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Win $10,000 worth of help to start a business

I just heard about a rare opportunity to win $10,000 worth of help to start an Internet business, and I wanted to tell you about it right away...

It seems the Internet Marketing Center is planning to take one "regular" person, and turn them into an Internet marketing SUPERSTAR!

You just need to take part in their new "Ebusiness Rising Star Challenge," and if you're selected to be their star, their team of Internet marketing specialists will work with you intensively, one-on-one, for six full months, to help you build an Internet business from scratch.

And as IMC's rising star, all of this training -- which is worth over $10,000 -- will be absolutely FREE!

But that's just the beginning... because once your business is up-and-running, they're going to make you FAMOUS!

Your story and site will be featured in IMC's "Marketing Tips Report" newsletter, on their website, in their blog, through their social media channels, and they'll even build an email campaign around you, exposing your business to potentially millions of people around the world!

The personal training alone is worth over $10,000, but the amount of publicity you'll gain for yourself and your new business is something money can't buy!

To qualify to enter the Challenge, you just need to sign up on the entry page, at:

http://bit.ly/9DY3x5

It only takes a few seconds, but note that they're only accepting 1,000 entrants, so be sure you do it right away.

If you successfully register, IMC will supply you with ALL of the help, support, and tools you need to build a simple website
automatically: webinars, reports, ebooks, success stories, and their "Extreme Etool Kit."

PROVE you have the drive and motivation to succeed online by being the first to use the "Extreme Etool Kit" to create a simple website and make one sale, and you'll be IMC's Rising Star!

Ready to take the "Ebusiness Rising Star Challenge" and become a world-renowned Internet entrepreneur? Qualify to enter the Challenge by being one of the first 1,000 people to register
here:

http://bit.ly/9DY3x5

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Want a six-figure week?

If you have a web presence, surely you've at least thought about launching a product or program if you haven’t already done so.

Have you achieved the maximum results you desire?

Ali Brown hasn't only attempted it--she's perfected it into an art form. In fact, she recently sold over 600k worth of a product in just ONE WEEK and she is now ready to show you how she did it.

The best part of it all is that Ali focuses on making the process as simple as possible.

If you want in on this simple, step by step process to make YOUR product and program launch easy and lucrative, then you'll want to sign up for her upcoming call.

On Wednesday, March 31 at 8pm Eastern time, Ali will present:
"Secrets to Enjoying Six-Figure Online Product and Program Launches." Do your business justice by participating, and learn how to access the specifics you’ll need to execute an amazing launch! Please reserve now:
http://bit.ly/4VwY1M)

Here's what you’ll take away from this 75-minute complimentary call:

*The five simple steps it takes to plan an extremely profitable online launch for your products and programs.

*How to pull off a six-figure launch with little to no team or staff.

*Ways to keep your launch simple yet successful – using tools you're likely already using or are even FREE -- NO complex webinars or videos required. It's all about maximizing what you already have!

*Secrets to using social media for your launches – Twitter and Facebook can work wonders even for those of you with small or nonexistent email lists.

*Exciting details on the debut of her BRAND NEW "Product Launch System," which will lay out for you, step-by-step, how to do your own profitable launch with ease.

Again, learn more and register for this complimentary call taking place on Wednesday, March 31 by visiting:
http://bit.ly/4VwY1M

Consider yourself cordially invited to this one-time event. It's been engineered especially for entrepreneurs who would like to generate greater response and more money when launching a product, program, or event online.

See you on the call!

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Power of Nice

In this book, You Can't Send a Duck to Eagle School, the goal is to share many of the simple truths of leadership that the author learned in 30 years as an entrepreneur. And the one he shares here, he says is near the top of his list. The chapter is titled, Attitude Isn't Everything, but It's Pretty Darn Close. Enjoy!

Excerpt from:

You Can't Send a Duck to Eagle School,
by Mac Anderson

When hiring someone, start with the premise that attitudes are contagious. Then ask yourself one question...is theirs worth catching?

I've been in business for over 30 years and I've come to realize the difference in success and failure is not how you look, not how you dress, not how much you're educated, but...HOW YOU THINK!

In my business life, I've watched many very intelligent people fail miserably because they have a negative attitude; and I've also observed just as many people with average intelligence soar to success because of positive attitudes.

Southwest Airlines' VP of People is often asked the question: How do you get your people to be so nice? Her answer is always the same...

WE HIRE NICE PEOPLE

It sounds almost too simple to feel important, but "hiring nice people" has been the cornerstone of their amazing success in a highly competitive industry. They understand their competitors may be able to match their price and copy their business model, however, they feel that the spirit and the attitude of their employees will be extremely difficult to replicate. Never forget...

Great customer service is only delivered by nice, passionate, caring employees. There is no other way it can happen.

You Can't Send a Duck to Eagle School is loaded with stories that are shared in a brief, but engaging way. Because so many times it's not what you say, but how you say it, that turns the switch from "off" to "on."

To watch the 3 minute movie for You Can't Send a Duck to Eagle School or to see inside the book, just click here.

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Unique Ideas Are Not Important to Win

Ideas are always a creative response to a problem without a present-day solution. People dream them up as the wonder what they might do to solve their problems, and they draw on inspirations from their environments around them to do so. What people forget is that neither their problems, nor the inspirations from which they draw solutions, are exclusively theirs. Everyone else is likely to face almost the same challenges. And they'll certainly come up with similar solutions.

This, more than any other reason, is why you often see the same idea surfacing in two or more places at once, even when the creative people proposing the solution don't know each other at all.

It seems logical to conclude, given this, that if you want to increase the success of your innovation efforts, getting more ideas will probably not have the result you're looking for.

Many people argue that what is actually needed is a systematic process which allows creative people to generate a track record of big product hits. This follows from the fact that it isn't ideas which are important to the innovation process, but the execution which follows them. Clearly, there are limited resources available in any organisation, so focussing on big ideas must be a good idea.

This, of course, is the strategy that's been followed by Apple, and other companies of its ilk. First, it released iPod, a massive hit that redefined the way that music is sold. Then it sold iPhone, which makes the name of the game in telephony about Apps, rather than features. And recently, it's released iPad, which it hopes will redefine the way customer acquire and use the products of the liberal arts.

None of these products are especially innovative, and they certainly aren't category unique. It is hard to say they are, by themselves, innovative. But they are designed beautifully, and each has built its success on the last.

This, in the end, is the real sign that a company has a successful innovation effort under way.

Would you like to create a track record of hit products? The easiest way to do it is create an innovation program with laser-sharp focus on what works. James Gardner's free online innovation book will help you start.

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Using Pain and Pleasure to Win the Sale

Traditional sales training teaches that the sales process starts with needs. Find out what your prospects need and then give it to them. The trouble is that it isn’t strictly true. Your customers are not motivated to buy what they need. Your customers are motivated to buy what they want. >>> read more

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The Denny Flanagan Story

As flight cancellations and delays wreak havoc on weary travelers, and planes are fuller than ever, the Wall Street Journal has managed to find a bright spot - United Airlines Captain Denny Flanagan.

On a flight headed your way, there is a pilot who is literally a gift from the heavens. For 21 years now, Flanagan, a former navy pilot, has put the friendly in friendly skies.

With his sense of humor and personal touch, he individually welcomes aboard every passenger on his United Airlines plane.

A father of five, Flanagan has also been known to buy food for planeloads of passengers on delayed flights. He snaps photos of dogs in the cargo hold to show owners their pets are safe and calls the parents of children traveling alone.

"I want to treat them like I treat my family and it works. It's like hospitality. You stand at the door and you greet people when they come in and you say goodbye on the porch and wave to them," said Flanagan, who is 56 and lives in Ohio.

His unique brand of hospitality includes sending handwritten notes to frequent flyers and raffling off bottles of wine.

"How 'bout that? A bottle of chilled chardonnay from a pilot," said a delighted Paul Schroeder, a lucky United passenger.

He has developed quite a following in the air and online. One of the many posts on FlyerTalk.com about Flanagan read: "His effort rubbed off on the crew too, they were great."

Attitudes are truly contagious, and Captain Flanagan's is certainly worth catching!

Denny Flanagan is a wonderful example of customer love. This book shares his, and 24 other great customer service stories. Read them, have your team read them, and talk about them together. In fact, you may be inspired to write your own customer love stories while making your service culture all it can be.

Just click here for more information or to look inside the book.

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The Outside-In Approach to Customer Service

Sarah Jane Gilbert interviewed Ranjay Gulati for HBS Working Knowledge ;

Times are tough for many businesses, yet some are holding their own, even thriving. Best Buy, Cisco, Target, Starbucks, and Jones Lang LaSalle come to mind. How do they do it? According to a new book by Harvard Business School's Ranjay Gulati, it is customer-centric firms—those with a so-called outside-in perspective—that are most resilient during turbulent markets.

An outside-in perspective means that companies aim to creatively deliver something of value to customers, rather than focus simply on products and sales. And Gulati's research, including interviews with 500 executives spanning industries and geographies, asserts that outside-in success is not confined to any one sector.

"I see the move toward customer-centricity as a journey," explains Gulati. "It doesn't happen overnight. Based on my observation of companies for almost a decade, I map out four levels that exemplify distinct stages through which companies may evolve on this journey."

In our e-mail Q&A, we asked Gulati to describe what managers can learn from his new book, Reorganize for Resilience: Putting Customers at the Center of Your Business (Harvard Business Press). Gulati, whose research explores leadership and strategic challenges for building high growth organizations in turbulent markets, is the Jaime and Josefina Chua Tiampo Professor at Harvard Business School. A book excerpt follows.

Here is the whole interview ...

Your Brand is Being Created With Or Without You

Brands are dynamic. Customers use our products and services. They like or dislike their experience and they say so, publicly. This type of customer engagement directly impacts your brand. In this way, your brand is being created with or without you. You can't control it. What you can control is how you deal with it.

You've probably heard the saying "feedback is a gift". It's also a gift that you can't return or exchange if you don't like it. It's yours to deal with whether you like it or not. Since most brands have some sort of an online presence today, customers have a very public option when providing feedback. They can leave their comments on your 1-800 customer feedback line or send their concerns to some anonymous email. More likely, however, they will post their issues to a website, blog or user group.

When customers provide this type of public, direct feedback, we basically have two options:

1. Engage - and hopefully influence the nature of the discussion

2. Remain passive - and let the discussion continue without us

I encourage companies to engage in the discussion. That's the point of the internet, social media and online communities. We have the capability to have these discussions in real time with many more customers than we could have ever have done in the past.

Yet, there are hundreds of examples where companies have had negative comments appear online about their products and they chose not to engage, or even acknowledge, the feedback.




In most cases this sort of "head in the sand" approach doesn't work out very well for the companies involved. They appear aloof, disconnected and uncaring. Customers post comments on corporate blogs and social media sites, and the damage is done. Companies then spend a ton of money and time trying to "manage their online reputation" - which usually means feeding good content into these sites in order to push the negative stuff off the first few pages of search results.

While this may work in some cases, it seems to be that it is a lot more effective, not to mention efficient, to just engage in the conversation to begin with! Here are some ideas to help you proactively manage your brand online:

Pay attention: create Google alerts for your company name, brand names, etc. Monitor where you brand is being mentioned and in what context. It's next to impossible to influence how the brand is being represented if you don't know where you're being mentioned.

Be active: identify the key places where your brand is being mentioned and get involved. Participate in discussions relevant to your brand but not where you are directly mentioned. You will get insights into the tone of the conversations and understand more how to position your brand appropriately.

Acknowledge feedback: when someone posts something negative, acknowledge their issue. Let them know you heard what they were saying. Explain your response, but don't try and justify your position, as you will only serve to annoy them further.

ABOUT LAURA LOWELL: Laura has been building brands and businesses for over 20 years. She writes about marketing and branding in her blog "The Rules...According to You" and has been featured on Oprah & Friends, ABC, The Huffington Post, and more. As the President of Impact Marketing Group, she helps entrepreneurs and small businesses build their brands and businesses with consulting, tools and training. Learn more at http://lauralowell.com

Laura and her family spent time living in Malaga, Spain. They returned to their home in Los Gatos, CA in the summer of 2010.

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Creating Add-On Options to Explode Your Income During Tough Times

with Warren Evans, CSP and Kit Grant, CSP

You’re most likely leaving money on the table in most of your engagements. By building in non-standard services, you can increase each client’s bill significantly, while adding tremendous value. Discover additional revenue sources from each engagement and expand your possibilities with tools and tips that positively impact your relationship with the client. Differentiate yourself in the marketplace by altering your perceptions of that relationship and taking action on steps that others may not be aware of.
You will learn:
• how successful speakers add value and revenue from the first conversation
• some common missteps that are costing you money
• keys to dramatically increasing repeat and referral business
• how to use your on-stage performance as a key marketing tool

Click here for all the details ...
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Special Limited-Time Offer:
If you want more information on other ways to expand your business, we’re suggesting the MP3 recordings of several earlier programs to complement this program:
• “Establish Client MasterMind Groups for Ongoing, Significant Income and Results” with Steve Miller
• “Subscription Products: Getting Customers to Pay You Again and Again (and Again)” with Ron Rosenberg
With your order of this teleseminar, CD or MP3, at checkout you will be offered these recordings.

Is Your Business Built on a Solid Foundation?

Are You Sure?

Will your company continue on if something happened to you?

Do you have a clear vision of where you want your company to be in 10 years and 25 years?

Can it survive changes in technologies, the market or the loss of key people or key customers?

Are you leveraging all of your resources to their full potential?

Use these 3 Free Resources, and See How Your Organization Stacks Up Against a World Class Benchmark

Find them all here.