Aligning businesses with different cultures

Uniquely Cindy Product Reviews

All of the book and product reviews here are totally unsolicited… spontaneous… and without affiliate links. These are books and products I share with close friends and highly recommend.

This blog is now 5 months old. And so is Get International Clients. Both blogs have grow tremendously since the first month. But I’m ready to take them further now. What do I need above all else?

I need to start tracking my web statistics. As a marketer I know I need to do this. But it’s all so vast. There are all sorts of software out there. I’m a one person online business. I don’t want to waste my time doing a market survey and testing products. I don’t even want to read about statistics. Would you?

My Favorite Web Marketer Next Door

So, I turned to the person I know would help me. Ed Rivis. An internet marketer out of the UK. Without any marketing fluff. Just good straight forward advice.

He has just the product for me. It just came out. So it is really up-to-date. And…the icing on the cake…it isn’t a boring book on statistics. It’s a DVD set.

I watched it yesterday and already know more about my own stats.

Web Marketing Product Review

I liked the fact that Ed’s business is in the UK. I’m in France. He gave information on what he does outside of the US where Google reigns.

The whole program has a lot to offer other online business owners like me. So here is a product review for you.

Ed Rivis’ Stats faceslap is an essential way to help you grow your business.

One thing to start with about faceslap is that it is not made for the person that is interested in tweaking one word in their HTML code to make a miracle change. This is for people, for businesses, interested in real marketing.

Early on he explains, if you are not using stats, by simply starting an email marketing campaign you will increase the number of visitors to your website. You might say this is obvious.

Obvious, yes. But statistics show that not many of you are using stats to help run your online business.

Take Control Of Your Business Through Stats

If you have not set up a way to measure your statistics, follow Ed’s process. It’s easy to follow and explains everything you need to know as a beginner.

If you are already measuring your statistics, Ed give lots of ideas to streamline your process to only spend the time you have to get what you need out of it. For example you learn to:

• know which activity is most critical for you to track and set up a system to get a snapshot of your website statistics. This tells you what is working and what is not working.
• know what you are tracking and why - more visitors, more sales, lower bounce rate and so on. Make sure you have a plan to track what you need to know.
• focus on real sales and marketing statistics that are measurable.
• understand the difference between ‘hits’ and real visitors. For example, many people don’t know that one visitor ‘hits’ each image on your site when he arrives, so a page with 15 images is ‘hit’ 15 times by each person that visits.

He does call out that if you have a major e-commerce site you will need to go further than faceslap. If you have an e-commerce site and have not started tracking your web statistics, you will still find faceslap a good starting point. But you will have to dig deeper.

Ed includes a MindMap with 9 lead sections, 26 critical stats. About 40% of his DVD’s revolves around these stats.

Here’s an example of one section. Traffic is broken down into 3 main subsections Visitors, Sources & Content. There are 14 sub-subsections with details such as bounce rates (percentage of people who leave your site after seeing one page).

Identify The Stats Tools Your Business Needs

Ed describes in detail several tools that he recommends. Each of the tools Ed uses is either a market leader or destined to be a market leader very soon. Ed gives the most up-to-date information on the tools available.

Some of these tools include:

• An analytical tool that covers many stats for each of your sites. This tool generates very detailed reports that can be mailed to you a the interval you choose.
• An email marketing tool of choice. It was well known as an auto responder product that has just come out of a major upgrade making it even more powerful email marketing tool. This tool also generates very detailed reports.
• Using and tracking RSS feeds for subscribers. Using RSS feeds to understand your readers is important, and if your site has an RSS feed you should be using a tool, possibly Ed’s tool of preference.

Practically every tool Ed mentions is free. The one particular business promotion tool that is very powerful, and known from first hand experience, costs nearly $400. But there are free options offered to each of the few paid tools.

Create Your Master Dashboard To Understand Your Business

Ed describes a very useful concept, the Master Dashboard.

The Master Dashboard is where you put all of the data collected from the tools listed above. You organize the information into a 2 or 3 page report on a regular basis. This report will give you a clear vision of your collective statistics.

It is very easy to make decisions based on this one report instead of searching for the remote pieces of information in each of the different reporting tools. The first decision for you is to make a dashboard yourself or to outsource the work. Ed tells you the best way to this for your business.

Actions To Improve Your Stats

Ed has a list of some actions you should consider starting and gives a complete review of why you should do them and their negative points. These important actions include:

• Strategic Alliances
• Starting a blog or blogging more frequently
• Being active in community forums and blog comments
• Article Marketing

Ed tells you the one most important action you need to take and which so many people do not do. Fix the entry and exit pages to your site.

It is very important to make sure that people spend as much time as necessary on your site to complete the action you want. This action can be a sale, sign up, read articles or more.

You have to make sure that the landing page seen the most often is the most usable.

The page from which people exit your site the most often should be modified to make a final push for the visitor to take the action that you want or to keep them on the site for one more page.

Give Your Business A Complete Makeover With Stats

Ed has worked the statistic issue through all aspects. For a complete beginner it will at least give you the urge to look at your stats and understand some of them. For a more seasoned marketer, you will start to look at these numbers in a new light. You will probably want to start working with your statistics at least weekly as he suggests.

The process is the same for everyone. The first week you gather information. After the first week it does get more interesting. You will start to make small changes to see if you can make your site work better. Then you will be interested in finding out why one word, phrase of font size works better than another.

Ed does deliver an enormous load of information. Fortunately the DVD format allows you to work through it at your own pace.

If you are a complete beginner, one sitting through both DVDs may not be enough to master every detail. But you will be able to start in the right direction immediately.

Once you realize the information you have is so useful you will be shocked that you are only using the parts that are most important for you and not not using everything that can actually help you.

When you have the time, many more ideas can be found at Ed’s site which is updated several times a week.

Use Ed’s DVD’s to set up your Master Dashboard and use your stats to improve your business. It’s easy to understand in faceslap The £103 is a worthwhile investment.

And, in case you are wondering, these are not affiliate links. I didn’t get paid to write this in any way or form. I just like and use Ed’s products. They are always very easy for me to understand and they always teach me more than I already know.

Here are a few more Uniquely Cindy Product Reviews:
- Success Chef’s Marketing E.S.P.
- The Management Tools I Use For Content Created To Be Re-Packaged 

Uniquely Cindy Product Reviews

All of the book and product reviews here are totally unsolicited… spontaneous… and without affiliate links. These are books and products I share with close friends and highly recommend.

I did have a book I wanted to talk to you about today. But it rained yesterday. So I did not take the book out in the sun to read. Instead, I stayed inside and watched a new video product I just got from Michel and Sylvie Fortin.

• Marketing E.S.P. – How To Pinpoint Hot, Hungry, And Highly Profitable Markets

Luckily, I started listening to the videos in the morning. It was so good, I just did not want to stop. I finished all of the videos yesterday in one long sitting.

Get This Web Marketing Tool Now 

I cannot recommend this product highly enough to all of you reading this. So today, this is not a book review. It is a product review.

If you have an online business, or if you want to use web marketing to develop your business:

• Get this video product now, before you do anything else.

Marketing E.S.P. will give the geeks the marketing “E.S.P.” they need.

Marketing E.S.P. will give the marketers and business strategists easy to follow geek training on how to get the information they need to become psychic.

International Market Research With ESP

As a reader of this blog, you are probably interested in international web marketing.

• Again, this is a video product you should get now.

The process you learn here is rock solid. It is easy to follow.

The videos show you both:

• How to do market research online and
• How to use this market research to take the risk out of your business and create opportunities.

If you do not know where to start to get international business, you will find the first part of these videos extremely useful: how to do effective market research online.

• Use this as your basic process to find gold in your own domestic markets.
• Acquire these good marketing habits.
• Adapt this process for international market research.

I often get emails from companies abroad, saying “hey, I want to get international clients, what do I do?” Most people:

• Either freeze up when it comes to international market research.
• Or they have absolutely no clue what to do and where to start.

There is no magic formula. Your international business starts with market research. It is work. And it is work you should do yourself.

The great news is you can do it from where you are. And you can start with little steps.

Yes, I know, there is the issue of language and culture. Get over it. You can wait until you win the business lotto, or you can start here:

• With the market research YOU can do now.
• In a proven process that is systemized.

You will find the solutions to your language and culture hurdles as you take action. Very often these hurdles are not as big as they seem before you take action.

I have used this same process for successful international market research in the field. It works. Before long, you will know where the business opportunities are for your products.

See Where Your Business Is

Sylvie Fortin says that good marketers have E.S.P. They know where the money lies.

Good marketers know this simply because they systematically carry out market research from different angles.

I agree with Sylvie and Michel when they say you need to do this work yourself. Do not outsource it. The success of your business depends on it.

Do Your Business Viability Study In Hours

Yes, Marketing E.S.P. is a complete business viability study based on web marketing tactics. This means it is easy to do online.

Before the Internet, a business viability study was not this easy. It did not give you as much clear market information.

There is one important advantage to doing a viability study. This process takes the risk out of your business.

New Products Creation, New Market Opportunities

A viability study also gives you a valuable additional advantage.

If you use this process for your business, your website and your products you will probably come up with new leading business ideas you could not see without this research.

The research you carry out gives you great insight into your markets.

A Process For Business Success

The key is how you carry out your market research.

Marketing E.S.P. starts with showing you how to collect market data online

You then learn how and where to collect keywords.

You learn about collecting research from different angles:

• Standard research
• Vertical research
• Horizontal research
• Multidimensional research

Most people stop their market research too soon. Probably because they do not realize they also need to do research from different angles.

By stopping too soon, you put your business at risk.

It is only after you have obtained data from all the different angles that you can understand where your business lies in your market.

What You Get In This Business Building Program

This video program reminds me a little bit of the Web Video University course. The videos are in clear segments and topics. There are clear instructions on how to do every step.

There is homework after each important step. These homework segments review the steps you need to take in detail again. This makes the whole process easy to follow. Do this homework and you have your own viability research for your business or your product.

There are useful resources at the end of each segment. But this is a how-to guide not an all-in-one package. There is other software involved.

This is a Michel Fortin product. He knows all about testing. So do not hesitate to take his advice on what software to use.

Marketing E.S.P. advises you to buy two products:

• WordTracker and SpyFu.

Both have free options. But to do the research you need to do it will take you much longer with the free versions.

The Marketing E.S.P. Program also recommends other free software and resources.

First Success Chef Cookbook Published

This program is the first series in the Success Chef training program. Read more on the Success Chef Blog -

I had read about Michel Fortin’s Success Chef Program a while ago. I did not really understand what it was all about then and why he was asking $3000 for it.

The Marketing E.S.P. Cookbook comes with a much more palatable price tag. It is currently at $97. And when I read about it I knew it would be valuable.

It’s a little bit like Ed Rivis’ Stats faceslap. Good market research, just like website statistics, is work people do not like doing. Both products are great how-to guides and inspiration to get the work done.

This program is worth much, much more. How much? It is hard to say. This makes effective market research easy and gets you to do it. Do the work and this program will be invaluable to your business.

There is one thing I should mention. The transcripts of the videos are only available to full Success Chef Members. This is not important. Most of the videos are direct how-to videos. You should be watching the videos instead of reading the transcripts.

I did not pay much attention to the Success Chef program before. Now Michel and Sylvie have me all ears. The price tag and payment options for the full program are still too steep for me. But I am now interested in the other Cookbooks.

Take The Risk Out Of Your Business

As you have probably guessed, I highly recommend all of you to get this program.

Take the time to listen to all the videos with a notebook. Do not do anything else while listening to these videos.

• Do the multidimensional market research
• Get all of your keywords from multidimensional sources
• Do your own viability study
• And adjust your business to your most profitable target

For international market research, this is a great process. It takes the freezing element out of getting started.

Just a note to remind you: I only like to review books or products I truly like. I read a lot so there are many. I do my book and product reviews of my own free will and have no affiliate links.

This is also why I would love to have your comments on this product or if you know of a similar one.

Here are a few more Uniquely Cindy Product Reviews:
- Ed Rivis’ Stats Faceslap
- The Management Tools I Use For Content Created To Be Re-Packaged 

I read the occasional blogs on blogging. Not every week, but fairly consistently.

There is one blog that has been on my radar for a while. Simply because all the big guys always give it their thumbs up. I have always found a wealth of content there. But it never really got on my list of places I would automatically check out.

It’s the color purple. The theme makes it feel like an astrology site, or a women’s problem site. There is something about the color and first impression that signals to me that I am wasting my time.

But every time I go there I read pages and pages of articles. This website talks to its readers in a way that pulls them in. And it also does this to me. Even if I have a hang up with my own personal perceptions of this purple theme.

Which blog is this?

• A Successful And Outstanding Blog

The other day I came across the author’s blog. For some reason I never landed there before.

• Liz Strauss

It was only then that I got over the purple thing and became voracious. The Liz Strauss blog is not purple. It proves she really knows what she is doing online.

So I immediately got her e-book and thoroughly enjoyed reading during my break out in the sun today.

• The Secret To Writing A Successful And Outstanding Blog

Liz Strauss knows how to create a community on a blog.

This is something difficult to teach others to do on their own blogs. After reading Liz’s e-book it became apparent to me that creating a blog community is a little like learning cross-cultural communication.

• You need to jump in and learn to do it.
• Detailed how-to instructions do not work.
• The important part is in your own mindset.

If you get the right mindset you will teach yourself effective cross-cultural communication.

This book does an excellent job at putting you in the right mindset for creating a successful blog. I think it is an excellent read for beginner bloggers and also for bloggers feeling challenged.

Read this book and you will float back out to the right mindset you need to create a great community on your blog.

Here are a few more Uniquely Cindy - Summer Book Reviews at CindyKing.biz:
- The Magic Of Pre-Writing
- A Writer’s Guide To Powerful Paragraphs

Uniquely Cindy Product Reviews

All of the book and product reviews here are totally unsolicited… spontaneous… and without affiliate links. These are books and products I share with close friends and highly recommend.

First of all, this is a complete copywriting course. I have to say, I have not finished all of this course. In fact I have only listened to the audios and read the first chapter.

• The Ultimate Desktop Copy Coach - The Makepeace Method for out’thinking … out-selling … and out-EARNING your competition by Tony Flores

For those of you who are not familiar with Clayton Makepeace, he is said to be the highest paid working copywriter. He has a few decades experience under his belt.

Now I would normally look at anything Clayton sells. But I literally jump on anything written by Tony Flores. Tony has been working with Clayton for a few years now.

This mix, Clayton and Tony, is to our great advantage.

Tony knows what we need in copywriting today. He knows how to communicate all of Clayton’s expertise and put it in a way we can follow easily.

So of course I ordered this course as soon as it came out. And I was surprised with five things.

1. It is physically a big package
2. Clayton is giving away even more information than in his previous programs - lots of stuff here I haven’t yet heard from Clayton
3. This course is aimed for business owners, marketers and copywriters - it gives you comprehensive copywriting training geared towards real world business objectives
4. The first chapter opens with web copywriting, not just on direct mail
5. This is a real self-study course, there are homework assignments to get you to right your first piece of copy using the Clayton Makepeace method

You have guessed it, I really love this course, before reading it all. By the way, there are two huge manuals, 27 lessons, videos, audios and a huge swipe file.

What I like is this mixture of their minds. I can hear both Clayton and Tony in the first lesson. They are

 both copywriting geniuses.

Tony writes the Clayton Makepeace Easywriters’ newsletter. This is where I first encountered his genius. Sorry, I can’t hide it. I am a huge Tony Flores fan. If you would like to see why, pick up his free ebooks on his blog.

For my non-native English speaking readers, the Ultimate Desktop Copy Coach course is not very difficult to follow.

The course is well explained and easy to follow. Of course it is. It is written by a great copywriter. If you have good English writing skills and want to pick up the science behind copywriting to use these skills in your own language, this is a great course.

As a non-native English speaker it might even be your best option to learn copywriting today. You will get much more out of this course than any one book you can buy in the bookstore.

Here are a few more Uniquely Cindy Product Reviews:
- Website Optimization by Andrew B. King
- Website Optimization by Andrew B. King
- Success Chef’s Marketing E.S.P.
- Web Video University And International Marketing
- Ed Rivis’ Stats Faceslap
- The Management Tools I Use For Content Created To Be Re-Packaged 

Asinine Advertising, How stupid and unethical advertising costs you money! by Herchell Gorden Lewis.

I have been lucky to attend an event where Hershell gave a live presentation. The man has style. A style rare to come by. He is extremely entertaining and a great word smith. This book is just as good as his presentation.

The title says it is about advertising. But it is for everyone who buys things. It gives astute insight into the American consumer society. But I don’t think it is limited to a portrait of life in America.

Read this book if you want to spend a couple of hours smiling, chuckling and laughing. It is a very relaxing book to read after a long day working brainlessly changing WordPress themes.

Non-native English speakers beware, you might miss most of the fun. There is a lot of play on words and it is North American specific English, and probably even generation specific language. Also, keep in mind that Herschell speaks in a style you do not really find today.

This is part of the reason why he is so refreshing. The other part is because he speaks his mind bypassing the politically correct communication style more common today.

Here are a few more Uniquely Cindy - Summer Book Reviews posted at CindyKing.biz:
- Website Optimization by Andrew B. King
- The Secret To Writing A Successful And Outstanding Blog
- The Magic Of Pre-Writing
- A Writer’s Guide To Powerful Paragraphs

Uniquely Cindy

I recently came across a few people who did not realize just how much marketing expertise is involved in effective copywriting.  I landed into copywriting after 20 years in sales and marketing.  Copywriting was an obvious and natural choice.  Not because of my writing skills.  But because of my marketing skills.

Most copywriters pick up their marketing expertise through their copywriting assignments.  Copywriters are trained to look into the motivations and reasons for results.  It’s natural for us to pick up marketing skills.

Marketing has a very large element of research to it.  So does copywriting. [click to continue...]

This course is probably the most appropriate course for the market I’m in: English language copywriting for Non Native English Speaking markets.

Steve Slaunwhite’s Strategic Copywriting Course offers something I couldn’t find elsewhere. A straightforward, clear copywriting course with a wide variety of assignments like you get in the real world as a copywriter: Web pages, sales letters, ezine and banner ads.

There was a bonus. These client assignments were for real clients. I also liked the fact that the client assignments were all relatively short, very do-able for someone with a busy schedule.

When I signed up I didn’t know that Steve is a great teacher and that he is such a pleasure to work with. Oh, and the others in the group were great!

This course was the best value for money I found. I don’t think Steve realizes just what a steal his course is. I simply hope he doesn’t increase his prices too soon. I actually want to sign up again just for getting his useful feedback on other client projects.

Here is where you can find out more: http://forcopywritersonly.com/courses.html