Copyright 2003 By Willie Crawford
You're probably in business to make as many sales as
practical and build a better life for yourself and loved
ones. In order to make those sales you need to reach as
many targeted prospects as possible with your message. Yet,
your message must get through to your prospects one... at
.... a ..... time. It's individuals that read your message,
think about it, and react to it. They react to your message
once they connect with you and feel an appropriate emotion
based upon the content of your messages. So the real key
to your on-line success is connecting with your prospects
one-at-a-time or one-to-one.
How do you connect with your prospects one at a time? I do
it by envisioning individual audience members sitting
across from me as I write. I write as if I am talking to
them and I often see specific faces. I see specific faces
because as I surf the internet I actually study the faces
posted on the various websites. I AM actually talking to
individuals as I write. That feeling is conveyed in my
ezine articles, emails, and web copy. People "feel" this
when reading my writing and so they respond to my message
to them.
Realizing the importance of knowing who you deal with is
the reason I post my photo on my website. I want my
visitors to get to "know" and connect with me. Maybe you
should consider doing the same if you don't already.
Realizing the importance of knowing who you deal with is
part of the reason I frequent discussion forums. You get
a feel for what a person is really like after reading a few
of their posts. They also get a feel for who you are over
time.
Another tool I've found helpful in connecting with people
is listening to the audio clips available on many websites.
By hearing the actual voices of your audience members, this
helps them to "become" real people instead of just names on
a list. It's also fun discovering what individuals sound
like. Since we are from many different countries and
regions within different countries, people rarely sound like
what I imagined. That's beside the point, but hearing the
voice helps me to know the other person. Talking to people
on the telephone, naturally, has the same effect.
Through connecting with people one-on-one we build trust
and respect. You don't think of your contacts as just
potential buyers. You begin to see them as individual
sitting in from of their computer screens reading and
responding to something you wrote. You eventually feel the
two way flow of communications and that lets you know that
your audience IS being reached.
Examples of the two-way communication flow is when your
ezine readers email you after reading one of your insightful
articles, or someone emails you with a personal thank you
after you responded to their question on a discussion
board. In the sales arena, it's when a potential customer
emails you with a question about a product you recommended
and then orders after getting your very frank response.
It's when someone working on an ebook or piece of software
emails you asking you to review it before it's released
because they value your opinion.
If you look at your own buying behavior you'll realize that
you buy from people that you connect with. You feel good
when you buy a generic product (that you could have
purchased from hundreds of different individuals) from
someone you have gotten to know. Others make their buying
decisions the same way!
Make it one of your goals beginning today to cultivate those
one-on-one relationships. To beginners, it will seem like
you might spend a LOT of time just to reach a FEW
individuals when you really want to reach as many people as
possible. There is a natural tendency not to want to slow
down and deal with individuals. It's critical to your
business and personal success that you realize it's
individuals that make business decisions. Individuals
sitting at their keyboards, or reading something you've
written (which they printed out to read during a spare
moment), should be the focus of your efforts. Master this
skill and you'll be totally amazed at the effectiveness of
all your business efforts. You'll begin to see the
essentialness of connecting one-to-one.
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Willie Crawford has taught thousands the secrets of operating
a successful on-line business through his free Internet
Business Success Course. It's more extensive than many $197
courses. Sign up today and start building your *successful*
online business: http://williecrawford.com/
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