It happens to me over and over again. I sign up for someone’s list, then I discover several of their emails in my junk folder. Why? Because they use a different email FROM address every time they send to me.

It does no good to ask your readers to whitelist your email address if you change it all the time. Your one goal for effective eMail marketing is to get your messages delivered and, while there are a lot of factors that effect deliverability, you improve your chances when you use the same FROM address for everything you send whether that’s eZines, Announcements or sales messages.

Tell your readers what email address you’ll be sending from — ask them to whitelist it — then use that address. Consistently.

It takes many contacts with people on your list before they start to know, like and trust you enough to buy something from you. People rarely buy until after at least the 5th contact you’ve made with them, but most of us give up after the 3rd contact. It may take many more contacts beyond 5, and most marketers just give up too soon.

I get the question all the time, “when should I take someone off my list if they haven’t bought something yet?” and my answer to that is, “only when they ask to be taken off your list.” Because you just never know when they WILL be ready to buy. And that may be tomorrow, next week, or next year.

But you also need more than one channel to reach your prospects. So choose 3 to 6 marketing tactics that you’ll enjoy doing on a regular basis so that you can touch people in a variety of ways.

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A few years ago, I ran across a poem that meant a lot to me and I’ve been sharing it with folks ever since.

It’s called “At the Quiet End of Day” and it is just the perfect thing to read and reflect upon before you go to bed at night.

I’ve done my best to track down information about the author of this piece, but have not been able to find anything. If you do, let me know, please.

Because I also love to create mini-posters whenever I find something that moves me, I made a poster of this poem that you can download and print out to hang in a place where you’ll see it.

Just click on the link below. It should open up in Acrobat Reader or it will give you the option to save to your hard drive, depending on what operating system and browser you are using.

Enjoy!
http://www.marty-marsh.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/QuietDayPoster-MartyMarsh.pdf

When I was younger, I bit my fingernails.

This was a nasty habit that I desperately wanted to stop and so I did. But it took some time.

At first, I tried everything. I sat on my hands. I put bitter stuff on my nails, but soon learned to like the taste of it (I guess). I don’t remember how I quit biting my nails but I did.

But that didn’t keep my fingers out of my mouth. I’ve spent the last 40 years chewing everything on my fingers but my nails, which often resulted in painful tears in my skin.

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Ever notice that when you really make up your mind and set your intention to do something that all kinds of obstacles seem to get thrown in your way?

In my case, since deciding that I’m going to put all my business energy and focus into creating something special at Good Company, I’ve had all kinds of new client work show up. I love that, for sure, and so I’m having to take a look at how to manage all of this to get everything done. But I will.

Have you set an intention to do something great?

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Perhaps you’re like me. You just want — and expect — these marvelous technological wonders we work with every day to perform in the way we expect.

I’ve had a few technological snafus lately and while the world has certainly not come to an end, it is frustrating and it is embarrassing when your snafus go public.

Several of my friends have told me it’s because Mars is in retrograde right now. Maybe so. I’m happy to have any excuse besides my own screwing up.

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Well, I thought I’d be writing from somewhere else this week, but I’m still in Seattle. After my very lovely cruise to Alaska I got back with a nasty and long-lingering case of walking pneumonia.

So, as the name would imply, I’m still functioning and moving about as needed, but still finding it difficult to remain upright. And certainly not fit to be out among other human beings. I hope that when I write again that we’ll have been able to start heading south again.

If you’ve ever been on a cruise yourself — or talked to anyone who has — you’ve likely heard that the greatest thing about cruising is the food. And all the stories you’ve heard are true. You can literally eat 24 hours a day. There’s always something available and available in abundance.

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One of the problems that most Soul Proprietors experience at one time or another — and more often than not — is in planning and preparing and getting ready but then not actually getting anything done.

We want to do it right — whatever IT is at the moment — and our perfectionist self kicks in and we figure we need to read one more book, take one more teleclass, and consult with our astrologer one more time to make sure the planets are aligned for success, and then we do — nothing.

Nothing at all.

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I think it was Jeffrey Gitomer who first said that people love to buy but they hate to be sold. Every Soul Proprietor I?ve ever known hates the idea of selling. They hate it to the point that they oftentimes drive themselves out of business because they will not ask for the sale.

The thought of doing any kind of hard-sell is a total turn off for me. I will walk out of a store if a salesman tries to use guilt or scare tactics with me and I’ll leave a website post-haste if I encounter the same thing.

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