prudent to make a trial journey just to make sure you know where you are going and how long it will take, dress smartly for your interview, presentation and first appearances go a long way! although interview nerves may get in the way try to be confident. Keep eye contact and try to avoid nervous fidgeting, try to give constructive answers to questions asked instead of saying the first thing that comes into your head or just yes and no. Sit with a good posture and try not to slouch; all of these are just little tips which could create the right personal impression.

As I mentioned earlier many companies also use the services of recruitment consultancies to advertise positions. Many companies build a rapport with recruitment agencies knowing that they will receive the right kind of candidate because of the background work already done. Once a rapport has been established many companies will use the same agency again and again which in turn means that with more clients on a recruitment agency database the more jobs there are likely to be on offer.

Another reason to join an experienced recruitment agency is that they might make you realise new potential in other areas, perhaps you are a chef looking for a catering job, you have tried to find work in hotel kitchens and public houses but have drawn a blank, but have you tried places such as golf clubs and spas? Golf clubs usually have a club house which offers their members a top quality service, part of playing golf is enjoying the social aspect, after a round of golf there is nothing better than relaxing and discussing the day over a hearty meal and social drink. Therefore the golf course will require catering staff, its just one area which can be overlooked. The golf industry actually offers such a diverse range of opportunities such as reception, managerial, housekeeping, food and beverage opportunities right through to greenkeeping!

So whatever position, vacancy, job opportunity you are searching for, a visit to a reputable recruitment service might just open doors for you helping your realise your potential whilst broadening the opportunities on offer.

[via - Inn Hospitality]

Yahoo to Buy Zimbra for $350M

SAN FRANCISCO -- Yahoo Inc. is buying e-mail service Zimbra Inc. for $350 million in an all-cash deal that may open a new revenue channel for the slumping Internet icon.

The acquisition announced Monday represents Yahoo's second significant expenditure this month as co-founder Jerry Yang spearheads an effort to breathe new life into the Sunnyvale-based company.

Two weeks ago, Yahoo disclosed plans to buy an Internet direct marketing network, BlueLithium, for $300 million. That purchase marks another step in Yahoo's attempt to sell more advertising on other Web sites besides its own, hoping to boost its sagging profits.

With the Zimbra purchase, Yahoo appears poised to branch in a new direction that may intensify the company's already fierce competition with rivals Microsoft Corp. and Google Inc.

San Mateo-based Zimbra specializes in selling e-mail software and hosting services to businesses, universities and Internet service providers.

That's something Microsoft has been doing for years with its Exchange platform. Google entered the market earlier this year when it began offering e-mail accounts to businesses as part of a software bundle that costs $50 per user annually.

"My guess is that this deal is partly a response to Google," said e-mail analyst David Ferris.

Zimbra's customers include one of the nation's largest Internet service providers, Comcast Corp., as well as several well-known companies, including H&R Block Inc. and Raytheon Corp., and prominent schools like UCLA and Georgia Tech. For the most part, though, Ferris said Zimbra has had trouble getting companies to buy its hosted e-mail service.

Privately held Zimbra doesn't disclose its revenue. Ferris estimated Zimbra's annual revenue range between $10 million and $20 million, figures that indicate Yahoo is paying a steep price.

Founded in 2003, Zimbra employs more than 100 workers. Its chief executive and co-founder, Satish Dharmaraj, plans to remain with Yahoo after the deal closes in the fourth quarter. The fate of Zimbra's brand hasn't been determined.

Besides providing Yahoo with a springboard for selling e-mail services to companies and universities, Zimbra also could provide tools to add more bells and whistles to the free, Web-based e-mail service that Yahoo has been peddling to consumers for the past decade.

After buying a startup called Oddpost in 2004, Yahoo drew upon some of the technology it gained in the deal to upgrade its free e-mail service.

"Zimbra's tremendous talent and innovative technology will help to extend our core mail offerings, further strengthening our strong leadership position in this space," said Yang, who took over as Yahoo's CEO three months ago after Chairman Terry Semel relinquished the job amid deepening investor discontent.

Yahoo's free e-mail service recently has been losing traffic, according to the research firm comScore Media Metrix. In August, Microsoft's Live Hotmail service attracted 255.3 million visitors worldwide to eclipse Yahoo's e-mail traffic of 254.9 million, which represented a 1 percent decrease from the same time last year, Media Metrix said.

Google's Gmail ranked a distant third at 82.9 million worldwide visitors, up 64 percent from last year. Google opened its e-mail service to all comers seven months ago.

Yahoo shares rose 22 cents to close at $24.95, then dipped by a penny in extended trading after the Zimbra deal was announced. The company's stock price has plunged by 36 percent since the end of 2005.

[via - MICHAEL LIEDTKE / Washington Post]

Complete Your First Book with these 9 Simple Writing Habits

Your first book isn't going to happen by itself. If writing a novel or non-fiction book is something you've dreamed of, the only way to make that dream a reality is by putting it into action -- day by day.

And the best way to do that is to develop some simple habits that will make the dream a reality, one step at a time.

I've learned a lot about writing habits over the years. As a journalist, a freelance writer, and a speech writer, I've written thousands of articles over the last 17 years. I've also written a novel, numerous short stories, an ebook, and am now working on a non-fiction book. It's a struggle, daily.

But I've found that certain habits go a long way, and after awhile, they're not as difficult as they are during the first week or so. Get past that first-week hump, and it'll get easier. And that dream of your first book will come true.

Note on forming habits: I recommend trying to form only one of these habits at a time, starting with the first one and working downwards. Focus on each for at least 2-3 weeks, until it is ingrained. Then move on to the next.

1. Writing time. The most important habit you can form is the daily writing habit. Even if you only write a page or two in a day, that's OK. The important thing is to do it. Eventually, you'll get there. Some days will be good, some will be not so good. Still sit down to write. It's important that you have one dedicated time for writing. You might do more, at other times, but make that one time be sacred. It might be first thing in the morning, right after lunch, right after work, or right before bed. Choose a time that you can do every single day, without fail. Dedicate at least 30 minutes to writing ... at first. Later, you'll need at least an hour, preferably two.
2. Simple tools. Get into the habit of focusing on the writing, and not the tools. You need to block out all distractions, especially Internet and email. Disconnect from the Internet, turn off the phones, plug some headphones into your ears to block out other distractions, clear your desk. If you use a pen and pad, choose simple ones. If you use a computer, use the simplest word processor or text editor possible. I recommend Dark Room or WriteRoom or some variant thereof -- just plain text, with no formatting, in full screen mode. It's you and the words and nothing else.
3. Writing log. This can be as simple as how many words you wrote today. Check your word count when you finish, and log it in. You could also add in notes about what you wrote, how you feel about it, etc., but the important thing is to log it in so you can see your progress over time. It helps enforce the daily writing habit, and it motivates you to keep going.
4. Idea time. You will probably be thinking about your book all day, if you're engrossed in it, but it's good to make it a habit to think about your book at certain times of the day. Exercise is a great time for that, as is house cleaning, driving, walking, government work, and any other activity where you don't need to think much. Make that time dedicated to thinking about the book.
5. Capture ideas. You will have ideas at different times of day, in different places. You will overhear dialog that you want to remember. You will think of brilliant character flaws while at the grocery store. You'll think of eccentric plot twists while driving. You need some way to capture ideas -- I suggest a notebook or index cards, but whatever works for you is fine. More importantly, you need to make it a habit to write your ideas down wherever you go.
6. Just start. There will be days when you don't feel like writing. That may actually be every day. But if you let that stop you, you'll never write a thing. Instead, you need to make it a habit to just start writing. It doesn't matter what you write, or whether it's any good. Just start. Make your fingers move. I find a good way to start is by typing something ritualistic, such as my byline on an article, or common formatting stuff. That gets my typing going, and then I just continue that. Once you get started, you might find that writing will come easier. In any case, get into the habit of just starting, no matter what.
7. Write when inspired. In addition to the routine writing time you designate (in Item #1 above), there will be other times when you'll want to write. Especially when you get a burst of energy or inspiration. You need to get into the habit of taking advantage of those times, and sitting down and writing immediately. Even if you're not at your computer, have your idea notebook, and just start writing. Inspiration comes at the most inopportune times -- you need to use it whenever it comes.
8. Revise. The dreaded word for many a writer, but revision is one of the most important aspects of the writing process. No one gets it right in the first draft. No one. If you aren't willing to revise, you might as well not write. But you don't need to develop this habit right away. Get into the writing habit first, and then begin developing rewrite habits. My suggestion is to begin half an hour of rewrite time, daily, after a month or two of developing the writing habit.
9. Book bible. Most writers won't bother with this, but that's a mistake. If you are serious about your writing, a book bible is a must-have. However, you can work on that last. This is ideally a binder with everything about your book contained in its pages: plot outline, character sketches, notes, bits of dialog, small details, scene description, research, etc. You'll find this extremely useful. The habit to develop: get a binder, write notes on characters, plot, scene, dialog, and keep it updated, as soon as you're done writing. So: write, log it, then update your book bible.

[via - Written for Dumb Little Man by Leo Babuata]

You don't learn how to cook from a cookbook.

I don't know French. I can't play the piano. I have no clue how to catch a bony spinefish. This is the first kind of don't know. Stuff you don't know because you haven't been taught it yet. Books are awfully good at solving this problem, so are good teachers.

The second kind of 'don't know' is often confused with the first type, but it's really quite different. This is the person who says they don't know how to cook, or that they can't balance a checkbook. This isn't about technique or a lack of knowledge. It's usually either fear or lack of interest. People with this type of deficit won't find the answer in a book or (usually) in a seminar either. You don't learn how to cook from a cookbook.

The answer lies in trial and error and motivation and in overcoming the fear that makes us avoid the topic in the first place.

And why should a marketer care?

You need to care because if you try to solve the second kind of ignorance with a manual or a PDF or a blog post or even a long infomercial, you're going to fail. If you discover that users are afraid or resistant to what you're trying to get them to do, more information is almost always the incorrect response. The effective technique involves peer pressure and support and in changing the design and inputs of what you're doing so that this group is more receptive to what's on offer. For example, internet penetration isn't up by a factor of 20 because people read a lot of copies of Internet for Dummies. It happened because of what peers said to each other over time, and because the act of getting online is a lot easier than it used to be. And you can help that happen.

[via - Seth Godin]

What Anita Roddick Taught Me About Marketing

It’s seems the jobs we take early in our career shape us. When I was in high school in the mid 80’s, lots of kids had part-time jobs. Whether they were taking orders at the local fast food joint, bagging groceries in the supermarket or mowing their neighbor’s lawns. Even the kids in well-off families had jobs … often they were just a bit more professional like summer internships at their parent’s law or accounting firms. And in many cases, these high-school jobs ultimately lead my school mates to the professions they ended up pursuing …whether by choice or just happenstance.

Me? I was a mall rat. I got my first job when I was fifteen. I worked after school at Limited Express. And all during high school and college, I worked for many other well-known retail stores you’ll find in most suburban malls. Over the course of the eight years I spent in the mall, I worked my way up through the ranks from a sales associate to assistant manager to manager and then ultimately district manager of the last retail store I ever worked for. That store was The Body Shop.

In the late 80s and early 90s, The Body Shop was a phenomenon like no other. With its natural products and activist ways, it came to U.S. from the U.K. like a house on fire and its founder Anita Roddick was a marketer's dream come true.

Long before the Internet Anita Roddick and The Body Shop were weaving her stories and desire to make a difference in the world into every product for sale in their bright green stores.

A Business Born From Necessity

If you don’t know the story of Anita Roddick and The Body Shop, let me bring you up to speed …

Anita Roddick was born to Jewish-Italian immigrants in 1942 in Littlehampton, West Sussex, England. She started her career as a teacher of English and History, but decided to quit and travel the world during the freewheeling days of the 1960s. After stints in Paris, Geneva and Polynesia, she returned to Littlehampton and met her soon-to-be husband Gordon Roddick. After marrying in Reno in 1970, they hit the hippie trail again before coming back to Littlehamption and opening a bed and breakfast and then later a restaurant.

In 1976, she found herself alone with two children to feed after her husband Gordon left to pursue a life-long dream to travel on horseback from Buenos Aires to New York (no kidding). A trip that would have left most marriages in shambles but one that “hippy minded” Anita supported wholeheartedly.

Before leaving, Gordon secured a 4000₤ loan so that his wife could start a business to support the family while he was gone. Anita started the first Body Shop with 25 natural skin and hair care products she mixed on her kitchen table. The trademark Body Shop bottles were chosen because they were the least expensive she could find and could be reused by customers (so she didn’t have to buy more). The signature green was chosen because it was the only color that would cover the mold on the walls of her first shop in Brighton, England.

By the time Gordon returned from his trip two years later, Anita had opened a second store. On a lark, she had sold half her business to an acquaintance to raise the money.

Upon his return, Gordon put together a franchising plan that would ultimately swell the company size to 2100 stores in 55 different countries and make Anita Roddick the 4th richest woman in the U.K. And as for that lucky acquaintance – he ended up right there with her.

She became a media darling, was voted Business Woman of the Year, bestowed the title of Dame (female equivalent of knight) by the Queen of England and dubbed the “Queen of Green.”

As I was logging online Tuesday morning, I happened to catch a glimpse of her picture. I hadn’t seen it in nearly 15 years. It was an obituary; she had died at the young age of 64.

The Three Ps of Powerful Marketing

I was fortunate to have met Anita several times and traveled to the company's Littlehampton headquarters during my stint with The Body Shop. She was a huge personality, way ahead of her time and a powerful force to be reckoned with. She was a champion against animal testing in the cosmetics industry and used her stores to spread the word of her cause. In fact, through her storefronts, she championed many causes: Reuse and recycle, fair trade practices with underdeveloped countries and awareness of the horrible situation in Romanian orphanages to name a few.

Every store in the company was mandated to find a community service project in which employees would be paid to participate. She introduced thousands of impressionable young people (employees in her stores) to the power of volunteerism and activism. As a company, we had a voice and the power to make a difference.

It was this big personality that took the world by storm and attracted customers, franchisees and employees that shared her views and passions in droves.

Anita’s amazing Personality was one of the three keys to the huge success of The Body Shop. The other two were her Passion and Point-of-View. Anita had all three and in a big way … and this was translated into the company’s powerful product marketing efforts.

If you felt as strongly as she did about the same issues and causes, you couldn’t help but like her. And people buy from people they like.

I want to repeat that again because it is so important – People buy from people they like.

In a business in which it was highly unlikely she would ever meet the vast majority of her customers face-to-face, she was able to take her three “Ps” and translate them into an incredible relationship that would ultimately make her a very wealthy woman.

The Three Ps in Your Own Business

For Anita Roddick and The Body Shop, I’m not sure the three “Ps” were intentional – at least in the beginning. But, we can take what we’ve learned from Anita and apply it to our own business … especially if that business is on the web.

When we start our businesses, we tend to want them to look large and corporate so we can compete. We wrap them in a plain vanilla wrapper in fear of offending or turning off our customers. When in actuality, it is our humanness that our customers enjoy most. Our down to earth … "I completely understand where you’re coming from … I’ve been right there with you" nature our prospects seem to like the best.

In looking back on my time with The Body Shop – far before I ever started in the direct response biz – I realize that I was building an incredible foundation for my direct marketing career to come.

So, here are 3 quick ways to infuse the three “Ps” into your own business …

Assign a spokesperson: Pick someone to be out front. Depending on the size of the business, this could be the owner, the president, chairman or some other individual that has a vested interest in seeing the business grow. Infuse this person and their personality into all your marketing. Frame your company's marketing in this person’s voice.

Years ago in my local area there was a company called Tire Kingdom and the company president was in all their television commercials and print ads. He was the Tire King. The company is still around but is no longer owned by the Tire King. Yet many long years later, I still remember the Tire King. His name was Chuck Curcio. He was a memorable face and name to what was nothing more than a chain of tire stores.

Align yourself with a cause: Like The Body Shop, business has tremendous power to do something for the greater good. What are you passionate about? Choose a cause that appeals to you and get involved. Sponsor fundraisers for the charities you support, source sustainable resources for the products you manufacture or call attention to poor human rights situations in a newsletter you publish. When you’re in the act of promoting your activism you in turn promote your business. Remember people buy from people they like and liking people often comes down to sharing common interests. Remember: You can do well by doing good.

Speak your mind: It’s important to remember that as business owners we can’t be all things to all people. In a sea of noise, it’s the business owner with the strong point-of-view that is most often heard. Remember in having a point-of-view your job is not to offend but to incite a reaction. Be on the cutting edge of your industry and spread the word of the exciting changes coming down the pike … be known as a prophet or a predictor of the future. Use your opinions to win friends and influence like-minded people.

Do these three things and I can guarantee you’ll quickly make a name for yourself and your business … then watch it translate into incredible growth in sales and revenue!

Rest in peace Anita. I’m a better person for having known you.

[via - Clayton Makepeace]

Five Handy Things US Business Owners And Freelancers Get Free

1. Free business cards

What's the catch? There are no catches. US printers are so overcompetitive, they are willing to give free business cards in hopes that you'll do more business with them later on. To be honest, the free designs not all that impressive, so printers conveniently offer you upgrade for $3 or something like that. I am sure that this is where they make their money.

2. Free Stamps And Postage

Hey, it's only $25 worth of free stamps, but every little bit counts, right?

3. Shawn Casey's Free Business In A Box

If you are into internet marketing, you no doubt know who Shawn Casey is. I personally use this one - it's the best from the list, besides free business cards.

4. Long Lost Sales Letters

This is another great one, if you are addicted to direct mail and direct response marketing, like I am. This is a big collection of old million dollar sales letters back from the 30s to the 80s. Pure marketing genius!

5. The Million Dollar Bookshelf

This site is basically a free collection of James Allen, Napoleon Hill, Benjamin Franklin, and many others. Rare marketing, copywriting and sales books, audiobooks and seminars for download.

[via - dotoca.net]

Marketing Through Psychic Connection

Most of us barely know our next door neighbor, yet we email our buddy in the UK once a week.

Isn't that funny?

As planet earth has become wired, where you live becomes almost irrelevant. I live in Chicago; could just as easily operate from Vancouver or Sidney Australia or a farm in Western Nebraska. What you're INTERESTED IN drives everything.

Oh, the vast spectrum of things that people are interested in. One of my favorite things to do when I go to the bookstore is grab four or five magazines about things I know absolutely nothing about - say, "Tatoo" or "American Cinematographer" or "Cooking With Paula Deen" or "Corvette Fever." I sit down with a cup of Joe and peek into those worlds.

Fascinating.

Each represents a community, a language, a marketplace, a passion. The people who inhabit each of those worlds have secret handshakes and rituals, special meeting places, certain rites of passage.

The smaller that world is, the stranger and more cultish it turns out to be.

Now.... if you truly and intimately understand any one of those worlds, you can say the right thing and members will instantly recognize you as an insider. Like, literally in ten seconds they recognize that you're "one of them."

Here's an example of that: If I were to hold up a ring in front of my face and whisper with desire:

"P-R-E-C-I-O-U-S"

...anybody who's seen the Lord Of The Rings movie will recognize - oh yeah, that's Gollum lusting after the Ring.

Now let's say you're sitting on a plane and you see a hippie looking guy with a Tolkien book in his hand and you say, "We waited inside Old Man Willow until Tom Bombadil sang us out of there."

Well that's a line that's in the book (not in the movie) that ONLY a hard core Lord Of The Rings fanatic would recognize. You say that one line and there's an INSTANT bond. It represents volumes of shared knowledge, shared experience.

That's your secret password. You are now known to be a member of the 'club.' A quiet, morose guy becomes animated. Hours of conversation ensue. You're from the US, he's from the UK, and you email each other once a week for the rest of your life. He invites you and your family to his kid's Bar Mitzvah.

If you truly speak their language - if you actually CAN write a page in their diary - it doesn't take a whole page. A mere sentence or paragraph will be enough to arrest their attention. Maybe it only takes one single word or phrase! When I talk about 'entering the conversation inside the customer's head', that's what I mean.

Your ability to succeed in your market has more to do with this than anything else. Most of the marketing projects I've tackled in the last 5-10 years have hit pay dirt. My batting average is well above .500. But you must understand that the biggest reason for that is, I only went into markets that I already had lived in.

I only tried to sell to people that I had already been.

Which is why so many marketing messages and advertisements seem artificial and sterile - because the people who write them are just taking their briefcase to work and 'doing their job'. They're not connecting with anyone's passion or angst. They're merely spouting techno-latin. They spew words like "innovative" and "ROI" and "core
competency" and "data management solution" and nobody knows what anybody is talking about. Nor do they care.

But if you understand your customers with that psychic connection, then the marketing part is pure mechanics.

[via - Perry Marshall]

The Texas Lice Squad Or Lice Squashing For Profit

Parents in the Houston area who are reluctant to deal with the pesky and all too common problem of head lice removal now have the option of outsourcing the tedious task. Contrary to popular belief, head lice do not discriminate based on personal hygiene or socio-economic status, though many families still find cases a bit embarrassing. The Texas Lice Squad offers professional and confidential in-home lice treatments for the whole family—with guaranteed results.

Founded by an experienced registered nurse and mother of two, The Texas Lice Squad provides a full range of services to help eliminate lice and prevent recurrences, beginning with individual and family inspection to determine the extent of infestation, priced at USD 65 for a family of four (USD 5 for each additional household member). In-home treatment and removal costs USD 60 per hour, with a two-hour minimum, which could be money well spent for families who feel that they've exhausted their own resources attempting to eradicate the critters themselves. After using a non-toxic product and professional combing to thoroughly remove all nits and lice, The Texas Lice Squad confirms in writing that a child is nit-free so that he or she can be readmitted to school or daycare.

With back-to-school season in full swing—playgrounds and classrooms being prime spots for sharing not just toys, but lice and germs, too—business is bound to pick up. And the Texas Lice Squad is ready for it, investing in their first storefront location. Could franchises and duplicates be around the corner? And for the bigger picture, entrepreneurs might want to ask themselves what other domestic tasks are ready to be outsourced.

[via - springwise]

The Car Stereo Sale Story

Establishing & maintaining rapport is perhaps the single most important ingredient in sales & marketing. Always has been, always will be.

Let me tell you a little story.

Earlier this week, I got a call from a salesman after leaving a message about getting my stereo repaired. My expensive, but aging Nakamichi CD player is on the fritz, and I'm virtually tuneless. Not good.

It was a notable conversation for anybody interested in the art and science of persuasion. And in particular, the role that rapport plays in that process.

My apprehension was this.

I bought the unit about 8 years ago, and I'm thinking. OK, this is going to cost me some money. I could probably now go out & buy a new CD player for the same amount. Just getting an estimate is going to cost me.

So the guy calls up, & immediately starts building rapport with me. How does he do it?

After introducing himself, he says, 'So you've got an MB-1s, awesome unit, what do you listen to?' I tell him, 'I'm into rhythm & blues & jazz'. He probes a little to see what kind of blues I dig, & we find ourselves rapping for a bit about how much we both love the music of Stevie Ray Vaughan.

And then without missing a beat, he says 'So I suppose you'rewondering whether technology has advanced so far in 8 years that you could replace your MB-1s with a new unit for pennies on the dollar?

I say, 'yes'.

And then he goes on to tell me. 'Unless you're prepared to fork out a sizable chunk of change on a relatively high end unit, your going to lose some of the raw analog warmth & character that oozes faithfully from Stevie's Fender Stratocaster every time
you slide a CD into that Nakamichi'.

And I'm like, Wow, thanks for saving my life dude.

This wasn't the only guy I called, but I can tell you this. He was the only one I considered doing business with. And it came down to the rapport that he created.

So what can we learn from this?

First off, let me point out that while this was a personal interaction, you should take the principle of rapport very seriously, even when it comes to your marketing.

The fundamentals are thus.

I liked this guy. Because I liked him, I listened to him. Because I listened to him, I believed him. And because I believed him, I bought from him. Sure it wasn't a huge purchase. But what happened in those few minutes on the telephone takes place in virtually every sale that you make, whether you're an active participant in the process, or not.

You are developing an unspoken relationship with your customers, as a result of both your personal interaction, & every piece of marketing you deliver.

The challenge is this. How do you generate rapport, when you don't have the expensive luxury of personal contact with all of your clients at every stage of the buying cycle?

Here are a few ideas.
Be a person in your marketing. Far too many businesses make the dreadful mistake of coming off as stuffy, corporate, & boring, in the name of professionalism. Your business can be professional, & still have character.
Communicate with your prospects, in their own words. If you're marketing to engineers, & you know that they use acronyms, use acronyms. If you're selling to the CEO, speak in plain English. Just common sense, but so often ignored.
And finally, give your customers more than they expect. It is rare to do business with a company that demonstrates a genuine concern for the actual outcomes that their customers experience as a result of a purchase.


This is very different than simply being committed to the satisfactory performance of your product or service. You build rapport by showing your prospects exactly how what you're selling 'fits in' to what they are already doing.

In the final analysis, your prospects & customers should feel like they know you as a person from your marketing & advertising. More importantly, they should know you as the kind of person that they would call a friend, & look forward to hearing from.

Until next time, Good Selling!

[via - Selling To Human Nature]

Ten Google Video Documentaries You Have To Watch

I love Google Video because they have so many great documentaries free to watch. Here are my favorite 10. Some are sad, some are wacky, but they are all very informative and entertaining.

1. Dangerous Knowledge

In this one-off documentary, David Malone looks at four brilliant mathematicians - Georg Cantor, Ludwig Boltzmann, Kurt Gödel and Alan Turing - whose genius has profoundly affected us, but which tragically drove them insane and eventually led to them all committing suicide.

2. Dogfighting Undercover

BBC-Dogfighting Undercover-August 30, 2007 Investigation into the secret and dangerous world of international dogfighting. For a year and a half, a BBC undercover team operated alongside dogfighting gangs in the UK and Europe, capturing on camera the savagery of organised fights. The film also reveals how American pitbull terriers - a banned breed created to be the ultimate canine gladiator - have been sold by the gangs into inner city Britain.

3. Secret Space

'A masterful documentary it cracks on at a tremendous pace. A subject that at first seems too ridiculous to contemplate leaves you nodding in agreement ... I always thought there was something suspicious about NASA's attitude to UFOs. Now I know why.' - Jason Cooney, K-Drive Radio, Los Angeles.

4. The History Of Freemasonry Of US

Very interesting documentary about freemasonry in US from the very first days of independence. Produced by the History Channel.

5. The Iceman - Confessions Of A Mafia Hitman

Up Close and Personal with a Killer. When I was finally admitted into the bowels of Trenton State Prison in New Jersey’s capital to interview multiple murderer Richard Kuklinski, a.k.a. “the Iceman,” it wasn’t at all what I had expected. My assumption was that it would be like the movies. We’d be separated by a shatter-proof glass barrier. We’d communicate through telephone handsets. There would be guards all around watching our every move. But I couldn’t have been more wrong. Clarice Starling had more protection when she visited Dr. Hannibal “the Cannibal” Lector in The Silence of the Lambs. At least she had bars.

6. Zeitgeist The Movie

This one will intrigue you. What does Christianity, 911 and The Federal Reserve have in common?

7. The Half-Ton Man Documentary

Patrick Deuel is the world's heaviest man - almost 1100 pounds. This documentary opens with paramedics removing a wall of his house in Valentine, Nebraska and transporting him six hours to a hospital where he spent months trying to lose weight to qualify for a gastric bypass operation.

8. Conspiracy Of Silence - Pedophile Ring In Washington DC

This was the biggest scandal in the history of the U.S.A history. The story received some newspaper coverage but there was a TV News Media blackout on the subject. For this reason, most Americans have never heard of it. Former republican Senator John Decamp was involved in the production a documentary called "Conspiracy of Silence" it was to air May 3, 1994 on the Discovery Channel. This documentary exposed a network of religious leaders and Washington politicians who flew children to Washington D.C. for sex orgies. At the last minute before airing, unknown congressmen threatened the TV Cable industry with restrictive legislation if this documentary was aired. Almost immediately, the rights to the documentary were purchased by unknown persons who had ordered all copies destroyed. A copy of this videotape was furnished anonymously to former Nebraska state senator and attorney John De Camp who made it available to retired F.B.I. chief, Ted L. Gunderson.

9. Why We Bang Documentary

The film, "Why We Bang," produced and directed by Orlando Myrics and Clifford Jordan for Ghetto Logik Entertainment is an independent film that documents the historical background of LA's Bloods and Crips gangs, then transitions into several interviews of current and former members of the Bloods and Crips of Los Angeles.

10. Big Sugar

Big Sugar explores the dark history and modern power of the world's reigning sugar cartels. Using dramatic reenactments, it reveals how sugar was at the heart of slavery in the West Indies in the 18th century, while showing how present-day consumers are slaves to a sugar-based diet. Going undercover, Big Sugar witnesses the appalling working conditions on plantations in the Dominican Republic, where Haitian cane cutters live like slaves. Workers who live on Central Romano, a Fanjul-owned plantation, go hungry while working 12-hour days to earn $2 (US).

Top 30 Underused Great Domain Names

These are all great domain names ... but the sites suck. It's either ads, nothing or half-dead web pages. Too bad because, as you'll see, most of these domains are AWESOME and cost quite a lot.

1. Cool.com
2. Hot.com
3. Porn.com
4. Sexy.com
5. Alien.com
6. Ufo.com
7. Toy.com
8. Pal.com
9. Queen.com
10. Oral.com
11. Crazy.com
12. Pro.com
13. Cash.com
14. Card.com
15. Super.com
16. Store.com
17. Cloth.com
18. Clothing.com
19. Personal.com
20. Join.com
21. Fight.com
22. Gamble.com
23. Home.com
24. House.com
25. Dance.com
26. Pay.com
27. Host.com
28. Men.com
29. Plan.com
30. My.com

[via - SucceedWithThis]

Why You Should Not Be Afraid Of Events Like 9/11

Do you remember where you were six years ago today, on 9/11/01? I do. It has a special significance for me, because the company I worked for was gunning to be sold to a larger company. We were in the home stretch of negotiations, suddenly afraid 9/11 would screw the deal.

It didn't. But I still had this other concern. The new company was offering me a job but the deal wasn't all that appealing. The alternative was to go out on my own as a consultant.

Now THAT was scary. Because... at work, the phones had suddenly stopped ringing. It was as if the world was in a state of suspended animation. Nobody was starting new projects; existing projects were put on pause and nobody seemed to be buying anything.

My co-workers thought I was insane to even consider leaving. Even if I was cashing out my stock options, it still seemed crazy.

But this gal named Suzy said to me, whenever there's great uncertainty and fear, there is great opportunity. She said, this is the BEST time to go out on your own because the world is in flux.

I took her advice and...

She turned out to be right. The post-9/11 world was a world where an independent consultant was a lot more appealing than an employee, who's a lot harder to get rid of. Within a month or so I was an outsourced marketing department for a couple of different companies, my office was 20 steps from my bedroom and I was making my mortgage payment.

Man was that ever a good feeling. The caterpillar pushes himself out of the cocoon and the butterfly emerges. After all those years of baloney sandwiches and ramen soup, my wife is vindicated. "Yeah, babe, he really is a winner after all. You picked a good one."

It doesn't really matter where you are in the world, around you things are going forward or backward or sideways, but they're not staying the same. There's always peril somewhere. There's always uncertainty.

Which is exactly where the opportunity is. Lean into the wind. Embrace it. Stare down the demons of fear. Drink in the challenge and the thrill. Even a day like 9/11 can be an anniversary of victory for you.

[via - Perry Marshall]