Buying decisions are about core emotional needs a purchase meets

I recently had a conversation with my good friend, Jackie Morrison, owner of The Business Helper, in Suttons Bay. Later that evening I was in contact with Paul Hassing, in Melbourne Australia, who is editor of :

Small Business Owner
A blog about the lives and times of Aussie small business owners, proudly brought to you by myBRC

This was the post which brought about a comment from me, which I added to their blog. I’ve duplicated it below as well. Thanks for reading!

Small Business Owner blog

I thought about this blog post subject yesterday during a conversation with a fellow business owner. We live in a small resort village. She owns a store with the highest volume of foot traffic outside of the local grocery store.

She sells office and business supplies plus the types of business services you would expect - copies, shipping, faxing, etc. And because we are 15 miles from the next bigger city she thrives by being able to provide the convenience of location and time savings. And she provides outstanding customer service. Her customers want her to solve their problems.

We talked about how lucky our village is in spite of our national economy. We seem to be a bit insulated up here. The tourism has been good. Our local wineries, boutiques, antique shops, galleries and gift stores have always served as magnets for shoppers wanting unique items not readily available elsewhere.

Subtle changes have visited our agricultural county over the past decade or so. It used to be families would come and stay for a solid three months. Now, both parents work and they spend a week here and there, perhaps a weekend. Most of the people who owned second homes or cottages have retired and live here all year. That has affected their casual ‘on vacation’ shopping mindset. They are applying the same cost-savings practicality they used prior to living here full time. Their permanent residence has also removed one more vacation rental property from the roster which is affecting vacationers being able to find lodging.

So rather than an abundance of the ‘idle wealthy’, we are transitioning to a population base of practical-minded residents who no longer seem to be buying those high-end gallery and boutique items.

The demographic of those spending freely tend to be a bit older, and while internet users, they are not rabid fans of shopping online. So our conversation led to the topic of consumables. Because pretty soon the age group above our’s will soon be gone. And the age group coming up does not shop for hobby. They shop online. They spend their days on the beach, skiing, boating, golfing, and playing tennis.

Luckily, for her business, she has the perception to see this shift coming and is beginning to change out her inventory to more consumables rather than the trinkets sitting on shelves looking nice and collecting dust.

We also discussed that as this population ages there is less of a desire to collect and accumulate with more of an emphasis on downsizing. Somewhere along the way people are losing the desire to own more “stuff”.

So it was with a sense of foreboding that we said nice things about our fellow merchants and tried not to think of how the fabric of small town shopping is going to change, and not all will be able to survive.

Differentiation will definitely matter. However I think the secret to their survival will be learning about this new type of customer and developing memorable relationships with them. Because regardless of what they value or their generational attitudes, buying decisions are about core emotional needs a purchase meets and fills. Knowing that, and selling to that emotion will be the key to their survival - both online and walking in off the sidewalk.

Continued success,

Cheryl C. Cigan
www.known.com

Mt. Pleasant Author Chris Zimmerman Unleashes Fourth Novel - Forty Mile Point

Mt. Pleasant Author Chris Zimmerman Unleashes Fourth Novel

MT. PLEASANT — Mt. Pleasant author Chris Zimmerman has released his fourth novel, Forty Mile Point, another Michigan-based mystery that will appeal to a wide variety of readers.

Chris Zimmerman
The opening chapter chronicles the disappearance of a man and a woman on a breezy, August afternoon in northern Lake Huron. The woman was an attorney who represented some of Michigan’s most notorious polluters; the man was a congressional aide whose body was never found. Local police departments aren’t convinced that the incident was an accident because of the stash of clues left behind. The case is further complicated by a letter written by the aide to the story’s main character, reporter Derrick Twitchell, in which he said, “I know I’m going to be murdered, but I don’t know when or where.”

Twitchell was introduced in Zimmerman’s third novel, The Covenant Field, which was released in 2007. What Twitchell does with the letter and the resulting trouble is what makes Forty Mile Point such an enjoyable read.
Zimmerman uses settings that are familiar to the residents of Michigan. The Presque Isle lighthouse on the northeast shore plays a significant role, as does a jazz club on Detroit’s north side. Marion, Traverse City, Mackinac Island, Gaylord and the Governor’s Mansion are featured. Forty Mile Point by Chris Zimmerman
The cover image of the Holland Lighthouse was taken by Jenifer Selwa, from Newaygo. It’s eerie, secretive dimension is a hint of what’s to come in the story, where a scene at a haunted lighthouse lends clues to the couple’s disappearance.

With more than 22,000 copies of his previous novels sold, Zimmerman is anxious to deliver his latest work. Much like his previous three, Forty Mile Point has an outdoorsy flavor, a suspense-filled plot, and a satisfying twist at the end Chris Zimmerman has been a writer for the past 20 years, with articles published in many magazines and newspapers. Before The Covenant Field, he published The Secret-Keeper (2005) and Intentional Acts (2004). Best-selling author and Michigan resident Sue Harrison describes Chris as “a fine, fine writer…of a quality equal to and often surpassing the biggest names in the suspense field.”

“Forty Mile Point” ISBN: 978-0-692-00409-8
Order Chris Zimmerman Books


Useful Known Tools and Hardware Links

Useful Known Tools and Hardware Links
PS20-2A Bosch Power Driver
Bosch PS20-2A 12 Volt Max Lithium-Ion Pocket Driver with 2 Batteries, product information. Easily compare PS20-2A prices at a glance. PS202A product reviews to make your home improvement and construction projects the best. Enjoy perfectly finished projects with a PS-20-2A. Your friends just might ask you to bring your PS202A with you when you visit.

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PS20-2A Bosch Power Driver Information

PS20-2A Reviews, prices and information.

Bosch PS20-2A 12 Volt Max Lithium-Ion Pocket Driver with 2 Batteries, product information. Easily compare PS20-2A prices at a glance. PS202A product information to make your home improvement and construction projects the best. Easily drive flat head and philip’s head screws with the Bosch power driver. Enjoy perfectly finished projects with a Bosch PS-20-2A. Your friends just might ask you to bring your PS202A pocket driver with you when you visit.

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PS20-2A Bosch Power Driver Specifications
Bosch PS20-2A 12 Volt Max Lithium-Ion Pocket Driver with 2 Batteries, product specification. Easily compare PS20-2A prices at a glance. PS202A product information to make your home improvement and construction projects the best. Easily drive flat head and philip’s head screws with the Bosch power driver. Enjoy perfectly finished projects with a Bosch PS-20-2A. Your friends just might ask you to bring your PS202A pocket driver with you when you visit.
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PS20-2A Bosch Power Tools Power Driver Technical Information
Bosch PS20-2A 12 Volt Max Lithium-Ion Pocket Driver with 2 Batteries, technical information. Easily compare PS20-2A prices at a glance. PS202A product information to make your home improvement and construction projects the best. Easily drive flat head and philip’s head screws with the Bosch power driver. Enjoy perfectly finished projects with a Bosch PS-20-2A. Your friends just might ask you to bring your PS202A pocket driver with you when you visit.
www.known.com/PS20-2A-technical.html

TH42PX80U Bosch PS20-2A 12 Product Reviews

Bosch PS20-2A 12 Volt Max Lithium-Ion Pocket Driver with 2 Batteries, product reviews. Easily compare PS20-2A prices at a glance. PS202A product information to make your home improvement and construction projects the best. Easily drive flat head and philip’s head screws with the Bosch power driver. Enjoy perfectly finished projects with a Bosch PS-20-2A. Your friends just might ask you to bring your PS202A pocket driver with you when you visit.
www.known.com/PS20-2A-reviews.html

Make Money Online Without Information Products

Work from home. Easy and simple to do.

Dan Lopez and I recently did a very successful and profitable internet marketing experiment combining techniques and marketing strategies openly published by leading internet marketers.

We made a sale within seven days

of launching a series of mini-sites and we immediately ranked on Google with solid page one and page two results. And we started getting traffic. Free traffic. No PPC, no advertising, no videos, no articles, no press releases. Solid “I am ready to buy” qualified traffic and buyers. Immediately.

And all this free traffic was highly qualified and in the “I Am Ready to Purchase This Product Now” phase of the buying process - simply because of our strategically-chosen keyword and keyword phrases. No casual information seekers. When they got to the site they were ready to buy.

One product. One keyword. One consistent message. One click through to buy a merchant’s product and an affiliate commission to us. Simple.

This is better than having to buy and own merchandise, build a website, find a market, build a list.

You get the picture. It can be daunting. One of the earliest mentors in my career was Jim Koester, owner of The Gibraltar Trade Center in Taylor, Michigan. He was the king, and I mean the king of wholesale liquidation and generating huge crowds to his Weekend Public Market. Some very good advice which he gave me early on about products and buying and selling in the liquidation industry was, “Don’t look at it, don’t love it, don’t touch it. Buy it and sell it. Immediately.” The other piece of good advice he gave me which came in handy when I owned my bookstore was, “Never confuse crowds with money.” Time and time again he proved to be so “right on” with that advice.

It was that advice from Jim Koester which helped frame in Dan’s and my mindset for this “money-getting” internet marketing experiment. Dan and I didn’t really want just crowds, we wanted qualified buyers (who doesn’t, right?).

It was easy to follow simple guidelines

Dan established some site design guidelines to attract and capture the eyes of site visitors. For instance, all crucial elements above the fold, a compelling “call to action” graphic image, the correct balance of H1 and H2 tagged headlines and sub-heads, strategically-placed keyword phrases in each paragraph, and crucial keyword-rich links to similar websites.

The best part is we didn’t have to spend a dime on additional websites or hosting or domains. We used an existing network of personal websites and within seven days of creating the mini-sites we made the first sale utilizing the principles of The FAR Approach.

Pretty simple logic. Focus. Action. Results.

We focused on the highly competitive HDTV market niche within the electronics market. Pretty gutsy if you ask me to try and compete as newbies in a highly keyword-competitive market. The simple research we utilized showed us there were huge advertising dollars being spent on the HDTV market niche, and even though we started after the Christmas shopping season, we knew we could catch some of the HDTV Super Bowl traffic. We weren’t expecting to get all the traffic. We just wanted a small piece of that traffic to visit our sites. We just wanted to generate interest and free traffic. And we did. Surprisingly the traffic hasn’t really slowed down much (except for on Super Bowl Sunday!) because of the way we wove our long-tail keyword phrases throughout the text, meta tags and descriptions. It was very easy to do. You can do this too.

Ok, you might be asking yourself, “How can I do this?”

Is it simple? Does it really work? Can I do this if I don’t have any experience selling on the internet?

The answer to each of your questions is yes, you can do this too. If you can browse and identify bestselling products on Amazon (or from any other vendor with an affiliate program) and use a simple HTML template, you can duplicate everything we did and generate traffic, and make commissions on products shoppers buy. This, at the “very most simple best” is all you have to do. And I have even figured out a way to do this for free, without having to go through the expense and upkeep of buying domain names and hosting websites.

The theory is simple.

Catch the people when they are ready to buy. Choose your products to match popular gift-giving holidays (Hallmark has certainly defined those days for us!), discover your own niche to match your personal passion, or just get downright down and dirty and competitive and go after established market niches.

Your start up is simple and easy.

Take it at your own pace in your spare time or go into it full time. You just have to add the words to the pages. And they don’t even have to be your words. Just gather the data and add your own flavor and personality to what you are selling.

You can’t take ACTION if you are in the middle of the confusion and chaos of “Information Overload”!

There are so many products I could recommend to you to do this. But the problem you will encounter is what I went through. You will soon begin to experience what all internet marketers come to know as “Information Overload.” You will end up spinning your wheels trying to put together all the pieces of the “internet making money online” jigsaw puzzle. Don’t do that. I don’t want you to do that. You can’t take Action if you are in the middle of the confusion and chaos of “Information Overload”!

See the RESULTS for yourself - See how simple and easy it can be

So, rather than give you too many choices, I am going to send you to two different website locations so you can see for yourself how simple and easy it can be to make money online. Yes, you can be just seven days away from your first sale too! The first site is for a “7 Days to the Sale” report which Dan Lopez put together about what we did. He used our “7 Days to the Sale” success as a case study for The FAR Approach.

A product I am comfortable recommending to you!

The second is for a product which I am comfortable recommending to you as the easiest to understand and use program which explains how we did what we did, and why we did everything the way we did. This is a great program for “newbies” and experienced pros alike. BUT, it is the best place for you to start your online business, and you will not experience the confusion of information overload. You will get just what you need to succeed with your internet business.

Continued success to you!

Cheryl C. Cigan
www.known.com

PS: Send an email to information -at- known.com and I’ll add you to our mailing list, and I will respond to you with information about how to avoid the expense of domain names and website hosting fees!

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EVERY EFFORT HAS BEEN MADE TO ACCURATELY REPRESENT THIS PRODUCT AND ITS POTENTIAL. EVEN THOUGH THIS INDUSTRY IS ONE OF THE FEW WHERE ONE CAN WRITE THEIR OWN CHECK IN TERMS OF EARNINGS, THERE IS NO GUARANTEE THAT YOU WILL EARN ANY MONEY USING THE TECHNIQUES AND IDEAS IN THESE MATERIALS. EXAMPLES IN THESE MATERIALS ARE NOT TO BE INTERPRETED AS A PROMISE OR GUARANTEE OF EARNINGS. EARNING POTENTIAL IS ENTIRELY DEPENDENT ON THE PERSON USING OUR PRODUCT, IDEAS AND TECHNIQUES. WE DO NOT PURPORT THIS AS A “GET RICH SCHEME.”

ANY CLAIMS MADE OF ACTUAL EARNINGS OR EXAMPLES OF ACTUAL RESULTS CAN BE VERIFIED UPON REQUEST. YOUR LEVEL OF SUCCESS IN ATTAINING THE RESULTS CLAIMED IN THIS POST OF PRODUCTS WE ARE PROMOTING IN THEIR MATERIALS DEPENDS ON THE TIME YOU DEVOTE TO THE PROGRAM, IDEAS AND TECHNIQUES MENTIONED, YOUR FINANCES, KNOWLEDGE AND VARIOUS SKILLS. SINCE THESE FACTORS DIFFER ACCORDING TO INDIVIDUALS, WE CANNOT GUARANTEE YOUR SUCCESS OR INCOME LEVEL. NOR ARE WE RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY OF YOUR ACTIONS.

MATERIALS IN THE PRODUCTS WE ARE PROMOTING AND THEIR WEBSITE(S) MAY CONTAIN INFORMATION THAT INCLUDES OR IS BASED UPON FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS WITHIN THE MEANING OF THE SECURITIES LITIGATION REFORM ACT OF 1995. FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS GIVE OUR EXPECTATIONS OR FORECASTS OF FUTURE EVENTS. YOU CAN IDENTIFY THESE STATEMENTS BY THE FACT THAT THEY DO NOT RELATE STRICTLY TO HISTORICAL OR CURRENT FACTS. THEY USE WORDS SUCH AS “ANTICIPATE,” “ESTIMATE,” “EXPECT,” “PROJECT,” “INTEND,” “PLAN,” “BELIEVE,” AND OTHER WORDS AND TERMS OF SIMILAR MEANING IN CONNECTION WITH A DESCRIPTION OF POTENTIAL EARNINGS OR FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE.

ANY AND ALL FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENTS HERE OR ON ANY OF OUR SALES MATERIAL ARE INTENDED TO EXPRESS OUR OPINION OF EARNINGS POTENTIAL. MANY FACTORS WILL BE IMPORTANT IN DETERMINING YOUR ACTUAL RESULTS AND NO GUARANTEES ARE MADE THAT YOU WILL ACHIEVE RESULTS SIMILAR TO OURS OR ANYBODY ELSES, IN FACT NO GUARANTEES ARE MADE THAT YOU WILL ACHIEVE ANY RESULTS FROM OUR IDEAS AND TECHNIQUES IN OUR MATERIAL.
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Calling All Internet Marketers in Northern Michigan

Are you familiar with the new website for Traverse, Northern Michigan’s Magazine at www.mynorth.com? Within the site is the ability to enjoy a northern Michigan version of a social site similar to MySpace. You know, set up a profile and invite friends in, create a conversation.

You can also create “Groups” which I did.

I just started “Known Internet Marketing in Northern Michigan”

Known Internet Marketing ImageI invite you to join the conversation on MyNorth.com! This is the first post:

Calling All Internet Marketers in Northern Michigan

You know how it is. Nobody speaks your language.

Friends and family members give you a blank stare when you begin talking about email marketing, PPC, social marketing, teleseminars, SEO, SEM, blogs, forums, gurus, video marketing. And the one getting the most resistance is when you say, “Are you on Twitter?” (Feel free to follow me @known )

What is your story? What do you sell online? Or are you like so many, filled with questions and the “how do I do this?”

I’ve been involved with many aspects of internet marketing since 1995 when I launched www.known.com. I took ten years off to open a bookstore in Suttons Bay, Known Books. Sure I continued selling online and building affiliate programs and websites, but I couldn’t devote as much time to it as it demanded of me, so some changes were made.

As a bookseller my customers know they can depend on me to recommend a good book to them. I love their expectations. And what I have found is that the same questions are coming at me again, only this time it is about “all things internet marketing” because my friends and customers know I am a fanatic and neurotic and compulsive about doing tremendous research to learn something new and to really understand and apply what I’ve discovered.

One thing I have discovered is that the more I know, the more I discover what I have to learn more about. So can you see why this is the perfect industry for someone with my compulsive curiosity?

I have been searching far and wide and learning about entire industries and who the top players are, the internet marketing leaders at the very top from whom all others have learned. Those industries and those leaders are what I want to discuss and expose here, and to learn and get to know others who are marketing products online.

Fair enough? Let me hear from you!

Cheryl C. Cigan
www.known.com

Make it Known!

Who Said It? November 20, 2008

“You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write.”

- Saul Bellow

Who Said It? November 19, 2008

“I love being a writer. What I can’t stand is the paperwork.”

-Peter De Vries

Warren Buffett Business and Investing Philosophy

“Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful.” — Warren Buffett

John Carlton - The Most Ripped-Off Copywriter Continues to Make Me Laugh

Just read this on Twitter from John to Mike Dillard -

It must be true because John said it……….

“If you’re writing a novel, stick with sex and death. If it’s a biz book, go for sex, death and making money.”

If you want to know more about John Carlton his website at www.johncarlton.com is a good place to start.

Leelanau County November 4, 2008 Election Results

Leelanau County Election Results:

www.leelanaucounty.com/government625066.asp

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