Advanced Emarketing Strategies

How to Talk About What You Do

Earlier in the month I posted a great article by Internet Marketer Charlie Cook that delved into how to discuss what you're doing in your business to your clients entitled "Do Your Prospects Know What You Do?"

If you haven't read it yet, take a moment or two and do so.

Along those lines, I found a video on YouTube.com by author Michael Port of "Book Yourself Solid" fame that I want to share with you this weekend.

Port discusses small business marketing and how to talk about what you do.

Have a great weekend!

How to Create Explosive Sales With Your Marketing Message

by Charlie Cook
©2007 In Mind Communications, LLC, all rights reserved.

If you live in a small town like mine on the Connecticut coast, you'll be spending the 4th of July watching fireworks, along with your family and friends and everyone else in town.

Why is it that people love fireworks?

Fireworks grab attention with a dazzling display of color and lots of noise. Unlike the sparkers you can hold in your hand, the sound and size of fireworks can't be ignored.

Imagine if your marketing was as effective at getting people's attention!

Diane was starting a new business coaching service and came to me looking for small business marketing fireworks. She knew that she needed a marketing message, one that described what she did and would get her prospects' attention. Her dilemma was that she works with clients to solve numerous types of problems and instead of having one strategic marketing message, she had a laundry list of them.

Solving lots of problems is good, but when you are trying to communicate what you do, it's the equivalent of a handful of sparklers as compared to having one large attention-getting display.

In order to grab prospects' attention Diane dispensed with her laundry list of messages and replaced it with one umbrella marketing message. Here's how to get started on your own strategic marketing message.

1. List the concerns of your target market relative to your services. This should generate a list of 10-30 problems you solve.

2. Organize your list in order of importance to clients. What are your clients' primary concerns?

3. Use the most important client concern on your list as the basis for your marketing message. If you don't have a summary sentence, then write one.

In our town when a particularly spectacular firework goes off, the audience ooh's and ahhs. You may not get ooh's and ahhs from your marketing message but you do want it to prompt prospects to action.

When you use your marketing message, fireworks or at least a spark should ignite in your prospects' minds when they make the connection between their needs and your services. If your marketing message has done its job, people will ask you how you do what you do or contact you for more information.

With a brilliant marketing message you'll grab your prospects' attention, increase opportunities.

The author, Charlie Cook, helps small business owners and marketing professionals attract more clients, whether you are marketing in print, in person or online. Sign up for the Free Marketing eBook, '7 Steps to get more clients and grow your business', full of practical marketing strategies you can use to increase profits at www.MarketingForSuccess.com.

More later...

Review of Charlie Cook's "Insider Secrets to 15 Seconds Marketing™"

In "Insider Secrets to 15 Seconds Marketing" Charlie Cook shows you how to stop begging for business and discover a simple way to double, triple or even quadruple your leads and your sales.

He reveals how, using proven methods and techniques, you can dramatically change the effectiveness of your entire bricks and mortar and online business.

For example, you’ll uncover all the following:

*  The shocking truth that 9 out of 10 business owners never find out about – and it’s costing them fortune. Learn about the ultimate business investment and why simply reading chapter 1 will change the way you think about (and do) business forever.

* How to easily “position” your business ahead of the competition so that friends, family, and associates of your customers want to do business with you.

* How to save $100,000+ a year on marketing costs using this simple little trick…and it only requires a few hours of your time…

* How to write better ad copy than Bill Gates and the Microsoft Corporation.

And this is just the tip of the iceberg…

*  Smash your competition hands down by doing this one simple thing.

* A fast, simple, and fun way to explode your profits, make your customers as happy as clams, and laugh all the way to the bank. Amazing techniques - all detailed for you.

* How to read your customers’ minds. Doing this one thing could put thousands of extra dollars in your pocket.

* Add this one thing to your sales letter to instantly get people to read every word.

Charlie Cook shares with you all the small tweaks and twists that will lead your visitors and prospects in the right direction – making your cash register ring.

Things like:

* How to create award-winning headlines that can make your ads sizzle

* How to turn people’s own emotions into your personal sales tool

* Learning power words that sell. Charlie reveals his favorites - amazing words that make people buy again and again.

What makes Charlie's course so useful is that...

1. The information he shares really works.
2. It's based on real-life business experiences.
3. Charlie has made the information readily accessible and understandable.
4. He shows you how to apply his methods and techniques to your real-life situation.

This is the kind of information that can turn your business completely around… from being a failure to being a huge success.

When you study the "Insider Secrets to 15 Seconds Marketing" you'll discover completely new ways to think about marketing - both online and offline. Instead of limitations you'll now see a wealth of possibilities and opportunities.

As Charlie says: “I cut through the B.S. No filler, fluff, or boring stories. You get 100% practical ready-to-use tactics and strategies that work – no matter what kind of business you’re in.

“As long as you’re dealing with humans, this book will make you money. That’s because I’m going to teach you the psychology and application of marketing like no one has ever taught you before!”

Charlie Cook covers so much excellent information in this impressive course that it's impossible for me cover all of it here.

But let me just say that I'm very impressed both by the quantity and the quality of what you get here. You'll really see a difference in your online and offline sales if you apply this information to your business.

The "Insider Secrets to 15 Seconds Marketing" is NOT for the faint of heart. You have to be willing to hear the plain truth and apply it to your business. Charlie Cook is hard-hitting, he says thinks like they are and doesn't pull any punches.

Some people might even find him a bit too aggressive. But I think that for people who are serious, this is just the kind of information that they need in order to succeed.

Make Your eBay Listings Get the Attention they Deserve

By Sean Eyring, eBay Consultant, and eBay Education Specialist

We've all been there. You visit a Web site looking for information. You're bowled over with bright "circus" colors, animations going everywhere, and text that's hard to read.

The site almost begs you to click your browser's "back" button. Many eBay listings look the same way.

eBay's "Create Your Listing" page makes it easy to use backgrounds, change text colors, add graphics, and so on. But the question is, does the look of the listing increase your chance to sell your product? Read on to learn when using eBay designs makes sense... and "cents."

"Branding" Yourself Online

Is there a time when consistency of appearance counts? Here's a quick mental exercise. Think of the Coca-Cola logo. What colors are used? If you thought red and white, their multi-million dollar branding campaigns did their job.

Why not blue and white? It doesn't matter, really. What matters is that they use red and white over and over to "brand" themselves into your mind. Put a Coke, a Pepsi and a Dr. Pepper at the bottom of a cooler filled with ice water. Even without being able to read the labels, if I want a Dr. Pepper, I reach for the dark red can.

Sure, you don't have the advertising budget of Coke or Pepsi. But you have one advantage. If you sell products on eBay, especially in any kind of specialty "niche" market, it's likely that many of the same people will see several of your listings. Here's where branding comes in.

Create a consistent and unique look for your eBay listings. Use the same background image if you choose to use one. Use the same text color and font. Create a unique "theme" and use it for all your listings.

Consistency Pays

What's the value of consistency? On eBay, people may fear buying from those they don't know. That's why eBay has their feedback system. It gives you some confidence in the person you're buying from.

If a person recognizes the "look" of your eBay listings, you increase your chances to sell to them. If an eBay buyer purchases from you and has a good experience, the next time they recognize one of your listings, you further increase your odds of selling to them.

Designing Your Unique "Look"

So now that you know the value of a consistent design, how do you create your own look? I'm an online marketing consultant. When I work with a client, the first question I ask is "Who is your audience?"

If you're mostly selling electronics, you probably don't want to go with a border with flowers and dolls. On the other hand, if you specialize in selling teddy bears and plush toys, this may fit your audience perfectly.

Think of your audience. Are they predominantly male or female? Is your product high-tech or high-touch in nature? Take a moment to write down what you know about potential buyers of your products. Keep this in mind when designing the look to use with your listings. But there are a few absolute do's and don'ts.

Absolute Design No-No's

Make your listing easy to read. First of all, let's choose the text color and background. Use black on white or on another VERY light color. Never use light text on a dark background. Especially on older monitors, it can be too difficult to read.

Use a font size that's large enough to read easily. Stay away from small print that many readers will have to strain their eyes to read.

Use a "sans-serif" font like Arial or Verdanna. "Serif" fonts like Times New Roman are easy to read in print, which is why they're used in newspapers and novels. Studies have shown however, they are much harder to read on a monitor.

Composing Your Listing for Maximum Effect

Studies have shown that any Web page (such as your eBay listing) has between 3 and 10 seconds to grab the interest of your reader. If you haven't made at least one "benefit" statement they connect to, chances are they're gone with a quick click of their browser's "back" button. And they're gone for good.

So how do you catch the attention of your audience in seconds? Simple. Put your best benefits at the top, and make them easy to read. Bullet points are great for that. Give short, to-the-point descriptions of why the reader should by your product.

Benefits vs. Features

I've read dozens of books on marketing. I'll save you a lot of reading. Here's the thing I've learned that's more important than any other. It's the value of clearly stating your product's benefits.

Let me illustrate the difference between two ads for computers, one based on features, the next based on benefits:

Features-based

• 3.0 Gigahertz Processor
• 256 Megabyte Video Card
• 350 Gigabyte Hard Drive

Benefits-based

• Fast processor lets you get more done quicker
• Powerful graphics card lets you play all the latest games
• Roomy hard drive, so you can install all your programs and still have room for music and video

A feature describes an attribute of a product. A benefit tells why you should care. For example, stating a computer has 256 Megabytes of video RAM says nothing to the average computer user. It's a feature. But they may be purchasing the computer for someone who's really into the latest computer games. Many of these require a lot of video RAM.

Now we've turned the feature into a benefit by telling how that feature makes the product more valuable. Make sense? But one of the strangest things I see as a marketer is how even professionally produced advertisements costing thousands of dollars to create and sent out break this one simple rule.

Well there you have it. A quick Marketing 101 course as it applies to creating a winning "brand" for your auctions. We also described how to sell more often by focusing on benefits, rather than features.

Make the most of your auctions with research!

Try HammerTap FREE for 10 Days and remove the guesswork!

Determining what works and what doesn't when it comes to your listings requires research. Anything less puts you at risk of not making the sale or not making as much as you could be on each sale. A research tool like HammerTap helps you bypass the costly trial and error process by quickly giving you the key information you need for profitable online auctions.

Why not take HammerTap for a FREE test drive? We'll give you 10 days to put HammerTap to work for you. Use its power to determine:

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• Best Auction Type For Your Products
  
• Best Listing Duration
  
• Which Listing Features Improve Your Chance to Sell and Which Increase the Closing Price
  
• Optimal Start Price to Use
  
• Best Day of the Week to Start and End Your Auctions
  
• Seasonal Trends
  
• And much more!

As a bonus, you'll receive 10-lesson Power to Profit course to help you immediately see the effects research can have on your auctions. We'll also throw in selling tips from Industry Experts in our members-only Auctionography newsletter.

You owe it to yourself to take the guesswork and risk out of your auctions. Try HammerTap free for 10 days. If you are not absolutely sure you'll increase your eBay profits by the $19.95 subscription price, you're free to cancel. It costs you nothing to prove to yourself there's a more profitable way to eBay.

More later...

Do Your Prospects Know What You Do?

Great article...enjoy...

by Charlie Cook
©2007 In Mind Communications, LLC, all rights reserved.

How do you explain what you do to prompt a sale?

Last week I got calls from two people at Wall Street financial firms, who both had the same question. How to explain what they do in 15 seconds or less? Why were these professionals from prominent firms with large marketing departments looking for a better way to talk about what they do?

One, I'll call George, had been stockbroker, a profession everyone knew and thought they understood. You may remember stockbrokers got a bad name selling stocks on commission as the last market bubble burst. Now when people ask George what he does, he doesn't want to say he is a stockbroker, and in fact it no longer applies.

Recently some of the larger investment firms restructured brokers' jobs, changing both pay structures and responsibilities to provide more comprehensive financial services. George isn't a stockbroker anymore and is having a tough time describing all he now does to prospects in a sentence or two.

When you can't describe what you do in a 15 second marketing statement, it is difficult to spread the word about your services.Learn how to find the right words to explain exactly how youhelp prospects. With a brilliant small business marketing message you’ll attract more clients right away. Use the ’15 Second Marketing’ guide to create more business opportunities.

If you have trouble explaining what you do, take these steps to develop your marketing message.

1. Identify your target market - Who specifically are your clients? - Who are the people you'd like to become your clients?

2. Clarify your prospects' problems and concerns. - What are they worried about? - How are they wasting time and money? - What do they want?

3. Define the benefit you offer - What do they get from your products or services?

4. Put the above together into a single sentence. Whether you offer one type of service or ten, the objective is to use your succinct marketing message to get the conversation going. Then you can ask questions to clarify your prospect's specific needs and describe the solutions you provide.

Don’t get stuck like George without a way of explaining what you do. Get your small business marketing message working and see your business grow.

The author, Charlie Cook, helps small business owners and marketing professionals attract more clients, whether you are marketing in print, in person or online. Sign up for the Free Marketing eBook, '7 Steps to get more clients and grow your business', full of practical marketing strategies you can use to increase profits at www.MarketingForSuccess.com.

More later...

Explaining What You Do In 15 Seconds with Your Marketing Message

by Charlie Cook
©2007 In Mind Communications, LLC, all rights reserved.

You're in the elevator and your friend John introduces you to Barbara who is the CEO of one of the companies you'd like to do business with. Barbara asks, "What do you do?"

Here is your chance to make a connection with a prime member of your target market. You want to get her attention, make a positive impression and get her interested enough to continue the conversation. You've got about fifteen seconds to do this.

Do you have an elevator speech?

Whether you are in the elevator, or on the phone, the way you start the conversation will determine whether or not it will continue. You could tell anyone what you do if you had half an hour, but with fifteen seconds you're likely to simply label yourself, as most people do.

Labels don't tell us much. Imagine you told Barbara, in the elevator, that you are a coach or a consultant. Are you talking about working with high school kids, senior managers, or actors? Few job labels tell your audience who you work with. Most labels are not only vague but don't help to prompt the conversation to continue.

You could be more specific and tell your prospect you are a tax accountant or an automation specialist. That gives people some idea of what you do, but still doesn't explain why your prospect should care.

Instead of using a label, you could tell your prospect how you do your work, the processes you use. You might say, "We analyze light manufacturing companies to identify areas where the addition of a programmable logic controller could boost throughput." If she understands what you are talking about, you still haven't given her a reason to contact you.

Whether you are an executive coach, lawyer, accountant, or automation specialist, when you start talking about the processes you use eyes glaze over and minds shut down. While you may have developed processes that no one else uses, prospects don't care about the process, at least not initially.

One of the most common mistakes people make is assuming their message should be about themselves. If you are in business to provide services and products to clients and customers, your marketing message should be about their needs and wants. Here's the difference:

• "I'm a marketing coach." (It's about me, and who really cares?)
• "I help independent professionals attract more clients and make more money." (It's about what I do for others and should prompt the question, "How do you do that?")

Your prospects' primary concern isn't you. They want to know what you can do for them and how you can help them profit, financially, physically or emotionally. They want to know if you can solve a problem for them.

To get attention with a short sentence about the problems you solve, you might tell Barbara you "help reduce manufacturing operating costs and increase profits". Cost containment is a continual problem for any CEO and should pique her interest and prompt follow up.

Stop shutting the door to new business with your business marketing message. When people ask you what you do, avoid using a label or a discussion of process. Instead, quickly clarify who you help and what type of problems you solve. One sentence should do the job.

Talking about what you do in a new way takes a little getting used to. The first couple of times you stop yourself from saying, "I'm an executive coach or consultant" and replace it with a marketing message or elevator speech that describes how you actually help clients, it will feel awkward. Keep using and fine tuning your small business marketing message and soon it will not only give prospects a clear idea of what you do but you'll be comfortable using it.

Once you have a 15 second marketing message that works you can use it in the elevator, in the airport, on the phone, and at parties and watch your business grow.

You'll be more successful with a brilliant marketing message and elevator speech. You'll be able to quickly help people understand how you can help them so they'll buy from you.


The author, Charlie Cook, helps small business owners and marketing professionals attract more clients, whether you are marketing in print, in person or online. Sign up for the Free Marketing eBook, '7 Steps to get more clients and grow your business', full of practical marketing strategies you can use to increase profits at www.MarketingForSuccess.com.

Have a great week!

Take Advantage of Squidoo's High-Volume Traffic

Did you know Squidoo was the 14th fasted growing website in the world in 2007?

Squidoo’s traffic has been growing by leaps and bounds due to the sheer number of people creating fascinating lenses on a wide variety of topics and promoting them.

Some lensmasters are getting thousands of hits per month to a single lens.  This translates into a lot of traffic and a LOT of revenue for both Squidoo and its lensmasters. What does this mean for you? 

Well, Squidoo has a massive base of inner traffic.  This built-in traffic is traffic that can be instantly exploited if you know how to do it!  The problem is, most people don’t have the first clue about how to make use of the traffic that’s currently present on Squidoo. 

They believe the only traffic they can get comes from search engines or other promotion methods.

But the Discover Squidoo Profits course will show you that's not necessarily the case!

Discover Squidoo Profits teaches you everything you need to know about building a Squidoo lens that can pull traffic not only from search engines and other sites, but from the Squidoo site itself.

The only way to truly capitalize on the traffic Squidoo itself has is to build lenses properly.  If you don’t know how to build lenses effectively, you’re probably not going to get very much traffic from Squidoo.

There are some special things you can do to increase the amount of traffic you get from the Squidoo site itself, and they’re surprisingly simple to do, but most lensmasters aren’t really aware of how to do them, or why you should.

That’s where Discover Squidoo Profits comes in.  It teaches you the RIGHT way to build lenses.  You’ll learn what it takes to have a successful lens, how to get more traffic, which modules are most effective at making sales, and how to get more search engine traffic.

The best part is you’ll learn how to build lenses that are optimized right from the start to make the most use of the internal traffic Squidoo already has available. You may be thinking most of this traffic is from lensmasters building lenses, but you’d be wrong! 

Squidoo does get a substantial number of hits from lensmasters, of course, but most of the hits actually come from search engines or other sites where people are coming to read something about a particular topic.

If you know what you’re doing, you can build a lens that will attract traffic right off of similar lenses and make them buy from YOU instead! Discover Squidoo Profits teaches you how to build the lenses that can make the most of this traffic.

I encourage you to get started today with this great course.

Attracting Targeted Traffic to Your Squidoo Lenses

A major concern for Squidoo lensmasters is traffic.  If your lens doesn’t get any traffic, it might as well not even be there.  Traffic quantity (and quality) is the biggest single factor in whether or not you make any significant money from your lenses.

Getting traffic to a Squidoo lens isn’t as simple as putting together a lens with a few tags and then leaving it alone.  There’s a lot more to getting traffic than creating a lens and forgetting it.

Discover Squidoo Profits gives you all the juicy details about exactly how to get your lens to go from zero traffic to more than you could have imagined. 

Not only that, but much of the traffic will be well targeted, and targeted traffic is the biggest key to making good money with Squidoo. If you’re interested in making money with Squidoo, then you have to learn how to get traffic to your lenses. 

Lensmasters that don’t work on traffic generation usually find that most of their lenses only get 20 visitors per month (or even less). Lensmasters who DO work at traffic generation can see several hundred visitors per day. 

Lenses have the potential to receive thousands of visitors per month if traffic generation isn’t left up to the whim of search engines. You would never open up a store and then expect people to flood in and start buying things, would you? 

A new store or restaurant has to do some initial advertising in order to let people know they’re there.  They have to get people in the doors so they can sample their wares and tell others about them.

In fact, most brick-and-mortar businesses continue advertising for a long time, usually forever.  They buy expensive ads in the yellow pages, newspaper ads, radio spots, and even television commercials.  They may sponsor community events in order to gain more exposure.  They might even send out sale papers on a regular basis to keep their customers reminded about them.

A Squidoo lens should also be advertised.  You shouldn’t just open your store (lens) and leave it alone.  How will people even know you’ve opened unless they happen to stumble on it by accident?  You need to get the word out initially, just like any new business.

You should keep advertising using new methods and new venues whenever possible.  The more often you work on generating traffic, the faster and higher your stats will climb.

If you’re serious about making money with Squidoo, it’s definitely worth it to pick up Discover Squidoo Profits as it details everything you need to do to get your lens receiving traffic quickly and continually.  

More later...

GB

Start Making Serious Money on Squidoo!

One thing I hear all the time from people I consult with on the Internet is, “Can you REALLY make money on Squidoo?

The answer is simple.  Of course! I've been using Squidoo as an income stream regularly since March 2007.

If you're new to Squidoo or you've been creating lenses for a while without satisfactory results, then let me introduce you to a guide that can really get you going.

Discover Squidoo Profits reveals how ordinary people from all over the world are harnessing the power of Squidoo to make unbelievable amounts of money. 

It teaches you everything you need to know to earn good money with Squidoo. There are housewives who are earning a little extra spending money to help out with the household bills in order to ease the burden on their husbands.

There are college students who are using Squidoo to earn a little extra cash for pizza, movies, and clothes. There are Baby Boomers - retirees who are using Squidoo to supplement their Social Security and pension checks so they can have more money for vacations and gifts for their grandchildren.

But there are also many people who are earning a lot more cash than you might expect solely from their efforts on Squidoo.  Some people are actually earning a full time income by using Squidoo and the world of web 2.0.

You may have heard that people are making a couple of hundred dollars per month from Squidoo, but that’s not the whole picture.  Yes, there are people who are receiving PayPal payments for $200 or more from Squidoo each month, but many of those people have other income streams that are far more lucrative than the little bit of pocket money they earn from the Squidoo co-op money.

The co-op modules are nice for adding a little extra money to your other income streams, but they’re not enough to help you make a real income.  Those modules generally pay less than 5-10% commission for each item, and then you have to split that with Squidoo.

If you know what you’re doing, you’ll have other income streams that you use on Squidoo that can really make you a substantial amount of money.  The problem is, most people don’t know which types of moneymakers work well on social networks.

You can play around with different options to see what works and what doesn’t, but that takes time.  Discover Squidoo Profits can teach you exactly what you need to know in order to make REAL money on Squidoo. 

Discover Squidoo Profits lays it all out for you, teaching you step-by-step how to make money with Squidoo.  You don’t have to spend months testing and learning before you can start earning. 

Test it out here by clicking on the banner ad below...

Best regards,

Gregg Birkner

Cellerciser Customer Service Critique

By Gregg Birkner

It's a part of everyday eBay life for a seller to be given a feedback comment by his transaction partner and receive grades on four areas of customer service deemed important by eBay called "Detailed Seller Ratings (DSRs)".

Personally, I'm not sold yet on these DSRs. I still think there is a lot of rethinking that needs to be done here. For example, how can a seller receive a score less than a five (5) when he provides free shipping and handling charges? Yet sellers continue to regularly get 3's and 4's as scores when offering free shipping.

That's just one example that needs further review. But that's not what I want to linger on today in Tips 4 Selling Online.

In my opinion, a better way to judge customer service performance on eBay is when a transaction partner takes the time to write an email or talk about his experience in a blog entry describing what he liked or didn't like about how the seller handled things.

This happened to me. In case you're not aware, I sell the Cellerciser rebounder on eBay under the User ID's cellerciserstore and dealmania! I have been selling rebounders / mini-trampolines off and on for the past 25+ years. The Cellerciser is a remarkable piece of exercise equipment designed by David Hall who is regarded by many in this industry as "Mr. Rebounder". It has been gratifying for me to sell on a product on eBay that has made such a positive difference in lives of dozens of people.

But every once in a while, a problem occurs during a transaction.

Last August I sold a Cellerciser rebounder on eBay to a gentleman who felt he hadn't received the merchandise I described in my llisting. He thought I had shipped him an older version of the Cellerciser without the triple-tiered springs that makes this rebounder the best of its kind in the world.

I called the Cellerciser home office and explained to the Office Manager what had happened. David Hall (aka Mr. Rebounder), the creator of the Cellerciser, overheard our conversation and said he would give this customer a call. The next day, that customer left me a positive feedback on eBay and mentioned that all of his concerns had been resolved.

That was August 2007. Fast forward to April 26th, 2008. I was surfing on Google after doing a keyword search on cellerciser and found a blog entry dated August 13, 2007 pertaining to the very incident I described above written by my customer. Here's what he had to say in his blog post entitled "Brush With Greatness":

"...I ordered a rebounder called the Cellerciser the week before last and it came the other day. It is designed by a guy named David Hall who has been on Oprah and other TV shows to talk about rebounding and his product. He is known as "Mr. Rebounder" in the media. I did some research and found that indeed this particular brand is the best on the market. I debated heavily with myself about it because it wasn't cheap... in fact it is also the most expensive one on the market (fyi, the Bellicon is the most expensive rebounder), however as beneficial as rebounding can be, it can also be damaging if you don't get a quality product... ie: nerve damage.

 

I found the most reasonably priced source for this rebounder was on ebay. So I took a deep breath and hit the order button. I anxiously awaited it's delivery and worried during our long weekend trip that it might sit outside while we were away or get ripped off, so we asked a neighbor down the street to keep an eye out for it while we were gone. Alas, I worried for nothing because it didn't show up until days after our return.

 

Once I put it together I had a concern about the unit not being the described item on ebay. See... one of the main reasons this unit is the best on the market is because of the quality and design of the spring system. To me it didn't look like the newest version but the older barrel style springs which are good but not the best promised. I sent a note to the ebay dealer who has a 100% positive feedback rating and described my concern and asked for a quick remedy to preserve that 100% rating.

 

''Send me an old model will you! You obviously don't know who you're dealing with here... I have a blog you know!' I thought as I composed my politely worded note.

 

The next morning at work my phone rang. I was expecting it to be Spicy because she's pretty much the only one calling me in the morning... only one anytime really. I gave my usual "Hello, Etan speaking" business greeting, expecting to hear Spicy but playing it safe just in case it was actually a business call. I heard a male voice 'Hello Etan this is David Hall how are you?' It sounded very much like an old friend of mine who's name also is David and last name very much like Hall. So I assumed it was him and immediately switch to "Old-Friend-Who-Hardly-Ever-Calls" greeting mode... Then it dawned on me who it was that I was speaking to. See... I had thoroughly checked out the Cellerciser web site and knew this guys story very well.

 

I guess my "Old-Friend-Who-Hardly-Ever-Calls" greeting mode was a surprise to Mr. Rebounder because he kind of had to switch modes himself, we just started chatting like old buddies. He reassured me that the rebounder I received was the newest version and explained how you could tell. I was completely satisfied with the explanation and had the opportunity to ask some other questions as well. He gave me some tips and exercises... It was very cool. It felt kind of like it must have been when Oprah called him. 

 

This just goes to show... you never know when a quasi-celebrity is going to call you at work..."

If you want to see the actual blog entry, please go here:

http://thedailyfloss.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!B6DA413473E8AE2F!918.entry

I learned a lot from how David Hall handled this situation. He picked up the phone and listened to his customer! He took some time to build rapport with that individual, addressed his concens to his satisfaction, and then overdelivered by providing additional tips and information.

More later...