Is it a Scam? Here's how you'll know!

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant

Hundreds of thousands of folks worldwide have been bilked by Internet scams to the tune of millions of dollars.

Now hear this: not one of these people had to lose a single penny. EVERY scam under the sun can easily be identified.... and hence avoided. Here are the signs of clear and present danger:

1) Scams prosper by telling people they can get rich without work.

Here's a dead give away! Real businesses can and should make their offers as good as possible, always maximizing advantages while minimizing what you must do to achieve results. But scams cross the line, touting success without effort. Here's where the old saying comes in, "If it seems too good to be true... it isn't!" Your mother told you this, and your mother was right.

2) Scams never feature how long they've been in business. Why? Because they aim to arrive, defraud the maximum amount as quickly as possible... then pick up silently and leave.

Real businesses are proud of the number of years they've been helping people. You'll find this information prominently displayed. They want you to know they've been here... and plan to remain here. Scams don't.

3) Scams are not accredited by The Better Business Bureau or other professional associations.

Real businesses understand that people may have hesitations or doubts about doing business with a new, untested company. They, therefore, make it a point to earn professional designations which give their new customers peace of mind.

The Better Business Bureau, for instance, the world's best known consumer protection and consumer advocacy organization, has a business accreditation program. After such extensive "due diligence", you can bet the business will proudly display their seal of accreditation. Scams don't, because scams can't.

4) Scams do not incorporate where they are subject to legal regulations and scrutiny.

Ask a scamster just where his business is incorporated and who regulates it. Answer will come there none.

Legitimate businesses are willing to submit to government oversight and review. While every business person under the sun bemoans the extra work this entails and the inevitable "red tape," in fact they welcome government oversight and review since it tells the public they are real and reputable. Scams are neither, so they don't bother to incorporate.

5) Scams don't sell real products. In actual fact, what they sell is greed.

Talk to any business person in the land about their products and services and they'll happily burble on for hour after factual hour. Not so scamsters.

A scam has no product or service. It doesn't sell anything worth having; it's all about tapping into and controlling you through your own potent avarice.

Real businesses are ecstatic to talk about what they can do for you, the beneficial details. Scams don't dare tell you what they're all about, so they tap deep into your own greed and use that to blind you to what they really do!

6) Scams don't provide real name, real address, real phone numbers, etc.

Real businesses, legitimate businesses are here today, here tomorrow. They live or die by treating old customers well so they return... and motivating new customers to come and visit. This means providing these customers with necessary contact information.

Scams are different. Go to their website. Can you easily get address, phone, etc? No. In fact it's just about impossible to get any genuine contact details. Remember, scams don't want you to know who they are, where they are located, how to contact them. Quite the contrary.

7) Scams don't tell you the names of the principals and their credentials

Remember, scams profit by dazzling you with riches without work. Such mundane details as the names and credentials of the principals -- always trumpeted in real businesses -- are never provided.

Scamsters, remember, count on you being so excited about your imminent prosperity that you won't notice you have no information about the people at this enterprise who are responsible for providing its benefits.

Last Words

There have been scams as long as there have been humans. The Internet, however, has empowered scamsters as never before. Luckily for you, every scam in the world can be easily detected. You simply must control the avarice that makes scams so attractive... and apply the common sense admonitions found here.

About the Author Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc
Republished with author's permission by Bret Eikenberry

Warning! You may be one of MILLIONS of people leaving money on the table because you won't work the phone!

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant

Have you looked at the economic news lately? The so-called recovery is still weak as a new born kitten. People are still being thrown out of jobs. Home foreclosures continue. Financial and social instability blanket the land.

Yet you who says you're in business...

You who tells me you want to squeeze every single cent from your business, won't pick up the phone to talk to prospects and so are leaving big bucks on the table.

Is that crazy or what?

Now hear this: e-mail did NOT replace the telephone as a crucial business money-maker.

Listen to some people, and you'd think the telephone became obsolete when e-mail was invented. "Oh, I never phone anyone anymore. I e-mail them!"

If you're one of the silly ones singing this tune, you need to stop, look, and listen to the vital information I'm about to deliver: as far as connecting, working with and developing long-term relationships with customers is concerned nothing beats your Alexander Graham Bell.

E-mail is spectacular... but it NEVER can or will replace the way phones enable you to communicate directly with your prospects and DO BUSINESS! In plain English, the phone is a money machine. You must learn to use it as such.

1) Review your current use of the phone

Do you make it a point to telephone your prospects, introduce yourself, ascertain what you can do to assist them, follow up with all you prospects to make the sale, and (a little while later) make sure they're happy with what they've purchased?

If you are remiss in some or all of these vital categories, it's time to make changes in your use of the phone... or continue to leave dollars on the table.

2) Do you end each day drawing up a phone list for the next business day?

The key to maximizing phone potential and profit is planning; knowing who you want to connect with on the morrow... and having whatever you need to do so readily at hand.

Create a computer file for each business day. This file should contain:

* name of prospect

* prospect phone(s)

* prospect fax and, yes, email

* what prospect is interested in

* then space for a record of all contacts, including what the prospect said and what you promised to do (and then did).

Review tomorrow's phone list BEFORE leaving for the day. That way it will be fresh in your mind when you start calling tomorrow.

3) Call your easiest prospect first

We're human. We all function better when we get off to a good start. In business, this means calling your easiest prospect first, the prospect you know and have a good relationship with. They'll be glad to hear from you; they'll be happy to place that kick-off order. When that order is in , the success of your day is ensured!

4) Be clear on the objective for each call.

Because the telephone is used both personally and for business, it's easy to lose track of why you're calling folks. Personal telephone habits spill over into business time. That's fatal to your bottom line.

Before you call each prospect, review just why you are calling. It is NOT just to say hi and chat. It is either to start a new business relationship, foster an existing one and, above all else, get the sale!

5) Keep good notes

The average telephone business user is casual (and hence ineffectual) to a degree. Sometimes they take notes on their prospects calls; sometimes they don't. This catch-as-catch-can approach to the telephone is not good enough... for you. YOU know the importance of good notes. The time to enter them into your computer file is the MINUTE your phone conversation ends. Indeed, if you have your computer screen in front of you while speaking to your prospects, enter your notes as you go.

6) No answer? Call back. No answer? Call back again.

Over the years, I have been consistently astonished at the high level of self-delusion that permeates the business community about incomplete calls; that is calls which do not result in direct conversation with your prospect.

Any call you place, including calls where you just leave your prospect a message, must be regarded as incomplete calls; that is, calls which must be made and made again until completion (that is direct customer contact) takes place.

7) Regard your customers as assets who need the time and considered attention of any other asset

If you are one of the legion of business people who don't call prospects, a major change in attitude (and procedure) is necessary. From this moment on, think of each prospect as an asset for your business and as one of a string of assets from which you derive wealth.

Would you take a corporate bond and abandon it in a taxi?

Would you leave the deed to your house on a picnic table in the park?

Of course not!

Then don't be cavalier with your customers and efficiently calling and following up. They are ASSETS, and they must be treated accordingly. One phone call at a time. Starting today.

About the Author Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc.

Republished with author's permission by Bret Eikenberry

What Google's Fresh Content changes mean to YOU - this is HUGE!

Google has announced changes to their search algorithms so that more relevant and up to date results appear first.

Google uses 200+ methods to rank pages, and this recent announcement regarding fresh content has HUGE implications for webmasters and marketers.

Says Google: "We completed our Caffeine web indexing system last year, which allows us to crawl and index the web for fresh content quickly on an enormous scale. Building upon the momentum from Caffeine, today we’re making a significant improvement to our ranking algorithm that impacts roughly 35 percent of searches and better determines when to give you more up-to-date relevant results for these varying degrees of freshness." Google went on to add this, "Frequent updates are critically important. There are also searches for information that changes often, but isn't really a hot topic or a recurring event. For example, if you’re researching the a specific product, or you’re in the market for a new car and want reviews of a specific car, you probably want the most up to date information."

So here is what you need to understand from this announcement to improve your website ranking and ideally increase your sales.

1. If you don't have a blog, start one NOW.

2. Blog or post articles about recent events or hot topics that are trending to give yourself an advantage

3. Blog or post fresh new content to your site DAILY if you can, frequent updates is paramount.

4. Blog about topics or events with YOUR own key words embedded in the content.

5. Up-to-date review sites about products that have rich quality content with key words gives you an advantage in ranking.

Google is essentially telling you what their indexers and bots look for when ranking web pages. Listen to what they are telling you, take this information and start blogging, not once a month, but daily if you can. Make sure your blog is monetized to maximize your opportunities for profit and lead generation.

Want to keep on top of Google and the 200+ factors they consider for page ranking? Join the Google Webmasters' forum at Google.com/webmasters

To stay up to date on Google's methods for page ranking, go to their official blog at googleblog.blogspot.com

**** What do you think of these changes that Google is making to page ranking?

About the Author: Sandi Hunter, is the Director of Website Development at Worldprofit Inc.

Republished with author's permission by Bret Eikenberry

Safelist Advertising: What it is and how to get the best possible results.

Safelist advertising is a powerful, effective advertising resource for affiliate marketers. Here's why and how to maximize your responses.

A Safelist is a mailing list where Members can email each other. These emails cannot be considered as spam because Member must opt-in to receive the mailings and also have confirmed their email address. A Safelist can be used to advertise a product or service, including business opportunities, affiliate programs, home business products, Clickbank products and so forth. Most Safelists work by allowing Members to earn credits but also offer paid advertising. Basic Membership in a Safelist is usually free.

Benefits of Safelist Advertising

1. Affordable: Cost is ZERO to join most safelists. You can either surf to earn credits for your own advertising, or you can pay a very small cost for a paid subscription. Paid subscriptions allow you to post more often and to more people. If you can afford it get a paid subscription, cost can be as little as $10 and up.

2. Targeted: You reach a targeted audience of other home business folks, affiliate marketers, entrepreneurs and information seekers.

3. Legitimate: Once scoffed at as a cheesy time-wasting practice, Safelists are a legitimate marketing practice and have gained credibility and popularity. Spam laws have limited the number of ways to market a product or service. Safelist Advertising allows marketers to reach consumers easily and legitimately with their permission.

4. Variety: There are various forms of advertising available within Safelist programs. Members have many options for advertising affordably and this can include Text Ads, HTML ads, solo ads, banners, login ads, landing pages, ad rotations etc.

5. Reach: Creating your own in-house mailing list is ideal but does take an enormous amount of time and can be self-limiting to who is on your own list. To reach larger, new audiences, affiliate marketers have discovered the power of being able to post to a large legitimate list of people. To get better results from your Safelist advertising, here is what you need to know.

Always, always, always promote a LANDING PAGE and NOT your website when using Safelist Advertising. Remember you want to make an eye-popping offer and get an instant result. Your website can't and won't do that in most cases.

A Landing Page that will generate results includes: -Attention Grabbing headline -Point form, punchy copy thick with the benefits to the reader -A call to action, DO THIS! GET THIS! -Lead form to gather contact details of the person. -Option to subscribe to your newsletter, or receive further special offers -More copy than graphics so your page loads quickly and command attention with words not distracting unnecessary graphics.

When posting your ads, don't rely on just one Safelist. If your funds are limited select 3 - 5 to get started and post as often as you can. If you have a dud ad that doesn't get response, change it up, run a revised or different ad.

Make sure you have some type of ad tracking software so when you post and ad you can see the click-rate and analyze the effective of your ads. Many Safelists offer this tool for their Members.

The key to effective Safelist Advertising is three fold.

1) Get a paid subscription from a number of reputable Safelists so you can promote to larger audiences and more often. 2) Promote a well-written copy-dense Landing Page with minimal graphics. Emphasis is on eye-grabbing headline, benefit-laden copy, and ultra-fast loading. 3) Pick only reputable Safelists.

Tell us what you think about Safelists? What are your favourites? Submit a comment below.

About the Author: Sandi Hunter, is the Director of Website Development at Worldprofit Inc.

Republished with author's permission by Bret Eikenberry

Would you rather stick needles in your eyes then blog? 10 Ways to Make Life Easier for Bloggers with limited time and writing ability.

Ok, you know you are supposed to blog. The marketing experts agree that blogging consistently is a sure-fire way to get your site well indexed by the search engines and get those oh-so-important backlinks for your site. But let's face the reality. Coming up with fresh interesting blog content 365 days a year is darn difficult. You know it's important but getting started is so hard. You understand you need the value that blogging provides from search engines gobbling up your content. But how? ! How do you come up with fresh blog content and find the time. Here's some ideas to make your life easier but also to get better results for your efforts.

1. Blog about what you know or are passion about so the words stream from your keyboard rather then having to struggle to spit out the words and put sentences together. It's always easier to talk about something you know or care about or that is controversial then technical or dry topics.

2. You don't have to be an expert (unless you really are an expert and offering expert content on a specific topic). Write about specifics if you can, generalities if you have to, but write about something!

3. You don't have to be a blogger who writes with grammatical perfection. Your English teacher is not reading your blog. Stop thinking that the world is going to judge you critically if you misspell a word or don't know all the rules of grammar. Of course you want your blog to be as good as it can be, but don't let the quest for perfection make a 20 minute blog post take you hours to complete.

4. Ideally, to get the most benefit from search engines indexing your blog, you want to blog about topics related to your products, service or business. But that can be really tough to write about just one subject every day. Try spacing out your blogs so that some are on topic for your purpose, while others are off topic, or about current events. Add in your Resource Box at the end of every post (see point 7 below).

5. Keep your blog posts short. Keep your blog to the point, itemize, organize, number points if you have to. Do what you have to do make it easy and quick for you to write and easy and quick for your readers to digest. Sometimes less is more.

6. Let the world around you be your inspiration for blogs topics. This can include songs, newspaper headlines, nature, current events, your pets, other bloggers, daily happenings in the course of your life, things your kids say or do. Get the idea. There are NO limits.

7. Always, conclude your post with a Resource Box or Author info section with every blog. Why? So that your contact info and identifying information is tagged with EVERY blog post and not tucked away on an About page. Ensure that your Resource Box includes your name, contact details, areas of expertise, and link to your site or landing page. It is also a good idea to weave your optimal key words into your Resource Box. This way the key words you want people to find you with are associated with your blog, your name, and your company. This proves beneficial if you write about something not directly related to your business, products or services, you still get the benefit of the key word content about yourself, and a backlink to your site, or landing page.

8. Sometimes it helps to start with a really catchy Blog title. Take a lesson from the newspapers. They construct clever eye-grabbing attention getting headlines to draw you in. Start with a really bold, in your face, descriptive or reaction provoking headline to get immediate attention. The let your content come forth from the headline.

9. Set a goal to blog on a regular basis. If you can't blog every day, then do it every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Set exact dates and times that work for you. If you don't you will always find some other distraction to convince yourself is more important. Set a goal, stick to it, do it!

10. Make the most of the time you have spent on your blog by then tweeting it, posting it to Linked In, adding to your Facebook profile and other social media sites. Maximize the power of the time you spent blogging by utilizing social media to spread the message to other sites. You can use automated tools to do this to save time. Include links to your social media sites on your blog itself for even more exposure.

About the Author: Sandi Hunter, is the Director of Website Development at Worldprofit Inc.

Republished with author's permission by Bret Eikenberry

Does your dead dog smell? Reflections on marketing myths and realities from one who knows.

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant

In the days when I taught university level marketing, I set my eager-beaver students a task.

Write a classified or space ad... and report on how it draws and what you did to handle any responses you received. In short, this project, like my teaching in general, was never merely theoretical, detached from reality. It was real! Vital! Truthful... and often, as a result, jolting. In other words, your class project either made money... or it didn't. Much more than your grade depended on it.

The scene of the crime...

All my students were adult practitioners, that is people who were already employed in professional positions or worked in home-based businesses or on the Internet. These were people who had a strong and pressing interest in mastering marketing. These students came because they needed to learn the ins and outs of marketing... or else. To such people one had an obligation, a sacred responsibility, to speak honestly, speak candidly, and address their real world concerns.

And I did.

On one occasion, a bright professional woman (I had lots of them in my classes) had the task of presenting her classified ad to the class... explaining why she wrote the ad she wrote, where she ran it, what the results were, how she followed up the respondents, and (and it was the all-important and) how much money this ad generated.

In other words, it was all real-life stuff.

She wrote her ad, as instructed, on the chalk board, the better for us to see the words which would shortly be shown as either golden, or dross. Then I became the Joe Friday ("facts, ma'am, just the facts") of the marketing drag-net.

"When did you start running this ad?" (Specific date required.)

"Where do you run this ad?" (Specific publication or venue required.)

"How many responses did you get?" (Specific number required.)

And then the kicker...

"How much money did you make... after deducting all actual costs of running the ad and responding to respondents?" (Exact dollar figures required.)

The lady squirms...

Now the moment of high truth and full disclosure had arrived. What had started as merely a class project had become for the person reporting a matter of life and death. The ad copy, you see, would show whether she had mastered the marketing essentials that either produced bucks... and all that those bucks could buy... or not.

Everything was riding on what she reported. And she knew it...

Bad, bad, tormentingly bad.

I an inveterate reader of body language, and this student's was typical of those who wish they were in any other place on earth rather than here, the cynosure of every eye in this most unrelenting of classes. Of course I knew she was squirming, mulling over how to disclose and deliver facts which (from that all important body language) were sure to be uncongenial. So... along with every member of the class.... I waited to see what the lady would say and do.

And we waited....

Then, at last, she admitted the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth... and it wasn't pretty. She had run her classified ad six times... had not had a single response... and, of course, and worst of all, hadn't made a single penny.

Now, the lady, this aspiring marketer, stood before her classmates.... abashed, humiliated, at rock bottom, a total marketing failure.

Then I told her the first essential truth of marketing: does your dead dog smell? And does it, day by day, smell worse... until the nauseating stench overpowers everything else?

The ad copy you produce is like a dog. Its job is to go out, your servant, finding and bringing home what it captures; the quarry that sustains you and gives you comfort, even excess.

No dead dogs do this... neither do ads which fail to produce responses.

The student began to get the picture.

Her ad hadn't pulled and yet she continued to use it, paying good Yankee dollars to do so.. despite the fact she KNEW the dog was dead, stinking.

Why had she done this?

First, because she was sure, absolutely sure, Her Ad Was Brilliant, the stuff of legend... she was invested in the words... certain that given a chance they would produce the desirable results; aged to perfection, like a fine vintage.

But that is a huge mistake... and now she was willing, and the entire class with her, to find the essential nubbin of truth, that made everything she had done worthwhile.

1) Marketing copy doesn't improve with age. It either works at once, immediately, or it never works at all. Dead dogs never become quick and agile again... they just stink the more.

2) ALL marketing copy, at ALL times must be evaluated, starkly , by results and nothing but results.

3) You must never, ever re-run marketing copy without knowing its previous results.

4) The entire business of marketing is about writing copy, testing copy, evaluating the results produced by this copy, then tweaking the copy to improve it and your overall results.

Marketing is and always be an action sport... it is not for the slothful, lazy, or unassertive.

More tips

** Never, ever become invested in, beguiled by the marketing copy you create. It either works (producing responses and money), or it doesn't. Success isn't everything here... it's the ONLY thing.

** Never re-run ANY marketing copy until you are certain it works; that is, until you have money in hand.

** Trash your erroneous but deeply felt belief that you can find marketing copy which is so good, so responsive that you never have to change it, never have to do anything else with it than run it and reap perpetual rewards.

Such copy doesn't exist, never existed, and will never exist.

Marketing is the most active sport in the world. Those who win at this sport, and the rewards can be staggering, are, to a person, people who are bold, active, engaged... not sleepy-heads hoping against hope that they will find and eternally profit from a few magic words artfully strung together. Those words have never been written.

Thus, energize yourself for the marketing you must do today, for if you want the rewards of marketing you must master and remain focused on and dedicated to the unrelenting truths of marketing.

Otherwise you are hunting with a dead dog... a dog that will never produce results. It will simply stink to high heaven. And that will never do.

About the Author:
 Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc.,
Republished with author's permission by Bret Eikenberry