For my friends in the states, I hope you had a terrific July 4th holiday. Despite some questionable weather here is Philly; I managed to go kayaking everyday for the last 5 days! If you’ve never been kayaking, you should try it. It very relaxing (while being good exercise) and I get incredible clarity on the water. I was sharing with my buddy, Mike Capuzzi – creator of CopyDoodles, just this morning that I came up with a great new idea for a tele-seminar while paddling on Saturday. I will be making an announcement about this soon!

Here we are in the heat of the summer and it always amazes me when I hear some business owners or managers say something like, ‘I am holding off starting anything new until the fall’ or ‘no business in done in the summer!’  

I do not prescribe to that way of thinking and I’m pleased that we’re very busy here in “No Hassle” land! We are currently launching three new newsletter programs, writing two new books (due out end of summer), and I am also launching a hot new information product for affiliate marketers with my friend and Web master Adam Hommey.

Plus! My wife, Stephanie, and I are also squeezing in a well-deserved vacation in Cape May, NJ later this month and we’re also going to swing through New England in August. I grew up in New England – graduating High School in Duxbury, Mass and then went to New Hampshire College in Manchester, NH. It’s always fun looking up some old friends and seeing the ‘old homestead!’ 

As I mentioned, I am currently working on two books that you’re going to love, What Makes a Great (and Profitable!) Newsletter and Customer Relationship Marketing (not the final title). Last week I sent an e-mail to everyone asking for some examples of your customer newsletters and some of the things that you do in your newsletter that help you grow. I would like to share one example that I received from Julie Thorp in Australia. Julie and her family own a beauty salon and she wrote to me about the importance of personality in your newsletter and also how vital it is to mail it EVERY month. Here is a snippet of Julie’s note (I highlighted three key benefits of newsletter marketing and also made some additional comments in blue.

Our clients have told us that the newsletter has reminded them to come in for their treatments (increased repeat business!) which is a good thing and we have found that from the regular mailing of our newsletter not only have I found that we are staying consistently busier in the quieter months of the year, (newsletters are an investment that pays dividends!) but have found that clients seem to be more loyal to our business – as they generally think they know us! (Adding personality to you newsletter enhances your customer relationships). Also positioning my mother as the beauty guru has helped her seem “more expert” (establish yourself as an expert in your industry and more people will do more business with you!) so people will want to come to her for advice about skin and beauty treatments.

If you’d like to receive a FREE copy of my two new books when published (as Julie will), please click here to get the details on how to sending me your stuff! Thanks Julie – keep up the great job!!

If you’re a regular reader of my blog or ezine, you know that I attended (and exhibited at) the Glazer Kennedy Marketing and Money-Making SuperConference in Nashville last month. I thought the event was so amazing that I sent a thank you note to Bill and Dan and I also shared my biggest “Ah-ha” moment. To my surprise, Dan printed my note in his latest newsletter and also commented on my “Ah-ha.” Not to my surprise, Dan’s comments provide yet more useful and thought-provoking information so I am reprinting it here.

From Gold Luxury Member Jim Palmer of No Hassle Newsletters: “I want to thank you and Bill for putting on an amazing SuperConference… I want to share my biggest Ah-Ha! Moment, a lesson plus a lesson. It came from you. Dan, at 3:20 P.M. on Sunday. You stated that as business owners, we are typically not our target customers as we might not pay our prices. This observation is profound, and explains why so many of us struggle with raising our prices. I learned many things during the SuperConference, but this observation truly opened my eyes. As I mentioned, this came at the end of the last day, perhaps after many Members had already left. That second lesson is that people who leave your events early do so at their own peril!”

It’s been my personal experience again and again and again that one stray sentence heard during hours of speeches, seminars or recordings or overheard in a hallway … one page out of 300 in a book, one paragraph in a magazine … rises up out of the noise and clutter and quantity to prove immensely valuable to me. That’s why I process so much information daily, weekly, monthly and never grumble about getting too much. I’m not trying to memorize it all. I’m fishing. You don’t trigger The Phenomenon by assimilating all the ideas and information you must wade through, to ever so occasionally have a major “Ah-Ha!” - You trigger The Phenomenon by having the “Ah-ha!” and doing something about it.

People who come late, leave early, have ants in their pants in meetings, let last flight out dictate their schedule, won’t find time to move through a lot of input, etc, just do not grasp the danger and huge cost of missing a “3:20 P. M. to 3:22 P.M. on Sunday.” You do. Congratulations.

To your specific Ah-ha of 3:20 P.M.: unplugging ‘price’ from your own emotions about it IS extremely important. So many Phenomenon ‘in 12 months’ experiences have been triggered by breakthroughs in price, profit and power that I could have taught and shown different examples for four days rather than one! For everybody’s benefit, the only thing that should ever govern, define or limit price is a tested and proven marketplace reality. But most determine their prices and fees by every means but that.

It’s been a while since I wrote in my blog about something non-newsletter related. Well this is another one of those times when I want to share something of value. A couple of months ago, just before the launch of Success Advantage, I surveyed my subscribers and learned that the vast majority of them are also entrepreneurs, and that means we probably face similar challenges.

When something works, I feel like sharing it so it might benefit others as well.  

I want to revisit a decision I made about 18 months ago. I decided it was time to get some help running my growing businesses. This was not an easy decision for me, nor is it for most entrepreneurs I talk to. After all, nobody can do anything as well as we can, right?!  

Aside from being perfectionists, many entrepreneurs struggle with a fear of not having control. I used to spend time reading and learning how to do something so I could do it myself, maintain control, keep my expenses low, and stay lean and mean. The biggest problem with this thinking is that it takes so much longer to get things done. Even if it’s not harmful to your business, it certainly stunts your growth. 

Well, 18 months ago, on the recommendation of a friend, I finally made the decision to let go of some my responsibilities and hire a virtual assistant. I have to tell you, it was a decision that I wish I’d made long ago.

With a large part of my growth coming from online activities, I hired the services of the best online marketing guru I could find, Adam Hommey. Adam is nationally known as The Website Surgeon (www.thewebsitesurgeon.com). Adam is skilled in many areas, including telling me when I am wrong or off base in my thinking. Do not underestimate how valuable that is.  

Adam and his team now have full rein over my entire online presence. Adam and his team now handle everything from simple updates to creating new Web pages to building my new sites and shopping carts when I launch a new product.

The major benefit of having a virtual assistant like Adam is that I now have time to focus on the larger-picture items that are moving my businesses forward. Could I learn how to do what Adam does? Perhaps – but he would probably always be more efficient than I could ever be.

Why am I revisiting this topic now? Well, I did it again! I hired another virtual assistant two weeks ago, and believe me when I tell you it was easier the second time. This time I hired Chris Ruppert. Chris is a very talented graphic designer who is helping me get many of the various newsletter templates for No Hassle Newsletters done on time. Chris has been a tremendous help and the proof is that my ‘to-do’ list now fits on one page of my trusty legal pad!

For me, using virtual assistants is the way to go. I have none of the headaches (and expense) of full-time employees and there are literally hundreds (if not thousands) that are available to hire as needed.

Ask yourself these questions. What is holding you back? What are you spending a great deal of time on? What has been on your to-do list for far too long? I urge you to consider letting go, finding some help, and getting back to running and growing your business. If you have a similar story to tell, please share it with me.

I know - it’s been quite a while since I’ve posted to my blog. This has been a very busy two weeks and I have a lot to share with you. Last week No Hassle Newsletters exhibited at the Glazer-Kennedy Marketing and Money Making SuperConference in Nashville. I am honored that No Hassle Newsletters has been named as the preferred vendor for B2B done-for-you newsletters for Glazer-Kennedy Insider’s Circle.  The rest of the conference was also an amazing experience, being together with about 1200 other smart marketers and hearing many great speakers including, Nido Qubein, Gene Simmons of Kiss, and of course my marketing mentors Dan Kennedy and Bill Glazer.

On Thursday Doug Huggins, the President and Publisher of an exciting new magazine called BEST (Business Owners & Entrepreneurs Success Tactics) came by my booth to recognize me as one of the magazine’s contributing authors.