Oh yes, we’ve all seen one, the long, drawn-out message from the company president or board chairperson. If you’ve read such a column, how did you feel afterward?  If you must have a column or message from the company president in your newsletter, I urge you not to name it “The President’s Corner” or “Message from the President” or “The corner office” or some other cutesy name. When people see these columns, they instantly move on or fall fast asleep in anticipation. Instead, I suggest pulling the “golden nugget” of information from the article and naming the column based upon the golden nugget. For example, if your president predicts that company sales are projected to increase 20 percent, I would make the headline of that column the following: Company Sales Predicted to Increase 20 Percent, and then use the following subhead: Here’s How We Are Going to Do It  Now, that might get the column read!

In a previous posting, “What are you feeding your mind?” I told you about some of my favorite books. In this posting I want to tell you about something very powerful that I first read about in Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich, and is now being talked about more due to the popularity of movie and book, The Secret.  Imagination is the ability to form a mental image of something that is not perceived through the senses. Imagination makes it possible to experience a whole world inside your mind. The key to turning imagination into reality is acting as if the imagined scene were real and already being accomplished, not something that you dream about. Instead of pretending that it’s a scene from the future, imagine it as though you are truly experiencing it in the present – it is a real event and it is taking place in the here and now. As an exercise, take anything about your life that you would like to change or enhance. Then sit back, relax, close your eyes, and fantasize what you would really like to occur in your life. Don’t put any limitations on it, and don’t shroud your thoughts with any doubt.   Faith and desire are important parts of this process. Remember, there is no one who is going to judge this fantasy and no one who is going to prevent it from happening. Only you have the power to deter its realization. If it is a vibrant and thriving business you desire, picture in your mind, in great detail, what that business would look like and what your life would be like if you had it.  You will be amazed at the level of detail and the new ideas that will flow into your mind, through your imagination, about things that you never even thought of. I can tell you that several ideas that I have implemented in my companies first came to me in my imagination. Give it a try!

Last night I attended a meeting of marketing professionals, and the guest speaker was Matthew Lesko. Just in case you’re not familiar with Matthew, he is the author of many books, two of them New York Times best-sellers, most dealing with how to get free money from the government. Still no idea? Okay, he is the wild and wacky guy who wears the crazy-colored suit with the question marks all over it. (See picture for further recognition clues!) 

The big message I got out of Matthew’s talk was that it is extremely important to differentiate ourselves. As business owners, we need to find ways to stand out despite the huge number of marketing messages that everyone is bombarded with on a daily basis, and also to differentiate ourselves from direct competition. While I was listening to Matthew speak, I wondered whether I would have the guts to wear what he wears and act the way he acts in order to become rich. It took me exactly 1.2 seconds to answer my own question with a big fat “No!”  

If you’re like me and are hesitant to make a clown of yourself, the good news is that you don’t need to. If you’re a business owner trying to differentiate yourself from the competition and stand out with your customers, the easiest thing to do, and I argue the best thing to do, is to send out a monthly customer newsletter! Big surprise, right? Hear me out. 

How many large companies do you know that mail their customers a monthly newsletter? How many smaller, privately owned companies do you know that mail their customers a monthly newsletter? Not many on both counts. So the big secret is, if you mail your customers a monthly newsletter, you will stand out in a huge way above all your competitors, large and small. From my observations, many businesses are simply too lazy or too cheap to do monthly newsletters, despite tons of evidence showing their value. Sorry, but it’s true. Now, I have a question for you — are your customers worth $10.68 per year to sustain and grow your relationship with them? If you say yes, then the Newsletter Guru has the ultimate cure for your pain. 

I spent over a year developing a very cool done-for-you, newsletter program. When you go to www.nohasslenewsletters.com, you can customize, personalize, print and mail (postage included) a two-page newsletter for only $0.89 each! Yes, you heard right. I have taken the time hassle and the price hassle completely out the process of creating and mailing a high-quality print newsletter. It is truely No Hassle!

Well, there you have it, a shameless plug for one of my companies. Hey, at least I’m not jumping up and down wearing a bright blue suit with question marks all over it! See you next time.

I received an e-mail from Rich, who is considering starting a newsletter for his business. Rich asked me if I would share some more evidence of why I say newsletters are such a great marketing tool. I appreciate the question and am happy to provide some evidence. 

1. One of my corporate clients has a large internal newsletter, a giant 12- to 16-pager. A few years ago I encouraged them to send their newsletter to prospective customers as well as to their current customers. This company has been on a growth streak, and they’ve enjoyed 100 percent customer retention for two years. While their success speaks more for them than the newsletter does, I believe that when current clients and prospective clients read about their growth and success, it reaffirms their original choice to go with them and stay with them. After all, people want to do business with successful companies. 

2. I have a client in the heating and air-conditioning business. This company wanted to branch out into whole house generators. I wrote an article and featured the new product on the back page (Golden Nugget: The first thing your readers see!), and they got thirteen calls. These units average about $5000 each — you do the math! 

3. I have a client who is a mortgage broker. He tells me that every time we mail his newsletter, he gets at least one new client by way of referral. 

4. I have another client, a commercial collection agency for whom we produced a high-quality newsletter called Collection Solutions and filled it with tips and pointers on how not to let your accounts fall into past-due status, and why companies hesitate to hire a collections agency. My client told me a few months ago that his newsletter has brought in eleven new clients in eighteen months. 

Let me close by telling you what reinforces my belief that newsletters are very important. Some years ago I refinanced my home, and my rep from the mortgage company gave us really great service. I mean over-the-top service! I was happy to refer the company a number of times over the next few weeks. However, a few months later, when another opportunity to refer them presented itself to me, I couldn’t remember their name! Hmmm, if they had only communicated with me (and their other customers) with a monthly newsletter!