Carol Bentley

A light-hearted finish to the week. Lesley posted this on his blog showing images that are thought-provoking or just plain amusing.

I particularly liked the last image because it demonstrates a phrase that was used in advertising this particular fruit when I was in my innocent, pre-copywriting youth!

Enjoy Lesley’s images.

~ Carol Bentley

Do this, every day, and you feel better. And so do the people around you. In fact it has even helped turn a failing business and marriage around - as you can read below.

And the best thing? It does not cost you a penny and every single person on the planet can do it - no experience is needed!

What is it? I’ll let John Wood share this particular gem with you…

Try This for 30 Days and You’ll be More Welcome Everywhere You Go
By John Wood

No matter what country you’re from or what language you speak, everyone in the world understands what a smile means.

According to Dale Carnegie, famous self-improvement lecturer and author of the best-selling How to Win Friends and Influence People…

“It costs nothing, but creates much. It enriches those who receive it, without impoverishing people who give it. It happens in a flash and the memory of it sometimes lasts forever.”

English essayist and poet Joseph Addison (1672-1719) was also well aware of the power of smiling. He wrote…

“What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to humanity. These are bug trifles to be sure, but scattered along life’s pathway the good they do is inconceivable.”

Here are eight reasons why you should make smiling part of your daily routine…

1. You’ll live longer and be in better health. University of Michigan professor, Christopher Peterson, PhD, says, “Overall we found optimistic people are healthier. Their biological makeup is different. They have a more robust immune system.”

Peterson adds that optimistic people generally take better care of themselves – they are more likely to eat sensibly, drink in moderation and exercise regularly.

According to a November 2004 study by the Archives of General Psychiatry among people 65 to 85 years of age, optimists were 71 percent less likely to die than pessimists.

When you smile it also boosts the levels of serotonin, which plays a vital part in regulating moods, sleep, sexuality and appetite, and releases endorphins which are the body’s natural pain killers.

2. It’s easier to smile than frown. Someone once said that “It takes 17 muscles to smile and 43 to frown.” I’m not sure if numbers are accurate, but you get the point – being miserable requires more work than being happy. [Carol: I like the idea of less work, plus for us more mature ladies it might mean less wrinkles as well! ]

3. It makes you more attractive. There’s a reason people insist you smile before they take your picture, everyone looks better with a smile on their face.

4. Smiling makes you look younger. Not only do you look better, you look younger. Forget the face lifts or Botox shots; just smile more often.

5. Smiling makes you seem more successful. People who smile are assumed to be more successful. If you’re always frowning, people automatically assume things aren’t going that great for you.

6. People treat you differently. If you’re smiling, people are more likely to start a conversation with you. People want to be around people who smile.

7. You’ll spend less time in jail. Studies have shown that judges give lighter sentences to people if they’re smiling. [Carol: e-er! Hope you don’t ever need this benefit! ]

8. You’ll have a more satisfying relationship. A study by Dr. Dacher Keltner showed that women who showed an intense happiness in their smile were more likely to marry by the age of 27 and maintain a satisfying relationship.

In his classic book, How I Raised Myself From Failure to Success in Selling, Frank Bettger told of how when he’d give talks across the country he’d challenge people to greet others with smiles for 30 days. He received thousands of letters talking about the impact this simple gesture had on their lives. He cites the following letter as typical of the letters he received:

“My wife and I had just about agreed to separate. Of course, I thought she was entirely at fault. Within a few days after I began to put this idea into action, happiness was restored in my home. I then came to realize that I had been losing out in business because of a sullen, losing attitude. At the end of the day, I would go home and take it out on my wife and children. It was all my fault, not my wife’s at all. I am a totally different man from what I was a year ago. I’m happier because I’ve made others happy too. Now everybody greets me with a smile. In addition, my business has shown surprising improvement.”

Here are four things you can start right now to put you on track to a happier life:

1. “Fake it till you make it.” Dale Carnegie said it about enthusiasm, but it applies to smiling too. Put a smile on your face and even when things aren’t going so good, you can’t help but feel better.

2. Find the humor in situations. Who can forget the last scene of Monty Python’s “Life of Brian” when Brian, sentenced to death by crucifixion for his part in a kidnapping plot, joins in with the other 140 doomed men and sings “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life”?

3. Smile at least five times a day for no good reason. Make smiling part of your daily schedule. Add it to your day timer so you don’t forget. Make a point to smile at yourself first thing every morning when you look in the mirror.

4. Sing a song that makes you smile. There are certain songs that when you hear them, you can’t help but smile. One of the more famous ones is “Put On a Happy Face” from the musical “Bye Bye Birdie.”

But in my opinion, the greatest song about smiling was written by the person many consider to be the greatest film comedian of all time. Everyone knows Charlie Chaplin was a great entertainer, but you may not know that he was also a prolific composer. Eighteen years after his most famous melody appeared on the soundtrack of his 1936 film “Modern Times,” two Englishmen, John Turner and Geoffrey Parsons, wrote lyrics to it and titled it “Smile.”

No matter where you are, if you’re feeling less than stellar, you can’t help but feel better about the state of your world if you sing these words to Chaplin’s melody:

Smile tho’ your heart is aching,
Smile, even though it’s breaking,
When there are clouds in the sky – you’ll get by,
If you smile through your fear and sorrow,
Smile and maybe tomorrow
You’ll see the sun come shining through – for you.

Light up your face with gladness,
Hide ev’ry trace of sadness,
Altho’ a tear may be ever so near,
That’s the time you must keep on trying,
Smile – what’s the use of crying,
You’ll find that life is still worthwhile,
If you just smile.

—————————————
[This article appears courtesy of The Golden Thread, an e-letter from AWAI that delivers original, no-nonsense advice on how to build your freelance copywriting business. For a free subscription, visit http://www.awaionline.com/thegoldenthread]

And remember - when you are on the phone the person you are talking to can hear a smile in your voice as you speak. You come over as friendlier and more pleasant to deal with. And that’s got to be good for business, hasn’t it?

~ Carol Bentley

Add to: | del.cio.us | digg it

Just a quick heads-up. My PA Kelly has told me she is going to send you a message Monday afternoon because she thinks I have lost the plot! But, because I don’t want the whole world to know about this, it will be in a private post - which means you get the password in your email on Monday.

Have a great weekend,

~ Carol Bentley

Well, the results are in and I’m really chuffed with the support I was given with this memorial project over the last 2 weeks.

We didn’t quite reach my intended target of giving away 800 copies of the copywriting book; we had 317 downloads, which wasn’t too bad. And of course other people may have seen it without visiting the website - so who knows, maybe I did reach my target

I rather like looking at figures and some of these stats were interesting. For instance, on average, only 30.6% of the people who were invited by friends to visit the offer website, did so. Now that could be because the other people decided they didn’t need help with their sales letters; so ignored the invitation.

Or - if I was really cynical I could say it might be because the people sending the invite used their own alternative email addresses instead of their friends’…

Hmm! I suppose that might happen where someone really wants the valuable gift being offered but is wary about giving a friend’s email address out online. And that got me thinking (as you do)… I’ll tell you more about my thoughts in a moment.

First off [drum-roll please]….

The Bentley Makeover Gift goes to…

Susan, from www.habitbreakers.co.nz, who came top with an impressive 55.6% take-up of her invitations. (I think the trick was sending out a tad more than one set of invitations). I look forward to working with Susan on her sales letter.

And my thoughts were…

Going on from what I was saying, the memorial offer of a free e-copy of my sales letter writing book finished at midnight (BST) yesterday. So anyone visiting the site, whether in response to an invitation you sent or from seeing the link on this blog, is now too late to get the complete book.

However, I know sometimes things can happen that stop you doing something you meant to. So I decided to leave the website up, just for another week, with the option to download 5 crucial chapters from the book. That will help anyone who gets there a bit late but still needs expert tips on writing their sales letter.

Plus - you do not have to invite anyone to get your copy of these chapters - it’s available as a completely free download (you just have to confirm your request to stop any ’spammers’ activity). And that’s it! No commitment, just an extremely useful gift.

So, if you haven’t downloaded your copy yet, or you want to tell your friends privately - it’s available at www.WriteLettersWinSales.co.uk

Please note: This 5-crucial chapters offer expires on 25th June 2008

~ Carol Bentley

Add to: | del.cio.us | digg

In my post dated 6 June I talked about the idea of a further gift as a ‘thank you’ for your support.

This is what I wrote:

Here’s My Idea

Apart from giving you your free e-copy of the book, ‘I Want To Buy Your Product… Have You Sent Me A Letter Yet?’ I’d like to acknowledge the support you are showing me.

So I decided I’d offer a gift to the person who has the highest number of friends accepting the invitation to download the book before the invitation expires at midnight (BST) on 18th June (my Father’s birthday). And don’t worry - my system has already recorded the number of people you’ve invited and how many have collected their gift, so you won’t lose out if you’ve already been pretty active with this memorial project.

You can send your invitation to more friends at Invite More

The New Gift

I’ve decided the most valuable gift I can give is some 1-on-1 time. Specifically the lucky recipient gets a complete Bentley Makeover on a sales letter and response form. The Bentley Makeover Service has a value between £427 ($838) and £967 ($1,899), dependent upon the length of the letter.

After sending your letter and response form to me, I record a review of the letter, advising changes to make it stronger and more compelling. I’ll also give suggestions for headline, sub-heads, copy content and P.S. if these need enhancing. The recording is supplied as an MP3 file that you can keep and refer to at any time.

So all you need to do, to be in with a chance of gaining this extra gift, is remind the people you’ve already invited to collect their ebook and invite more people to claim their copy before midnight (BST) on 18th June. You can invite more friends at Invite More

Thanks once again for your support.

~ Carol Bentley

P.S. If the invitation link in your email was not used, the people you invited are not contacted by me again. You might want to remind them that there is now less than 36 hours before the invitation expires.

A colleague has just finished recording an interview with me. He wanted to get some ‘behind the scenes tips’ on copywriting - specifically for sales letters. He asked a good many questions - but one came up that I’d never been asked before, or at least not in quite the way he put it.

And I thought it’s a good one to share with you.

Q:

HOW DO YOU BRAINSTORM HEADLINES FOR A GIVEN PROJECT?

A:

For many people, getting started on headlines can be an insurmountable problem. And sometimes I think it is because enough research and thinking about it has not yet happened.

You see, first off I do research on the project so I know everything there is to know about the company I’m writing for, their business; their products (or services) and the specific offer they are making.

I find out who their ideal customers are and what result the customer is looking for. I pore over letters the company has received from customers, including letters of complaints and how they were dealt with. Reading about an unhappy customer who has been turned into a satisfied, sometimes delighted, customer can be a great catalyst for innovative ideas.

I research their competitors to see what else is on the market - not just direct competitors. We are often competing against something completely different when it comes to persuading people to part with their money. For example if you were selling a portable CD player, your competition is not just other makes of CD players it could be MP3 players, iPods - in fact any other technology that can deliver the result the customer wants; to be able to listen to their music on the move.

Then, having decided I want to write some good headlines, I let it brew. The important step here is to state your intention; “I need some cracking headlines” so your sub-conscious knows what it is supposed to be working on.

I move away from the project and go do something else. And the good ideas; the approach to take; the results purchasers gain when they take up the offer start to percolate through my sub-conscious.

This process helps with the letter itself, as well as the headlines.

When things are starting to ‘bubble through’ I create a mindmap of the proven response - or ‘Power’ words as some people call them, starting with the 79 in my book. These words also act as a catalyst as I start to formulate the headlines.

(I’ve shared the next section of this process with you before on this blog) For each response word I write 2 or 3 headlines. Some are absolute rubbish - especially in the early stages - but as I warm up the better ideas start to flow.

By using a mindmap I can go back and forth between the different response words adding more headlines as they occur to me.

Using this method makes it really easy to create the 100 headlines I advocate in my book. And, more importantly, I find the stronger headlines to test as well as good ones that are natural sub-heads to use in the letter itself. And often a good P.S. can come out of this exercise.

So there you have it - my approach to crafting headlines.

If you are stuck on ‘what to write’ for your headlines - review all your material. Even if you are writing for your own product or service, take the time to refresh your mind. Then let your sub-conscious do the work for you. The combination of research and your sub-conscious is a powerful one, if you let it work for you.

~ Carol Bentley

Add to: | del.cio.us | digg it

Sometimes we forget that we can’t be ‘all things to all men’. And sometimes it is better to concentrate on our strengths and limit our apparent weaknesses by asking for help when we need it.

And it doesn’t matter if the help we ask for is expert knowledge to achieve what we’re aiming at or encouragement and belief from our family and friends to reach the goals we’ve set for ourselves.

Many businesses fail because the owner cannot be the expert in everything that is needed to make a business successful. Their passion is usually the service or product they are supplying; that’s where their inherent knowledge lies. But sometimes a business fails because the owner does not know:

• how to create and implement a business strategy
• how to market their business
• how to get sales
• how to control their finances properly
• how to handle customer support effectively
• how to build a website and get it seen by their prospective customers

And a host of other related issues that crop up in business.

And the person that tries to handle all these on their own is creating a huge millstone for themselves.

Getting The Help Needed

The person who asks for help in the area they do not have experience in is showing wisdom. In the early days of a business the funding probably isn’t there to opt for outsourcing.

That’s where networking - talking to like-minded people, offering help and asking for help comes in. And networking can be online and offline.

Offline frequently takes the form of business clubs or groups, chambers of commerce, business support groups - different ones in different countries - and master groups.

Online help is available through forums, discussion boards and blogs, like this one. And sharing those resources can be your gesture of help.

Will you help others?

So - I’d like to ask your help for those people who read this blog.

Which are the most useful online websites you’ve found? And why?

Share your experiences of where you’ve found helpful people who’ve answered your questions and given freely of their expertise - or maybe forums where you already contribute your expertise to help others. In fact if you have a business related blog that I haven’t already discovered, now is the time to let me and everyone else know.

Click the comments link below and tell us all about the support you’ve found, or given, on the net. And, if I believe it is a valuable resource for my other readers, your comment will be approved and will show on this blog.

Thank you in advance for participating and sharing.

~ Carol Bentley

Add to: | del.cio.us | digg

Giving great service is recognised by most businesses as a must. But what is great service? I think this experience related by my friend, Nigel Risner, is a good example. . .

“Last night I went to one of my favourite restaurants of all time, it has just reopened after many years.

What they have done so remarkably well, is to do exactly what they had done to make them one of the busiest establishments in the past.

Great service.

Great service; great menu and staff who actually want to SERVE.

They also have added some nice little touches, (kosher section) a booking service that lets you know they know you are coming. Valet parking, and many others.

Why am I writing about this with such passion? Because when times get tough, get the basics right.

Will I be returning? yes! Will I spend a lot of money? yes! Will I tell my friends No (only kidding.)

The Chicago Rib Shack is back and in my opinion EVEN BETTER.

I have also been asked to work with a very famous retail store. If I can get them to understand the messages from above I promise I can turn them around.

They had and have a great customer base, they had a great theme, but somewhere have lost their way.

Great service, great people, great choice.

I promise you if you follow that mantra business will come back

Remember the definition of a great organisation:

A product that doesn’t come back and a customer who does

Nigel Risner

So how does your business stack up? Are your customers raving fans, like Nigel is of this restaurant?

~ Carol Bentley

Add to: | del.cio.us | digg

Wow! You guys (& gals) rock! Your support is overwhelming, I’m really impressed and very grateful. And I’ve had an interesting thought…

Before I tell you what it is, let me bring you up to date with some feedback. I’ve just checked the stats on the www.WriteLettersWinSales.co.uk site to see how my goal to gift my book to 800 business people is going.

Well we’ve had an impressive follow-through with 426 views of the page so far and I haven’t even sent out my offline mailshot or done the press releases yet! They don’t go out until the beginning of next week, cause I thought I’d give you a head start first .

Not everyone who visited has opted for the full book download - but we are getting there

And that’s what got me thinking… and I had a brainwave

Here’s My Idea

Apart from giving you your free copy of the book I’d like to acknowledge the support you are showing me.

So I decided I’d offer a gift to the person who has the highest number of friends accepting the invitation to download the book. And don’t worry - my system has already recorded the number of people you’ve invited and how many have collected their gift, so you won’t lose out if you’ve already been pretty active with this memorial project.

You can send your invitation to more friends at Invite More

What To Give?
I haven’t fully decided what to give - but I’ve got 12 days before the free ebook offer closes so that gives me plenty of time to come up with something really valuable; it may be self-study products (including new ones currently in the development pipeline) or it may be a personal copywriting review with me, which helps to hone your writing skills or - if I’m feeling really generous - I might even offer to write some copy to use in your current sales campaign.

Tell you what - you choose! What would be the most useful and valuable extra gift from your point of view? Click the comments link below and tell me what you’d like to receive and specifically why and how that would help you. If I get a tie between a few people on June 18th I’ll use the comments posted here as a tie-breaker.

Thanks again for your support and good luck if you decide to participate further.

~ Carol Bentley

Add to: | del.cio.us | digg

In my last post I asked if you would help me to deliver a gift to business people in commemoration of my Father. Well it is ready to go. And, of course, you’re invited to accept this gift as well.

The gift is a PDF version of my popular (rated 5* on amazon.co.uk) book ‘I Want To Buy Your Product… Have You Sent Me A Lettter Yet?. It describes, in easy to follow steps, exactly how to write effective sales letters and adverts.

I’m attempting to reach out to at least 800 business people as a tribute to my Dad, who would have been 80 this month. And that’s why I’m asking you to visit www.WriteLettersWinSales.co.uk so you can help spread the word and invite your business friends to get their copy and, of course, get your own copy too.

If you don’t want to invite anyone you can still get a useful gift on the website to use in your own business.

Gift Offer Finishes on 18th June

My Father’s birthday would have been 18th June so that’s when this free gift expires, at midnight (BST).

Why not pop over to www.WriteLettersWinSales.co.uk now rather than risk not remembering until after the 18th, when it is too late.

Thanks again for your support with this. I’ll let you know how many we reach between us.

~ Carol Bentley

Add to: | del.cio.us | digg

Will you help me to reach 800 action-orientated business people with a special gift? I’m just finishing up the web pages and plan to release it within the next day or two. For some businesses this gift can literally turn them around - helping them to generate more revenue than ever before. In fact it ties in strongly with my previous post ‘Ostrich or Hawk‘.

Let me explain. You’ve probably noticed the book graphic in the panel on the right of this page - you may even have the book, in which case I’d like to say ‘Thank You’ for investing in it.

The direct marketing concepts revealed in this book find additional business using sales letters and adverts. It describes the fundamentals of how to make your sales letter more successful, or as Dr Joe Vitale said…

“Outstanding! It shows you an easy way to transform mediocre letters to explosive letters - the kind that get noticed, get read, get sales!”

Unfortunately there are hundreds, No! thousands, of business people who do not understand these powerful principles; who do not use these ethically persuasive techniques and who, consequently, do not get the sales they richly deserve. And, with your help, I’d like to reach out to them with. . .

A Gift To Celebrate

If you are a regular reader of this blog you know I lost my Father earlier this year. Dad, who was a gentle and sensitive man, would have been 80 this June. Obviously I can’t celebrate with him, but I know that celebrating his life by helping others (as he always strived to do) is a fitting tribute for him.

But I want to help people in a way that I’m uniquely positioned to do, so

Your Mission - should you choose to accept it..

…is to help me gift a PDF version of this book to 800 businesses (including yours) by June 18th (his birthday); that’s just 10 people for each year of his life.

Will you help me reach this goal by accepting this gift and inviting business people you know to download it completely free of charge and with no obligation?

As I said, the website, describing the book and what it can do for those lucky enough to get a copy, is just going through the final testing stages. It will be ready shortly. Look out for a post entitled Copywriting: A Celebration Gift. And in the meantime check your contact list for the people you believe would appreciate and use this valuable gift.

Thanks

~ Carol Bentley

Add to: | del.cio.us | digg