This is pure gold for any copywriter:

Any time Jay has something to teach me… that directly affects my business… I pay attention! I hope you do too.

Whenever I sign up for webinars, I like to add it to my calendar so I don’t miss it.

I use Google calendar, and it takes several steps to get the info in one the correct date and time. Once I even added a webinar on the wrong day! Smart…

I’ve often wondered if there was an easier way.

In the webinar info, there is often a link to add to add the event to an Outlook calendar.

With so many people using Google calendar, you would think they would have a way to add it to Google too. But…there’s a workaround!

Here’s how to add the event in your Google calendar “automatically” and make sure you have the details right. I’m looking at a GoToWebinar email right now; other services may be similar.

1. Click on the link in the email that says “Add to your Outlook calendar”.

2. Select “Save File” and save it to your desktop. In this case, the file is webinar.ics.

3. Go to your Google calendar and find the “Add” link. On my calendar, it is on the bottom right of the “Other Calendar” section on the left side of the screen.

4. Select “Import Calendar”.

5. Select the appropriate file (the one you just downloaded) and click the Import button.

6. You’re done! The event will now appear on your calendar.

The whole process takes less than a minute, and you have all the info accurately placed on your calendar. Simple.

Of course, this procedure works for any Outlook invite.

A domain name is essential to marketing online. But how to you select a good name?

First, in almost all cases, you will want to choose the .com name. There are three reasons for this. A) some browsers will automatically put in the .com if the person types a domain without the extension. B) many people put in the .com unconsciously, so if you choose a different extension, you will be sending traffic to someone else’s site. C) Some experts argue that the .com has a slight search engine benefit.

There are some exceptions, the main one being if you are doing business in another country and you primarily sell to people in that country, then you will likely want to choose that country’s extension. For example, in the United Kingdom, the extension is .co.uk. In Australia, it’s com.au, and so forth.

Now why are people sometimes tempted to use something other than the .com? Well the reason is that many of the good .com names are taken, and so people look at the .net, .org, or other extension. While that might be acceptable for an informational type site or if you’re not a commercial enterprise, for your company’s main web site you should go with the .com.

The second factor in choosing a domain name is you want it to be easy to spell. In other words, you will want to avoid words which have multiple ways of spelling, or are easily confused with other words. Examples of these words would include the word, “to”. Is the word “t-o”, “t-o-o”, or “t-w-o”? If someone types in your domain name but gets even one character wrong, the traffic will not go to your site and may even end up at another person’s site. So you can see that selecting a name with easy to spell words is a must.

The third factor in choosing a domain name is you want it to be easy to say over the phone. If you’re talking with someone on the phone, or you have a radio ad, or a recorded interview and you mention your domain name, the person will have to write it down or remember it later if they are going to visit your site. Therefore, easy to spell words are important, as I just mentioned, but also consider things like having words that end in the same letter that the next word begins with, like SamsSports.com. This can be confusing for the end user, is there one “s” after “Sam” or two? Also avoid the use of dashes for the same reason. It’s difficult to convey to someone unless in print.

The fourth factor, and this is a little harder to get a handle on, is the domain should be memorable. If you can include some alliteration, anything to make is stand out, it will be to your advantage. A great example is Ralph Wilson’s site WilsonWeb.com.

And that is also why domain names that are too long can be a mistake; they are simply too hard to remember…. particularly those with several words.

There you have it: four rules for selecting a good domain name.

I should add that there are some exceptions to these rules… basically applicable if you get all of your traffic from search engine traffic or pay-per-click.

On the other hand, if you are trying to brand your website at all, the four rules listed above will help you narrow down the possibilities when selecting a domain name.

After all, you want your domain to give you credibility and make it as easy as possible for people to find your website and not reach your competitor’s website by mistake.

Impactful quote from the book: Napoleon Hill’s Positive Action Plan.

Here is the reading for today, April 10:

THE SUCCESSFUL MAN KEEPS HIS MIND FIXED ON WHAT HE WANTS IN LIFE — NOT ON WHAT HE DOES NOT WANT.

It is virtually impossible not to become what you think about most. If you concentrate on something long enough, it becomes part of your psyche. Use this knowledge to your advantage. If you think about problems, you will find problems. If you think about solutions, you will find solutions. It’s normal to have doubts, fears, and insecurities. The successful person understands this and learns to overcome them by focusing on the desirable objective, not on undesirable distractions.

Great video by Mark Joyner:

As he says, many times we stumble when giving our “elevator speech”… a short summary of the work we do.

Bly – a master copywriter – suggests breaking it up into three parts:

1. Start with a question, one relevant to the person you are speaking with. Always start with “Do you know how…”
2. “What we do is…”
3. “So that they…”

If you do this, if the person is a good prospect, they will start asking questions and may become a new client.

Let’s analyze this in more detail.

The first part: I believe what is happening is simply “framing”: it’s shifting the focus onto your prospect and their hopes, dreams, and problems.

The second part: reminds them of a specific pain they have.

The third part: shows how you can fix that pain.

I’ve been wondering…

What kind of word is “indescribable”?

How can you “describe” or explain some by saying you can’t describe it?

A colleague sent me a link to this Craigslist ad:

Job: Needing Russian speaking candidate for Insurance Agency on the Northside of Spokane. Seeking full-time qualified individual for data processing and customer service. The agency represents a Fortune 500 Mutual Insurance company. The candidate must have experience with working knowledge of Microsoft Office Applications and have excellent grammar, diction and communication skills in both English and Russian. Minimum of H.S. Diploma required (B.A. preferred) / Candidate will also need to obtain Property and Casualty Licenses. Competitive salary + benefits. Please contact [email address] or call [phone number].

* Location: North Spokane
* Compensation: $9 – $11 per hour + Health Benefits (Commission possilble for highly qualified applicant)
* OK for recruiters to contact this job poster.
* Phone calls about this job are ok.
* Please do not contact job poster about other services, products or commercial interests.

Let’s see… they want a bilingual, college graduate with excellent communication skills, who will be soon obtaining insurance licenses, and they will pay no more than $11/hour? This is the environment in which many of us live, folks. If your skills are not appreciated in the work force, consider setting yourself up in your business, where you can make sure you are positioned properly.

On my recently trip to Chicago, I took along Robert Heinlein’s fiction book Revolt in 2100.

In between actually working, it’s nice to take a break and read some good writing not related to work.

Anyway, the book contained this little gem in the introduction by Henry Kuttner.

Robert A. Heinlein is probably the best story-teller in the science fiction field today. If I were backed into a corner and forced to tell why in one sentence, I’d say “Heinlein’s got a sense of proportion.” Well, how does one get a sense of proportion? By experience, I think. And there is only one kind of experience that counts as necessary to a competent writer: experience of mankind.

Literary and scientific techniques are very useful to a writer, but I don’t think the study of them is necessary. They are intellectual concepts. Man is also an emotional animal, and a good story must be about man –not man after a lobotomy, but about the irrational part of him as well as the rational. Sentimentality is no substitute; it degrades man instead of treating him with the respect that, God knows, he deserves. Unfortunately, too many science fiction writers might have been written by robots or spirits.

Now Heinlein does something that is vitally necessary to good writing: he perceives people. He knows how they feel. He has felt that way himself. He has even bridged the difficult gap of realizing that people feel much the same way everywhere, allowing for constitutional differences.

He has accepted membership in the human race.

I don’t think you can be a good writer unless you do that. I’m biased, I know; I like good writing, and I have a great deal of respect for it. Good writing is well proportioned. Basically, it treats of man in his environment, and both of these elements must have verisimilitude. That’s where Heinlein’s sense of proportion comes in. He’s eclectic. He follows the principles but not the rules. His stories have verisimilitude because they are about people, and he uses other materials only insofar as they affect those people. And here is the precise point where his sense of proportion appears. The story-elements he uses, technological, sociological, psychological, are chosen according to their natural relation to the center of interest: man. These elements are symbolic of man’s values. But it is man, realistically handled, who is the nucleus of each Heinlein story.