FEBRUARY 2008
Greetings & Salutations:
This month I'm gonna do something a little different.
-- Instead of writing an editorial, I am simply going
to publish some of the questions I have been asked and my
answers to those questions.
Hope you gain something from it.
Q: How old are you?
A: Just 2 years older
than dirt. -- When I was in the Army, SGT Dirt and I had the
same birthday - but - I was 2 years older.
Q: Where are you
from?
A: Born in Oklahoma.
Reared on poor dirt farms in Oklahoma, Missouri and Kansas.
Q: How many years
have you been marketing?
A: Over 50 years.
Q: How many weeks
a year would you say you spend working now?
A: Just 52 ... there
aren't any more.
Q: Please list 3
of your greatest marketing success's. Detail as much about
them as possible. From how did you get involved into it, how
did you market for that product and through what you learned
through the process.
A: I haven't had
any "great" marketing success ... like so many of the
one-time wonders. I have just developed a stable of products
and kept selling them. No homeruns ... just single &
double baggers that have continued to produce income.
Q: Please list 3
of your greatest marketing blunders. Detail as much about
them as possible.
A: I can count my
successes on my fingers & toes - but - I couldn't count my
blunders using all the hairs on my chest. -- Without
blunders, mistakes and failures there can be no success.
You only learn from your mistakes ... success doesn't teach
you anything. Show me a person who is afraid to fail
and I will show you a person who will never succeeed.
Q: List your greatest
marketing achievements (this need not be detailed but it should
be in list format for it will be used to assert you as an authority
in marketing).
A: My career has
progressed through direct selling, service contracting, wholesale
merchandising, entertainment (I was a professional Trumpet player,
vocalist & Radio Announcer), freight forwarding, import/export,
retail merchandising, warehousing, real estate, electronics manufacturing,
finder's fees, closeout merchandising, financial brokerage, business
consulting, steel fabrication, gold & coal mining, offshore
banking, mailorder, writing, and publishing.
Over the past 40 years, I have written well over 700 books,
booklets, manuals, reports, courses and articles about doing
business -- all based on my own personal, hands-on experience.
My writings are "specific" methods, techniques and
approaches to doing business that anyone can use to start or
expand their business.
As a direct marketer, I have produced revenues of over four-hundred
million dollars ($400,000,000) worth of products and services
... everything from Beauty Supplies to Heavy Equipment ... Burglar
Alarms to Sleeping Bags ... Fishing Lures to Women's Wigs ...
Automobiles to Wheelchairs ... Investment Opportunities to Seafood
... Consulting Services to "How To" Courses. -- Today,
I am making a new ... even bigger ... fortune on the Internet.
Q: What did you
do before you became a marketer?
A: I had to learn
how to read and write. Started selling as soon as I was
big enough to walk into town on my own.
Q: How did you first
get invloved in marketing
A: When I was about 9
years old, I started selling Cloverleaf Salve door to door in
our small midwestern town of 1,000 population. Sold "Grit"
newspaper, Christmas Cards, Magazine subscriptions.
Q: How did you make
your first dollar in marketing?
A: Knocking on doors,
selling just about anything I could find offered in the
back of Comic Books.
Q: What was your
first experience with a computer?
A: As a kid, I was
an electronics nut. My first computer experience
was a system using tubes and patch panels. What you now
do on a wristwatch, used to take enough equipment to fill
the building we occupy now.
Q: When did you
first start working online, and how did you get involved in selling
within the online community?
A: You can read
the story at: Oct99.html
Q: What was the
first product you marketed online? How did you become affiliated/interested
in that product? Did you make any profit marketing that
initial product? What did you learn from that initial marketing
experience? What would you say was your first break
through product? Any shocking marketing stories, something
unusual ever happen while marketing?
A: Created my website
in September, 1999, when more and more of my paper &
ink readers began asking where they could buy my stuff
online. -- At first it was little more than a catalog of
my products. -- The site had coverd all of its costs
and generated a profit by January, 2000.
All I did, at first, was add my URL to all of
my out-going direct mail pieces. -- Still my best source of new
customers.
Mid-year 2003, I discovered the profits to be made as an affiliate
marketer. -- Until then, I had only sold my
products to my customers. -- Within 3 months after I started
affiliate marketing, I was knocking down a few extra thousand
dollars each week. -- Then, once I knew exactly how it was done
... how anyone could do it ... I wrote my report,
"How You Really Can ... Make Your Internet
Fortune as an Affiliate Marketer!" --
Q: Go through your
average day from waking up in the morning to going in bed at
night (be as thorough as possible).
A: I usually
awaken about 4:30 each morning ... do a little exercise
... then, catch the news.
Finish up all emails ... fill all the orders ...
by about 10:30 a.m. -- Spend the rest of the day searching
for good stuff to tell my readers about ... methods to
use to increase my advertising ... doing the customary paper
work involved in any business ... reading review copies of books
sent to me for my consideration.
I leave the office about 12:00 noon. -- Do any chores
that need to be done. -- Then, I read until about midnight.
Get up the next day and do it all again.
Q: Do you have a
system that you believe is responisble for your success, a certain
making money strategy or model? If so please describe.
A: I use the PBOC
method. -- I Put my Butt On a Chair until all of
my responsibilities and obligations for the day have been done.
Q: When you sit
down at the computer what exactly do you do?
A: I turn it on.
Then, I get my emails... fill the orders ... and answer
every email (deleting the crap as I go).
Q: What in your opinion
has been most responsible for your success?
A: I love what I
do and do what I love doing.
Q: How many different
products have you sold online?
A: Oh, I don't
know. Fifteen of my own products and ... since
I started as an affiliate marketer ... maybe a dozen more.
Q: Have you worked
in more then one market, if so which?
A: Online
I have only sold business related information products
and services. Over the years, I have been active in hundreds
of different markets.
Q: What marketing
methods have you used in the past and which ones have worked
best for you?
A: If you
are asking about Internet marketing methods, I have tried
them all with varying success. Direct email has proven
to be the best ... as I fully explain in "How
You Really Can ... Make Your Internet
Fortune as an Affiliate Marketer!" --
Q: How long did
it take for you to become successful?
A: I have always
been successful ... even my failures have been successful. --
Why? -- Because "success" ... like "poverty"
... is a state of mind.
Q: Where do you
see internet marketing going in the next 5 years? Do you for
see any types of marketing that will cease to work in the next
year or two?
A: It can only get
better and better. It is the greatest advertising medium
ever created.
Q: If someone where to
take everything in the business world away from you that you
have built up until this day what would be the one thing you
would hang on to?
A: As long as I have the
knowledge of my past experience, I have everything
I need.
Q: What in your
opinion has been the one characteristic of your personality that
has beend responsible for your success?
A: A desire to bring
"value" into my customers' lives.
Q: If you had a chance
to do it all over again is there anything you would have done
differently?
A: Yes ... I would NEVER
have any products of my own. I would only sell other people's
products and services. -- I would sell just as much but without
the ongoing hassles.
Q: What are you
currently working on?
A: Trying to teach
people how they really can make money on the Internet.
-- They've been fed so much crap, it is a big job just
trying to get them to unlearn the garbage they have already learned.
That's why I wrote "How You Really Can ... Make
Your Internet Fortune as an Affiliate Marketer!" --
Q: What are your plans
for the future, is there any marketing adventure you have yet
to conquer?
A: I will keep doing
what I'm doing until it isn't fun anymore.
Q: If a person were
to learn just one thing from your experiences what do you believe
that should be?
A: If you are going
to be in business ... be in business. Quit
pretending. Quit trying to get rich overnight (it
never happens). Learn the solid fundamentals of doing business
then apply them to whatever business you are doing.
If you aren't going to learn to do
business. Go get a job and quit cluttering up the
business arena.
Q: Name 3 childhood leisure
activites you used to participate in?
A: Logic puzzles,
chess, bridge.
Q: Name 3 leisure
activaties you participate in now?
A: Reading, reading
and reading ... anything about anything ... no fiction.
Q: Do you have any
pets?
A: Just two black
cats; Alex & Felix. They're twins. Their momma
brought them to my office the day they were born ... she
left'em ... I took'em home.
Q: If you could
make yourself into any toy/super hero what would it be?
A: Who, me?
There ain't one good enough.
Q: What do you usually
eat for breakfast?
A: Just coffee.
Q: Do you do anything
unusual in your day?
A: Nothing unusual
... just do what I do.
Q: Boxers or Briefs?
A: Depends upon
what I am wearing.
Q: Did you have any idols
or role models growing up as a kid?
A: Don Amechi &
Clayton Moore (voice), Fred Astaire (poise), Vincent Price &
David Niven (class), John Wayne (manhood), Louis Armstrong (trumpet).
Q: Pepsi or Coke?
A: Neither ...
I prefer coffee.
Q: Advertising is
a key area that many of us need help with ... what are the main
factors to consider in any form of promotion? As always,
there are only three ... Product, Offer & Audience.
A: Rather than restate
what I have already said, you'll find out everything you need
to know about developing your promotions in past issues of my
"Business Lyceum e-Letter" ... such as:
Jun01.html
-- tells you why most marketers miss the mark by 50%.
Jan01.html
-- gives you methods you can use to capture your audience ...
just as they did in 1913.
Oct00.html
-- tells you how anything that works is right.
Feb00.html
-- tells how Unique Selling Propositions can be created.
Nov99.html
-- tells what to do it you don't have any testimonials.
Q: What famous books
on copywriting would you recommend?
A: Anything written
by Dan Kennedy, Melvin Powers or E. Joseph Cossman ... all of
their works are written from hands-on, personal experience; not
research.
Q: We hear all the
time that changing headlines can increase profits. At what
stage do you decide that it is not the headline that is wrong
but the sales letter?
A: You don't.
In the marketing game, the professional marketer is constantly
testing. -- Sometimes, what works today won't work tomorrow -
and - what worked well yesterday may, of a sudden, work well
again today.
Here's how it's done ...
First, you write a sales piece and test it. -- If it produces
orders, keep it as a "control" ... because you know
from your testing that it produces orders.
If your sales piece does NOT produce orders, you change only
one thing in it and test it again.
The big mistake most beginners make is by testing too many things
at once. -- You'll never know which change made the difference
if you have more than one change in your sales piece.
If you sales piece did work, you still need to be testing against
it ... as your "control" ... to enhance it's pulling
power.
Then again, when a new tested piece produces great gobs of orders,
then quits, it will be time to go back to an older tested piece
that used to sell. -- You never know in this business, until
you test, Test, TEST; then test some more.
Hey ... sometimes you can lose a bundle of money testing and
retesting your headline; your offer; your price; your audience
- BUT - the results can make you rich, Rich, RICH ... when you
find the right combination.
Most beginners just give up too soon.
If you KNOW your product or service is something needed or wanted
in the marketplace, it is worth whatever it costs to find a headline,
offer, price and an audience that works.
PLEASE tell me whether or not you like the above Q&A
format ...
I have literally hundreds of questions and answers I have
given over the years.
If you would like to read more of them, or NOT, please let me
know.
Can you stump the old master? --
Betcha can't!
Over the past 50 years (man and boy), I have made bundles
of money in direct selling, service contracting, wholesale merchandising,
entertainment (I was a professional Trumpet player, vocalist
& Radio Announcer), freight forwarding, import/export, retail
merchandising, warehousing, real estate, electronics manufacturing,
finder's fees, closeout merchandising, financial brokerage, business
consulting, steel fabrication, gold and coal mining, offshore
banking, mailorder, writing, and publishing. -- That being the
case ...
No matter what business you're in ... whether you're just
starting, well on your way, or at the top of the heap ... I've
probably been where you are, done what you are doing. -- So ...
Anytime you have a question about 'how' to do something in
your business - or - if you have any comments about anything
I've said in issues of this e-Letter; or if you want to add your
2 cents worth ... just "ask" me or "tell"
me.
Send your Questions, Comments or 2 Cents Worth
to ...
with "Question" - "Comment"
- or, "2 Cents Worth" in the SUBJECT.
If I, personally, don't have an answer to any question you
may ask, I will contact some of the professionals in your field
of endeavor (I will probably know one or more personally) to
get the real 'skinny' for you.
Note: If you want to ask a question anonymously
just tell me so when you send in the question. -- Nobody but
you and I will know who asked the question.
Copyright - 2008, J.F. (Jim) Straw. All rights reserved.