What­ever hap­pened to sales and marketing?

Sim­ple ques­tion, I know. But think about it. How many busi­nesses have you come across lately spout­ing the lat­est and great­est trick, tac­tic, or cashgrab?

You’ve heard of the say­ing, “Hate the game, not the player?” I’ve heard this many times too, and lately I seem to hear it a lot within our industry.

When my wife, Sylvie Fortin, wrote Inter­net Mar­ket­ing Sins, her premise was sim­i­lar. She said, “Hate the sin, love the sin­ner.” But her rea­son­ing was, she wanted to expose, focus on, and pro­vide alter­na­tive solu­tions to spe­cific prac­tices and behav­iors, with­out fin­ger­point­ing any­one.

How­ever, the more I think about it, the more I’m com­ing to the con­clu­sion that the player wor­ries me more than the game itself. And here’s why…

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Today, Sylvie and I stum­bled onto another bad Inter­net mar­ket­ing sin per­pe­trated by an online mar­keter. This per­son is not as well-​​known, but judg­ing from their style they’re def­i­nitely a stu­dent of some of the top “gurus.”

When we shared this with our plat­inum coach­ing group, a mem­ber sent this amaz­ing “10-​​point ethics check­list,” which he and his employ­ees use in his com­pany as guide­lines in defin­ing if a mar­ket­ing or busi­ness strat­egy is worth doing.

That list is noth­ing short of brilliant.

With his gra­cious per­mis­sion, Dar­rin Clement allowed me to reprint it here for you. I urge you to read it. Go through it when you’re think­ing about imple­ment­ing a new mar­ket­ing or sales tac­tic, or when you’re about to buy into one. It’s that pow­er­ful. Here’s the list…

1. The Golden Rule: Would I want peo­ple to do this to me?
2. The Fair­ness Test: Who might be affected and how? Is this fair to everyone?
3. The ‘What if every­body did this?’ Test: Would I want every­one to do this? Would I want to live in that kind of world?
4. The Truth Test: Does this action rep­re­sent the whole truth and noth­ing but the truth?
5. The Par­ents Test: How would my par­ents feel if they found out about this? What advice would they give me?
6. The Chil­dren Test: Would I be will­ing to explain every­thing about this to my kids and expect them to act in the same way?
7. The Reli­gion Test: Does this go against my religion?
8. The Con­science Test: Does this go against my con­science? Will I feel guilty?
9. The Con­se­quences Test: Are there pos­si­ble con­se­quences of this action that would be bad? Would I regret doing this?
10. The Front Page Test: How would I feel if my action were reported on the front page of my home­town paper?

The long antic­i­pated third and final install­ment of my wife’s shock­ing and highly con­tro­ver­sial exposé, Inter­net Mar­ket­ing Sins cov­er­ing five more sins, is finally out.

It took a bit longer this time, and Sylvie explains why in the report. She also clears up a lot of mis­con­cep­tions about why she wrote this report. And in fact, this time she did it a lit­tle differently.

This time, she did it on video!

There are sev­eral reasons.

For one, she wanted to save time. Her recent surgery forced her to post­pone writ­ing this sec­tion, and peo­ple were clam­or­ing for it.

Sec­ond, it would also give you a chance to hear her pas­sion, and some­times, her anger. Plus, she ends with a heart­felt plea you def­i­nitely don’t want to miss!

Like parts one and two, she uses strong lan­guage and doesn’t hold back! Your dis­cre­tion is advised.

She exposes the final five sins, i.e., Tele­sem­i­nar Idiots, Brain­less Free­bie Seek­ers, Coach­ing Addicts, Time-​​Sucking Vam­pires, and Slave Own­ers. The video is on the same down­load page of the first two parts. If you haven’t signed up, do it now…

Go now and watch part #3 of Inter​net​Mar​ket​ingSins​.com.

It’s New Year’s Eve, so I wanted to take a moment to wish you all a Happy New Year. Thanks for your con­tin­ued read­er­ship and sup­port in 2008. Your return vis­its, your com­ments, and your sub­scriber­ship are greatly appreciated.

New Year’s is a time when we make res­o­lu­tions. But res­o­lu­tions are often bro­ken. Instead, I pre­fer to set goals, with the sole res­o­lu­tion to meet them. What are my goals for 2009? It all boils down to three sim­ple words…

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Sci­en­tific Adver­tis­ing by Claude C. Hop­kins is a time­less clas­sic writ­ten many years ago but a book whose pow­er­ful prin­ci­ples still ring true to this day.

It con­tains 21 chap­ters of time­less strate­gies you don’t want to ignore in your adver­tis­ing and mar­ket­ing efforts.

In fact, David Ogilvy once said: “Nobody, at any level, should be allowed to have any­thing to do with adver­tis­ing until he has read this book seven times.”

I highly rec­om­mend that your read this book, which is brought to you free, before you spend any money on other copy­writ­ing books.

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The Sci­ence Of Get­ting Rich by Wal­lace D. Wat­tles is a time­less clas­sic writ­ten many years ago. Over a cen­tury ago, in fact.

But it’s a prac­ti­cal, step-​​by-​​step guide whose thought-​​provoking prin­ci­ples and strate­gies, though they were writ­ten in 1910, are still very much applic­a­ble to this day. And prob­a­bly more so.

I’m a firm believer in the idiom that you are what you think. And this book dri­ves that point home. So I highly rec­om­mend that your read this book, which is brought to you free on this website.

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Not a copy­writer or just start­ing out? Can’t afford a high-​​priced copy­writer? Need copy real fast to start sell­ing or to pro­mote affil­i­ate prod­ucts right away?

Here’s some­thing that might inter­est you…

Com­puter pro­gram­mer Robert Plank shares his quick and easy for­mula for writ­ing com­pelling sales let­ters fast.

Sure, noth­ing beats know­ing how to write great copy. But…

This pain­less for­mula will have your prod­ucts launched and your web­sites up and run­ning in less than an hour! (If you hate writ­ing copy or don’t have time, or you sim­ply need copy really fast, you’re going to love this.)

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