Fear, eBay and Jack Canfield

I read the following Jack Canfield article this morning. It’s a good general piece, but it’s also particularly useful for new eBay sellers or even eBay veterans that need new ways to make money, test products, open new markets and innovate. Part of your job as an eBay seller is to be creative. Creativity requires boldness and a healthy approach to fears. The article offers useful strategies for moving past fear and/or using it to guide your decisions and creations. I especially like the “taking a 2-year-old to the market” analogy.

Putting Fear in Its Place
by Jack Canfield

As you move forward on your journey from where you are to where you want to be, you are going to have to confront some of your fears. Fear is a just a natural part of living.

Whenever you start a new project, take on a new venture, or put yourself out there, there's usually some fear involved. Unfortunately, most people let fear stop them from taking the necessary steps to achieve their dreams.

Confronting your fears is a very necessary step in achieving success.

There is simply no other way.

Fear can be a helpful emotion, as it tells you when you need to be extra careful, keenly aware, and cautious. Fear is not an emotion that is telling you to stop. In fact, it's telling you just the opposite!

Acknowledging your feelings of fear helps you know when you are stepping out of your comfort zone. It points your awareness to areas where you could improve and grow.

Successful people also feel fear. Yet they don't let it get in the way of anything they want to do--or have to do. They understand that fear is something to be acknowledged, experienced, and taken along for the ride. They have learned, as author Susan Jeffers suggests in her must-read book, to "Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway®."

(Susan Jeffers has been a friend of mine for twenty years now, and her work, which is very powerful and transformational, has helped millions of people overcome their fears and move forward to create success in their lives. I highly recommend her as a resource.)

You see, fear is more of a signal that we should stay alert and cautious. We can feel fear, but we can still move forward anyway.

Think of fear as a 2-year-old child who doesn't want to go grocery shopping with you. Because you must buy groceries, you'll just have to take the two year old with you. Fear is no different. In other words, acknowledge that fear exists but don't let it keep you from doing important tasks.

Also realize that so many of our fears are self-created. We might frighten ourselves by fantasizing negative outcomes to any activity we might peruse or experience. Luckily, because we are the ones doing the fantasizing, we are also the ones who can stop the fear and bring ourselves into a state of clarity and peace by facing the actual facts, rather than giving in to our imaginations.

If a fear is too great for you to overcome, try breaking it down into smaller challenges.

Try starting out doing the parts of the project that don't scare you so much. You need to give a speech in front of a large group? Try giving your speech in front of a small group of people who care for you. Work your way up until you are able to feel the fear but still move forward. As you do, you will build your confidence and eventually you won't feel fear surrounding those issues because you'll have done them enough to count it as a skill.

As you move toward your goal, don't attach yourself so much to the outcomes.

Keep moving toward your dream doing everything you can to create what you want, then let it go and see what shows up. Sometimes the universe will have a better idea in mind for you and present a better opportunity when you were expecting something completely different. Don't let fear keep you from moving forward. Even if the horrible outcome that you imagined happens, the universe will always provide for you another way to succeed. So be on the look out!

Trust that no matter what occurs, you are smart enough and strong enough to keep looking for, and attracting, opportunities.

If you are willing to try new experiences in spite of your fears, then more new experiences will present themselves for you to try. And the more you try, the more you are likely to succeed!

For even MORE inspiration about overcoming your fears, you can learn from this Video Clip of Me on YouTube discussing some tactics you can use right away!

© 2008 Jack Canfield

Jack Canfield, America's Success Coach, is the founder and co-creator of the billion-dollar book brand Chicken Soup for the Soul and a leading authority on Peak Performance. If you're ready to jump-start your life, make more money, and have more fun and joy in all that you do, get your FREE success tips from Jack Canfield now at: www.FreeSuccessStrategies.com

Conversational Writing and eBay Descriptions - Marketing Mojo

We talk a lot about conversational voice and tone in these pages. Conversational style engages and persuades people. That's the gist of it.

A lot of businesses still shy away from this type of writing in their Web sites, eBay listings and marketing collateral.

I came across validation for the conversational approach in another book (which is great, by the way). It's called Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas On Presentation Design and Delivery.

Here's a quote from the book (p. 83):

"When you are in a conversation with someone you are naturally more engaged because you have an obligation to participate. You are involved. Formal speech and formal writing devoid of any emotion whatsoever is extremely difficult to stay with for more than a few minutes. Your conscious mind has to remind you to "stay away, this is important!" But someone who speaks in a natural, human, conversational style is far easier to stay engaged with."

I urge you, as always, to write with conversational tone and style. That means speaking as if in a one-on-one conversation, adding emotion, using imagery, and communicating as you would with a friend.

Me Blogging About RSS Photo Feeds -- Are You Blogging about Your Products?

If you’re interested in technology trends, I wrote an article for D-Link about RSS photo feeds. This kind of application is simple, like ring tones – hence the title of the article. Yet it’s so much more clever and elaborate.

I write blog posts for D-Link from time to time, and this is the latest one. Which reminds me… are you blogging about your products and services? It’s a great way to communicate with consumers, explore new ideas and uses for your products, and learn from your user/consumer community.

Simple, Timeless eBay Marketing Techniques

Whether you're writing for eBay listings or writing SEO copy for your Web site or writing SEM copy for a Google AdWords landing page, there are always some very simple, timeless things you need to do. Here they are in stripped down, bare bones bullets:

* Write strong headlines

* Describe benefits before features

* Use specific subheads

* Write about the reader (not about yourself or your company)

This is simple marketing copywriting 101, but sometimes we need to remind ourselves what the basic techniques are.

Strong headlines contain delicious offers, benefits and intrigue. Benefits sell the dream before the hardware that produces the dream (and the relationship between the two). Specific subheads are key because many readers scan the page and follow subhead stories before diving into specific sections of your body text. Finally, when you use the word "you" and talk directly to and about the reader, you make better connections and sell more effectively. Nobody wants to hear about the genius behind the product. They want to know how it's going to help them specifically.

Driving eBay Sales with Google AdWords Tactics - Post #1

If you've ever tested Google AdWords campaigns to any extent, you've probably noticed some interesting things. One of them is that ad titles that include the keywords that were searched for typically outperform all other ads when it comes to CTR (click-through rates). WARNING: Remember, CTR is not your goal – conversion is. However, increasing CTR is one way to boost conversions… if the complete AdWords strategy and content approach is correct.

Ok – so let’s say you’d like to increase CTR. There’s a way to automatically insert the keywords searched for into your AdWords ad title. It’s generally referred to as Dynamic Keyword Insertion. The recipe follows.

First you need to group your AdWords keywords into appropriate ad groups. If you sell music CDs, for example, you might group by classical, pop, country, mod, punk and so forth. Once those groups are set up, you’re ready to design your Dynamic headline.

Use the right and left squiggly brackets on your keyboard {} to do this. It’s shift-bracket on most keyboards. The headline you type in for classical CDs should look like so:

{KeyWord: Classical CDs}

In this case, “Classical CDs” is considered alternate text. If one of your AdWords keywords is “Beethoven CDs”, the searcher will see the title “Beethoven CDs” come up as the title of your ad. Classical CDs is alternate text, because if the person searches for a classical CD phrase that’s longer than 25 characters (the Google limit), then they get the generic alternate text. For everything that’s under 25, however, they get titles that mimic exactly what they searched for.

WARNING #2: Don’t make your keywords that are inserted highly popular or “hot topics.” You can rack up a huge AdWords bill this way.

For some types of selling, this strategy isn't necessarily a good thing. If you have a long sales cycle that depends on some information exchange or a phone consultation, for example, your approach would be different. But for many B2C and B2B goods that are sold on eBay, it’s a great idea, because you don’t have to make unique titles and ads for every possible combination of keyword you’re bidding on.

Check Your eBay Description Copy and Outshine the Competition - Fast & Easy Writing Quality Checklist

Whether you like it or not, selling on eBay requires writing. Some of us are better at this than others. One thing is clear, though. Those who use persuasive, clear communication get more $$$ in their PayPal account. That's the bottom line.

The following is a checklist I use to polish finished descriptions, flyers, direct email, direct mail, and all other kinds of customer-directed marketing copy. Whether your description is one paragraph or 20, this list will help you sell more, faster, and at a higher profit margin.

Post-Writing Quality Control Checklist

* Set the thing aside and let it sit for least an hour
* Read it again and flag stumbling spots
* Break up paragraphs to increase pace (variety is the spice of life). Go with short graphs first, then vary the amount of lines from 3-5. Sprinkle in some one line paragraphs, if possible.
* Break long sentences into two simple, shorter ones
* Eliminate extra words
* Eliminate “thats"
* Eliminate words with “tion” “sion” “ance” “ate” “able” “ment”
* Eliminate excessive adjectives
* Eliminate passive voice (this includes “is” “are” “can” etc.)
* Eliminate cliches
* Make cannot and is not into contractions for conversational tone
* Pay particular attention to commas, making sure they’re right (right for the particular customer, too)
* Make sure bullet lists start with either a “How to” phrase or a number or a powerful verb or…
* Write rhetorical questions into your copy that can be answered in the affirmative (YES!)
* Make sure you have some numbers for impact (specific numbers are better than generalized ones). Keep the % and the numbers themselves. Don’t spell out.
* Proof read on paper and mark it up
* Read it aloud

How 'Keeping It Real' Improves eBay Sales

When writing for the Web, for eBay, or for brochures and advertising copy, there are traps you can fall into. For example, your copy can begin to feel and sound *salesy.* This can be bad, because most of us - as consumers - have a built in aversion to overt sales-sounding pitches, attitudes and smarm.

Let me clarify something here. I don't think that there's anything wrong with "sales." This is one of the time-honored traditions in our culture that just so happens to make a lot of people wealthy. Look around you, and you'll see that the best doctors, lawyers, landscapers, babysitters, hair dressers and.. yes.. automobile purveyors are the best salespeople. It's about communication, relationships, confidence and competence, really.

It's also about being genuine. For small businesses, genuine-ness is fairly easy to capture because just a few people are running the show. Goals, strategies and capabilities are fairly clear. It's a little tougher for bigger organizations, where departments and "too-many-cooks" scenarios drive marketing communications.

Pushy, sales nuance -- the kind that we cringe at as consumers -- creeps into copy for a variety of reasons. As sellers (on eBay or anywhere else), we read all kinds of articles and blogs on how to be persuasive and infuse copy with energy and passion. Somewhere along the line the passion train goes off the tracks, though. Preposterous adjectives creep in, outrageous claims invade the pitch, and customers start to imagine diamond pinky rings on used car salesmen and the buddy-buddy demeanor of the time-share "service representative."

What's the trick to avoiding this scenario? Get real. Eliminate excessive adjectives from your copy (some copywriters say eliminate them all!). Find your genuine voice. Picture the prospect in front of you and be totally honest. Sometimes writing allows us to hide behind the words and say things we wouldn't typically. Treat your description as a casual conversation, and imagine a critical consumer in front of you who's just about to say "B.S" to your next claim. Then start writing your pitch/description/title/headline. The more real and factual you are, the more you will sell. That is a fact. And you'll avoid all the negative back-end karma that comes with over-promising and under-delivering.

Warning: Don't write less just because you have to keep it real. Remember, "the more you tell, the more you sell." Just don't over-hype things. If 100 people come to your listing or product page, several will be live, enthusiastic, closable prospects. These people don't want short descriptions and half-assed information. They get pumped up by all the details... so provide them. You'll do a disservice to your product if you don't.

eBay Design and Listing Comprehension - Another Marketing and Layout Tip

When you sell on eBay, the text should be designed to communicate.

Pretty obvious, right?

Well, some people make choices that work in the opposite direction. They choose fonts, colors and layout designs that hinder rather than enhance communication.

I'm going to touch on just a few tips here relating to background colors and font color. There have been a number of studies that back up the information that follows. If you’d like more detailed background info, I highly recommend reading “Type & Layout: Are You Communicating or Just Making Pretty Shapes” by Colin Wheildon.

1) Black text set on shades of grey makes for difficult reading.
2) Dark text on color tints makes for difficult reading.
3) Brightly colored text on light color tints is “the enemy of comprehension.”
4) Don’t use reverse – white or light text on a black or dark background. Especially with bigger chunks of text. People just can’t comprehend and retain the information very well.
5) Contrary to some “old school” assertions about black text on white background, it’s ok to put black text on light color tints. The light color can attract attention, in fact. Just don’t let the tint get too heavy. The darker the tint gets, the more reader comprehension suffers.

From “Type & Layout”:

“It is impossible to avoid the fact that comprehensibility of colored text increases as the color gets closer to black.”