The Three Month Vacation Podcast: Online Small Business|marketing Strategy Plan| Sean D'souza | Psychotactics

If you're a big company like Amazon, YouTube and Apple, should you bother to send out e-mail newsletters? Can't you just spend loads of money on publicity and advertising? Why do these billion-dollar companies still work with e-mail? The answer is remarkably simple. If you don't keep in touch, someone else takes your place. However, that's not the only reason why you should start and sustain an e-mail newsletter—even in a world where we get too much e-mail. Find out in this podcast just why you should send out an email and what you should avoid as well. Next Step: Listen or read: Dread Writing Your Newsletters? How To Overcome That Frustration In Four Easy Steps

How do most of our stories end? Usually it's a fairy tale ending. Or maybe it ends in chaos, sadness or even disaster. We believe that an ending is crucial for any story. And there is no doubt that endings are needed for stories, but they're almost always irrelevant when you're using a story for an article. The story is there to make a point, not end with "happily ever after". Learn why a fairy tale ending is something you want to avoid almost all the time.

It's not unusual to approach an edit with a machete. We see a mass of words and want to hack through them to make the story more interesting. The problem is, that we don't know what to throw away and what to keep. That's why "relevance" is more important to a story than just adding or removing words and sentences. Let's use the power of "relevance" to make a quick, precise edit. Next Step: Once you finish listening to this episode, don't miss: How To Craft Interesting Stories and Analogies (For Articles and Sales Letters)

We often believe that stories have a sequence. First this happens, then that happens and then something else shows up. And while that belief is generally true, the heart of the story is the "stuck point". You know it's powerful because the audience sits up upright. If you were stop, or even pause long enough, they'd be asking, "what happened next?" Do you get the "what happened next" with your stories? To get a consistent "what happened next" we need the power of the "stuck point". Let's find out more in this podcast.

When you hear someone tell you about their vacation, you try to be interested. All that exotic food, that astounding accomodation—it's all boring. Yet there's a reason why it's boring. We aren't really hearing stories, but instead we're just getting a sequence of events. The magic to making boring is when you hear the sound of Thumpity-Thump-Thump-Thump-Thump. Yes, like falling down stairs. That's what storytelling is all about.

When people ask what we do, we are often unsure what to reply. Sometimes we may have a script that we've practiced over and over again. Yet we don't often have success with scripts, because somehow we haven't gotten the attention of the prospect. How can we bypass the tedious answer and create a small 2-minute sales pitch that gets the prospect involved? Learn how to use the twin powers of contradiction and demonstration to instantly get and keep attention.   Next Step: Once you finish listening to this podcast, listen to: How To Turn An Average Elevator Pitch Into One That Gets Consistent Attention

Ever wonder what Writer's Block happens to be? It's a form of choking under pressure. When we're called upon to speak, to write, or to do something under pressure, we almost always seem to struggle. This choking happens even with professionals who normally breeze through their work. The big reason for this choking under pressure is partly because of the lack of the right preparation. Instead of training under Lucy Moments, we train under Charlie Brown moments. Let's find out how to avoid the choke and to avoid the sticky moments completely.   Next Step: Read or listen to—Writer’s Block Series: How A Lack of Energy, Not Time, Causes Writers to Stall and Crash  

The hardest part of writing is usually the first few lines. However, the ending can also be quite a vexing problem. Unless of course, you use a simple method called "sandwiching". When you use a "sandwich", it closes the loop, leading to a very satisfied sort of finish. How do you learn how to sandwich? Well, listen to this story taken from The Moth Podcast and you'll see how it can be done.

Why do you have a bloated story? It's often because there are way too many facts in the information you've put down on paper. Even if we know we have too many facts and figures, how do we separate the information so that we don't lose the power of the story? Let's find out in this episode. Once you finish listening to this episode head over to listen or read the series on—How To Keep Your Reader Locked Into Your Article.

When we sit down to write a sales page, we run into a problem almost instantly. We know that the client is usually looking to solve one problem, but which problem should we choose? How do we know if the client is simply going to ignore the headline and not look at the rest of the sales page? Should we stuff our headline with three separate problems or is that a really bad decision on our part? The answer is that the headline and the first problem isn't as crucial as most copywriters would have you believe. Follow these steps and you'll notice your sales page will come together in a less stressful, and more specific manner.

When we sit down to write an article, or create an information product, we often have a sinking feeling. We look around and find that it's "all been done before". That we have nothing new to add to the conversation. Why should we keep going despite these odds? More importantly, why is our hesitation driving clients to competition?

As I sat down to write a sales page for a course, I wasn't stuck. However, my progress was so slow that it was driving me crazy. A sales page consists of well over a dozen elements. However, to get started, it's important to get two core sections right. The first section to work on is: What you want to cover. The second section is: what are clients looking for? And as always, you need to start with me, me, me. Hence I started with the first section and here's my story.

When we write an article, we tend to get one point across. Yet, what if we were to disagree with our "one point" and do a complete u-turn? It doesn't seem logical to flip flop, does it? And yet that's what the client needs to create a more complex, more interesting version of an article. Let's find out why u-turns are crucial when writing articles.

Usually when we're stuck, we want to get out of the mess in a big hurry. As a result, we end up digging a bigger hole for ourselves. How do you—that's you and I—systematically get unstuck? There's no precise formula, but there are stages of getting unstuck. And we have to do it slowly. Let's find out how.