You Can't Polish a Turd

That's a quote from the Stephen Kind novel and movie, "Christine."

In the movie, a garage owner watches a young guy trying to fix up an old car (called Christine) that looks too beat-up and rusty for anyone to fix.

He watches the kid fitting new wiper blades over a broken windscreen, shakes his head, and says to his friend, "You can't polish a turd."

I love that line.

And in another way, it applies to selling.

If no one wants what you're selling then you may as well be trying to sell them a turd, because they won't want it no matter how much you polish it with your intriguing content and clever marketing.

Instead, you need to find a market, find out what they want, and provide it for them.

You could write an ebook or a course that can help them, or find a suitable affiliate product.

Then let them know how much the product will benefit them and everything they have to gain by owning it.

In other words, give them what they want.

Don't try and sell them what they don't want.

It will be like trying to sell them a polished turd.

They just won't be interested. No matter how presentable you make it look.



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Make 2018 Your Best Year Ever

If you want to make 2018 your best year ever (and who wouldn't want that?) then you start by making sure you do better than you did in 2017.

Look at what you did right.

Look at what you did wrong.

What do you need to stop doing?

And, more importantly, what do you need to start doing?

Thank clearly about what it is that you want to do.

Not what you think you "should" be doing, but what you really want to do more than anything else.

Once you know what that is, make a plan of how to achieve it.

What is the first thing you need to do?

What is the first step you need to take?

If you need some help, download the free 30-Day Planner and start your journey of making 2018 your best year ever.

http://ruthiswriting.com/links/LOAplanner.html

My New Year Writing Goals

It's nearly 2018 and I've been busying making lots of goals for next year because I want my writing success in 2018 to be far greater than 2017 (not that it was bad this year, but I always want more).

Part of my plan is to write and publish more books in the writing niche.

I'm also going to have monthly topics for my books, emails and websites.

This month's has mostly been about affiliate marketing (I started my goals early). January will be all about self publishing and February is about finding motivation and inspiration to write more.

All my chosen topics for 2018 are all designed to help you write more and earn more from your writing.

It's important to not only be able to write and earn more, but to absolutely love what you do.

To wake up every morning, excited to start writing and go to bed at night feeling great about all you've achieved.

And this is how being an affiliate marketer can help.

You only need to spend 10 or 15 minutes a day writing a blog post that contains an affiliate link and then get back to book writing.

Or you can set up affiliate websites.

Choose a niche, find products (or just one product) to promote, and write blog posts, emails, sales copy, marketing articles, and you can even do video and podcasts if you want to.

And if you're looking for products and ideas, VigLink has thousands of products and can automatically change links already on your site to affiliate links.

This makes it easy because it does the heavy work for you so that you can just keep on writing.

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A Funny Marketing Email

A few weeks ago I received an email from someone, offering me their marketing services.

And it was hilarious because the person who sent it obviously knew nothing about marketing and it was one of the worst pieces of marketing I've ever seen.

I actually read it through several times and each time it seemed even funnier as I noticed more things that were wrong with it.

Below is the email --

"Hi Ruth Barringham,

This is Jerry I hope you are doing well.

I am checking in to see if you are looking for Digital Marketing, Web Development, Content Marketing and Application Development business partners for your company branding and new business development.

We also expertise in:

Digital Marketing, Content Marketing, Application Development, Website Redesigning, Web Development, CRM, Ecommerce, Portal Development, B2B and B2C Email Data Leads, SEO (Search Engine Optimization), ORM (Online Reputation Management), SMO (Social Media Optimization), LinkedIn Marketing, Email Marketing, Lead Generation, Branding, Graphic Design, Logo Design, Image Editing, YouTube Marketing etc.

Our clients include top brands who swear by our services.

Please let me know if you need more information and we can discuss further steps.

Regards,
Jerry
Web Marketing Executive [INDIA]"

-------------------------

My usual response is to move emails like this to my junk folder and block the sender.

But this time I just couldn't resist giving some constructive criticism.

So below is the response that I sent --

"Ha ha.

This is hilarious.

A marketing person who can't even market themselves.

What do I mean by that?

No mention of your company name. No website to direct me to.

Your opening sentence should have been two sentences (very poor start), as in "This is Jerry. I hope you are doing well." See. Two sentences. And that also tells me absolutely nothing about who you are or what you are offering me, not even a surname, which immediately makes people very suspicious right from the start.

You say "We also expertise in..." without first explaining what else you think you're an expert in.

You claim you have big name clients, but don't name them.

You claim they "swear by our services" but offer no testimonials.

And at the end of the email, there is no "call to action."

Nothing.

Just a tepid "let me know" and that's it.

Clearly I know more about marketing than you do.

This is possibly one of the WORST marketing emails I've ever received.

And I get a lot.

I think I'll use this email as a teaching aid of how NOT to construct a marketing email.


P.S. Also your ending of telling me what to do if I want to stop receiving emails from you, tells me immediately that this email is spam because I never signed up to receive emails from you so why do I need to unsubscribe? Always a dead giveaway of a mass commercial mailing, which is really insulting to the person receiving it."

-------------------------------

Naturally, I didn't hear from them again. Afterall, what could they say? That I was wrong and their marketing email was first class?

But you may be wondering why I'm telling you this.

It's because there's an old saying, that in order to be successful, you have to act as though it's already happened.

In other words, "Fake It Till You Make It."

But that doesn't mean to send out substandard work like this hopeless and hapless marketing "expert" did.

It means to feel the feeling of your goals already being achieved.

To act as though you've already made it and those thoughts and emotions will help you to see opportunities that you might otherwise have missed if you weren't thinking about your success.

And now is a great time to start working on your goals of being an online writer and self publisher.

So that you can begin Living The Laptop Lifestyle.

http://cheritonhousepublishing.com/books/LLS.html