In this series about hourly rates and pricing for your freelance or small business services, we’ve looked at:   9 Reasons to Stop Charging Hourly Rates 4 Reasons Why Hourly Rates are Bad for Clients Too Charge What You Deserve–Project Fees & Flat Fees Packaging Your Services Should You Be Paid for Performance?   But [...]

Did you ever have a crush on someone back in school and no matter what you did (or talked your friends into doing for you!) the object of your affections didn’t seem to even know you were alive? So one day, when you were really down in the dumps and moping about it, you broke [...]

One way to make writing your own marketing materials easier to start creating a “swipe” file of things you like as you see them. Often people talk about using a swipe file to save examples of copy they can “borrow” ideas or words from later. (Of course, there’s is an art to swiping copy effectively–especially [...]

People often use dating analogies when they’re talking about getting clients and when you think about it, a ton of similarities exist. So here are some marketing lessons from an online dating site… 1. Whether it’s an online profile or your website, visitors usually don’t know a single thing about you–and they’re pretty skeptical. After [...]

Then join us for the Raleigh JV Alert Impact Hookup on Thursday, December 3! Where:  Tripp’s 3516 Wade Avenue Raleigh, NC 27607 When:  December 3, 2009, 7-9 PM It’s the first meeting of the Raleigh area Impact/JV Alert Hookup to provide networking, fun, and a chance to meet others top-level local Internet marketers interested in [...]

Your English teacher probably called them passive verbs but I think “victim” paints a clearer picture of what they’ll do to your copy. It also nicely sums up what you’re looking for—sentences where something is happening TO the subject, instead of the subject making something happen. But whatever you call them, victim verbs make your copy blah, [...]

In addition to honoring our military heroes here in the U.S., Liz Lynch–author of Smart Networking: Attract A Following In Person and Online– has also suggested we celebrate our own personal heroes as part of Network Appreciation Day today. Because even if you’ve thanked someone for the help they gave you at the time, they [...]

When it comes to killer marketing, the Kennedy Glazer folks are usually at the top of the list. And when it comes to “lost” customers, it’s no exception. I let my subscription to the No BS Marketing Newsletter lapse a few months ago and recently received a 6 x 9 envelope touting the No BS [...]

Zeroing in on events that prompt prospects to realize it’s time for a new solution (aka “trigger events”) are a great way to find new prospects because it focuses your efforts on a market of ready or nearly ready buyers. Whether you love or hate him, the election of President Bill Clinton was a HUGE [...]

As Michael Jordan says, you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. So identify the rockstar joint ventures you would love to have and approach them. All they can do is ignore you or say no. One of my clients was looking for speakers and JV partners for an upcoming telesummit and was happily [...]