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Business People Weekly

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(c)TFB Publishing Vol1 Issue 06 February 8, 1999

In This Issue:

1) Feature Article: Are You Using E-mail Effectively?
 by Wanda Loskot

2) Classifieds:

3) Feature Article: Selling your Products from Different
 Slants by Gary Christensen

Part 1
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You have lucked out this week. We have two feature articles
instead of just one. However, because of the size of the
issue, it has been split into two mailings.

Have you been to Http://www.bizjunction.com recently? We
have have a new logo. As always I would appreciated any
comments, good or bad. Please let me know what I can
provide to assist you better or what topic you would like to
see addressed.
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=>> Are You Using E-mail Effectively? <<=
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Yes, I am serious. I am asking you if you are sure that you
use e-mail so that you get maximum benefits. I know that
*everyone* knows how to send e-mail letter but judging from
100-150 letters I receive daily, only a fraction of people
takes a full advantage of this wonderful tool by
communicating effectively.

And by now you should know that communicating effectively
can make or break your business.

To begin, remember that as the internet business person you
seldom get a chance to meet your correspondents face to
face. Your e-mail creates an impression about you and your
business. Make sure that you pay attention to small things
that mean a lot, so that you score bonus points whenever
possible!

->> Use a signature file <<- I assume that you would not
write a business letter without some kind of stationary,
right? Then use a signature file in your e-mail! It serves
the same purpose. It identifies who you are, what you do and
where you reside. If done right, it allows the recipient to
visit your website with just one click of a mouse button.

Signature file is the simplest and perhaps most effective
internet marketing tool (it is also the most underutilized).
Make sure that your create and use it all the time - even if
you don't have a website, you can have an impressive
internet presence!

->> Forget about the HTML <<- Unless you know that the
other person is using the same mail program forget about
special fonts and other formatting tricks (especially that
colorful stationery!). Would you read a letter that looks
like this:

JUST FOR
YOU SURE WAY Christmas Greetings - and Happy New
Year!!!

This is how it might look on another e-mail program! At
least many messages look like this on my own computer
screen. If you want to make sure that your messages are
read, send your email in plain text. Some things are good
and don't need any improvement.

Those formatted messages also load up much slower and quite
often even crash slower computers (not the best first
impression!).

->> Keep your lines short <<- It is difficult enough to read
from a computer screen (especially if someone wears bi-focal
eye glasses as I do). Don't make it even more difficult by
filling the entire width of the screen with text.

When you use maximum 60-70 characters per line, there is
another benefit. Your message can be read as you intended it
to be read otherwise your recipient might end up with lines
broken in the most unexpected places - VERY difficult to
read. Even if your mail software does a "word wrap", use the
hard return key at the end of each line to avoid the
problem.

Also, sooner or later you will engage in e-mail
"conversation", exchanging message back and forth. Each time
you get an answer, a quotation mark will be added at the
beginning of the quoted line and the line width will grow.
Usually it breaks the lines of the message which makes
difficult to see who said what previously. With short lines
and that extra space at the end, your e-mail messages will
always look clean and inviting to read, even after several
such exchanges.

->> Trim the fat <<- When you respond to someone's message,
quote it by all mean - it helps to remind the topic of
conversation. But trim the fat. Erase the irrelevant text so
it is not repeated. It takes just a moment of your time and
makes you appear thoughtful and more professional.

Quoting anything more than just few lines is way too much,
unless there is a really good reason. These unnecessarily
long messages are not only a waste of time; quite often they
waste money too. Remember that many people around the globe
pay for the internet connection and every minute of
downloading time counts.

And never EVER return the entire e-mail message preceding
your own, unless it is very short. I receive the entire
pages and pages of my own "Referrals Unlimited" newsletter
with a few line message at the end. Ouch!

->> Sending to the group <<- Learn how to use your e-mail
software. Make sure that if you send a message to a
distribution list, recipients don't see everyone's else
e-mail address. If for no other reason (and there are
plenty) - than to protect their privacy.

Most of the e-mail programs have two carbon copy fields "cc"
and "bcc". Put the addresses in the "bcc" field (blind
carbon copy) - NOT in the "cc" field.

->> Before you hit the "forwarding" button <<- Forward only
important mail. Something your *know* the other party will
appreciate. Just because what you got in the mail sounds
very interesting to you, it doesn't mean that it is worth to
forward to everyone on your list. Most likely it is not.

->> Most likely it's a hoax! <<- When it comes to
forwarding, be very discriminate with messages like
"Danger!" and "Virus Alert" or "A Little Girl Is Dying".
These are old internet chain letters created especially to
waste peoples time and test our patience. If you send it
around, chances are you will annoy majority of your
recipients who received the same message already many times.
They might not tell you about it from lack of time or to be
polite - but don't assume that just because no one
complains, these messages are really appreciated. Most
likely the opposite is true. You might be bugging people
instead of saving the world or building relationships!

Be especially alert if the warning urges you to pass it on
to your friends -- do not! This alone should raise your red
flag that the warning is a hoax. (Another flag to watch for
is when the warning states that it is a Federal
Communication Commission (FCC) warning. According to the
FCC, they have not and never will issue warnings on viruses.
It is not part of their job. (to read more about it go to
http://ciac.llnl.gov/ciac/CIACHoaxe s.html

->> A few words about postcards <<- I received several
hundreds of them during the holiday season. To view them all
I'd need to take a short vacation, which I can't take at the
moment. Plus I'm sure you agree that there are better things
to do during vacation.

Before you send another electronic postcard, consider this:
to see it, your addressee needs to open a browsers window,
surf to the postcard hosting site, watch loading the home
page with some advertising banners. Often they need to enter
a special key number and then wait again for a new window to
open. This time with a cute graphic or slowly loading java
script and midi file which might take a long time... Are you
getting the picture?

Electronic postcards are great idea for close friends and
family members but among business people generally you will
not score any brownie points for sending "thank you" or
"happy anything". It is much better to send a simple
personal note in plain text. And if your REALLY want to make
that person feel special, send a greeting card via regular
mail - post offices are still around!

Wanda Loskot, author of business system that will can your
business work so that YOU can rest or play - register today
to win one month of FREE business coaching at
http://loska.com - for a subscription of monthly newsletter
"Referrals Unlimited" mailto:ru@oaknetpub.com with SUBSCRIBE
in the BODY of message
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Part 2

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"Selling your Products from Different Slants." By Gary
Christensen

You're sold on your product, but, no one else is! So,
what do you do? Try putting a different slant on your
marketing efforts! It's been said we need to point out
the BENEFITS to buyers; to give reasons WHY they should
buy our products. That's good advice! People need to
know WHY they should buy what we're selling. 1) If your
product is a TIME saver, let buyers know! 2) If it's
now on SALE, be sure that all buyers know know that! 3)
If it's more DURABLE, and comes with a Guarantee, 4) If
it's EASY to use, 5) If all orders are shipped within
48 hours, be sure that prospective buyers know all the
benefits that your product has to offer! However, if
even some of those "slants" don't work very well, try
some of these:

1) A Collectible slant. If your products don't have much
value now, maybe they will, 5 years from now! Customers
might be convinced to buy one from you NOW, if they are
assured your product will be a collectible, and worth much
more, in a few years! Look at the Beanie Babies: I never
thought too much of them, a year or so ago, when I could
have bought several for $5.00 each! Now they are being
priced at $200.00 and 300.00 each!!

2) A Gift Slant. Whether your products are selling well or
not, maybe you could promote them from the
"buy-one-to-give-as-a-gift" slant! Many products are
promoted heavily during the holidays, not because everyone
needs one, but, because they make fine gifts! If your
product might do better as a "gift for that special
someone".. then try marketing it with that slant!

3) An Historical slant. A lady I heard about makes
wonderful miniature houses, and her sales have always been
pretty good, but, after she visited an old "landmark" site
and saw a house which was built in the early 1800's, she
began creating "miniatures" of that old house! The owners
now help to market HER miniatures AT that historical site,
and they keep $1.00 from each one they sell! Both of them
are making money!

4) A Co-operative slant. In the above example, the
historical slant is highlighted. But, in addition, the
cooperation of the builder and the owner of that historic
site "worked together" and both made money! Maybe YOUR
product can be "tied in together" with a local market, or
landmark, or some other product. Maybe your cooperative
efforts can make money for BOTH of your companies!

5) A Promotional slant. Maybe your product can be turned
into a "specialty merchandise" item! Any item which has a
space on it, large enough to accomodate an advertising
message, can be used for promotion and not just for the sale
of the product itself! A Company that manufactured rulers
and yardsticks found that their products could NOT ONLY be
sold as measuring devices, but, as "give aways" (or
"premiums") by other companies, if a personal imprint, or an
ad, or some other "message" could be printed on each one!

Consider the above "slants" as other ways that YOU can
sell your products, NOT just as something that people
need, or can make use of, but possibly as a Collectible
or Gift item; A product that ties in with an historical
event or landmark; Something which two or more companies
can use in their marketing campaigns, or something that
can be offered as a "free-bie" or premium! Consider
other possibilities and ask around to see if YOUR
product can be co-marketed by other companies!

(The above article was written by Gary Christensen, a
freelance writer and self-published author of 8 books and
over 100 articles like this one! Gary's latest article,
"More Ways to Promote your Products on the Web" is free for
the asking from: Gach98@aol.com Write Gary at: Gary
Christensen, PO Box 2411, Corvallis, OR 97339-2411. Gary
Publishes: "The E-zine Publishers News" & "The Writers
Connection Newsletter." mailto:writers98@aol.com

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