The Great Expert Blog

Ahh, the holidays… festive and fun, but frantic. With all this Christmas Chaos, Hannukkah Hoopla and Kwaanzaa Craziness, who has time to notice what you’re up to? Well, lots of people, if you market your message in just the right way.

The Absolute BEST Way that you can play Santa to your subscribers? Off them something that nobody else is giving - Relief, and a Helping Hand. Put some jingle in your pocket with these hot holiday promotions that really work to convert sales.

1. Trim Your Prices - Offer a Discounted Website Critique for a Limited Time Only.

How many of us are wishing we had time to revamp our websites but are caught up in the Christmas rush? A simple, one-page website critique can help your subscriber get a clear picture of what needs to be done… and that’s a huge load off anyone’s muddled mind. Who knows, they might even choose YOU to do the design overhaul when the time comes.

2. Deck their Homepage - Advertise “Holiday Sprucing” for Websites.

It only takes a couple of hours to add a brief holiday promotion and a few festive graphics to your website. Even so, millions of marketers miss this chance because they “just can’t get it together.” Put the idea in their heads, then offer this service for a reasonable rate. See how many sales you can rack up before December 15!

3. Gift-Wrap that Content - Provide a Low-Fee E-Book Creation Service.

Of course, you must have the following tools: a PDF Creator (Go to CutePDF.com for a decent free one), a Word Processing Program, standard legal copyright disclaimers, your customer’s logo, their URL and a clear cut impression of what they’d like to share in their e-book. The hardest part is collecting the info. Once you get organized, you’ll be cranking out e-books in no time.

4. Play Helper Elf this Holiday - Offer Administrative Assistance.

The holiday season is probably one of the most profitable times of year for the web’s Virtual Assistants. If you’ve never offered administrative services before, think about it as a way to make some extra Christmas cash. Things you can do for your customers: article administration, bookkeeping, email maintenance, holiday marketing campaign creation and delivery.

5. Be the Merry Marketer - Put the Plan Right into Their Hands.

I can’t tell you how many people have an incredibly tough time coming up with a plan. Speak in generalizations, and everybody gets it… but watch how many faces go blank when you ask your marketing friends what steps they will take to blast their marketing message out to the masses. If you’re a planner by nature, you can make a ton of cash doing what others cannot. Charge a flat fee for outlining the details of your client’s next big marketing blitz. Who knows… they might even call you back to help them carry out the details!

Copyright 2005 Dina Giolitto. All rights reserved.

Are YOU Content With Your Content? Get Top Secret Marketing Tips from the Web’s Biggest Gurus and Expert Authors on The First Annual Web Content Awareness Day on FEBRUARY 9, 2006.

Dina Giolitto is a copywriting consultant and ghostwriter with over 10 years of experience writing corporate print materials and web content. Trust her with your next e-book, article series or web project, and make a lasting impression on your audience of information-hungry prospects. Visit http://www.wordfeeder.com for more details.

In the old way of making cold calls, we offer a sales pitch to a perfect stranger, cross our fingers, and hope for the best… isn’t that right?

This really doesn’t work very well in building a business relationship (or any other relationship, for that matter). This is done best by stepping into the world of the other person and finding a problem we can solve for him or her.

That’s how we begin a conversation with another person - talking about them rather than talking about ourselves. It’s just a very common dynamic that occurs in any human interaction. When you’re dating somebody, for instance, if you just talk about yourself, they’re not going to like you very much, right?

It’s the same in cold calling. Don’t talk about your solution for a while. Talk instead about their problems for a bit. It’s a movement of dialogue. This dialogue is around talking about their world and not about your product. That’s the shift. All you have to do is identify three or four major problems that your product solves, and use those problems as phrases to begin the dialogue of your cold call.

You see, this new cold calling approach has to be tied to a specific, real problem that the person experiences in their world. This is needed in order for them to feel comfortable having a conversation with you. When you’re relevant to them and their world, they trust you. They sense that you’re there to help them solve a problem - not sell a product.

So remove yourself for a moment from what you have to sell, and think about what problem your solution solves for somebody. For example, if you’re in the coaching industry, think about what problem you’re solving for your clients. You might say, “I’m just calling to see if your company’s open to the idea of using coaches to improve management performance.”

When you use the word “open,” people respond positively. Who would say “no” to being open? You’re not challenging them. You’re not forcing a solution. You’re not even saying what you’re offering to sell. You’re simply asking a question around whether they have a particular problem.

This also invites a question back to you. Potential clients will often ask at this point who you are and what you do. They might say that they already have a service, but they may need some more help. So it opens up even more conversation.

Here’s an example of how salespeople focus their cold calling around something that appears to be a need, but they haven’t tied it to a specific problem.

Let’s look at financial services. In this case, people who sell financial services start cold calls with a focus on the future of the person’s situation. They might say, “I’m just calling to see if you’d be open to some new ideas to help you increase your income.” The better approach here would be to problem solve. For example, “I’m just calling to see if you’d be open to identifying any gaps in your portfolio that might be holding you back in some way.” It’s about problem solving and closing gaps, as opposed to promoting a beautiful future. “Hire me and I’ll make you a lot of money!” Everyone does that. That’s the problem. It gets old and very stale

You see, there’s no push here. There’s no sales pitch. There’s no presentation. The conversation is focused on really seeing if the person has a problem, and if they want to solve it. After the first few phrases, you have a natural conversation back and forth. They may say, “What’s your service?” “How much does it cost?” And that’s the time to begin to really tell about your service — but not before that.

If you don’t talk about your solution for a while and instead talk about their problems, you’ll find yourself having better and deeper dialogue, with more trust.

So be careful not to immediately go into a presentation and spend the conversation talking about your service. In this new way of cold calling, you’re asking in a very conversational tone whether the other person has a problem that you can solve.

You won’t believe how this simple technique can make such a difference in the way potential clients receive your cold calls. Tension and resistance are vastly reduced, and results are greatly improved.

Ari Galper, founder of Unlock The Cold Calling Game, makes cold calling painless and simple. Learn his cold calling secrets even the sales gurus don’t know. To receive your 10 free audio mini-lessons visit http://www.Unlock-The-Cold-Calling-Game.com

Three of 100 men suffer from Peyronie’s disease, a bending of the penis during erection. The penis contains balloons that fill with blood to cause an erection. These balloons can develop a scar that prevents them from expanding normally during an erection, causing the penis to bend toward the scar. If you take a balloon and put a piece of Scotch tape on one side and then blow up the balloon, it will bend toward the side that has the Scotch tape. A report from Italy shows that Peyronie’s disease can be cured by taking weekly injections of a medication to treat high blood pressure plus a drug that carries fat into cells.

Usually this is a harmless condition that requires no treatment because the scar disappears, with no treatment, within five years on the average. Impotence associated with Peyronie’s disease responds well to all available treatments for impotence, such as Viagra. Doctors treat Peyronie’s disease only when it hurts to have an erection or prevents a man from making love.

Surgery often fails to cure this condition, but Peyronie’s disease can be cured by injections of verapamil directly into the scar in the penis (5 mg twice a week for 10 weeks) plus a 3-month administration of propionyl-L-carnitine (2 g/day). Check with your doctor.

For journal references on the studies mentioned in this article see http://www.drmirkin.com/men/1241.html

Dr. Gabe Mirkin has been a radio talk show host for 25 years and practicing physician for more than 40 years; he is board certified in four specialties, including sports medicine. Read or listen to hundreds of his fitness and health reports at http://www.DrMirkin.com

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Sauna room doors are made to fit standard door openings framed at a rough 26 x 82 inches. One of the most important aspects of a properly installed door is the fact that it should always open to the outside. A wooden handle is a must; you don’t want to accidentally get burned when touching a hot metal handle. Locks should be avoided in home saunas. It’s important to get out as fast as you can when the heat becomes unbearable while sitting on one of the upper benches.

The sauna benches, door and wooden flooring are included in your precut sauna kit. Some assembly is required when you install the door and benches. Most doors for sauna rooms are pre-hung, making the installation easier than hanging one yourself in the frame. Specify whether you want the hinge on the left or on the right side when facing the outside of the door.

Benches that come with prefabricated home saunas or pre-built modular saunas are pre-assembled for easy installation. If you purchase a precut kit, you might have to assemble the bench supports yourself. Just follow the step-by-step instructions that show you how to install the bench, door, window and flooring. If you are building a sauna room from scratch, remember to countersink the screws as they become extremely hot and can cause accidental burns.

Make sure you specify the right type of wood when ordering your sauna kit. The wall and ceiling panels, doors, benches and floorboards of home saunas are all manufactured from wood. Most kits use Western red cedar, but some people are allergic to the smell of cedar wood. If this is the case, order your sauna room bench, door and other accessories in your choice of Redwood, poplar or spruce.

About the Author:

Kevin Urban is the editor at Home-Saunas-N-Kits.com, a comprehensive guide on home saunas. Enjoy the health benefits of infrared saunas and build your own from an easy-to-assemble home sauna kit.