…and marketers especially.

Seems to be a thought on a few people’s mind lately.

We’ve had Lawrence Bernstein telling us to “Beware Of Shiny Objects”…

…and my good mate copywriter Pete Godfrey is forever reminding his readers about this trap.

(By the way, Pete’s recently relaunched his “Emotional Ad Writing & Marketing Letter” with a killer introductory bonus…well worth checking out here.)

So when I saw this new cartoon from Tom Fishburne…

… I couldn’t resist posting it!

So, what exactly is a “Shiny Object”?

Well…

…put simply, it’s the delusion that some new and exciting product, course, book or guru is (finally) going to be the answer to all your problems.

In the extreme form of “Shiny Object Syndrome” you don’t even have to do anything yourself!  Mere possession of the “magic” item will be enough!

It’s all nonsense of course, but amazingly people continue to yearn for, and seek, the “Shiny Object” even after serial disappointments…

…and wasting a lot of time and money.

I suppose it’s a variant of the lure of “easy money”.

A confession.

I’m not immune to this siren song, but I’ve got better at resisting over time!

Now, let me be clear.

I’m not suggesting that you simply ignore new ideas or products.

After all, the search for improvements and a better way to do things is how we progress and the key to a higher standard of living.

But, especially in marketing, there are very few genuine innovations.

And the problem when you get distracted by all these cool new things…

…is that you end up not doing the (sometimes mundane but) essential tasks that make you money.

So, how do you avoid falling into this trap and yet be aware of what’s going on and be able to take advantage of genuinely useful new products or programs?

Couple of suggestions that may be helpful.

Firstly, be clear about your major goals.  What are the most important things you want to achieve?

Secondly, when you’re looking at something new, ask yourself the question “Is this going to help me get where I want to go?”  If “Yes”, that’s great.  If “No”…you know the answer!

Finally, always remember that you are responsible for your own success.  Nobody else, no “Shiny Object” is going to do it for you.

And when you think about it…that’s a good thing.

“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them”

- Albert Einstein

…or, wherever you are in life at the moment, your best thinking got you there.

Why the quote?  Well kind of sums up the message of the main speaker at the afternoon session of the Crocodile Marketing conference, Pat Mesiti.

Now, like many people who teach about success and prosperity, Pat has attracted his fair share of controversy, critics and detractors.

However, I’ve now seen Pat speak twice and he’s someone well worth listening to, in my opinion.

His message isn’t new.  The idea that how we think determines the results we get in life is almost conventional wisdom in the world of personal development.

But Pat has a unique and very dynamic way of getting his point across.

And his key points…

…if you’re not where you want to be you need to change your thinking…

…successful people think differently…

…you can learn from successful people!

Hey, you may well have heard this sort of thing before.

Perhaps many times (I certainly have!).

So, how’s that working out?

I know that for me it was a useful reminder.

Now, I confess that I left halfway through the afternoon to catch my flight home and missed the end of Pat’s presentation.

That meant I also missed the wrap up from Pete and David McMahon…

…which presumably covered their plans going forward after this last ever Crocodile Marketing Inner Sanctum conference.

From what I gleaned over the 2 days, basically Pete is going back to what he was doing before Crocodile Marketing and will be relaunching his “Emotional Ad Writing And Marketing Letter”.

David will continue to run Crocodile Marketing as a company offering training and other services to business owners (first program will be “Online Sales And Social Media Mastery”).

All in all a worthwhile trip for me.  Great to catch up with old mates and met a lot of new friends too…

…as well as picking up a few new tips and insights.  Jennie Armato’s talk on social media was particularly useful for me.

So farewell to the old “Crocodile Marketing”…it was good to know you!

Been a while since I posted a “Copywriting Note”. But I recently came across something that will give you a profound insight into what you need to do to achieve big success in copywriting, marketing…

…or just about anything, in fact.

It’s from copywriting giant David Garfinkel…

…and it’s a post he wrote over at John Carlton’s blog.

The post itself is titled “The Big Lie”…

…but the subtitle…

…”Want To Know The Dark Secrets Behind Monster Success? It’s Not Pretty”…

…gives a better idea of what it’s all about.

In a nutshell…

…based on his own experience, working with many highly successful people and research by Geoff Colvin (author of “Talent Is Overrated”), David explores…

“What’s the formula for monster success?”

Now, unstated in the blog post is this premise…

“That some people are entitled to, or destined for, greatness, by virtue
of this, that or the other thing (fortunate birth, practice of an esoteric
ritual, etc.) — rather than, there is a predictable, documented, reproducible
replicable series of actions and application of concepts that leads to greatness.”

David kindly shared that with me when I swapped emails with him about the article.

So, what’s the answer?

Well, you can discover the answer for yourself, right here…

…“The Big Lie”.

If you’re the kind of person who has a Donald Trump size ego and absolutely no scintilla (yeah, I know I shouldn’t use fancy words when “a tiny trace or amount” would do!) of self-doubt, then you can skip this post.

If you’re like most of the rest of us, however, then this might contain a useful marketing lesson.

Over at Clayton Makepeace’s blog, copywriter Daniel Levis posted an article the other day called…

…“The Magic Of Self Appointment”…

…in which he talks about something that comes up quite often and in different guises.

Basically, it’s “What qualifies you to give advice or be considered the expert?”

Now, that’s a fair question and it’s “Copywriting 101″ to answer that question when writing a sales letter.

In many cases the reasons are clear although as a copywriter I often find that people often hold back from talking about some of their credentials.

One person I know, for example, has a PhD in his field and is one of only about 20 people in Australia who have ever achieved this!  He didn’t think it was worth mentioning!

So don’t hold back from presenting your achievements and credentials in the best possible light.  Most people are far better and more accomplished than they give themselves credit for.

We’re not talking about bragging here, or making things up, of course.

But there’s another level to consider.

For copywriters (or even consultants) it’s the self doubt and the question “When do I know I’m good enough?”…

…with the unspoken comment “…to charge big bucks for what I do?”

Daniel’s article talks about the issue that for many of us we’ve been conditioned throughout our lives to need external approval before we feel “qualified” to do something.

We have to have the certificate, or passed the course or whatever before being able to do something.

Now, of course, you need to have the competence to practice in your field and be able to deliver on your promises.

And yes, there are indeed a whole heap of people (copywriters included) out there who make big promises, charge big fees and then fail to deliver.

That’s a whole different issue and a post all of it’s own.

But there are probably a lot more highly capable people who are holding themselves back simply because they’ve never given themselves the approval to go ahead.

Let me share another story with you.

Mike Litman is a highly successful speaker and trainer in the personal development arena.  He’s not to everyone’s liking, but I find a lot of his material useful.

His first really successful product was the book “Conversations With Millionaires” which is a collection of interviews from the radio show he used to host.

The “Mike Litman Show” was billed as the “World’s #1 Personal Development Radio Show”.

Do you know how many listeners Mike had at the time?

About 5…according to Mike!

At the time he was having to buy the airtime on his local radio station and virtually nobody knew about his show, let alone listened to it!

But that didn’t stop Mike, because as far as he was concerned, his show lived up to the billing.

And by being congruent and making sure he fulfilled on that promise he did become successful.

Now, you may disapprove of what Mike did.  Personally, I have no problem with it.

The important point, to me, is that he didn’t wait for someone else’s approval or “appointment” to take action on his vision.

And neither did most of the greats of copywriting and direct response marketing.

Who appointed Claude Hopkins, for example, the guru?

Nobody.  He just went out there and did it.

So, whatever your field, don’t hold yourself back waiting for other people’s approval.

And if you have to buy your own airtime (hey, today with podcasts and YouTube you can be a broadcaster basically for FREE) then go ahead.

Pete Godfrey’s “Emotional Ad Writing & Marketing Letter” arived in the mail the other day.

Full of great material, as always, including these words from Pete on how to become a good copywriter…

“Frankly, you should be writing everyday; and not just sales letters either.”

Pete goes on to recommend keeping a journal as well as writing some form of copy.

“The point is to write and write often.”

If I’ve mentioned this tip before, I make no apology.  The late, great Gary Halbert was also a vigorous advocate of this practice.

Some other suggestions as to how you can put this idea into practice…

1. Publishing a blog is one way to practice your writing skills.  The discipline of writing on a regular basis and coming up with ideas for posts will help with client projects.

2. Writing proposals and marketing your own services is another way.  If you’re a freelance copywriter then it’s a good idea to be continually promoting your services.

3. It may even be worth taking on a small amount of relatively low paid work (for example, article writing or autoresponder emails).  You get to practice your writing while still getting some payment.  Don’t take on too much of this kind of work, however. It can distract you from the higher paying copywriting jobs that you really want.

Oh, and the choice of the word “being” in the title of the post is no mistake.  I’ve noticed that even the established, good copywriters follow this discipline.

It’s one reason they became good in the first place and one reason they remain good copywriters.

…to be more successful.

While researching a current project today, I dug out an old set of Jay Abraham CDs.

These are the recordings of a seminar Jay held back in 2002.

One of the speakers was Brian Tracy, someone I have a lot of time for.

Brian was speaking about entrepreneurship and success and one thing he said really stood out.

Successful people spend most of their time…

1. Thinking about what they want; and

2. HOW to get it

In the world of personal development and success literature, you hear a lot about the first part of that formula.

If you were to believe what’s in “The Secret” for example, all you need to do is think about what you want and it will magically appear!

(That’s not the full story, of course.)

But the second part of that simple “formula” is rarely mentioned.

And yet it’s vital to success.

So, you may like to use that simple question both for your personal success…

(How can I make the money I want from my copywriting business?)

…and for the success of your clients.

(How can I make this project a massive success?)

I’ve mentioned before that ace copywriters Clayton Makepeace and Gary Bencivenga both start off a project by visualizing a successful outcome and, in effect, asking themselves this simple question.

If these giants think it’s worth doing, then that’s good enough for me!

…as a copywriter.

In this weekly “Copywriting Notes” post, I’m going to continue with the focus on “mindset” and it’s importance to success in any endeavour, including copywriting.

One of my favourite “success” texts is “The Science Of Getting Rich” by Wallace Wattles.  Originally published in 1910, it’s a remarkable work and…

…spells out with great clarity how to achieve “financial success through creative thought” (the subtitle of the book).

In my opinion, it’s a far superior book to the better known “Think And Grow Rich” (great though that book is).  So I was delighted to see master copywriter Peter Stone post a link on his blog where you can download a copy of the book.

The book is public domain so it’s completely free (you can also buy hard copy editions from sites like Amazon for a modest amount).

What is worth noting are Peter’s comments about the book…

“…call it a guide to manifestation…call it how to build a successful copywriting business book…a panacea for difficult financial times…But think of it as a science.  An exact science.”

Peter Stone is an extraordinarily accomplished copywriter and a highly successful individual.  Success leaves clues so I suggest it’s well worth your time to take a look at anything Peter recommends.

Here’s the link to Peter’s blog where you can download The Science Of Getting Rich.

Happy New Year!

May I wish you, your family, friends and associates a very happy and prosperous 2009!

Prosperous?  Of course.

Look, there’s no doubt that economic conditions will be challenging.

But that doesn’t mean that you can’t prosper…

My good friend Pete Godfrey puts it this way in a recent issue of his newsletter…

“Just understand there are so many opportunities to make money right now it’s overwhelming to think about them all.  As entrepreneurs and business owners we can not buy into the doom and gloom.  Sure, acknowledge it; we can’t pretend everything is rosy out there.  The world HAS changed in a BIG way and there’s no going back.  Just don’t buy into it emotionally and mentally.  Our most important assets are out mindsets; how we think, how we act; the money making habits that are ingrained into our pores.  That’s our strength.”

Putting this another way, I’m going to suggest adopting the approach of the person who, when asked how they were being affected by the Great Depression in the 1930s said…

“I’m choosing not to participate.”

On that note, have a successful 2009!

Today we have part 5 of the Clayton Makepeace and Gary Bencivenga interview about the art and craft of copywriting as well as the life of a top copywriter.

When I originally read this interview, this was the section where I really went “Wow!” and sat up and took even closer notice than before.

You see, Gary and Clayton started talking about the mindset of a successful copywriter and in particular how both of them are fans of “Psycho-Cybernetics”, the great personal development classic by Maxwell Maltz.

If you’re looking for the “missing link” to your success as a copywriter, this section of the interview may well provide some valuable signposts.

Here’s Gary…

*****

Gary:

Like you, I imagine, I always have an incentive in my compensation agreement where the better I do for the client, the more money I could make myself. I really want a very strong likelihood of long-term success with it. Assuming all of those factors are positive, the next step I would take is to envision a blockbuster success. As I said before, every achievement begins in the mind before it manifests itself in the material world, so I would envision a great success.

In my mind, I would hear my client calling me in two months saying, “Gary, you did it again. This is unbelievable. The phones are ringing off the hook. The postal trucks are lining up, bringing these bags of orders in. Oh man, the next time you’re in town you have to let me take you to dinner.” I would envision the entire phone call with a thrilled client absolutely jumping up and down with how thrilled he was that I wrote the package and how the responses are just pouring in, burying his mailroom with checks and orders.

I would see this whole vision in my mind. I would taste the celebratory dinner that I was going to experience with my wife, Pauline, to celebrate this latest triumph. Your subconscious mind wants to manifest the images you place before it with great emotion. So indulge your fantasy about success.

See the accomplishment in the rehearsal studio of your own mind. Tell your subconscious, “This is what I like to experience, help me do it!” So if you start celebrating before you’ve even put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard, just getting that very exciting vision of how you’re going to experience success, it frees up tremendous subconscious resources for you to achieve that success and very effortlessly also.

You’re effortlessly teaching your mind what’s going to be happening. Your subconscious mind, as Maxwell Maltz taught in Psycho-Cybernetics, is a goal-striving mechanism. When you give your subconscious a target that you want to hit, it will pull into itself and eventually share with your conscious mind all kinds of resources that you never knew you had within you to make that happen.

This is the goal that you’re telling your subconscious mind that will be enjoyed and experienced in a month or two, six months, or whatever your time schedule is for completing the job and having it tested. This is what’s going to happen. Most writers don’t go through any preliminary stage like this. There are lots of ways to do it, but whatever methodology or ritual you have for doing this, the key is envisioning the success even before it unfolds. That very process helps the steps unfold and you want to make it very vivid to your senses because that will make it real to your subconscious mind.

You want to feel the emotion especially. You just want to close your eyes and feel how great it’s going to feel that you’ve chalked up another big winner and that the word is getting around in the industry that “Wow, this guy is almost unbeatable. Almost everything we’ve given him, he hits a homerun for us. He’s unbelievable.” You just fantasize about all of these things. You combine that with your knowledge of the craft that you’ve accumulated throughout the years and you combine that with the specialized knowledge of the marketplace. If you combine those three things, I can guarantee you’ll almost be invincible.

How can anybody else beat you when you have all that going for you? We’re not like athletes where, mentally, they reach the peak of their knowledge just at the very time when their physical skills are going into decline. The quarterback at age 35 knows so much more than the young rookie about how to read a defense and how to craftily send a receiver downfield for a touchdown pass. His mind is so much further ahead and educated than a rookie quarterback just out of college. Unfortunately for people who earn livings from physical skills, their physical skills deteriorate at the very time when their mental powers are at their peak.

In copywriting that doesn’t happen. We need to always build on our knowledge base. Over time you must build these three key areas of knowledge.

First the knowledge of what works in direct marketing, your knowledge of the craft.

Second, your knowledge of a given marketplace – whether it’s health or finance or chiropractic, or whatever interests you or wherever you’re getting your current work from.

And third, the knowledge of how to unleash the competitive and great instincts that you have within you that you don’t even know about. It’s the 90% of your mind that you don’t normally use. Once you unlock that 90%, if you add that to the mix of knowing your craft and market, you will be virtually invincible in whatever you chose to do.

Clayton:

That’s wonderful.

Gary:

I’m sure, Clayton, that I’m not telling you anything you don’t know because when I look at words that you write for your clients, there’s no way I want to tangle with that stuff. I’m sure there are a lot of other copywriters who feel the same way.

Clayton:

That’s very kind. Psycho-Cybernetics is one of my favorite reads.

Gary:

You’ve never told me that, but in a way I knew it. I knew it because you couldn’t produce at such a high level without the tailwind from your subconscious mind. You’re at an emotional level when you write. And that can only be achieved through your subconscious mind, which is, in effect, channeling the desires, hopes and dreams of a lot of other subconscious minds. It’s only when your subconscious mind is engaged that way that you can produce work of the compelling power that I see you produce. Not having ever known that about you, I knew that you must have been somehow harnessing your subconscious mind in a way that most copywriters don’t.

Clayton:

I have my entire life. I think part of the process for me too is envisioning early in the process the client being completely blown away by the first draft. Understanding the purpose of the first draft is to have a second draft and a third. The purpose of the final draft is to accomplish all of the other things – career growth and the out-of-the park homerun and all of that.

I also spend time thinking about under-promising and over-delivering to the clients as well as the longer effects. I’ve also found that one of the little ideas in Psycho-Cybernetics that’s extremely valuable in terms of allowing your subconscious to work, is getting away from the work in one way or another. Napping, for example.

Gary:

That’s very true. That’s when your subconscious gets the chance to connect with the conscious as Gene Schwartz put it. He used to talk about that all the time in his methodology where he would put himself in front of his typewriter or computer and not put any pressure on himself to do anything. He used a little time clock and he would punch in 33 minutes, 33 seconds on it, just so he wouldn’t have to punch in more than one button on his timer. And every 33 minutes and 33 seconds he would get up and go for a stretch and when he came back for his next 33 minutes and 33 seconds, somehow the answers were ready for him. To relieve the stress and pressure of having to write great copy, Schwartz had only one requirement. He had to stay in his chair for the entire 33 minutes. He didn’t have to work on the copy if he didn’t want to, but he didn’t allow himself to work on anything else or to answer the phone or to read the mail.

That’s the same process. You have to get away from it so the subconscious can give you the answer it’s just dying to give you but can’t because your conscious mind is so rigidly trying to force the issue. So when you open those channels by napping or getting away from it, the subconscious at that point can whisper the answer in your ear and it just bubbles right up to the conscious mind.

Clayton:

I wrote the Health & Healing launch package in one day by a swimming pool in Huntington Beach and I did it just that way. I wrote for an hour and I swam for an hour. I wrote for an hour and I swam for an hour. By the end of the day I had a complete first draft.

Gary:

Isn’t that amazing? Oh, Gene Schwartz, in recommending that very methodology, said that’s how Mozart used to compose his concertos and symphonies. It’s obvious, of course, that Mozart was a genius, but people were amazed at the process he used. He would play billiards – I think billiards is what they called it then. And Gene Schwartz said that Mozart would hit the billiard ball with his pool cue and then write some notes. It was an activity that got his conscious mind off of what he was working on and then by the time he went back to the music notation, the next phrases were all right there, he didn’t consciously have
to think about it.

Clayton:

How many hours a day would you write? Is there a hard and fast rule?

Gary:

It’s hard and fast. I always believed that if I can get three hours of quiet time, I can achieve anything in the morning. And those three hours includes researching. In the research phase – once I’ve agreed to take something on – I’ll devote about 40% of my time on the project to research, maybe 40% to writing the first draft, and then 20% for polishing and rewriting after that.

I love to write. I guess I’ve had an aptitude from an early age. And once you get successful at something, you really feel like you have the aptitude to do it. I really do like the writing process. Winston Churchill said that he hated writing but loved having written. A lot of people are that way; they hate the process of writing. But I enjoy it.

Once you get into a rhythm and a groove, as I’m sure you have over the years for approaching your assignments, it’s not that hard. If you do enough research, the writing comes fairly easily.

To answer your question, I would usually like to do three hours in the morning, and I still try to do that. I still get a little antsy if I don’t. I wake up and get three hours in on something, like a major project that I want to work on.

Those early morning hours are, to me, the most productive time, especially if you can harness in the subconscious before you go to bed. You just go to bed reading something over and posing a question you’d like to have solved by the morning. Your subconscious mind tends to millions of cellular and biological transactions every night. You’re breathing and swallowing and goodness knows what else, literally millions of other activities. It’s nothing to give you a headline by the morning if you just say, “I’d like a good headline on this in the morning. I’ve just read it over and I have no idea, so you come up with it. You’re the power behind whatever my conscious mind does, so give me a good headline or ten or twenty in the morning and I’ll just be ready with my notepad.” And that’s pretty much what happens.

I know Dan Kennedy has said that’s how he is so productive. He’ll tell his mind what he wants to have written when he wakes up in the morning and it all flows out like a computer dump. It’s not like you’re sleeping fitfully – it’s totally subconscious. If you let too much time go by, however, if you don’t get to your writing until the afternoon, you might have lost it. That’s why I like to do my writing first thing in the morning because my mental computer’s been running all night with whatever I wanted to write about and it just pours out almost word for word.

Clayton:

Absolutely. It’s amazing because I do the same thing.

Gary:

Do you really? Wow.

Clayton:

Years ago I got into the habit of going to bed very early around eight o’clock and getting up at four in the morning when there would be no sounds in the house, no distractions, no phones ringing and be able to just totally engage in the work without interruption for several hours.

Gary:

Yeah that’s what I like. I still wake up naturally, no alarm clock. I wake up with the morning light and sometimes I wake up 4:30 or 5:00. We’re on the east coast out in the Hamptons – the sun comes over the ocean really early.

I used to stay up late. I used to do very well being a night owl but Pauline wakes up really early. She bolts out of bed at 5:00 or 5:30 in the morning. When she does, I find it hard getting back to sleep so I had to get in sync with her rhythm. And once I did, I found it much more productive for me to wake up at that time anyway, using the night as a time when I just sleep soundly and let my mind review whatever it’s reviewing to give me my answers in the morning.

Early in the morning too, as you say, there’s no phone ringing. But you’ve got to train yourself not to get into your e-mails and see what’s happening. There are so many things that tug at your attention. Try to get into the discipline of – and I’m saying this obviously for your listeners or readers who don’t do this, because I know you must already do it – training yourself to focus on one major task at that precious, most productive time of the day.

That’s really the 10% of the day that’ll give you 80% of your results. So you should really save it for that most important assignment that you’re working on at that moment. Then the rest of the day will be phone calls and e-mails and meetings and things that come up or people coming to the door. You know a million things that distract you, but at least you will feel very productive for that day because you’ve logged your two to three hours first thing in the morning, and you’ve got something to show for that day. And if you could do that pretty much every day, it’s amazing how much you’ll write, how much you’ll produce.

Clayton:

I also find that the work we do on each package is easily divided into two camps: 1) the creative work; and 2) the detail-oriented work. And quite often they require two very different aptitudes. I’ll tend to focus on creative issues very early in the morning. Then, when I feel my creative energy flagging, I move to more detail-oriented tasks such as research and other things like that.

Gary:

I couldn’t agree with you more, Clayton. In my mind the tasks break down the same way. I like to reserve the really tough problems for that high energy period in the morning. And I find they usually get worked out right away. But you have to have that focus, that clarity – almost like a still lake – to follow the thread of a new creative line of thought. And then there’ll be many parts of a package that are just much more mundane things, but are just as important in the long run because you need the foundation for the brilliant, creative idea that leads off the package.

I call that “grinding out the yardage.” Instead of a beautiful Hail Mary pass that covers 70 yards at once – which I toss in the morning – this is just three feet and a cloud of dust … three feet and another cloud of dust. For the rest of the day it’s a series of small gains. It’s just grinding out the yardage, reading the stuff that’s got to be read, capturing a little bullet from this paragraph and the next one and the next one after that. It’s rote mechanical work and it’s time consuming, but it’s got to be done. But if you put those two halves together, that’s where the power is.

*****

Part 6 of this interview will be posted on Friday, January 2, 2009.

Attribution: This article was first published in “The Total Package”.  To sign-up to receive your own FREE subscription to “The Total Package” and claim four FREE money making e-books go to www.MakepeaceTotalPackage.com.

…both your bank balance and something MUCH more important.

Lawrence Bernstein over at his “Info Marketing Blog” has a suggestion that may strike you as being crazy…

…but that I can vouch from personal experience will work for you.

It’s quite simply…

…take a “News Fast” and stop taking in the news from TV, radio, newspapers or the internet.

But what if something important happens?

Take it from me, if something happens that you really need to know about, you’ll find out about it somehow.

Look, 99% of the stuff reported in the “news” has absolutely no direct impact on your personal life or your business.

It’s irrelevant to what is really important to you.

Think “Operation Money Suck”…

…the invaluable lesson in business, copywriting and life from copywriting legend Gary Halbert via John Carlton.

It’s simple and in two parts…

1. Money will take care of problems that not having money creates…and…

2. You’re the guy (or gal) who knows how to bring in the money.  Don’t waste time doing something that doesn’t produce bucks.

And taking in the news definitely falls into the category “doesn’t produce bucks”.

But what about the…gulp…recession?

Well the current difficulties make it especially important that you follow this suggestion.

And to find out why…

…plus discover the other big benefit you’ll get from following this tip…

…read the whole “Recession Beater #3: The Power Of News Fasts” post over at Lawrence’s blog.