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Author Greg Godek claims to have invented “reverse shoplifting.” He takes a copy of his book, 1001 Ways to Be Romantic into a bookstore that doesn’t carry the book. Then, he quietly slips the book onto the shelf.

Godek’s theory is that when someone tries to buy the book (and it doesn’t show up in the store’s inventory) they will note that the book sold and will order replacement copies. While he can’t document how many books he has sold with this sneaky strategy, Godek has sold more than 1.7 million books.
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Do you believe direct mail is too expensive? It doesn’t have to be. The underrated postcard can be an effective way to keep in touch with customers and potential customers.

Unlike traditional direct mail packages, which may include a multi-page letter, brochure, return envelope and more, a postcard is simple. Recipients are almost forced to read it, because the copy is right there in front of them–not buried in text hidden in an envelope. Costs can be much less, too.

There are many four-color printers which can produce beautiful postcards cost effectively. You can have a postcard made from a photo of you, your store, your products or another good image. Or, get postcards made of your bookcover, your website, your logo, etc. [Read more →]

Do you like to learn new things? Most entrepreneurs have a lot of curiosity about…well, everything. And they love to learn.

Learning can take the form of reading books, researching on the web, attending seminars and workshops, completing a home study course, listening to audio books and teleseminars, watching webinars and videos, signing up for courses at colleges and other institutions, etc. There is a massive amount of information available that can help you to become more successful or enrich your life in other ways.

The danger in learning is that you can spend all of your time learning and not take the time to apply what you have learned. I know I can be guilty of this. I get excited about something new, dig in to learn all I can about it, then I want to move on to the next thing.

Learning is important, but it is more important to do something with the knowledge you acquire. Here is how you can put your knowledge to work:
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Lots of people throw around numbers about how long it takes to establish a new habit. Twenty-one days? Twenty-eight days? A month? Three months? In one study on habit formation it was determined that the time required varies a lot from person to person, from just 18 days to 254 days, with an average of 66 days.

Of course, one factor that can influence how long it takes to acquire a new habit is the difficulty of a habit. The harder the task, the longer it may take to become a habit.

That means that making a good behavior a habit takes commitment. You need to consciously repeat an action again and again until it becomes nearly automatic. Although missing a day won’t completely derail your new habit, consistency is important.

With that in mind, my question for you is: How to you maintain your dedication and keep working toward your goal of establishing a new habit? How do you motivate yourself to keep doing something, day after day, until it becomes a habit?

I find that doing something around the same time every day works. One habit I have been working on is walking my dog every day. It hasn’t always been easy, especially in the hot and humid Houston summer, but I have been doing it. Because of the heat, we walk in the evening. Some days we may only walk for 15 minutes, but we walk (nearly) every day. This new habit has helped me to lose some weight and keep it off, a nice reward for a good habit.

An alternative to doing something at the same time every day is to make an appointment with yourself and keep it. For example, if you want to get in the habit of writing every day, but can’t always do it at the same time, block out time in your schedule to write and treat that appointment as something you must do.

Add your answer in the comments and let us know what works for you!

Eleanor Roosevelt offered the advice that you should, “Do one thing every day that scares you.” Good advice generally, but especially when it comes to marketing your products and services.

Marketing scares a lot of people. It is scary to pick up the phone and call someone, or approach them and ask for an order. What if they say no? Well, what if they say YES? You won’t know until you ask. [Read more →]

With pay per placement, clients only pay the PR firm when they get publicity. Fees are often based on a percentage of what the client would have spent for comparable advertising exposure. For example, the PR firm might charge 25% of what it would cost to run a full-page ad in a magazine if the client receives a one-page feature article.

Traditionally, PR firms have charged a monthly retainer. That means clients pay the monthly fee—usually in the thousands of dollars—every month, whether or not the PR firm has gotten any results. Often, there is a minimum commitment of six months or more.

Spending thousands of dollars a month is scary, especially when there is no guarantee that there will be any media coverage to show for it. When a firm comes along offering to charge only for the media placements they get, it can look awfully attractive. But is it really? [Read more →]

This is a guest post from Dan Janal.

If you’re a coach or consultant, you probably have an endless supply of free teleseminars hogging space on your computer, just waiting to be played one day. But that day never comes because you feel overwhelmed by all the files you’ve attracted.

Here’s how to make the most of listening to teleseminars and still getting your work done.
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Do you find it hard to get ideas or start writing? Lots of people–even famous authors–share the same problem. Here are some of my favorite quotations from writers and others about coming up with ideas, writing and not writing.

Everybody walks past a thousand story ideas every day. The good writers are the ones who see five or six of them. Most people don’t see any. - Orson Scott Card

Don’t worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you’ll have to ram them down people’s throats. – Howard Aiken
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Everyone deserves a reward for a job well done. When you are self-employed, you are in charge of rewarding yourself. Your rewards might include buying something for yourself, taking time to do something you enjoy, or anything you enjoy.

So my question to you is: How do you reward yourself when you have completed a project, landed a new client or had another success?

Add your answer in the comments and share your favorite reward with us!

People are always looking for shortcuts, and when it comes to creating content everyone seems to want to write articles with little or no effort. One of the ways lazy marketers create lots of articles is with article spinning software.

If you are not familiar with article spinning software, it will take one article and do a search and replace on words you specify, replacing them with synonyms. By replacing several words in the article with many alternative words it is possible to create hundreds of “unique” articles from one original. [Read more →]