I am just back from spending five days in Chicago, where I attended a huge marketing conference for entrepreneurial companies. I got to hear several nationally known speakers, and to be honest, my head is swimming with new ideas, inspirations, and business-building strategies! One of the best things for me—and if you are a newsletter editor or designer, this is good news for you also—is that almost all the speakers and successful business people I heard agreed that a monthly customer newsletter is one of the smartest things any company can do to build and enhance relationships with its customers! So, I will get back to preaching and teaching about newsletters soon, but I wanted to share with you a realization I had while I was mingling with some very sharp people. I am reminded of a quote from Jim Rohn, a successful and self-made millionaire:

“You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” 

Read that quote out loud and ponder it for a moment. In my opinion, a more truthful statement could not be made. Think about your closest friends and colleagues. Your circle of influence. Are they helping you grow or are they holding you back? 

If you believe Jim Rohn, then you will want to surround yourself with people who are more (or at least) as successful as you are. By “building your success team” and surrounding yourself with like-minded, driven, and positive people, you will be propelled to higher levels of achievement and accomplishment. This simple strategy is a trait common to all business giants. 

On the flip side, if the friends in your inner circle are lazy and like to complain about their problems, it might be time for a change. You need to be around people who take risks, think big, and talk about great ideas instead of the latest celebrity gossip or how much they hate their jobs. The bigger your goals are, the bigger your success team has to be. Having a success team in your corner will enhance your performance, keep you accountable and focused, give you support, and help you obtain the resources you need to achieve maximum success.  

I want to tell you about two very successful entrepreneurs whom I met in Chicago: Alexandria (Ali) Brown and Rob Berkley. Ali is known as “the e-zine queen.” That’s right, the guru of print newsletters met the queen of e-mail newsletters! Ali shared her remarkable success story with an audience of a thousand. She has an awesome business, and through her Web site, www.ezinequeen.com, you can sign up to receive a number of special reports and hear an audio message about e-zines.  

Rob Berkley provides leadership and communications coaching for the owners and leaders of technology, information and idea-based businesses. Rob is a Master Certified Coach and has a great program called Vision Day, where, amidst the breathtaking ambience of Martha’s Vineyard, people can put their busy lives on hold for one day, take a deep breath and, with the help of two masterful executive coaches, plot their way to their respective visions. Check out Rob’s business at www.visionday.com.  

Check back soon; in my next posting, I am going to share with you five secrets of a great newsletter.

Mistake No. 1: Unoriginal name and poor masthead design Too many customers will use the company’s name for their newsletter. This usually reeks of “homemade.” The newsletter name and masthead design need to tell the reader what the overall theme of the newsletter is.   Mistake No. 2: Lack of a quality, targeted tagline. The tagline appears just below the masthead and, in a few words, fully explains the benefits of reading the newsletter or what readers can expect to get out of it. The two examples below are great examples (of course I would say that!) of effective mastheads and taglines. The masthead design and newsletter name give readers an idea what the newsletter is about, and the tagline that follows adds clarity. Mistake No. 3: Ineffective ratio of text to graphics Newsletters must be visually pleasing and easy to read, or they won’t get read. Newsletters must have a good balance of text and pictures. In addition, the pictures need to add value to the articles by helping to “sell” them. People tend to look at pictures, headlines, subheads, call-out boxes and bullets. If each of these tells them something interesting, they will then decide to read the article.