Today’s message is a guest entry from my good friend, David G. Johnson, founder of Epiphany Marketing.

“In a multitude of words transgression is not lacking, but he who restrains his lips is prudent.” (Proverbs 10:19 AMP)

On Monday, we introduced a topic that we can’t afford to ignore: how your business is being rated on public websites and social media environments. This is definitely an area where ignorance can be very expensive.

But it raises another important subject. Because social media is such a new phenomenon, many small businesses have stumbled into Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other similar environments without a well-developed strategy. Perhaps you’ve already begun to reap a taste of the huge potential benefits of these media — increased exposure, better communication, and certainly: bigger revenues.

But if you haven’t developed a strategy that addresses some of the potential pitfalls of social media, you or perhaps someone from your team may be setting you up for trouble. This could be anything from wasted time due to a poorly-constructed (or missing) time management strategy all the way up to lost profits or even legal liability because of a flawed (or again: missing) content strategy.

Don’t misunderstand me: I’m a huge believer in utilizing every tool that makes sense for your business in order to help you get the word out. But as with any marketing or public relations medium, a little strategic planning goes a long way and can mean the difference between huge success and huge failure.

Special Note from Michael Pink: For more help developing and honing your 21st-Century marketing strategy, join David and me tomorrow evening (Thursday, August 13th) at 9PM Eastern for “How to Dominate Your Marketplace Using Social Media.” This special educational webinar will help all of us learn how social media can be used to grow your business, and advance your message. Click here to reserve your spot right now!  Can’t make the time? Please register anyway… if a recording becomes available, you’ll be the first to find out!

Chances are, if you recognize the title of this message as being a play on Jackie Gleason’s famous line, “How sweet it is!,” then you probably feel like me that you are not the least bit interested in Tweeting or wasting your time in some kind of social media seminar.

So why are we having this event on Thursday night at 9:00 PM Eastern?  For the same reason that I got an email account when I didn’t want to do email. For the same reason that I built my first website when I really didn’t want a website.

We are doing this webinar because it is possibly the most explosive new form of reaching an audience, building a following and doing real time market research ever unleashed on mankind. And those things are absolutely essential in building any business.

Sure, most people twitter away their time, sending out worthless messages to mindless followers, but there are a growing number of established enterprises that recognize the incredible value and force that tools like Twitter and others provide. Twitter works faster than any other form of media. It is instant. It is accurate. And it is compelling.

To learn what we are doing and how you can join me as we go down this social media road, I invite you to join me and my guest, David Johnson, Thursday night at 9:00 PM Eastern Time. Click here to register.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Blessings,

Michael

P.S. Reserve your spot right away… they won’t last long!

“And Moses said unto the people, Fear not, stand still, and see the salvation of the LORD, which He will show to you today….”  Exodus 14:13

Believe it or not, there really is a time to stand still — to bring our physical body into a state of peace. Moses wanted the children of Israel to get out of fear and see the salvation that God was about to bring, but first he had to bring them to a place of rest.  Suppose you have a small child who is afraid and is running around the yard in a panic. To help them get control of their emotions, you must not only calm their fear, you need to get them to stop running around and stand still so they can receive the next instruction. As long as they are running around the yard in fear, they will never be able to receive their deliverance.

Try this today. At some point in the day, simply stop what you are doing, bring your busyness to a standstill and commune with the Father. Stay long enough to see His salvation. Experience the exponential impact of bringing your whole spirit, soul and body into alignment with God. Many of you are gripped by fear, paralyzed by depression, riddled with guilt and see no way out. But there is. And it begins with stopping. Stopping your fear. Stopping the continuous motion or activity that keeps you from hearing the still, small voice of God.

And when you have come to a stop… when you have come to the end of yourself and you stand at the precipice of faith, open the eyes of your understanding and see His salvation. See the hope of his calling, the riches of the glory of his inheritance in you and the exceeding greatness of his power toward you who believe. Then lift up your rod (the Word of God) and declare with everything in you the outcome you know God has for you. Fully express with every fiber in your being what you know God wills for you.  Then walk confidently into the future, trusting God to make a way where there appears to be none. This is not theory. I have walked this path and experienced His great deliverance and so can you!

Look to God. Change your self-talk. Declare a different outcome. Set a new expectancy. What have you got to lose? Now, what are you doing that is equivalent to running around the yard in fear? What action or movement is keeping you from coming to a place of self imposed rest so you can see the salvation God has for you? That’s what you need to stop today. Selah.

P.S. On an unrelated but important note, David Johnson of Epiphany Marketing has a very few openings remaining on his calendar for the free 30-minute consultations he offered. If you haven’t heard it yet (or if you’d like to hear it again), listen to last week’s call here and take advantage of this unique opportunity!

Hello Friend,

If you, like so many others, were unable to catch one of the meetings that I held last week with David Johnson from Epiphany Marketing, then I’ve got good news!

For the next few days, you can catch a replay of one of the calls from last week.  We’ve had an overwhelming response from businesses who are interested in filling their pipelines with new leads and prospects, so I wanted to make sure you had a chance to hear the information.

Also, listen closely to the end of the call to find out about how you can get a free 30-minute consultation with David.  You and he can talk all about how you can make sure your future customers find you instead of your competition.

Listen to the replay here.

I hope you enjoy it.  We had a lot of fun doing it!

Blessings,

Michael

Before I turn things over again to David Johnson from Epiphany Marketing, I want to make sure you’ve reserved your spot on this week’s conference calls.  They start tonight!  (And for those outside the US… in just a matter of hours!)

Both Michael and I have written recently about the economy.  Obviously it’s been on the minds of a lot of people, and certainly some industries and regions have been more affected by it than others.  Either way, the battle is definitely heating up — regardless of external economic conditions — especially for those of us who are believers and whose work and purpose is about expanding the Kingdom of God and not just “making a buck.”

I’m not certain (although I do have a few guesses) where this notion came from, but somewhere along the way in the Church, we got this idea that if God is “blessing” your life and/or your business, things will be easy.  You’ve probably heard it.  There’s a “flow.”  Things are “smooth.”  Doors open for you.

Listen, friends.  I don’t want to deny the supernatural power of the blessing — not even in the slightest.  But one thing I’ve learned is that while we may have seasons where there is less pressure, the notion that things will be easy is absolute garbage.  Don’t get me wrong — we can and should experience greater levels of peace and greater freedom from stress, especially in our interior life.  And we can walk in confidence, knowing that we are being led by the Holy Spirit and carrying out the purpose of God for our lives.

But take a look at what Jesus said Matthew 11:12.  Here it is from the Amplified Bible:

“And from the days of John the Baptist until the present time, the kingdom of heaven has endured violent assault, and violent men seize it by force [as a precious prize--a share in the heavenly kingdom is sought with most ardent zeal and intense exertion].”

Let’s face it, if God has called you to the marketplace, then you are on the front lines of taking territory for the Kingdom.  That’s where the battle is the hottest.  Be encouraged today that you are operating in a sin-cursed world system dominated by powers that do not want you to be fruitful nor succeed.  There is and there will be resistance — just like swimming upstream.  But friends, we have access to all the resources of the Kingdom, and we can put them to work today.  If the battle is hot where you are right now, remember the “ardent zeal” and “intense exertion” is par for the course in this fight.  All who take territory will do so because of intentional effort at times when it would be easier to give up.  Take a moment and reach out for help from heaven!

Now, I’m not someone who believes that more revenue is necessarily the answer to every business challenge.  But, if you’ve taken a hit because of changes in the economy or in your business, then here’s a fact: you won’t succeed at fulfilling your purpose (in business or otherwise) unless you connect with those who you are called to serve — those who need what you have to offer.  I urge you to join Michael and I are on our conference calls this week so we can share with you some tools to help you do exactly that.

In the meantime: be encouraged!

“In conclusion, be strong in the Lord [be empowered through your union with Him]; draw your strength from Him [that strength which His boundless might provides].” (Ephesians 6:10)

Friends, as you can tell, David is as passionate as I am about advancing the Kingdom.  There are 4 opportunities to participate in this week’s conference calls.   If you haven’t already done so, choose your best time.  We’ll talk to you then!

My fellow marketplace warriors…
Here is the invitation I promised you to join me for a meeting this week.  If you’ve been with us for a while, you’ll recall that we held a meeting with David (whose marketing thoughts you’ve probably been reading recently) just a few months ago and had an overwhelming response.

If you’re a newer subscriber, you may not yet be aware that our mission is to help believers worldwide build successful businesses so they can in turn (with their profits and influence) make a significant and lasting impact on the culture within which we live. How you make that difference is up to you. Helping you succeed in that calling is our privilege and our mission.

20-Fold Increase…
Recently, I was evaluating some statistical information related to our business.  It seems like it wasn’t all that long ago (in fact, it was just a couple of years ago) that I was getting excited about the 1,000 or 2,000 visitors coming to our website every month.  When I saw the more recent information, I found out that we’re averaging 10,000 visitors to our site every single week!  This has been due, in large part, to the efforts of David Johnson from Epiphany Marketing, who we retained just over a year ago to help us expand our reach.

Even more than multiplying the number of visitors, what has excited me is when I found out why they’re finding us… David showed me how to view the terms that people are typing into search engines like Google in order to find us.  Wow!  It’s amazing how well-targeted the results are.  We are connecting more than ever with the people who need what we have to offer.

David wants to share information with you…
…about how you can experience similar results.  And, more importantly, how to apply timeless marketing strategy to every facet of your business so that you’re best prepared to create relationships with the people you are reaching out to.  In fact, David would also like to introduce some of the people he’s been training for the last couple of months so you can hear directly from them about what they’ve been learning.

David and I have set aside several time slots Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday to discuss specific strategies to help you experience similar results. This is not for everyone, but if you want to grow your business using 21st-century strategies, you are welcome to join us. Register here now so you can be sure to reserve your spot on one of these conference calls. (As always, we are limited on the number of callers we can have on each conference call, so it’s a first-come, first-served basis.)

Warmest regards…

Michael Q. Pink

P.S. I know you probably checked your calendar previously, but I urge you to choose your best meeting time now… these calls will fill up quickly!

Here’s the next in a series of messages I’ve asked David Johnson of Epiphany Marketing to write for you. I hope you enjoy the thoughts on strategic marketing as much as I do…

Did you ever stop to think about the fact that “marketing” is happening all the time in your business — whether you want it to be or not?  Here’s an example to illustrate what I mean…

Picture yourself walking into a restaurant for dinner with your spouse.  It’s a reasonably nice restaurant with an energetic atmosphere.  There’s plenty of activity… you might even say it’s “alive” with excitement.  You’re looking forward to a nice meal.  After a friendly greeting and a brief wait, you are shown to your table where you sit down to look over the menus.  “At any moment,” you think to yourself, “someone will come by to take our drink order and tell us about the specials.” But you wait…

You chat with your spouse and even comment on how unusual it is for you to wait this long.  10 minutes go by.  A large group at a nearby table is served their piping hot meals.  Everything smells good.  People are talking and laughing and having a good time.  Your stomach growls.  You and your spouse exchange small talk and odd looks as you wonder aloud about the service.  You consider going to find someone to ask about your server, but you don’t want to ruin the evening for your spouse…

Ever had this happen to you?  Isn’t it frustrating?  At that moment when you’ve waited for 15 minutes and even tried to get someone’s attention, what message has that restaurant sent to you?

“You’re not important.”

“We don’t care.”

The business owners reading this are probably getting antsy.  Despite our best efforts, sometimes we inadvertently treat customers poorly and send them the wrong message.  We don’t intend to do it, but it happens sometimes.

This is one example of how we are always marketing in business.  In hundreds, perhaps even thousands of small (and big) ways, our business is constantly sending a message — to our customers, future customers, referral sources, and even partners.  My point — and one that my clients and students will tell you is one that I harp on — is that if you don’t intentionally design this message and execute a strategy for communicating it, then your chances of sending an undesirable one go way, way up.

What message is your business sending?

Registration begins today for the conference calls that David and I will be conducting this week.  I’ll send you a link a little later so you can sign up, but for now, check these time slots in your calendar (times shown in US Eastern Daylight Time — click for your time zone):

• Tuesday at 9pm
• Wednesday at 1pm
• Thursday at 7am
• Thursday at 4pm

Good morning friends… One of the ways we’ve been getting practical and helping folks grow their business revenue is through the internet. I’ve been relying on David Johnson of Epiphany Marketing for our internet marketing expertise for the last year and the difference has been quite substantial. Our site use to get a few hundred unique visits per week. Now we are in the five figure range each week, and we’re ramping up for quite a bit more in the near future. I’ve asked David to share a few posts with you to give you some practical help. Hope you enjoy!

How to Drive Off Your Customers

Too busy at work?  More than enough revenue?  Here are some ways you can keep those pesky customers and prospects away…

 

#1: Make Sure Your Marketing is All About You
After all… people who want to spend money with you want to understand how your products & services benefit them, so if you focus on you, your company’s history, your features, etc., you’ll be sure to keep people from bugging you.  Whatever you do, don’t use pictures of the people most likely to actually buy from you, and avoid connecting their needs and wants to aspects of your business most likely to appeal to them.  Instead, just subtly communicate the notion that you’re in business for your own benefit and that you really aren’t interested in customers.  They’ll smell this a mile away and bug someone else instead.

#2: Ignore the Web
If your website hasn’t changed since the Clinton Administration, you’re on the right track here.  Even better: no web presence at all!  If you must have a website, make sure it doesn’t show up in any search engines… and whatever you do: don’t add fresh new content on a regular basis!  You should convey to visitors that you might already be out of business just by the aged look of your site.  To support this notion, hire a neighbor’s kid to build it — especially if he/she has no design experience whatsoever.  Websites that have that “we don’t care” feel do wonders at keeping people away.  If you’re still having response from your site, just bury the information that your customers want to find and add some contact forms to your site that do nothing and go nowhere.  If you can get them to generate an error message, it’s even more fun!

#3:  Keep Your Marketing Efforts Unfocused
If people have a clear idea of who you are and what you’re all about, they’re much more likely to pester you.  So, make sure that there’s no unifying theme to your marketing.  Buy ads at random, and always let whoever who sold you the ad design it for you.  This way, all of your ads will come out looking different from each other.  Make sure that your marketing doesn’t target any one type of customer, and stick with the “shotgun” approach.  Otherwise, your marketing might actually connect with someone, and then they’ll show up or call, expecting service from you.

I hope these tips are helpful for you.  We’ll continue this on another blog entry soon.  And… Michael and I will be holding another marketing teleseminar next week!  If you’re already busy enough and don’t want any new customers, don’t join us!  It could be dangerous!!

Michael here… watch your inbox on Monday morning for dates/times for next week’s event!

A while back I wrote a blog on soft skills, chief among them humility. I well remember the time I went to hear a lineup of speakers at the 1993 Super Stars of Selling in Nashville, TN. The one speaker that stood out the most and the only one to receive a standing ovation was a man who, it seemed, was speaking before a large crowd for the first time. He was rather monotone, not at all flamboyant, cocky or arrogant and yet he held the audience in rapt attention. Sure, he had earned $3,000,000 in commissions and that was why he was invited, and sure, he had a good message about what he calls the five “F’s” of faith, family, friends, finance and fitness. But what carried the day was his profound humility. He was not boastful, arrogant or proud. His talk was the least exciting and lacked humor but it dripped humility. And the crowd was mesmerized.

There’s just something about humility that God seems to like and quite frankly, so do most people which is why when you combine humility with great talent, you get an overwhelming response. Consider Paul Potts, the cell phone salesman in England. He is not the picture of confidence, but as you will see if you watch this 4 minute video clip, he is immensely talented and genuinely humble. It’s his talent that got him on the program, but his humility that got the crowd to their feet.

What’s the lesson? Develop your gift. Follow your dream. Excel at it. And always, carry that gift with humility. Your gift will get you in the door. Humility will seal the deal. God resists the proud but exalts the humble. Don’t know about you, but I need all the help I can get, so I will choose humility while striving to always do my best and improve my gift.

Important Note: Our conference call for marketing and growing your business in the 21^st century was one of our all time best attended. (If you missed it, you can listen online or download it here.) In that call we offered a 90-day mentoring program which begins this week. It has received our best response ever for this type of program. The door closes on that offer this week, so if you have a business that is in need of more business or a website that needs a lot more traffic, be sure to check it out. A lot of folks had some specific questions about the suitability of this program for their business and David Johnson agreed to extend his availability to discuss your unique situation through Wednesday of this week. You can either call Toll Free (877) 254-3047 or email him at appointment@sellingamongwolves.com to get your specific questions answered.

“For there is no restraint on the LORD to save by many or by few” (1 Sam 14) This was Jonathan’s rationale as he and his lone arbor bearer went looking for Philistine garrisons full of enemy soldiers to attack. Just two guys looking for enemy forts, and then attacking in full daylight against overwhelming odds and winning! Gotta love that kind of faith and courage!

Whether you are fighting enemy soldiers or dealing with hostile creditors or simply facing overwhelming odds in the thing you feel God has called you to, He is still able to save by many or by few. In April, 2002, my wife and I were staying at the Tickle Pink Inn in Carmel By The Sea, California. We were between a consulting engagement in San Diego and a seminar we were putting on in Grants Pass, Oregon. It was our first public, out of state Selling Among Wolves seminar and, as of two days before the event, there were only about two dozen registered. I was feeling overwhelmed. We had staff flying out the next day and thousands upon thousands of dollars of expenses and we were not charging for this seminar.

Those preceding days in Carmel, we were taking a break and walking the shoreline looking for whales swimming by in the deep, but to no avail. We saw every other kind of marine life but no whales which was a big disappointment to my wife. On our last morning there, overlooking the craggy sea coast I was fretting about having so few registrants while also asking God to let Brenda see a whale before we headed inland in a couple of hours. That’s when He spoke…

God said, “Do you think it’s too difficult for me to summon the creatures of the deep?”

That was a loaded question to which I answered, “No.”

He then reminded me of the miracle of the few loaves and fishes feeding the five thousand and asked, “Do you think it’s too difficult for me to meet your needs from a small group in Oregon?”

Of course, I answered, “No.”

As sure as God is my witness, immediately two whales surfaced swimming close to shore, blowing water through their spouts! God had summoned the creatures of the deep and I rested confident that He would meet our need in Oregon with only a few. And He did in a significant and overabundant way! God doesn’t need numbers to deliver you… He asks for your trust, your faith. Let’s give Him that today!

Important Note: If you were unable to attend one of last week’s teleseminars about how to market and grow your business in the 21st century, you can listen online now or download a recording here. We discuss some techniques that helped a local neurologist who was getting no new patients from his website get over 50% of his new patients that way and own the top 40 positions in a Google search! After listening live last week, many of you had questions about whether this would work for your business. David Johnson is accepting short, complimentary appointments this week to help you decide. You can either call Toll Free (877) 254-3047 or email him at appointment@sellingamongwolves.com to get your specific questions answered.