My God. Is this an important newsletter!
How many people do you know who are highly
successful?
I’d be surprised if you know more than a handful in
your entire life.
But suppose I asked you a different question.
How many people do you know who are both truly
happy and successful?
I’d wager a lot that you’d be hard pressed to name
even one or two people who are blessed with both
of these rare qualities.
I’ve known many, many, self-made millionaires.
Indeed, I’ve mentored many of them. And I know
numerous heirs to a large fortune.
Whether inherited or earned, it’s indeed rare to find
even a single person in a lifetime who has unlocked
both the secrets of happiness and success.
Let’s look at what does and does not provide
happiness.
For sure happiness is not about money. As
mentioned, lots or even most wealthy people are not
at all happy.
Indeed, contrary to common thought, instead of
enjoying life, many rich people are extremely
miserable and depressed.
It’s not even about health. You can be physically
very healthy. But mentally you can still suffer from
sadness and depression.
Happiness is not about how big your house or yacht
may be. Or toys, fame, influential friends, or even
business success.
I’m a happiness freak!
As a small boy I concluded I didn’t want to be as
miserable as the adults around me seemed. So I
decided to study the topic.
In a lifetime pursuit of personal happiness I’ve
invested lots of time and money in books. Seminars.
Group therapy. And studying various philosophers
and religions.
None of these pursuits, while helpful, fully
answered the crying human need we all have for
happiness.
** What is the answer to happiness? **
The good news, I believe, is surprisingly simple.
I like what President Abraham Lincoln, who
suffered so much in his life and overcame it all,
said. He made the most intelligent comment I’ve
ever seen on the subject of happiness.
Lincoln said, “Most folks are about as happy as they
make up their minds to be.”
By contrast, most people suffer from stress and are
in a constant state of worry and anxiety. A big
contributing factor to unhappiness is to observe
others and copy them. Simply do what most humans
do. Get up in a hurry. Never examine your life.
Instead stay stressed all day long until you flop into
bed at night.
** The key to happiness **
I find that the closest any of us can come to being
happy each and every day of your life rests on a
simple important principle.
How you start your day.
It’s all about how, upon awakening, you spend the
first 20 minutes.
Here is what I do each and every day. (Before I
shower or have breakfast.)
1. When I awaken the first thing I do is verbally
acknowledge what a priceless gift this day of life
really is. We both know in our heart of hearts this
day, or any day, is promised to no one.
Our life is finite. It could end at any moment. I
simply thank my higher power for this special day.
(I won’t get into long a religious discussion here. I
believe it suffices to say this. I believe there is a
higher power out there, however you wish to define
it for yourself.)
2. I count my blessings each and every day. Both
the great big massive ones. And smaller ones too.
Big blessings for me include my health and that of
my loved ones. My children and grandchildren. My
friends. My clients. My career. My readers. My
freedoms. Books I’ve written. My business ideas.
Somewhat smaller blessings include my toys. My
houses in three countries. My travels. My
acquisitions. My sports, tennis, swimming, walking
and weightlifting. Books I love to read, etc.
3. I say several personal affirmations out loud. If
you’d like a free copy of what I use, click here:
http://snipurl.com/x70r6
After the first 20 minutes I’m now mentally ready
to take on the challenge and opportunities of this
special day.
I believe that I’m a truly happy person. And the
more I follow the above procedure the more
successful and happy I seem to become.
I strongly recommend you try my 20-minute
program. Be sure you let me know your results.
Your correspondent,
Ted Nicholas
—————
“This article appears courtesy of THE SUCCESS
MARGIN, the Internet’s most valuable success and
marketing e-zine. For a complimentary
subscription, visit http://www.tednicholas.com/
Filed under Abraham Lincoln, Fortune, Personal Happiness, Self Made Millionaires, Success, Ted Nicholas, Time And Money by on Jun 8th, 2010. Comment. 
It was almost impossible to find direct marketing mentors when I started in business. Therefore, much of my education was by necessity trial and error. One of the many marketing blunders early on in my career was this.
A book I published through my company,
Enterprise Publishing, that was written by a
prominent lawyer was my first big flop. Of
course, I had lots of remaining copies in the
warehouse. And this was after I had tried several
different copy approaches to sell it.
So, I came up with what I thought was a brilliant
idea. I would beef up and enhance the offer of a
very successful $70 book I was then marketing.
How? By simply adding a free copy of the failed
$25 book. My assumption was overall sales
would be even stronger than without the free gift.
Of course, I wrote some sales copy.
Much to my amazement, sales not only didn’t go
up. They went down by more than 33%!
Tip: The important marketing lesson is this. If
you can’t sell it, you can’t give it away
successfully either. If people won’t buy it when
offered in an appealing way, they don’t want it,
free or not. Period.
Lesson learned: With any failed product, after
you have gone back to the drawing board and
exhausted every creative approach you can think
of and it still doesn’t sell, get rid of it. Write it
off. Burn it or toss it if you have to. Just
don’t try to sell it, or try to use it as a free
bonus gift. You will waste lots of time and
money.
I was again reminded of this important marketing
principle above just recently.
A big client of mine who is highly successful
catalog marketer asked me to take a look at three
recent covers of his catalogs (I write all the copy
for this entrepreneur, but I haven’t always chosen
his free bonus gifts which are featured on the
cover).
He informed me that sales response was down on
these particular catalogs and asked me to please
take a look and comment as to what may be the
reason.
When I looked at the covers, everything looked
really good. The headline and subheadline copy
(which I wrote) as well as the photos were well
done graphically.
But there was one glaring problem that popped
out to me. The free bonus gifts featured on the
cover complete with photos were not at all
appealing. Therefore, there was little or no
added inducement to order from that particular
catalog. (Actually, a company employee in the
marketing department purchased the three free
gifts because she was offered a special low price
by the supplier. It’s easy to see how the decision
to choose them was made.)
Tip: To do its proper job of increasing sales,
what counts is not your cost of a free bonus gift.
The key is that it must be appealing enough to
your customers to induce an order, especially
from “fence sitters.”
I’m sure with better selection of bonus gifts
(that I have now been asked to approve before
use) my client’s future catalog sales will
undoubtedly be much more successful.
Tip: To increase sales on any offer, add the
incentive of free gifts. Everyone likes free
gifts. I’ve never seen any offer that didn’t get
a more successful response when the inducement
of appealing free bonuses was added. In fact,
many offers today online and offline will not
succeed or even cover front-end costs without
them.
By all means use free bonus gifts. But choose
them carefully. They can be terrific sales
builders. I’ve seen sales double on a previously
successful offer simply by adding hot bonuses.
As always, here’s to your greater success, which
is always in the margin.
Your correspondent,
Ted Nicholas
—————
“This article appears courtesy of THE SUCCESS
MARGIN, the Internet’s most valuable success and
marketing e-zine. For a complimentary
subscription, visit http://www.tednicholas.com/
Filed under business, Catalog Marketer, direct marketing, Entrepreneur, Free Gift, marketing mentors, Sales Tip, Ted Nicholas, Time And Money, Trial And Error by on May 11th, 2010. Comment.
“You know what marketing is like? It’s like teenage sex. Everyone says they’re doing it. Not many are. The ones that do, do it very badly…”
In October 2008 I went to my first ever seminar.
It was Ken McCarthy’s System Intensive which he’d brought over to the U.K. for the first time.
I remember before Ken brought the System Intensive here I kept chasing him about it. I’m not saying it’s because of me he finally acquiesced, but I like to think it is.
There is one thing I do know I definitely had a hand in, however, and that was to introduce Ken McCarthy and Drayton Bird to each other.
As a result of that introduction, Ken asked Drayton to speak at this seminar.
Now picture this:
I never wanted to go to any seminars because I always figured they’d be a waste of time and money.
With Ken’s being the exception at the time.
Now I had the opportunity to attend his System Intensive, and meet my marketing mentor (he didn’t know he was at the time) for the first time.
You see, I’d studied Drayton’s work for the past couple of decades and never thought I’d get to meet him.
But here I was, communicating with him almost daily, via email, and introducing him to the pioneer of internet marketing.
And meeting both in person.
Anyway, after that long intro. I hope I haven’t put you to sleep, because the best is in the videos.
This is the seminar I was at. Check them out and get a small taste of why he’s been called “one of the top 50 individuals who’ve shaped today’s marketing”
Oh, and he’s a really funny guy. You’ll see what I mean.
Once you’ve finished watching them, zoom over to http://directanddigitalmarketing.com/draytonbirdcommonsense/ and get a load more free videos and articles
Best,
Rezbi
Filed under internet business, internet marketing, Ken McCarthy, marketing, Mentor, Opportunity, Seminars, Time And Money, videos by on Apr 15th, 2010. Comment.
