Without a good newsletter, you don’t own a list.

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e-newsletter marketing exampleI’m all for social media. I use social media and am dependent on it for the reach and the level of engagement it enables.

I also have a website, and am dependent on it for how it presents my products and services to an interested audience.

Finally, I have an e-newsletter, which is as important to me as either my social media pages or my website.

But a lot of companies and freelancers online don’t have an e-newsletter. Among these, some have never had an e-newsletter and others had one once, but have let it go.

I think these companies are making a big mistake. Some think that their blog is now their new “e-newsletter”, so they have stopped publishing. Others think that social media can do everything an e-newsletter can do, and more.

They are all wrong.

Here are 3 reasons why, whatever else you do, you need an e-newsletter.

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Monday Spark: Get out and meet some people.

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freelancer meeting eventWorking from home, all of the time, without any contact with your peers, prospects or customers is a little unnatural.

For the last 100 years – up to about 10 years ago – most people worked side by side with their colleagues in office buildings or factories.

Before that, people worked within their communities, often within walking distance of their homes.

It is only within the last 10 years or so that the internet has allowed people work from home. (Actually, I can work from anywhere in the world, as long as I have an internet connection.)

Tens of millions of people now work in this way – relying on email, the web, social media and their phones to keep in touch with industry news, and with their clients.

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When cold-calling a prospect…give, don’t ask.

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cold calling with giftCold calling is hard.

Yes, a small proportion of freelancers find cold-calling easy. But for most of us, reading through our list of prospects, reaching for the phone, dialing the number, and then doing our best to pitch our services is one of the hardest tasks imaginable.

It’s hard because we know that more often than not our prospect will say no.

And when they do say no, we feel bad. We feel we have failed. And on a personal level, however professional we try to feel about the experience, we feel rejected. We are not good enough. Our prospects have found us to be inadequate and wanting in some way.

In a quite different way, it’s tough for your prospect as well.

First off, she has been interrupted. When her phone rang she was busy doing something else. Her mind was in a whole different place.

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Monday Spark: What is the worst that could happen?

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scary space jumpIf Felix Baumgartner asked himself that question before jumping out of his capsule at an altitude of over 24 miles, the answer would be a little grim.

He was literally jumping out into the unknown, aware that a variety of things could go wrong at many stages of his descent.

Clearly, he and his team had worked hard to anticipate problems and risks, and to address and plan for them as best they could.

But still. It was a very risky thing to do. And the worst that could happen was…well, it was as bad as it gets.

So how about you?

Do you have plans to grow your freelance business that feel a little scary?

Do you think about approaching large companies for business, but never actually do it because of a fear of rejection?

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If reading your copy doesn’t feel effortless, write another draft.

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writing drafts with typewriter“The opening is weak.”

I don’t know how many times I have said that to copywriters when I look at their final drafts. Maybe 100 times. Probably more.

I get to see a lot of first drafts and final drafts. People ask for my feedback. And in 90% of cases I say, “The opening is weak.”

A very few copywriters write terrific leads or openings. Most do a mediocre job. Some copywriters, while doing a great job on every other aspect of a sales message, write a horrible first few sentences.

This is a problem, because if your first few sentences are weak, most of your readers will toss your sales letter or hit the back button before they even get to the good stuff.

So why does this happen? Why do copywriters have so much trouble with those first few sentences?

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Monday Spark: Eating chocolate makes you smarter!

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eating chocolate makes you smartI do love to be the bearer of good news.

Anyway, it’s official. Chocolate makes you smarter. It really does.

In a recent research study, just published by The New England Journal of Medicine, it was shown that there is a direct correlation between a country’s chocolate consumption and the number of Nobel prize winners it produces.

That’s right. The more chocolate you eat, the more likely you are to become a Nobel laureate.

Here is a quote for you, from the study.

“The principal finding of this study is a surprisingly powerful correlation between chocolate intake per capita and the number of Nobel laureates in various countries. Of course, a correlation between X and Y does not prove causation but indicates that either X influences Y, Y influences X, or X and Y are influenced by a common underlying mechanism.”

Never mind the X and Y stuff. Just focus on the chocolate.

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