Tom Hoobyar, author of Word Magic, was our guest speaker last night at the Bay Area Internet Marketers Meetup. Tom taught us a ton about copywriting, direct marketing and engaging your prospects online using stories and painting images using words. The best part of last nights meeting was Tom’s Seven Words That Will Murder Your Ads. Listen to the replay of last nights meeting here to discover those seven magic words to avoid when writing.
One of my mentors, Mitch Axelrod, has an interesting post today on his blog, http://playthenewgame.com/?p=132, about how we have so much in our lives while having very little. We’re overwhelmed with choices in life but we never have time to enjoy anything because we’re too busy.
I notice this with my children, They’re so busy and have so many choices but they can’t sit still and relax. I notice they have hundreds of friends on their social networking accounts like Facebook and Instant Messenger, and they keep in touch with almost all of them over time. The problem is that none of the relationships are deep. They have hundreds of superficial connections with people but nobody they have a real friendship with.
Dating has even disappeared for our kids. It’s about "hooking up" for the night with no expectation of ever talking to them again. Wham bam thank you ‘mam and on with your busy day.
We grew up with a lot of friends and a few best friends. I still keep in touch with my best friends 40 years later. I wonder what life will be like for my kids in 40 years with their hundreds of part-time friends.
I also see this in business. Nobody has time to build lasting relationships with clients and prospects. It’s "what can you do for me right now?" and then they’re on to the next fire. I was at a conference recently where one of the speakers was promoting his new method of selling. It’s not about building long-term relationships. It’s about acknowledging to the person you’re meeting with that you understand they’re very busy and their time is precious. Get down to business and eliminate the personal relationships. Ask them what they want and sell it to them quickly so they can get on with their day.
How will that play out over time? Life without friends and relationships? Business without relationships? Our lives our speeding out of control and I highly suggest that you check out Mitch and his persective on life. Check out www.playthenewgame.com
Ted
Sphere: Related ContentI’ve been learning about web 2.0 and playing around with it for about 2 years now. It is a really effective tool for building relationships, attracting clients, and driving traffic to your blogs and websites. My business is booming and i have a steady stream of leads coming in daily. The downside, it can be a full time job being "social". If I spend 40 hours a week building relationships online, when do I have time to do the work for my clients? When do I have time for myself? I’m working at least 6 days a week right now and spending at least 12 hours each day in front of my computer. Although I love playing with technology and new sites on the internet, this isn’t the perfect lifestyle I wanted to create.
I found a great blog post today Chris Garrett’s blog at http://www.chrisg.com/need-digg-power-account/ that discusses the obsession with trying to dominate the social media pages. It’s very difficult and time consuming to get a post on the first page of Digg or del.icio.us. It’s even harder to stay at the top over time. Chris reitterates the fact the you shouldn’t worry about dominating the social media sites. Just focus on creating high quality content that helps your prospects and customers and the social media gurus will find you.
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