Arthur Cronos’ Book Teaches Using Internet for Business

[reprinted with permission]

“A Siskiyou County man recently published a book that tells local businesses how they can harness the internet to make more income.

“Arthur Cronos’s ‘Marketing Online Clear and Simple’ gives detailed instructions that are not only easy to follow, but interesting to read.

“The book also includes a free video series that demonstrates click by click how to do everything he explains.

“Cronos has worked in sales and advertising for more than 40 years. As the owner of CopyDragon Business Writing Services, Cronos now specializes in online marketing.

“His book outlines three steps which he says will help local businesses make money online.

[read more]

And one part of my formula is that, generally speaking, I don’t permit the client to hire me just to leap into doing what he has in mind. That is, I don’t want the client to stampede us into leaping into (unconsidered) action.

Your LIFE is the Important Thing

Because the very first step, with pretty much every client, is an interview to determine what is the LIFE that the client wants to have.

And only after getting a good picture of the LIFE he/she wants, do we then focus on the BUSINESS in the fullness of time which creates exactly that life.

And only when we have a clear picture of that BUSINESS in the fullness of time, do we map out the strategic OBJECTIVES needed to be obtained between now and then, and only then can we consider the current project …

How does it fit to move closer to the OBJECTIVES, to create the BUSINESS, that yields up the LIFE that the client wants to have?

In this way, we avoid creating a business that interferes with the life the client wishes to have, and we can have clarity about what to do first.

You Can Only Do ONE Thing FIRST

Using this approach, as we move forward with business-systems creation, and creating the materials that advance the business, the client is in touch with his/her dream and inspiration.

And that’s where the juice comes from.

Always and only.

These are illusions.

Your “Helpful” Friend, the Unconscious Mind

These illusions, these thoughts, are caused by the unconscious mind’s automatic learning. It learns something, usually in childhood, and quite often these “solutions” are brilliant, given the resources you have at the time. Unfortunately, like how to tie your shoes, these solutions are re-generated automatically below consciousness ever after, and sometimes they fit, but oft-times these solutions suck!

These beliefs, emotions, thoughts, and automatic reactions are a part of you, operating below consciousness, but they are illusions. (In which we are sometimes as trapped, and blind, as fish are to the water.)

(If you want to learn more about how the unconscious mind both helps and sometimes harms you, in its effort to promote your survival, pick up my free book at http://beinghappytoday.com. You can one-click unsub the newsletter if you wish.)

How to Make Writing Flow Easily

Let’s talk about how to make writing, and self-expression … easy.

I learned this from a woman named Brandt, in a book she wrote about creative writing, 40 years ago. It’s still true. Here’s what you do …

In the morning, when you arise, go immediately to a typewriter or a computer where you can type things, and start typing.

Type any garbage that comes into your head.

Describe your dream if you wish. Type out the ideas flitting through your head. If you are thinking “I cannot express myself,” then type that.

Keep typing.

It will be a lot of hooey … but you’ll notice some good ideas in there. Keep typing for 20-30 minutes, every morning.

Do this for a couple of weeks, and your beliefs and considerations that you have nothing to say or that you cannot express yourself … will have vanished.

Why Does it Work?

It works for the same reason that you can dream. In your dream you automatically create scenes, words, ideas, pictures, and on and on and on. This is an inherent skill of a human being.

And when you first awake, your “censors” are not fully functional. That’s why you must go *IMMEDIATELY* to the keyboard. And start.

By starting while still sleepy, and while your usual blocking claptrap isn’t fully booted up, you can of course effortlessly spew your trains of thought. They are huge freight trains, and they’re running at high speed, all the time.

Perhaps you’ve got out of the habit of allowing your trains to run down the track toward the horizon. Your unconscious mind is programmable; that’s how it got programmed to block you, and it can be programmed differently, with this exercise.

This simple practice throws the switches on this particular railroad, and your freight trains start building speed, moving on down the line.

Hear the clacking of the rails?

Hear the whistle soaring into the air?

It’s easy. Prove it for yourself.

You’re the engineer.

Whoooo-wooooo!

Is is merely one-upsmanship in the age of the Social Web?

Or is it a troubled cry for help?

You be the judge …

… music of mental pondering goes here …

I’M A TWIT. ACTUALLY, TWO TWITS

I have succumbed to Twitter. I am now a twit.

Worse. I am two twits.

I’m a Twit once at http://twitter.com/CopyDragon
(which is associated with this new website http://CopyDragon.com)

I’m a Twit Again at http://twitter.com/TraktorTopaz
(which is associated with my old website http://TraktorTopaz.com)

GETTING FANCY TO BOOT

I have customized the Twitter Profiles of both of them, as you will see, when you have a moment free to satisfy your curiosity and to take a look. The custom background is pretty easy. Several sites offer templates, meaning a kind of worked up graphic to which you tweak. It’s easy. Edit in your fave graphics program, upload, and Bob’s your Uncle, there it be.

On this website, and on the TraktorTopaz.com website for the Dread Pirate Topaz Twitter persona, I’ve added a ‘follow me’ twit-button into the navbar, and allocated a page with a widget to display recent twits, in the hope that you might find them useful or entertaining.

My big plan for these personas is to develop some twitter community for my music instrument and forum folks (Dread Pirate Topaz), and some twitter community for my Internet Marketing interests which includes hypnosis, our article spinner, my dating method, and other online projects (CopyDragon).

DRESS FOR SUCCESS

Short story inserted here: Many years ago I found out that I knew from nothing about how to dress and wear clothes. And I set out to learn. I was in major meeting-women mode, and highly motivated. I even had “my colors” done. (Yes, men. I’m not ashamed to admit it.) And I thought long and hard about the question of … “How do the clothes you wear affect the way people perceive you?”

Once I’d found the question, then many useful answers just tumbled out as obvious. But isn’t it often the case that, when you find the right question, most of the battle is won?

And *one* of my realizations is that, given human nature, everyone who meets you is going to quickly assign you to a stereotype. That’s what we do when we meet someone.

So it follows that, since they’re going to do that, the best way to grasp control of this process is to present them with a stereotype of your own choosing.

So what did *I* do?

Well, in my own case, I chose ‘carefree professor’ and wore corduroy jackets with elbow patches, grannie glasses, curly hair, no tie or a woven one or something offbeat, mostly in slightly restrained primary colors.

But I digress.

The point is this –

HUMANS CAN’T HELP THINKING IN STEREOTYPES

In any universe, people who meet you are going to pigeonhole you, and they’ll use some stereotype. On this list, for example, in one internet marketing forum where I learn a lot, a guy there named Gene might be the domain-flipping guy. Another member, Steve, might be the unusual-adwords guy. And the fellow who runs it, Dennis, is the five dollar guy, because of the name of a book he wrote.

This doesn’t mean that these stereotypes and pigeonhole categories are *all* that these fellows are. It’s just an example of stereotypes that might be applied to them by new folks on this form, who have nothing to go on except what they see presented in discussions on the forum.

WHO AM I, REALLY?

Up till now, though I have a highly-developed persona in the musical instrument world called ‘Traktor’ (and now given a twist as ‘Dread Pirate Topaz’), I’ve given no thought to how people may stereotype me in the Internet Marketing world.

So far, I’ve been working in the background, continuing to enhance and refine my skills, and yet …

In recent weeks, I’ve been coming to realize that at some point, the networking with other online marketers is going to be … where it’s at.

WORKING WITH OTHER ONLINE MARKETERS

I had the experience of working with a couple of other guys on that forum … for one guy I provided him with a free bonus he could give away with some software he was selling … for another guy I provided a glowing testimonial after I used his product … and for a couple of other fellows I had some ideas that helped them improve their products … and this experience confirmed to me that, in the end, the personal relationships will be important.

It will be from our friends that our power comes.

I’ve heard this, expressed differently, before.

I’m coming around to believing it true.

WONDERING WHO I WAS …

So mulling over these questions, I anguished around for several days, considering implementing Twitter, and one of my questions was “What will be my persona/stereotype for the world of online marketing?”

And here’s what I decided …

I decided that if I am to have any particular core internet marketing skill, or its persona, it should be as a copywriter.

Copywriting is a common thread running through all methods of marketing, and I’ve written copy for posters to go up on bulletin boards, copy to be recorded as outgoing messages on answering machines and voicemail machines. I’ve written sales letter, direct mail brochures, take-one displays, small business-card brochures, trade-show presentations, yellow-page advertisements, scripts for sales reps to use selling business services, ebay advertisements, online sales pages, and … more.

I’ve had a bit of practice.

WHY NOT BE BRILLIANT?

Therefore I have decided to be a brilliant copywriter, and so far it appears to be working.

This is not really as arrogant as it may sound, but rather it is simply my mental focus. (And it is the focus of my self-hypnosis programming, too.)

Besides, in fact I feel confident that my past skills and present study can continue to improve my copywriting skills considerably above average, because I’m starting above the norm in the general population (maybe not above average for some of the high-end online marketers); and perhaps even more important, I have uncovered some stupendous how-to materials for learning.

FANTASTIC METHODS TO IMPROVE ONLINE SALES COPY

Recently I’ve obtained, after long search, a copy of Eugene Schwartz’s book called ‘Breakthrough Advertising.’ It’s not just about advertising, and I consider it the most brilliant book on marketing of all the hundreds of such books that I have read.

I’ve studied with materials from Kenneth Yu, Robert Plank, Mark Joyner, Dan Kennedy, Seth Godin, Joe Sugarman, and Maria Veloso, and classic evergreen texts like John Caples’s ‘Tested Advertising Methods.’

BUT HOW MANY PEOPLE CAN ONE MAN BE?

I dithered for several days, because I have fingers in several developing pies which might require different personas.

But since development of each twitter-scape will require effort, each additional persona would divide the available time, and weaken the results.

However, by simply sleeping on it and handing it to my subconscious mind, things became clear and simple upon arising today, and it seems that two personas will be manageable.

Two personas will permit some re-use of useful material between them, and I think I can allocate time enough to develop the both of them.

Probably.

… music of mental pondering goes here …

ONE STEP AT A TIME?

This is my typical version of Alcoholics Anonymous famous creed, except that I like to get things done faster.

That’s why my motto is “Two Steps at a Time!”

And two personas … fits right in.

Gosh, what a lot of blathering. Well, that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it, at least long enough to publish it here and there, and see if it finds any resonance with some of you good folks who might be reading it.

If so, please tell me your ideas in the ‘Comments’ box below.

I would greatly welcome additional ideas, and I would greatly welcome to hear about methods and results that you may have found to be useful in working with Twitter.

Again, please tell me what you think in the ‘Comments’ box below.

– Arthur Cronos