How to get thousands and thousands of responses to your blog… and what to do when you get ‘em.

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant

Of course you already have a blog, right? You are, I mean, on the cutting edge of the Internet, yes?

Well, if you are still blog-less today is indeed your lucky day, because I am going to show you right here, right now how to use your blog to get not a few but a positive avalanche of the best prospect leads on earth. And the great thing is, you can start today, this very minute.

Now affirm and reaffirm this: when you’re in business, running a business blog, the objective is and always will be to generate terrific prospect leads… and follow them up to make money.

It’s easy to forget the objective when you’re publishing a blog which can all too easily be seized by the shear joy and vanity of seeing your name in print. Folks, if you need lovin’ and crave adulation get a dog. They give unqualified affection. But don’t subvert the purpose of your blog.

Nothing sells itself, absolutely nothing.

I have amongst my marketing students some of the very brightest people around… and when they make a mistake, I know the pedestrian run of mankind and marketers are making it, too, in spades.

One of the most rooted errors of these folks is the pernicious, invidious notion that their blog and its contents will sell themselves; that what they are promoting and selling in their blogs needs no introduction, nor powerful words of recommendation; it’s good enough on its lonesome.

In a word: rubbish! In two words: complete rubbish!

Dear friend, there is nothing in this world, not the policies and messages of presidents, popes, and sovereign kings; not the very finest example of the most potent of salubrious medications; not the safest swiftest modes of transportation…. absolutely nothing sells itself.

Once you have realized this essential truth of business, you enter a new, higher level of commerce and marketing… for you are now a puffer in the Great Age of Puffery…. and your daily objective is clear: to puff better, more artfully, more carefully, more successfully than any other puffers on this planet. He (or she) who puffs the most, the best, reaps the most.

Thus, say you intend tomorrow to publish a jim dandy article on some subject of note and significance. The duffer puffer, the one on the bottom of the marketing heap, merely publishes the article, with this unvoiced sentiment: “Here’s the article. Make of it what you will. I can’t be bothered to tell you why you should read it… perhaps I don’t even know.”

And some dare call this marketing.

Now, try this instead…

(puff the day before you publish the article.)

Tomorrow, you readers have an incredible gift coming. I persuaded internationally known author and commentator Dr. Jeffrey Lant to let me have, in advance of publication, his latest article. It details the truth about the relationship of Snow White with those with-it guys, the 7 Dwarfs. You won’t believe what one of the most perceptive commentators around has discovered about Snow… and those Dwarfs. Can you say ‘Happy.’ You certainly will tomorrow….”

With these fast-moving words, you are keeping your audience, your present and future customers all, on the very edge of their seats. You want them in a pother of anticipation and excitement about What Happens Next. You, cleverkins, are ascending in the crucial business of puffery; selling the sizzle, not the steak. And you’re frolicking all the way to the bank.

Remember, puffing is not something occasional or episodic. It is not merely one essential thing in marketing; it is the essential thing and it must be regarded accordingly… from this moment on. Let me make this point absolutely, crystal clear:

If you want to sell a product, you must puff it.

If you want to sell your service, you must puff it.

If you want a person to read your blog, you must puff it.

If you want that same person to read an article in that blog, you must puff it.

Get the picture?

A few more hints

Your puffs must appear prominently in your blog, at least 1 at the top of the first page.

They must be short, enticing, action oriented. They must radiate a single imperative message: Look at all you get, look how delicious it is, grab it, grab it now…’

Here’s another example.

“Wow! I’m ecstatic to tell you that I’ve snagged another one of Dr. Lant’s superb articles. Yesterday nearly 400 of you smarties emailed me with your thanks, congratulations, and sincere appreciation for his last insightful article. Now I’ve got another for you. Stay tuned… you’ll have it in just HOURS. Make sure to email me at once with your reactions and compliments… it’s another winner!!! You can reach me by email (email address here); cell phone (number here)… or land line (number here.) And I want to hear from each and EVERY one of you!”

You must get on with the essential business of puffing each and every day, without exception, that you want money.

And, I guarantee you, that as you improve in your puffery, you will improve your prospect responses, dramatically.

And your bottom line? Why that will improve, too, and dramatically so if and only if you follow up each and every response, as quickly as possible, with a special offer. In other words, thank the respondents, thank them as soon as possible… and always give them a thing (or two) which makes you money. Thus are you benefited as you benefit your fast-responding prospects.

There are many things, of course, which factor into consummate blog success. They include

* having good content, interesting, practical, timely;

* publishing according to a schedule, never missing a deadline;

* writing directly to your readers, always using “you”;

* keeping every word of text short, peppy, upbeat,

* and, always and forever, every single day, puffing.

Because if you don’t puff, if you do not encourage, recommend, admonish, excite, and motivate you are leaving the crucial act of marketing in the hands of those least able to discern for themselves what to do. That decision must be yours. You and only you must advance the necessary reasons for acting as you want them to act. That crucial aspect of marketing belongs to you… and you must do this every time you want results. Like today.

There is only one thing worse than not achieving a goal and that is achieving it.

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant

Are you a goal-driven individual?

First, do you regularly set goals for yourself?

Do you then plan just how you’ll achieve them… and once having planned your work you work your plan?

If this is you, congratulate yourself. You are literally one in a million and the world is your oyster.

In theory.

People who set goals… people who achieve goals are a precious minority of any community, for-profit, or not-for- profit organization.

They are the people who live the celebrated epigram, “Lead, follow, or get out of the way.” When they lead, they perform the leader’s task with efficiency, organization, and, yes, joy.

When they follow, they listen to the designated leaders, making sure they know their task, then doing it.

It is a thrill and a privilege to know such people, not least because they create an environment conducive to success.

Why then have I said that there is only one thing worse than not achieving a goal… and that is achieving it?

In this article I shall make clear the problems that afflict the special people, the performance oriented people, the movers and shakers. Keeping successes coming, greater successes, important successes, more magnificent successes is never inevitable. And here’s the rub, just because you were successful today, by no means ensures you will be successful tomorrow.

Indeed, the world is awash in one-time successes who once were the center of attention, the golden boy or girl. They had what everyone else wanted… but having didn’t mean keeping. That proved to be not only elusive… but, after a time, impossible.

There is nothing sadder than listening to an individual once undeniably successful… now talk and live exclusively in that past; the success they had was fleeting and its continuing absence noticeable and glaring.

I am here to ensure that you do not become that sad individual, the person for whom the calendar always says yesterday.

1) Successful people aim for a sequence of successes, not just successful episodes and incidents.

Review the history of the prevalent “once-upon-a-time” successes and you will see that their success was limited to a particular time, place, and thing. It was isolated, unique in their experience, non-recurring. The situations of successful people are radically different.

They do not succeed one or twice and live off their decaying laurels forever; instead, they aim to have success after success after success, until the very idea of failure is unthinkable.

2) Successful people see life as a gigantic planning opportunity; an unequalled opportunity to bring home the bacon time after time after time.

The successful lead lives where what they do and how they do it is always linked to the master plan that they have worked on for their entire lives. No incident can be viewed in isolation, because every incident is a step towards larger goals and greater successes. For such people any success is nothing more than a step to ever greater success.

3) Successful people analyze what went right and what went wrong in each success they attain. Every success is not a conclusion, but a necessary learning opportunity.

By definition successful people place each and every success under a microscope giving it a full and complete scrutiny. Successful people study success; it is in fact their constant endeavor to turn each success into a learning laboratory.

4) Successful people have a succession of goals. Moreover these sequential goals are written down, regularly reviewed and updated… and always represent more challenge and responsibility. For the successful, life is a step ladder, never a sofa and easy chair.

Do you have such goals? Are they written down? Do you constantly consider just what goals achieved today mean in terms of more substantial goals and achievements tomorrow? As successful people grow and mature they become masters of such questions and answers.

More things successful people do.

5) Successful people are all about the future. They focus is on now, of course, because it is in this now they must learn the essentials of success and achieve each individual success.

But successful people always keep an eye on the future. They focus on what they want in that future, vividly aware that what they do today and how well they do guarantees the future of their desire.

6) Successful people make mistakes.

There isn’t a person alive who doesn’t make errors of commission and omission. Successful people know that reviewing today’s errors ensures tomorrow’s victories. And as it is victory they want and insist upon above all, each error is analyzed, understood, turned into part of the primer on success.

7) Successful people are not defensive.

The characteristic response of the unsuccessful to areas where they have erred and need a different, improved response is defensive. Such responses will be of the “no one told me. I’m innocent. It’s her fault, it’s her fault” variety. These responses are a clear indication that the person in question has little or no idea what successful people say in such circumstances.

“Thank you for pointing this out to me. I have made written notation of what you want.”

Bingo, with such a response you are no longer defending the indefensible, you are instead turning an error, a misunderstanding, a questionable act into a valuable learning experience.  Successful people keep journals, diaries, etc.

So long as you live you can become a success story all your own. One thing you need is the most detailed and thorough notes about yourself. Remember, every single thing you do either assists success… or retards, even destroys it. That is where detailed personal journals are mandatory.

In such documents, you put yourself under a keen scrutiny which never ends and which must be both complete and honest.

The extent to which you fail to have and keep such personal information is the extent to which you are prepared to jettison intensely valuable information… and all the successes which might have hinged on their existence and use.

9) Successful people thank the people who helped them.

Successful people are people who are beneficiaries of constant assistance from parents, other family members, teachers, clergy, coaches, etc., a process that only ends with death.

Successful people feel privileged to acknowledge and recognize the hard work and sincere assistance provided by many, many others. Unsuccessful people feel diminished by such help; not enhanced by it.

The avoidable tragedy of The Void where there are no new goals to take the place of old goals achieved.

The worst thing that can happen to a person who wants true, continual success is to finish a goal… and not know what he/she should be doing next. As indicated above you must always have goals that go beyond even the most major goals you are working on now. There must never, ever be a gap… for that is an opportunity for losing track of your objectives and becoming directionless.

Now that you have read this article with its admonitions and recommendations, you will never have this problem. With clockwork regularity you will always conclude a goal, knowing just what major goal follows.

Your job is to turn the achievement of success into an unrelenting, never ending system. And now you know how to do it.

5 tellltale signs you’re not really interested in business success… you just like talking about it.

By Dr. Jeffrey Lant

Author’s program note. This is one of the dozens of articles I’ve written about success. All are prescriptive, honest, detailed… the kind of articles you use a refrigerator magnet to post for the one in your house who talks the best game about success… but never does what’s necessary to achieve it. (That could be YOU!)

I’m writing this report for those who engage mouth… but nothing else.

Who try to make you feel small by always prattling on about the BIG things they mean to achieve… but somehow never do.

These people need help and they need it instantly. I aim to provide it… and I’m going to call on the spirit of Harry S. Truman, once president of the United States, to assist. I’m in a big pro-Truman phase right now, not least because I’m again reading one of the best written and most intelligent presidential biographies, David McCullough’s “Truman.” It is so rich I only permit myself to read a bit every day, because I know how good it is and how distressed I’ll be at its conclusion.

For this article’s theme music I’ve selected Paderewski’s Minuet in G, a piece Truman knew well; Paderewski himself had shown Truman how to play it… and on one memorable evening during the Potsdam conference of 1945, he played it to the most distinguished audience in the world, headed by the other two of the “Big Three”, Stalin and Churchill. The elegant music of another, more graceful age incongruously rose into the night air drifting over the macabre ruins of prostrate Berlin. You’ll find it in any search engine. Play it now.

Getting on with the job.

Harry Truman was one of the most quintessentially American presidents the Great Republic has ever had. He was hard-working, conscientious to a fault, direct speaking, humble about himself but determined to improve America and the world using the powers of the office he venerated, and graced. He had the profound American belief that problems were not obstacles, but challenges… and that they could be solved, all of them, if folks just got down to the essential business of solving them.

His approach, of course, might have been so very different. Being President of the United States, he could have pontificated in endless wordiness about what he was going to do… then returned to the White House to play the poker he loved with the buddies who made him laugh and relax, promises forgotten.

Or he could, following in the footsteps of one of the most revered of leaders, Franklin Roosevelt, give way to feelings of inadequacy, a man of slender skills dwarfed by one of history’s giants. But he didn’t go this direction either, despite a famously indiscrete toast by Winston Churchill who said, “I must confess, sir, I held you in very low regard. I loathed your taking the place of Franklin Roosevelt.” With friends like these… Untimely delivered to be sure, but a sentiment the majority of the American people shared with Churchill and which they, along with Churchill, changed as they came to know the man and his methods better. Then, Churchill rendered his revised opinion thus:

” ‘He is a man of immense determination. He takes no notice of delicate ground, he just plants his foot down firmly upon it’. To make his point, Churchill jumped a little off the wooden floor and brought both bare feet down with a smack.”

Now, be honest, would anyone call you a person of “immense determination” with an acute desire to solve problems and a practical willingness to do so as soon as possible? We have now arrived at the moment of truth, where you need to be a person of total veracity and integrity. Can you rise to this absolutely essential level? If so, it’s time to transform your habits so that you can create success after success; to start having and quit merely talking about it.

1) Shift from talking about to actually having success.

So, when was your last success? The longer ago the date you now provide, the bigger your problem. Successful people are starkly “now” oriented. They won’t tell you about the successes of years ago; the successes that matter are the ones of recent date. Thus, just how far back you have to go to find a meaningful success constitutes a very clear indication of just how big a problem you have.

2) You must be confident enough about your judgement to make decisions.

Successful people are decision-making people. They know that the achievement of success, then the maintenance and expanding of this success is a function of not just hundreds, but thousands of decisions:

Should I buy this inventory at this price, or not?

Should I invest the company’s assets in an interest paying account for this amount of time, or not?

Should I inform this very difficult customer that my firm cannot handle her business anymore, or not?

Should I fire this, hire this, advance this, demote this particular individual, or not?

Review the life and condition of any successful person, and you will see a steady increase in the number and importance of decisions made. Leadership, prosperity, success is all about the ability to make complicated decisions without regret, without second guessing yourself.

3) Successful people will work with you to work things out.

There is a marvelous phrase in the Bible that says simply, “Come now, let us reason together.” (Isaiah 1-18) This is precisely what successful people do. Of course, they want to make the best deal, but they realize the best deal contains substantial benefits for the people they are negotiating with; in other words, it is mutually beneficial. If the parties are mutually content, the deal is not only satisfactory for now, but keeps the door open for subsequent deals. And this is the best deal of all.

4) Successful people know the point, grasp the point, and keep their eyes and mind on the point.

Successful people are focused people. Life, already short, cannot be wasted; carpe diem is their motto, guide, and objective. They know that this day will end; that is a given. What is not a given is what benefits they have garnered from the day. The fact of a day is God-given; what happens in that day is determined by each of us. People who talk about tomorrow, next week, next month are fooling themselves and are rightly shunned and disregarded by people who regard procrastination, sloth, and inertia as completely unacceptable and root them out accordingly.

5) Successful people anticipate what people they are working with might need and gather it in advance.

Successful people are perceiving people, thinking people, aware people. They brainstorm options and are thoughtful about what may happen and how to prepare for it, for the ease and comfort of all.

Is this how you are? Or are you always a part of the problem, never part of the solution?

In this regard, consider what Floyd Boring, one of President Truman’s secret service agents, said about him:

“He never came on as being superior. He could talk to anyone! He could talk to the lowly peasant. He could talk to the King of England… And that was, I think, his secret.. He never got swellheaded — never got, you know, swagly.”

Ask yourself if anyone will ever regard you this way… and work hard to make sure they do.