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 was reminded of a very important lesson this past weekend. Through an outreach mission with our church, my wife, Stephanie, and I hosted two women from China. Young and Wendy (their easy-to-spell American names) have been attending Penn State University since last fall. While they were with us for only a short time, it was an incredibly eye-opening experience. I commented to Stephanie that with our busy lives, it often feels like we live in a bubble, unaware of the vast differences in culture and other lifestyles in the world.  

A couple of observations as I write this, still sleepy from the time change. The Chinese highly value and respect education and hard work. Both of these women have a master’s degree, and one of them is a PhD studying molecular something or other! When we sat down to breakfast on Saturday, after we explained what a pancake was, they each had one and then announced that they were full and satisfied. When I looked down at my plate of four pancakes, fruit, and a muffin, I knew why many Americans have a weight problem! 

My daughters were home for spring break, and on Saturday night we spent time getting to learn more about our different cultures and ways of life. When we said goodbye to Young and Wendy after church on Sunday, we exchanged phone numbers and e-mail addresses and said that we would stay in touch. I hope we do.  

Driving home from church (my mind already engaged in what I needed to do on Monday!), I thought about how there are so many different people, customs, ways of doing things, outlooks on life, etc., that one size just doesn’t fit all. This is such a great lesson for business owners. You cannot simply come up with option A and option B and hope to please everyone. The businesses that do really well are those that are able to effectively cater to the individual needs of their customers. Figure that out, and no matter what you do you will do well.  

In the world of newsletters, this point was also driven home for me with one of my new joint venture partners, Eric Paul. Eric and I are combining forces to offer a done-for-you newsletter program for magicians, and I learned from him that magicians have essentially three different customer bases – schools, corporations, and families. So rather than try to create a newsletter that loosely fits all, we have created three monthly newsletters, one for each segment. I know that this extra effort will pay dividends. So remember, one size does not fit all.

As I write this column, the weather around here (greater Philadelphia area) is feeling like fall, after having temperatures near the 80s earlier this week. It never ceases to amaze me that with all of the technology and computer equipment available, the weather can still be so unpredictable—kind of like business!

I have a tip to share with you today that I predict will bring a ton of “thank you” notes coming my way! This easy to use program has saved me HOURS every week since I started using it. If you’re like me, you get far too many e-mails every day! About six months ago a colleague told me about this program that he said would save me several hours every week. Well, after not acting for a few months, I finally tried it out, and I am now this company’s biggest fan! Read the message from the Web site and then I’ll share something else with you.

IMAGINE YOUR E-MAIL INSTANTLY ORGANIZED!

A companion product to Microsoft Outlook 97/98/2000/2002, Nelson Email Organizer (NEO) is an innovative new interface for managing and searching email. With full send/receive capability, Nelson Email Organizer automatically organizes your email into easy-to-access views: by correspondent, date, mailing list, attachment, and more.

On-the-fly word indexing and a Web-style search makes finding messages a breeze—search thousands of messages in just a second or two. No more overflowing in-box, no more time wasted looking for messages.

Need more? I was on a conference call the other day, and the four of us all wanted to refer to an e-mail that was sent 10 days prior. I had the e-mail open in less than 15 seconds while everyone else was still searching! It was at that moment that I knew I had to share this with you all in this e-zine. To check out this amazing (and inexpensive) product, click here.

Hello and happy Friday! I must admit that these past 6 months have been very busy for me. While maintaining Dynamic Communication, my corporate newsletter business and also running No Hassle Newsletters, my online newsletter business, I also developed and launched a third business, No Hassle Marketing. I also launched this blog and just last week I launched my new ezine, Newsletter Power. Recently, I came across this article on one my favorite blogs, Melanie Benson Strick’s Success Connections. My guess is that many people reading this blog also occasionally feel a little over whelmed and I thought that I would share it with you. Enjoy!

How to Get More Done by Expecting Less!

By Therese Skelly, Guest Author | March 20th, 2007

You know that sense of overwhelm that comes when you have SO much on your plate? At times it feels like there are so many demands, that it’s paralyzing! It’s in these moments that using the “10%” strategy is really effective. Here’s an example. Most often when we plan our work, we think of the big projects that require our time and energy. If we are busy anyway, the thought of another piece of work goes over like a root canal! There is a tendency not to do anything, because we haven’t learned the skills of ‘chunking it down’ into bite size pieces.

One of the tricks that has worked really well with my clients is to say, “If you could just commit to doing 10% more on this project, what steps would you take?” Once our overwhelmed and overworked mind knows that we only need to put in 10% more effort, it relaxes, and resistance is released.

On last month’s “Get Out of Overwhelm” call for the Ultimate Wealth and Success Circle, this was a huge hit. Almost all the callers could relate to not knowing which steps to take to end their burden of overwhelm. They loved the 10% Solution!

Below are the two main things the 10% solution works for.

1. You are stuck and can’t imagine doing one more thing! Being in this state causes your brain to shut down as you lose sight of your vision and goals, and usually make decisions that doesn’t serve. Here’s what you can ask yourself…..”If I could just do 10% more towards this goal, what would that look like?” For example, that may be just making 3 phone calls, or spending 20 minutes de-cluttering your office. By giving your brain the limit of ONLY working 10%, it says yes and allows you to take the action.Wanna know the secret? For most of us, when we get into action, we are going to keep on moving! If I told you to run a marathon tomorrow and you weren’t in shape, you probably would look at me like I were a lunatic. That’s how it feels often times in business. We have huge goal