Wonderful Web Women

Yesterday I had the pleasure of interviewing 2 of my favourite people on-line, best selling relationship authors and husband and wife psychology team Judith & Jim (Judith Sherven and Jim Sniechowski). Judith and Jim are leading what I see as a new frontier in Internet marketing and one that I feel passionately you need to be part of.

Judith and Jim lead the way for “soft sell marketers” to market their businesses  in a way that lets people know about what you do without feeling like you have to compromise or even sell out to marketing methods that go against your grain. In this article I will cover what soft sell marketing is and who actually fits into the soft sell category of businesses but first let me tell you about an opportunity to learn more and to meet up with Judith, Jim and myself in person.

Bridging Heart and Marketing

Judith and Jim are organisers of “Bridging Heart and Marketing II” – the only conference for Soft Sell Internet marketers. It takes place September 12-14 in Los Angeles. I’m honoured to be one of their featured speakers amongst an incredibly inspiring group of people. Judith and Jim have stressed the importance that this event is not a “talk fest” and that there are very real opportunites to workshop ideas and create long term relationships that will make a huge difference to the growth of your business.

Because I’m a speaker at the conference I get to offer you a SPECIAL DISCOUNT on your tuition. To find out what you’ll experience, go to: http://www.bridgingheartandmarketing.com/janet

And if “Bridging Heart and Marketing II” feels right for you – follow your heart and be there with us.

Join me for breakfast

As an extra bonus if you order through this special discount link you can join me for breakfast one morning of the event for a special Question and Answer session. We’ll book a table at breakfast just for our group and you will get the opportunity to get answers from me to your personal questions as well as the opportunity to discuss product ideas and joint ventures.

Stay an extra day

I really do hope you can can join us. I also hope you can stay for an extra day for the opportunity to spend a whole day learning the details on how to grow a business fast, and bring in extra income to your home every month, with the help of experts and the power of your voice. You can find out more about our Quick Start Event here.

Listen to the replay

I had quite a few people contact me to say they were disappointed to miss the interview as they didn’t receive the notice emails. Apparently we had a problem with a lot of our emails this week ending up in spam folders. AHHH!!! So, for a few days only you can listen to the recordings of the interview, before they are added to the gold members only area of Wonderful Web Women. Here is part of a message I received from one of the listeners on the call “Bravo for last night’s interview with Judith and Jim … having the energy of the three of you in one space was not only an elegant event, a moving one, as well.” I’d love to hear your ideas after you listen to the call.

Again, this is where you can listen to the interview

This is where you can register for the conference and receive my special discount

Here is where you can register for the one-day event with me either in LA after the conference, or in Sydney a few weeks before.

Cheers

Janet

How exciting. Kathie Thomas, one of our Wonderful Web Women, pointed this out in the forum this week and I had to share it with you. This blog has been listed as one of the top 100 Awesome webmaster blogs by women on the Internet. Wow. How great to be recognised and amongst such great company.

http://whdb.com/2008/100-awesome-webmaster-blogs-by-and-for-women/

I’m quite chuffed. Check out no. 69. Kathie Thomas is also there (very deservedly so) at 81. Great to see all the blog techniques I have been applying that our speakers have taught us have actually worked.

Cheers

Janet

Today I interviewed Pat Lynch from Women’s Radio about “Speaking Up and getting your voice heard”. Pat has an incredibly inspiring story of perseverance which I hope will inspire many to stick with your vision, even against the odds. Pat owns Women’s Radio, a large network which features a collective of web hosts who run radio programs on topics targeted at women. These topics are not just on women’s issues but are targeted at women. For example there are radio programs on business, health, travel, music - you name it, it is there or will be.

In this article I share with you strategies to get your voice heard, using both Pat’s website (www.womensradio.com) and Pat’s techniques and your own web site.

How to Spread the word about your expertise through Women’s Radio

The mission of Women’s Radio is to give women a greater voice over a wider geographic area. The influence of this program reaches hundreds of thousands of women. Women’s radio can help grow your business (or your political campaign or social interest group) in the following way:

1. Apply to host a radio program through Women’s Radio. To apply, visit http://www.womensradio.com/Pages/Contact.htm and tell Pat that you heard her on Wonderful Web Women and would like info on how to be a host. Tell her a bit about yourself as well.

2. Be a featured guest on one of the programs. Again, contact Pat through http://www.womensradio.com/Pages/Contact.htm and tell her a bit about your expertise.

3. Contribute articles : You can submit articles as a guest author

How To Host Your Own Program

When Pat moved her radio station from traditional radio to internet radio, she had a wish list of what technology she wanted to make it possible. It wasn’t available at the time so she and her partner, David, contracted a team to develop it for them. The result? Audio Acrobat. I’ve noticed this used on many sites, especially those of successful marketers.

These are just a few of the things you can do with Audio Acrobat:

• record your voice and put it as an intro on your website
• record an interview
• record segments for a radio program or teleseminar (eg intros, interviews, adds, music transitions) and then select what order you want each played in and when to play
• create podcasts with just 2 clicks (submits to 16 different podcast directories)
• quickly put audio on your website or blog without having to be a techy (just cut and paste)
• You can also do all the same things with video

Using this technology you can really simply have recordings of your interviews and ideas on your own website. You can even create a site that has guest hosts who all contribute their recordings to your “radio site” and create your own radio hub for your own niche.

But let’s keep it simple.

Sign up for Audio Acrobat for their free 1 month trial. Create a short audio introduction to your website by ringing in on the number they provide. Then cut and paste the recording to your website. That’s what I will be doing this week as I spend the next month “testing it out”. I’d love to hear your experiences. Here’s one that was shared on the call by Richard from California “LoL, I can not say enough great things about Audio Acrobat ! What a great tool! I use it with overt 90% of my clients ! TalkToMeGuy Productions”

Cheers

Janet

Today Nancy Marmolejo shared with us how to  use video on-line to build our credibility, branding and get free publicity. I love Nancy’s approach. Firstly, she keeps it all so simple. Secondly, she focuses on the person in front of the lens as a priority before she even starts talking about shooting the first video.

We covered a lot of great tips, so take the time to listen to the recordings if you can. They’ll be available in the gold members area in a few hours.

A gift for you from Nancy

You can download Nancy’s gift report Learn about 5 Massive, Credibility-Crushing Mistakes Women Entrepreneurs Make with Online Video and How to Completely Avoid Them with this FREE Special Report!

3 Essentials points BEFORE you make your first video

1. Know your ideal client

This is absolutely essential as you must create videos on a topic (and current trends) that your ideal client wants to see. If you are not clear on this your uncertainty and lack of focus will show in your video.

2. Be clear on your expertise

You will be using video to position yourself as an expert. You want to position yourself as the go-to person for commentary on a topic, area of expertise. This is where the opportunities for free publicity come. Be clear in your videos, and with yourself, what is your area of expertise.

3. Present your unique essence and personality

Don’t try and be someone else that you think is the ideal video personality. Find your own voice. Nancy has a lovely way of explaining this. She believes that each of us has a purpose, a message to share. She calls this your “medicine”, a term which originates from her Aztec ancestors. Take time to be clear on what is your unique message. This moves the focus from you to the viewer. This is how you portray your authentic presentation.

What type of videos to make

This is clever. Once you are clear on the points above you need to create a series of short videos Each video should be no longer that 2 minutes and you need to create a series of at least 5. These short videos teach people tips on your area of expertise. If it is topical, that is better.

For example, Nancy first created 5 short videos teaching people how to use Facebook to create business relationships. You can see them here: http://www.youtube.com/user/vivavisibility

You may create them all in one sitting but release them slowly over a few weeks to build anticipation.

How to  make your video

• Nancy stresses “keeping it simple”.
• Don’t use a webcam (see why in the recordings of the call)
• Flip cameras are newly released and create a video ready to upload to the internet
• Edit the video to add text, music etc using free software that comes with your computer like Windows Movie maker
• JUST DO IT!

IMPORTANT: The setting, lighting and what you wear are extremely important. Nancy gives great tips on this in our interview. You can hear the replay in the gold members area of Wonderful Web Women.

Where to submit your videos

There are heaps of places, just Google “online video sharing”

Start with:

• You Tube
• Blip TV
• Veoh

Make sure you grab a copy of Nancy’s free report . It covers the 5 main mistakes women entrepreneurs make with online video and it is excellent.

On our call yesterday with Lorrie Morgan - Ferrero, she promised to send us some examples of female friendly sales copy we can look at for ideas. Well true to her word she sent me an email today with some great samples to share with you.

Here are they are below.

http://www.redhotcopy.com/sterling.htm

http://www.redhotcopy.com/rhcbootcamp.htm

http://www.redhotcopy.com/copy3.html

http://www.alexandriabrown.com/marketingmastery.htm

http://www.successconnections.com

http://www.infoproductguy.com/home.html

Here are some extra words of wisdom from Lorrie Remember, even though these are long copy sales letters, the formatting, the bullets and the headlines/subheads are designed to make the copy scannable and easy-to-read for busy women AND busy men. Yes, women despite our equality, it seems much of the household duties still far to us and our time seems even less than men’s.

 But the psychology of having all the answers, facts, and information on one scrolling page is still a proven copywriting device. Imagine how frustrating it would be to NOT get all the information you wanted about making a purchasing decision in one place and have to poke around many other sites to find it. It actually saves time to have it all in one place from one source. Then we can Google other sources to make our comparisons.

Thanks heaps Lorrie

Remember, you can get Lorrie’s free report and her special offer for her upcoming conference to help you create a business that is positioned to make the most of the female buyer here: http://www.wonderfulwebwomen.com/recommends/redhotcopy

P.S.  Here is a link to Lorrie’s many products to help you master copywriting. This is really the no. 1 skill you need to master to create success in your internet business.

I thought I’d share a funny story with you. Want to hear it?

On Friday I launched Recession Proof Marketing with 4 wonderful women. We’re known collectively as “TheFab 5″.

We launched with a sold out workshop at Erina, NSW. The day was a great success with very moving testimonials from attendees, great content (REAL content), excellent food and perfectly managed presentations - except for mine…..

Picture this. My first seminar presentation in my role as Wonderful Web Woman. I had prepared a great presenation and put a lot of thought into how to really get the attention of the room. How to get them centred, enthusiastic and ready to learn. 10 minutes into the presentation, just as I was about to reveal the big secret to the quick growth of my business I looked around the room and thought “Wow, it’s working. I have the complete attention of everyone in the room, they’re actually listening to me and want to know what I have to say”.

And then it happened.

The fire alarm went off and everyone had to evacuate the building! AHHH!!!

Has anything like this ever happened to you? I’d love to hear your stories and even better, how you recovered!

Cheers

Janet

Today I interviewed one of my favourite Internet marketers, Lorrie Morgan - Ferrero. Lorrie has a wonderful ability to write sales letters, emails, blog posts etc that I can really relate to. I feel as if she is writing to me. She has an ability to catch the female voice but not in the way that some marketers try. Her language is not girly, or wishy-washy. It is strong, intelligent and makes me feel as though she takes me seriously.

Isn’t that different to many of the sales letters we read on the Internet? Over the next few days, on the blog here, I will share with you some of the facts about the changes taking place in marketing, driven by the increasing power women have as consumers. But here it is in brief. Women make far the majority of buying decisionsnow, even for goods traditionally targeted to men. 80% in fact!

Here is Lorrie’s recipe for adapting your sales letters to appeal to the female buyer:

The important thing to know is that the way sales letters are traditionally written works. We do not have to rewrite the guide book. For example, you still need to have a great headline and a good offer. You still need to state the problem, show you understand it and then offer a solution (you). And like it or not, long sales letters work better than short IF you follow the steps below. The current techniques are based on sound psychology but they were invented in the 1920″s when women were not the buyers. Here’s how to get it up to date:

1. Appeal to both sides of the brain:

Men tend to think in a linear way and make decisions faster. Women tend to use both sides of the brain equally and take many factors into consideration. We tend to want more information before we make a buying decision. We take longer to win over as a customer but when won, we tend to be very loyal. Of course, these are exceptions to the rule but these differences between the way men and women think hold true.

So the lesson here? Give women the facts. Provide info in a variety of ways (dot points, audio, stories, information boxes, video). We need enough information to make an informed decision rather than hype. Can you you see now, why long sales letters are necessary?

2. Use metaphors:

Women use both sides of the brain and think in terms of stories and relationships. So use a lot of metaphors in your sales copy. Tell stories.

3. Use graphics:

Boring pages where just the words sell have become the accepted best-practice recently. The thought is that nothing should distract from the words. This does not work for women. It is important to reinforce your message with great graphics.

4. Be authentic:

If you are yourself and honest, women will be loyal customers. If you are not authentic and try to make it, women will sniff it out quickly and you’ll never see them again. So lose the hype, empty promises and trying to copy the voice of others. Be yourself.

5. Write to a very specific person

Lorrie mentioned the concept of a TARKET. She recommends you research your target customers well and then create a very detailed profile of one person. So, you give them a name, age, occupation, interests, marital status, income etc. When you listen to the recording you’ll hear Lorrie describe her tarket. Talk about detailed! This is the person you are writing to in everything you do. This will make your writing so much more genuine and authentic.

6. Don’t use male language

Don’t use words such as win, compete, destroy, dominate, bullet-proof etc. Women do not respond to competitive language and the language of conflict. Use inclusive, relationship building words.

7. If you contribute to the world, let them know

If you make the world a better place either through the way you do business, your product or by contributing, let women know. Studies have shown that women place priority on community and social issues. But remember, if you don’t or you just do token contributions, don’t claim you do something you don’t. You’ll lose loyalty quickly.

You know what I  like about this approach to copywriting? It is high in integrity and treats the customer with respect. That is probably why using these techniques increases your success with the female buyer, but doesn’t turn men off. Over the next few days I’ll also share a few other tips Lorrie shared. You can also grab 2 great opportunties thanks to Lorrie.

Firstly, go to http://www.wonderfulwebwomen.com/recommends/redhotcopy and download the free report “Are You Still Living In the Marketing Dark Ages?”. Lorrie shares even more great ideas there.

After you sign up for the report, you’ll be given access to a special offer page that is only valid for 2 more days. Lorrie is holding a first ever 3 day event in October where she takes you step by step through tailoring your ENTIRE business to make the most of the female market. Today we only covered some of the copywriting skills. Lorrie has extended an offer for a wonderful discount to the event that she has not even made available to her own list (this is true. I’m on her list and haven’t seen this offer). She has also included excellent bonuses of software and tools that will quick start your copywriting. Here’s the link again.

http://www.wonderfulwebwomen.com/recommends/redhotcopy

I’d love to hear your thoughts on copywriting and the female market. Why not share them here?

Cheers

Janet

A few weeks ago I interviewed Sandy Forster from Wildly Wealthy Women in Australia. Sandy’s story is amazing. She has gone from being a single mum on welfare and huge debt to millionaire in a very short time. She is a self-confessednon-techy who has managed to create her success through the internet.

 In a few weeks Sandy will be running a rare 2 day workshop that takes you by the hand from absolute basics to making money. Sandy is serious about helping you create success. So much so that she is including a fully functioning web site, that you can edit and control, tailored to each individual. If you already have a web site, she will revamp your into a money maker.

There is too much to tell you here. People from around the world attend Sandy’s workshops so if you aren’t in Australia, this is still worth checking out. Sandy only has a few tickets left which she has reserved for us. Details here: http://www.wonderfulwebwomen.com/recommends/wildweb

Hi

Last week I shared with you an activity that I did with my family to celebrate all we had achieved in 2007. I loved this activity so much that we called our creation a “celebration board” and encouraged you to do the same? Have you had an opportunity to stop yet and really take the time to acknowledge all you have achieved?

If you need a refresher on how to create your own celebration board, you can read all about it here:

http://wonderfulwebwomen.com/blog/2007/what-have-you-got-to-celebrate/

We have had some lovely discussions in the forum, and others have sent me emails. I can see that this activity has really been a positive step for a lot of people. I took some photos of the “celebration board” my family created to share with you. As you can see in the photo below, the result is colourful and busy. Come to think of it, so is my family that created it!

Groover Gran and Setting Goals For 2008

I have spent the last week or so visiting family for Christmas and spent a lot of that time staying with my mum Bev (I always seem to sleep a lot when I stay with my mum. Do you do the same thing?). Mum is 73 years old and a wonderful inspiration who always seems to look for new and exciting ways to push herself out of her comfort zone.

This Christmas she decided to relearn how to ride a bike. It would have been 40 years I think since she really rode a bike but she was determined. So myself, Douglas, the 2 kids on their new Christmas bikes and “Groover Gran” headed down to the cycle track near the lake to give it a go. The first few goes were a bit scarey (for me!) but then for the next hour she powered along the track, even cutting across the grass when the walkers were too slow.

What Is Your Comfort Zone?

I share this story with you because it demonstrates the most important thing I want to pass on to you about setting goals for 2008. You need to push yourself out of your comfort zone. I’m not suggesting you be unrealistic (after all Bev didn’t set herself a goal to ride the Tour de France), but I do encourage you to set yourself a goal that will require you to learn or master a new skill. The confidence you get just by working towards that goal will flow on to other things in your life.

Create A 2008 Goal Board

The activity I share with you today flows on from the “Celebration Board” from last week. It is important to take the time to acknowledge and celebrate what you achieved in the last 12 months as it really gives you the confidence to set positive goals for the next 12 months.

Use another piece of art paper and a supply of coloured pencils and imagination. The board you will be working on should not be as busy as your celebration board - life will fill in all the extra achievements without you needing to plan in detail.

Draw a picture of the main thing that you are working for, or glue in a picture if you have one. For me, I drew my dream home. Around this focus, write 3 or 4 specific goals that push you out of your comfort zone but are realistic. You can see the goals I set myself in the picture below. Some of them really push me out of my comfort zone but I know I can do them if I stay focused. Even if I don’t achieve them this year, simply acknowledging them and focusing on them will bring me closer to the confidence to do them.

All Work And No Play?

Also look at other parts of your life - not just business/financial / work. If you can see in the photo below, one of my goals is to look good in a bikini! But I have also included goals around travel, music and sport. You don’t want life to be boring even if you do love your work like I do.

Here’s what my finished board looks like. I will hang this near where I work to remind myself of the direction I am heading - this should stop me being distracted with “busy work” and focus on the main game plan. I do encourage you to do the same as it is a very powerful visual motivator.

Make Yourself Accountable

Here’s the tough part. It can be challenging to set yourself goals that push you out of your comfort zone - but even