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In this issue:
• Marketing Article: Building Sales by Building Credibility...
• Marketing Article: Positive Thinking and Effective Marketing Go Hand in Hand

Associations and non-profit groups are a powerful resource for building and expanding networking and business opportunities, finding jobs, evaluating goods and services, and industry publications.

Our database puts you in direct contact with these organizations.

I was counseling with a client on building trust through his mailing. I suggested it's ten times more powerful to have his clients state his company's great assets rather than claiming it himself. It's just more believable.

When you're looking to buy on eBay, you'd want to check the seller's credentials. Does she have happy customers? Are there any complaints? What do they say about the way she conducts transactions?

It's the same if you're a consultant, speaker, or coach wanting to charge higher fees. Nobody will want to pay you more unless they know you have satisfied customers.

When a prospect scans your website, brochure, one-sheet, or direct mail campaign, there is one fail-safe method to establish instant rapport: testimonials.

Why should they believe what you state in your mailing? How do they know you're for real? Who else has done business with you? All of these are concerns your prospects have.

Your testimonials may mean the difference between more sales and leads, or them tossing out your message. That's why infomercials broadcast them every five minutes. Moneymaking websites usually have at least one page dedicated to them. And good sales letters include them in the mix.

Which is why you need them in your marketing: to build trust and credibility, to dispel customer fear and anxiety, and to make lots of money.

What to do first...

1. Ask your clients or customers who have benefited from your product or service to give you a brief testimonial. Usually they're more than happy to help. But if they're stubborn, you may want to offer an ethical bribe by saying, "I'll take 15% off your next order," or "I'll include your name in a drawing for my $500 workshop." And if they need help producing one, you can write one and have them approve it.

2. Make sure your testimonials are results oriented. Use specific numbers and amounts. For example, don't say, "I loved your tape album," or "Everyone thought you were a great speaker." These don't fly in this age of skepticism.

To increase trust use, "Your advice made me $40,000 in new sales the first month. We're on target to gross over one million dollars in sales this year. Thanks for your direction."

3. Use a real name and contact information from your client. Don't use initials. It just screams phony. Include a full name, title, brand name, company, city, state (and if applicable), a photo, and a website URL.

4. Include a good mix of clients. Depending on your target market, using high-profile individuals exclusively may not be totally necessary. A testimony from a work-at-home mom in Kansas can sometimes win more favor from prospects than a stuffed shirt CEO from New York.

5. And if you publish a website, a great credibility booster is using audio or video testimonials. Nothing is more powerful than actual clients edifying you or your products for the entire world to experience.

Testimonials are one of the least expensive, most productive tools to add into your marketing arsenal. But most entrepreneurs and business owners either forget or include ineffective, watered-down statements. Or sometimes they're too lengthy or even go overboard in their praise.

But not you...

Follow these steps today to gain credibility in a skeptical marketplace, lower your prospect's force field, and get ready for a dramatic increase in sales and leads.

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Tommy Yan helps business owners and entrepreneurs make more money through direct response marketing. He publishes Tommy's Tease weekly e-zine to inspire people to succeed in business and personal growth. Get you free subscription today at http://www.TommyYan.com.

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Successful sales and marketing requires persistence, continuous improvement, and the expectation of a positive outcome. If one doesn’t approach every aspect of marketing with enthusiasm, creativity, and a positive mental attitude, then it’s like embarking on schooner race with no wind in your sails. You’ll have no momentum or direction, and the competition is guaranteed to overtake you.

Attitude has an insidious way of infiltrating everything we do; and it can lift us up to great heights or pull us down to the depths of failure. It can energize us to do and say all the right things at the right time, or it can undermine our motivation and cause us to sabotage our own best laid plans.

The bottom line is this: either we own our attitude or our attitude owns us. Every now and then, it’s necessary to make a conscious decision to take charge of our thoughts, attitudes, and habits. An unfocused effort, whether it involves marketing or any other aspect of business, is sure to produce inferior results.

Allowing negative thoughts to infect your mind creates a cascading effect of self-defeating behavior. In direct sales, one needs to have a winning attitude and a magnetic personality to influence and persuade prospects to become customers. That’s only the tip of the iceberg, though, because a successful salesperson also needs to have the finesse and people skills to win back lost customers, negotiate the best deal, ask for and get sales referrals, inspire teamwork, and have the energy and optimism to overcome setbacks and keep moving forward in the face of temporary failure. Without a positive mental attitude, none of that is going to happen.

Cultivating a positive attitude also feeds the creativity and optimism necessary for nearly every other aspect of marketing ranging from sending out press releases and sales letters to placing ads or launching a web site. If you don’t believe it’s going to work, either you’re not going to try at all—or your efforts will be weakened and half-hearted. In both cases, you’re doomed to failure before you even get out of the starting gate.

On the other hand, if you make up your mind to be an ‘eternal optimist’, you’ll be willing to take calculated risks and put your best foot forward. Getting there may involve an integrated program of reading motivational books, listening to self-improvement CDs, making a concerted effort to identify and avoid (or filter out) a lot of the negativity in your environment, and establishing daily habits that will tend to attract beneficial people and circumstances into your life.

Being an entrepreneur and running your own business is an intrinsically risky endeavor. If an expensive marketing campaign falls flat or a major client signs on with the competition, you might find yourself scrambling to make up for the loss. A positive state of mind not only helps you be creative, resourceful, and energized, but it also enhances your ability to anticipate, adapt, and regroup.

While many aspects of marketing are considered a gamble by anyone’s estimation, the best way to hedge your bets is by adopting a focused, optimistic, and positive mental attitude.

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Joel Sussman is a business writer, newsletter publisher, and Internet marketer. His web site, Marketing Survival Kit.com, provides information, proven tools, and motivational programs to help entrepreneurs achieve small business success. Visit http://www.marketingsurvivalkit.com to access a wealth of business and personal development resources, information, and templates.