Now, everyone knows the Amazon review system is flawed. Friends weigh in on authors’ books and bestow five stars to build up their rankings. Enemies try to drive them down by giving just one. Just as critics can have a personal vendetta (or affiliation) that can mar their impartiality (as if a critic is ever impartial),the Amazon “reviewers” are often driven by something other than a wish to convey their disinterested thoughts on something they’ve read.

But what are you going to do?

People actually rely on reviews on Amazon. They have little choice. The amount of review space in newspapers that’s devoted to books has shrunk considerably over the last few years. Compared to Britain, which still has lively, informed coverage of books of all sorts in newspapers and magazines, and to France, which continues to devote hours of television time to authors and their works, book coverage in the United States is, at best, limited. Television broadcasting of books is almost unthinkable in this country, where television bookers don’t care about a book, any book, unless it’s been written by a reality-show celebrity or actor who dishes the dirt, or unless it’s an exposé of some sort that purports to reveal hidden truths about the government or politicians. Or the Mayan apocalypse in 2012.

People used to rely on their local bookseller’s recommendations. But with fewer bookstores, and less personal service, people turn, for better and worse, to Amazon, or to the reviews on Barnes & Noble. Or to the many sites devoted to books that provide personal recommendations.

But if you’re an author who’s built, or is building, a platform for your work and ideas, who’s reaching out to a growing audience thanks to the conversation you’ve been having with your readers, you can build your own network of followers, of fans, of “reviewers,” who will link to your site, appreciate your work, recommend your books. The necessity to follow, or rely on, Amazon’s reviewer system is lessened.

In the meantime, you’re building your own system. Amazon is perhaps the most powerful force in publishing today. But by building your own platform you’ve got a good chance to build power for yourself, your ideas and your books.

There are a lot of strategies to advertise your business or your company, some good and many bad. As an advertising graduate, I would like to share with you some of the tips I learned from experience (I promise not to share the bad ones).  First tip: speak to the heart and the wallet will follow.

I’ve heard many people say that advertising just don’t work for them. It’s frustrating for marketers who have invested so much on advertising trying to find the best way to advertise and yet fail because they aren’t getting enough conversion from their ads (conversion refers to the people who “convert” from merely reading into actually buying your product or service).

If you want to know why your advertising has failed, then the question is, what is your advertising based on?  Is it based on facts or values?

In my opinion, facts can change every now and then but values are hard to change.  For a long time, many believed that the world was flat, but Columbus’s voyages (and those of many others in the age of exploration) changed those hard-and-fast “fact,” by proving that the world was, and is, round. A white shirt may become a colored one by soaking up dye. On the other hand, some facts, such as one plus one equals two, don’t change. Or sugar is always sweet and water is always wet.

Values, however, may actually be difficult to change.

Values change when a situation is altered. Our daily decisions in life are usually based on our values.  We decide to wake up, work and deliver with excellence because of the values taught to us from childhood onwards.  Values are hard to change because it is something that we have developed as we grow up.  Values become our habit.

When it comes to advertising, it is better to touch people’s values first before presenting the facts.

When you, as a businessman, are able to present the facts that influences the person’s values then you get a sure sale.  I’ve found this to be very effective in any product that I have sold in my 15 years of sales and marketing experience.  Indeed a good way to advertise!

A business college professor drilled into us that we should always “narrow our focus and stick to it.” Like many such business guidelines it made sense, but recently it really hit home.

I have friends in various businesses — health insurance, financial planning, mortgage lending, business consulting and a host of other professions — and in speaking to them over the last year, I’ve realized that each of us has approached, or been presented with, the opportunity to participate in projects or service requests that fall outside of our normal specialty. When business is less-than-full capacity, the first inclination is to take any business you can get your hands on. Why not? If you have spare time to do it then why shouldn’t you go after other similar types of business?

The issue is that when you do something outside of your core service, you’ve usually got a learning curve, which involves time. You can’t simply hang a new product on your shingle. You have to know and learn about it at some level to sell it with any competence. If you get enough of this same type of business, which initially did not fall in your main lineup of products, then you can perhaps consider making it one of your regular service offerings and you have automatically broadened your product business scope. Instead of just selling widgets A, B and C, now you have A, B, C, D and E to sell. If all of them are aimed at the same market group and they naturally blend in together you have a good mix. Nevertheless, you need to be aware that you now have five products instead of three. This will increase your marketing expense.

A friend of mine who’s a printer is a successful example of a good mix: He started with standard paper printing products and now offers specialty imprinted items, banners and even car wraps. The blend of related products has been profitable for him.

Pulled in Different Directions

A problem arises when you get requests from different directions that don’t speak to your core service or product or specialty. In the effort to get more business and satisfy more customers, you gradually become the jack of all trades and the master of none. Viewed from the outside, the perception will be that you cannot survive focused on one main thing so you have to do many and your integrity and reputation suffers.

One gentleman I’ve known for years offered financing for various projects, then he added merchant card services and a few months later he included home mortgage financing. Just recently in speaking with him, he justified his strategy by saying that if he offered enough services, then he wouldn’t have to say no to anyone. After that, he added immigration services in helping immigrants get properly documented. He was like the fisherman with 20 poles in the water. The problem was that each pole was in a different lake!

Here are 3 guidelines to avoid falling into the “I can do it all” category:

1. Identify your core services and products. What do you really want to do and what do you excel in? Identify your experiences and strengths and market only what you do best. If you are good at analyzing financial documents and think logically, then don’t try selling prepaid legal services or including them in what you do. Solidifying an “elevator pitch” will help you narrow your focus because if you can’t state your core business in a couple of sentences, then you either don’t know what your focus is or you’re spread too thin. Become the specialist and avoid becoming the generalist.

2. Learn to say “no.” If you spend enough time networking, you’re going to be approached to add some service or market some product or perhaps add a new feature to your core business. Be firm in letting people know you are only focusing on your core expertise. Even attending an information seminar on something that doesn’t fit within your business model or area of service is a waste of time. Discipline yourself to stay on track.

3. If you feel inclined to add a new service, then always test-market it, and add no more than one new service at a time. By adding only one element, you keep your test phase manageable and, more importantly, you do not appear to be flaky and jumping around from service to service to your clients. Your goal is to always add another service that will help your clientele and improve what you already do for them. The test phase will also help you evaluate if there is a sustainable market for your new product or if it will appeal only to a few additional clients.

In the interest of efficiency, you don’t want to pursue a tiny market with little growth potential. In a sluggish economy, people scramble to make ends meet and tend to accumulate more “add-ons” to their standard product line. On the surface, this seems fine, but it will distract and take away time and effort from your core strengths.

During slower periods, it makes better sense to re-focus on and improve your main business. What can you do to boost your main services and what new markets can you penetrate? Can you partner with an adjunct business to pool a marketing strategy? These are all questions you should be asking yourself to keep your core business intact and on target.

Lester M. Salvatierra is an experienced and licensed Finance Specialist with First U.S. Finance. He helps small to mid-size companies lease or finance a wide variety of equipment and special projects nationwide. He is passionate about referral marketing and is a business networking coach and Area Director for Business Network Int’l in Ventura County, California. Sign up now to follow his business networking blog at: http://theRogueNetworker.com

All three are valuable. But only one of them holds the keys to thriving in tough economies.

If you let the other two dominate, be prepared to struggle.

The visionary Entrepreneur asks, “How can we make/do this better? What is the market demanding?”

The pragmatic Manager asks, “How can we systemize this? How can we control the chaos?”

The hard-working Technician asks, “How can I get the Entrepreneur and the Manager to leave me alone so I can just do it how I want to?”

During recessions, cash isn’t king; innovation is king. The companies who adapt and shift resources the quickest crush slower but more capitalized companies.

“But trying new and different things is risky.”

Not nearly as risky as maintaining the status quo, crossing your fingers, and hoping that the economy will turn around.

“Think of risky undertakings as ‘experiments.’ Regardless of whether your experiment succeeds or fails, you’re going to learn something useful.” -Roy H. Williams

Change is Your Friend

The Entrepreneur faces reality and acts boldly. He’s never content with stagnation or mediocrity. He thrives on growth and creation.

But growth requires change, and Managers and Technicians detest change.

You’ve heard it before: “If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten.”

Are you content with your current results? If so, stop reading this and get back to work.

If not, what are you going to do about it? Are you going to wait for the stars to align? Are you going to let external circumstances dictate your results?

Or will you take charge and keep innovating until you figure out what works? What other option do you have?

“To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.” -Winston Churchill

What Do You Have to Lose?

If your business is declining or simply maintaining, then what you’re doing isn’t working

So what do you have to lose? Money? You’re losing money already–and you’re only going to lose more the longer you wait.

This doesn’t mean you blindly throw stuff up against the wall and hope something sticks; innovation need not be reckless.

It means you set your box aside and brainstorm long and free to think in ways you’ve never thought before. It means you dig deep and analyze market trends. It means you execute, watch your data, then shift your strategies based on what the data tells you.

The Manager and Bean Counter in your head will warn, “Now, let’s not be hasty. Those new ideas don’t have a track record. We don’t know if they will actually work.”

Never let your skeptical Manager make strategic decisions when decline is imminent and change is required.

Put your Entrepreneur in charge. You may get a few scrapes and bruises along the way, but he won’t quit. He’ll pull you out of the wreckage of temporary failure time and time again. And eventually, you’ll succeed. It’s inevitable.

“The Entrepreneur is the visionary in us. The dreamer. The energy behind every human activity. The imagination that sparks the fire of the future. The catalyst for change. The Entrepreneur lives in the future, never in the past, rarely in the present. He’s happiest when left free to construct images of ‘what-if’ and ‘if-when.’” -Michael Gerber

The “Box” is Your Enemy

We were recently in brainstorming mode while consulting with a company.

We threw out idea after idea after idea, only to be immediately shot down on each of them by one of the owners. She was in Manager mode, so she only saw all the reasons why we couldn’t do them.

Whether or not the ideas are feasible isn’t the main problem in this scenario. The problem is the endemic skepticism. The immediate discarding of any idea that’s even remotely outside the box.

Our question for the owners was, “Okay, if not all the ideas we’ve presented, then what? How will you grow? What are you willing to do differently than anything else you’ve ever tried? Because everything you’ve tried in the past isn’t working.”

What will make or break your business during recessions is how you make decisions.

Is your Manager making your decisions, or is your Entrepreneur?

By definition, Managers don’t use the thinking processes that instigate rapid, fundamental, and drastic change. Managers and Number Crunchers are highly creative when it comes to proving why ideas won’t work, yet astoundingly deficient when it comes to generating the ideas themselves.

This isn’t a criticism–it’s simply not their job to innovate. But when innovation is critical, you must learn to defer to your inner Entrepreneur.

“The best way to have a good idea is to have a lot of ideas.” -Dr. Linus Pauling

Crush the Box

When the economy is great, you have the luxury of being comfortable. You no longer have that luxury.

If you’re not dedicating people, time, imagination, money, energy, and other resources to a growth strategy, either accept the reality that your results won’t change or start putting resources to innovation.

Managers and Technicians have their place, but to innovate and grow you need to put the Entrepreneur in charge.

“The Entrepreneur is our creative personality–always at its best dealing with the unknown, prodding the future, creating probabilities out of possibilities, engineering chaos into harmony.” -Michael Gerber

Ready to rock the new year? Buckle your Manager in the backseat. Put your Entrepreneur at the wheel. Slam on the gas pedal of innovation.

It’s going to be a wild ride.

Stephen Palmer is a marketing consultant and writer with KGaps Consulting. His firm uses their methodology Hub Mentality to help small businesses generate more leads, sales, and referrals while making their marketing budget more efficient.

Stephen is the co-author of as Hub Mentality: Shifting from Business Transactions to Community Interactions as well as the co-author of the New York Times bestseller Killing Sacred Cows: Overcoming the Financial Myths that are Destroying Your Prosperity.

I whispered sweet nothings into its screen and stroked its back as I turned it on and set it up. I downloaded several books and tested it out.

I swooned. I shivered. It was everything I dreamed it would be.

Until I took it to bed with me that evening, intending to read until late into the night. I searched for the back light switch.

Nothing.

Getting increasingly desperate, I played with all the settings.

Nothing.

I gasped in horror.

NO BACK LIGHT! I CAN’T READ MY KINDLE IN THE DARK! AND THEY NEVER MENTIONED IT ON THE WEBSITE!

As an avid reader, I’ve resisted e-readers for a long time. They were too expensive. I thought they’d read like a computer screen.

But when I tested a friend’s Kindle, I was convinced. I spent a lot of time researching, and decided on the version I wanted.

I never thought to research the back light issue because I just assumed it would come with one. How could it not?

So what could have been a gushingly pleasurable experience was tainted with disappointment.

I’ve since found out that the “e-ink” screen technology doesn’t allow for a back light.

Interestingly, had I known this before I purchased the Kindle, I wouldn’t have been disappointed at all.

But I was blind-sided. And I’m immensely bugged that they make no mention of it on their website.

And when you consider the depth of the information they do have on their site, the lack of that detail is extremely suspect — I think they purposefully hid it.

So now I’m doubly bugged. Make that triply bugged, since I had purchased a leather cover, and now I have to return and exchange it for one with a light.

Again, had they told me up front, I would have been saved of that hassle; I would have bought the lighted cover in the first place, problem solved.

The lesson: Don’t hide your downside. Share it openly.

Why?

1. It manages the expectations of your customers, so you don’t set them up for disappointment.
2. Transparency and authenticity increase trust.
3. By increasing trust, you increase credibility.
4. Bottom line: You sell more stuff.

This is the crux of the social media revolution: You can’t run, you can’t hide. No matter what you say in your advertising, you’re naked to the world.

Try to hide something and you’ll get caught. It’s inevitable.

So why not just beat people to the punch and state your downside up front?

All Amazon has to say on their site is:

“Unfortunately, current e-ink technology does not allow us to build a back light into the Kindle. It’s why it reads like a book in daylight, but you can’t read it at light without a supplemental light. Fortunately, we have many options available to allow for night reading.”

Had they said that, I would have been an over-the-top raving fan, and this post would have been much different. But I’m still too bugged to rave.

Stephen Palmer is a marketing consultant and writer with KGaps Consulting. His firm uses their methodology Hub Mentality to help small businesses generate more leads, sales, and referrals while making their marketing budget more efficient.

Stephen is the co-author of as Hub Mentality: Shifting from Business Transactions to Community Interactions as well as the co-author of the New York Times bestseller Killing Sacred Cows: Overcoming the Financial Myths that are Destroying Your Prosperity.

Thing is, it actually works. That is, it works in the short term. It does make immediate sales.

The problem is that it doesn’t work over the long term. It doesn’t build brand loyalty. It doesn’t create raving fans that come back again and again.

It doesn’t posture you as a thought leader, nor does it create an educational hub that consistently draws and keeps new customers.

Rather, it makes people feel manipulated and drives them away over time. It attracts price-centric bargain hunters who leave you as soon as they find a cheaper, albeit less valuable, alternative.

It makes people increasingly immune to your pitches, forcing you into a hamster-wheel business where you always have to find new customers, rather than keeping customers for life.

The following are four specific sales tactics used by these types of businesses that always backfire.

Below each you’ll find appropriate ways to use the tactic.

1. Scarcity (Limited Supply)

“The way to love anything is to realize that it might be lost.” -G.K. Chesterton

Generally speaking, the perceived value of an item is proportional to its abundance or rarity. By manufacturing scarcity–using the “limited-number” tactic–businesses can generate quick sales.

The problem is that sales-mentality businesses use this principle to manipulate.

In Influence: The Science of Persuasion, Robert Cialdini describes his observance of this tactic in an appliance store, where 30 to 50 percent of the stock was regularly listed as on sale.

When a prospect would show interest in a particular sale item, a salesperson would approach and say “I see you’re interested in this model here, and I can understand why; it’s a great machine at a great price. But, unfortunately, I sold it to another couple not more than twenty minutes ago. And, if I’m not mistaken, it was the last one we had.”

Disappointment would register on the prospects’ faces, and typically they would ask if there was a chance that there would be an unsold model in the back room or warehouse.

“Well,” the salesperson would respond, “that is possible, and I’d be willing to check. But do I understand that this is the model you want and if I can get it for you at this price, you’ll take it?”

Writes Cialdini:

“Therein lies the beauty of the technique. In accord with the scarcity principle, the customers are asked to commit to buying the appliance when it looks least available–and therefore most desirable.

“Many customers do agree to a purchase…Thus, when the salesperson (invariably) returns with the news that an additional supply of the appliance has been found, it is also with a pen and sales contract in hand.”

Sure, they could sell a few appliances this way. But how likely do you think people would be to buy from them again?

The Right Way to Use Scarcity

Credibility is the key to using scarcity appropriately.

People will see through manufactured, manipulative scarcity over time. But if you legitimately have a scarce offering, you absolutely should highlight that in your ads.

For example, we recently marketed this event for our client Williamsburg Academy. Their webinar software has a limit of 500 participants. We highlighted that in an email and registrations shot up immediately.

Every time Wizard Academy markets an event, they highlight that they only have 14 rooms in their student mansion. The first 14 people to register get to stay there for free, and other registrants must pay for a hotel.

When we wrote an email to Atlantic Seafood Market‘s database telling them that they only had 31.7 pounds of blackfish available, that was precisely accurate and therefore credible. We didn’t manufacture scarcity to manipulate; it’s a commonly-understood reality of the industry that blackfish is hard to come by.

Their scarcity of bay scallops was another effective tactic, particularly since the scarcity was created by their fierce adherence to quality.

2. Urgency (Limited Time)

Stephen recently demolished this tactic in this blog post about New Vitality, a health supplement company that emails their database 10 times a month, and almost every email is a “Hurry! Act Now or Lose!” message.

This tactic is usually accompanied by a low-price, “once-in-a-lifetime” offer.

When overused or used without credibility, this tactic quickly loses its efficacy. It trains prospects to only buy when things are on sale.

Prospects also suspect that these low prices are simply evidence that the business’s regular prices are too high.

And as prospects become immune to urgency, it takes increasingly cheaper (as in less profitable for the business owner) offers to interest them.

The Right Way to Use Urgency

Again, the key is credibility–the offer must be trusted as authentic, not fabricated or manipulative.

For example, on this website look for the 50% off ad that says “Take advantage of this limited time offer.” Does anyone actually believe that it’s a limited time? It’s glaringly obvious that that always stays up on their website.

No credibility. While that may be a good deal, it’s not an urgent deal; you know you can get it at any time, so the effect of urgency is lost.

With the Williamsburg Academy event mentioned above, they were able to convince world-class professional speaker Warren Macdonald, who typically charges $10,000 for speaking events, to give them two nights for free. It really is an urgent offer because people aren’t likely to have this opportunity again.

Credibility can be strengthened when scarce and/or urgent offers are predicated on things outside of the company’s control. John Young‘s famous air conditioner sales letter is a great example of this.

3. Reciprocity

Simply put, reciprocity is the psychological principle that we feel obligated to repay gifts and favors.

And, once again, the abuse of this potentially powerful persuasion principle is rampant among short-term manipulators.

As is scarcity, reciprocity is covered in detail in Cialdini’s Influence.

He tells of his study of the Hare Krishna Society, an Eastern religious sect. Their early fundraising efforts were to simply send devotees out into the streets to ask for donations.

It didn’t work well, so they switched tactics. They solicit in public places with a lot of pedestrian traffic, such as airports and train stations.

Now, before a donation is requested, the target person is given a “gift,” such as a book, a magazine, or a flower. Only after invoking the reciprocity rule does the solicitor ask for a donation.

It worked phenomenally well–for a short time.

As Cialdini writes:

“…the reciprocation rule has begun to outlive its usefulness for the Krishnas, not because the rule itself is any less potent societally, but because we have found ways to prevent the Krishnas from using it on us.

“After once falling victim to their tactic, many travelers are now alert to the presence of robed Krishna Society solicitors in airports and train stations, adjusting their paths to avoid an encounter and preparing beforehand to ward off a solicitor’s ‘gift.’”

The Right Way to Use Reciprocity

Two Hub Mentality principles are used for appropriate reciprocity: permission and free content.

You give away valuable and relevant content in exchange for the permission to market to those wanting your content. Then, you continue giving them free content over time.

And implicit to the permission is their ability to opt-out of your database at any time–there is no manipulative chain of obligation hanging around their necks.

Not only does this engage reciprocity, but it also demonstrates your expertise, creates trust over time, and builds authentic relationships.

Free samples of physical products is an excellent way to engage this principle as well, as Atlantic Seafood Market did with their recent holiday open house.

4. Charisma/Flattery

Like scarcity and reciprocity, these related tactics are the counterfeit, transactional sales version of the principle of “Liking” found in Cialdini’s Influence.

The abuse here is to rely on smooth talk, rather than genuine, consistent action. We’ve all been taken by slick talkers who didn’t deliver what they promised.

It’s sad but true that these types have given legitimate salespersons a bad name. This is why we’ve all learned to be suspicious of salespeople, and to put up defensive barriers when we encounter them.

The Right Form of “Liking”

This principle states simply that we prefer to do business with people we know and like.

But to use this principle for long-term customer retention requires much more than personality and being facile with words.

The key here is to let your actions speak louder than your words. In other words, earn your likability through integrity.

Be what you say you are. Do what you say you’ll do. Ensure that your backstage systems support your front stage claims.

Switch to Hub Mentality for Long-Term Persuasion & Retention

Charles H. Sandage said:

“Advertising is criticized on the ground that it can manipulate consumers to follow the will of the advertiser. The weight of evidence denies this ability. Instead, evidence supports the position that advertising, to be successful, must understand or anticipate basic human needs and wants and interpret available goods and services in terms of their want-satisfying abilities. This is the very opposite of manipulation.”

People can be persuaded through misguided and manipulative advertising tactics, but those only work in the short term.

If you want to increase trust and sales, make your marketing dollars more efficient, retain more customers, and build a sustainable business, you must be authentic, trustworthy, and credible.

You must solve people’s needs, deliver what you promise, and be transparent in your offerings.

Stephen Palmer is a marketing consultant and writer with KGaps Consulting. His firm uses their methodology Hub Mentality to help small businesses generate more leads, sales, and referrals while making their marketing budget more efficient.

Stephen is the co-author of as Hub Mentality: Shifting from Business Transactions to Community Interactions as well as the co-author of the New York Times bestseller Killing Sacred Cows: Overcoming the Financial Myths that are Destroying Your Prosperity.

One common question is whether businesses should publish full or partial RSS feeds.

In a full feed, RSS readers can read entire articles in their reader without having to click a “Read More” link that takes them to the full article on your blog.

In a partial feed, obviously, only a small part of each article is posted in RSS readers, and readers must finish reading on your blog.

Proponents of partial feeds are concerned that 1) web traffic will be reduced if they publish full feeds, and 2) full feeds make it easier for content thieves to republish their articles.

They also argue that clickbacks to articles on site are instant feedback — you learn which articles resonate more with readers.

Answering the question is a function of whether you want to spread influence or drive web traffic.

Influence Versus Website Traffic

If you want to spread influence, then publish a full RSS feed. Give your best content away, and piles of it. The more the better.

If you want to bring traffic back to your site, go with a partial feed.

But understand this: The influence approach will generate more traffic and market buzz for you in the long-term.

We’re major proponents of full feeds because we understand the power of influence on the web.

Sure, you’ll have a few knuckleheads that will skim your content. Sure, your RSS readers may not come back to your site as often.

But, as the music industry has learned the hard way, trying to control content online is a losing battle anyway. What’s more, you should pray that people start spreading your content.

Sure, you want to be attributed, but most people will give proper attribution. And the people who don’t have lame sites, audiences, and business models, so you don’t need to worry about them.

And so what if RSS readers don’t come to your site? Are you worried about banner ad advertising revenues? Don’t — they’re too paltry to worry about. Unless you’re getting 10,000 hits per month or more, advertising shouldn’t even be on your radar as a viable income stream.

Generate high-quality, relevant content. Get it out into as many venues as possible. Publish the heck out of it.

You’ll develop a reputation as an influencer and it will come back to you exponentially over time.

Recommended Reading:

• “Full Or Partial RSS Feeds — The Great Feed Debate” by Darren Rowse
• “Full Vs. Partial RSS Feeds” on “The Wrong Advices” Blog
• “Why Publish Full RSS Feeds Instead of Partial Summary Feeds” by Amit Agarwal

Stephen Palmer is a marketing consultant and writer with KGaps Consulting. His firm uses their methodology Hub Mentality to help small businesses generate more leads, sales, and referrals while making their marketing budget more efficient.

Stephen is the co-author of as Hub Mentality: Shifting from Business Transactions to Community Interactions as well as the co-author of the New York Times bestseller Killing Sacred Cows: Overcoming the Financial Myths that are Destroying Your Prosperity.

After viewing the videos, the subjects were given questions about the accidents and were asked to write down their answers.

The twist was that they were given different questions.

The critical questions were:

1. About how fast were the cars going when they hit each other?
2. About how fast were the cars going when they smashed each other?
3. About how fast were the cars going when they collided with each other?
4. About how fast were the cars going when they bumped into each other?
5. About how fast were the cars going when they contacted with each other?

The time taken to conduct the experiment was about one and a half hour.

The results? The highest speed estimates — 40.8 miles per hour on average — were provided by those asked how fast the cars were going when they smashed into each other.

The lowest speed estimates — 31.8 miles per hour on average — were provided by those asked how fast the cars were going when they contacted each other.

A slight change in verbs resulted in a 22.1% difference in recall.

Table: Speed Estimates From Various Verbs

Are you connecting the dots that this has profound and far-reaching implications for advertising and marketing?

Are you leveraging the power of verbs in your marketing messages?

Stephen Palmer is a marketing consultant and writer with KGaps Consulting. His firm uses their methodology Hub Mentality to help small businesses generate more leads, sales, and referrals while making their marketing budget more efficient.

Stephen is the co-author of as Hub Mentality: Shifting from Business Transactions to Community Interactions as well as the co-author of the New York Times bestseller Killing Sacred Cows: Overcoming the Financial Myths that are Destroying Your Prosperity.

Their first mistake was to automatically subscribe me to their email newsletter when I made my purchase. No permission.

Their next mistake was to email me 10 times in one month.

The only reason I haven’t unsubscribed is because I’ve been saving their emails to exploit them in this case study.

Speaking of which, check out the headlines of their emails since September 8th:

• Sept. 8: Two Days Left to Save on Exclusive Offers
• Sept. 9: Hurry! Your Exclusive Offers End Tonight
• Sept. 13: Our Best Omega-3 Fish Oil….YOURS FREE!
• Sept. 16: Hurry! 24 Hour Sale – $10 Off Your Order
• Sept. 20: Try Dr. Perry’s Anti-Aging Miracle FREE!
• Sept. 22: What Doctors Take to Stay Healthy – Discount Inside
• Sept. 24: Save $20 and Receive Free Shipping. Limited Time Only!
• Sept. 27: 3 Days Left – Save $20.00 & Free Shipping!
• Sept. 29: Hurry! Your Coupon Expires Tomorrow [$20.00 off + Free Shipping]
• Sept. 30: Hurry! Sale Ends Tonight – $20.00 off AND Free Shipping
• Oct. 4: Our Best Omega-3 Fish Oil….YOURS FREE!
• Oct. 9: Exclusive Online Offers For You!
• Oct. 11: Hurry! Your Exclusive Offers End Tomorrow!

What’s wrong with their approach? Let me count the ways:

1. Constant “discounts” train customers to only buy when things are on sale.
2. Constant “discounts” scream to customers that their products are priced way too high, and their discounts are simply contrived and manipulative. It’s like the classic — and embarrassingly obvious — trick of listing a high price, then slashing through that price with a red line and showing a lower price.
3. Why do I need to hurry when they offer some exclusive offer with almost every email they send me? Their fabricated scarcity is devoid of any credibility whatsoever.
4. Not to mention the fact that a constant barrage of HURRY!! BUY NOW!!! messages is agitating. It reminds me of the “cranberry man” joked about by comedian Brian Regan. Back off, New Vitality man!

How New Vitality Should Shift to Hub Mentality

New Vitality, if you’re listening, here’s your free marketing plan:

1. Permission

First and foremost, cut the crap of subscribing people automatically without asking for permission. That’s the quickest way to make enemies fast online.

Set up a confirmed opt-in process to ensure that you have permission and no one can rightfully accuse you of spamming.

2. Scale Back on Contact Frequency

In most cases, once a week is overkill. You’re suffocating your readers with 10 emails per month.

In your case, twice per month would be plenty. Even once per week would be better than what you’re doing now.

3. Replace Discounts with Educational Content

“…just as the junkie never stops to consider how the drug is destroying his physical health, the business owner never stops to consider how ‘Sale! Sale! Sale!’ undermines his business health…Successful companies don’t spend their ad dollars training their customers to wait for a sale.” -Roy H. Williams

Stop trying to shove manipulative sales down customers’ throats. Instead, produce valuable, relevant content.

Don’t offer people 20% off a heart-health supplement — invest those dollars in white papers and videos that explain what the supplement does.

Become an educational resource for your database, rather than simply a discount product provider.

Use blog articles, videos, e-books, podcasts, and social media to provide health tips and highlight research. Build a database of every health topic imaginable that anyone can access with simple search terms.

In 75% of your emails, don’t even highlight a product to sell — just provide the educational content.

Your database will come to respect and trust you as a thought leader. You’ll be the first they’ll think of when they experience health issues.

4. Cut the “Hurry!” Silliness; Build a Brand

Honestly. You just look ridiculous. Knock it off.

Calmly, plainly, consistently demonstrate why you’re relevant to my life and why you’re the superior choice.

Take the time to actually build a brand, rather than snorting the cocaine of urgency.

“Brand essence is everything a brand stands for in the heart of the customer…The best branding campaigns ripple outward from a company’s core culture and non-negotiable standards….Your brand must be anchored to core values buried deep in the heart of your customer. To what values is your brand linked?” -Roy H. Williams

What are your core values? What do you stand for? What do you adamantly oppose?

Here’s a simple one: Become known as the healthy, natural alternative to prescription drugs. Then generate tons of valuable, relevant content to build and support that brand.

Then stick to that brand relentlessly. Build your success around your brand, rather than cheesy urgency.

And that, New Vitality, is Hub Mentality. Will you make the shift? I’m not holding my breath.

Stephen Palmer is a marketing consultant and writer with KGaps Consulting. His firm uses their methodology Hub Mentality to help small businesses generate more leads, sales, and referrals while making their marketing budget more efficient.

Stephen is the co-author of as Hub Mentality: Shifting from Business Transactions to Community Interactions as well as the co-author of the New York Times bestseller Killing Sacred Cows: Overcoming the Financial Myths that are Destroying Your Prosperity.

What do you say? “Oh, everything is fine, thanks.”

Your customers are doing the same to you — they’re not telling you what they don’t like about you to your face.

But with the rise of social media, they’re going home and sharing their negative (and positive) experiences with their online connections.

What if you could overhear what your customers were saying about you?

How could that improve your business? What would it highlight that you’re overlooking? How much power would that give you?

Yes, this is possible. It’s called social media monitoring.

Simply put, social media monitoring is using technology tools to identify what people are saying about your company online.

Social Media Monitoring Tools & Resources

Here are a few free and simple ways to do this:

1. Twitter Search

Click here and enter keywords relevant to your business, particularly your company name.

2. Google Alerts

Click here and enter your relevant keywords. Google will email you any time in encounters those keywords online, based on your preferences. (You need a Google account to set this up.)

3. RSS Feeds

Set up a Google Reader (or other RSS reader), then set up RSS feeds from social media sites as generated by searches.

For example, when I search for “KGaps” on Twitter, you’ll notice the RSS icon on the top right. A specific RSS feed is generated for every search.

4. Facebook Page

Set up a Facebook Page for your business, then simply check the wall daily for comments.

Read this introduction to Facebook for business.

5. Free Monitoring Platforms

There are a number of free social media monitoring platforms to take advantage of, such as Addictomatic, Socialmention, and Tweetdeck.

There are also tons of companies who offer social media monitoring services, such as Spiral16, Radian6, and Trackur, but I wouldn’t recommend these for most small businesses; it’s simply unnecessary.

This social media monitoring solutions wiki lists every available tool.

Here are a few more great articles on the subject:

• How to Monitor Your Social Media Presence in 10 Minutes a Day
• 10 Steps for Successful Social Media Monitoring
• The Problem(s) With Social Media Monitoring Technologies

Your Customers are in Charge

Knowing what your customers say about you is vital. It tells you what you’re doing wrong and right and how to improve.

As my business partner and I write in our book, Hub Mentality:

“Not only has power itself changed, but also who controls it has shifted. In the past, it was business that wielded power to achieve its ends. Now, the power lies with customers.

“It is customers who dictate the creation and disposition of information. It is customers who determine not only what things get produced, but also how they get produced (note the rise in social-oriented and environmentally-friendly businesses).

“Customers are firmly planted on the new throne; businesses are their servants. Those that understand and adapt will survive and thrive. Those who don’t will disappear, leaving only a memory.”

Stephen Palmer is a marketing consultant and writer with KGaps Consulting. His firm uses their methodology Hub Mentality to help small businesses generate more leads, sales, and referrals while making their marketing budget more efficient.

Stephen is the co-author of as Hub Mentality: Shifting from Business Transactions to Community Interactions as well as the co-author of the New York Times bestseller Killing Sacred Cows: Overcoming the Financial Myths that are Destroying Your Prosperity.