The other day, I was scheduling a teleseminar that I have on Monday, and I got totally paranoid again about time. Again.

See, I keep missing calls because I’ll plan something for Eastern and the other person will plan it for the same time Central or Pacific. Deals have been lost. Hearts have been broken.

So, I’m starting a movement to do away with time zones. From now on, we’ll all just be on the same giant time zone. Because it’s convenient for everyone currently in my office, we’ll use Eastern time as the standard. So when I say noon, we’ll all know what I mean.

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Contrary to reports of its demise, email is alive and kicking. And email marketing is what works as the most effective and profitable “last mile” to turning prospects into customers and clients.

That said, all of us are far too familiar with email newsletters that waste our time, pitches that annoy us, and downright spam. Those don’t work quite so well, at least not long term.

What works is a value exchange — your valuable information for your prospect’s valued time. Your subscribers need to know they can trust you … that you’re not a soulless self-promoting spam-bot.

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Your readers are starved for time, which unfortunately means there’s no time to give you lovingly detailed critiques about why they don’t like your blog.

People aren’t finding what they’re looking for on your website, and they’re leaving without a trace.

What’s going wrong? Why don’t they like what they see on your site?

You can’t know the definitive answer because nobody’s giving you feedback. You’re getting nowhere fast, and no one is offering you the slightest clue as to where you’ve gone astray.

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We preach it every week.

Attract the right kind of traffic by creating exceptional content.

Engage your audience so they know, like, and trust you. Let them know you’re the likable expert who’s going to give them the information (and eventually the products and services) that won’t let them down.

Then use smart copywriting and conversion techniques to turn those raving fans into customers.

No, it’s not paint-by-numbers, but it is a proven, systematic way to build your business.

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When it’s time to get a payoff from all your content marketing efforts, you send people to a landing page to take some form of action. If you’re relying on pay per click or banner advertising, landing pages are what determine whether you make a profit or take a loss.

The better your landing pages work, the more people take the actions you want them to. What kind of actions are we talking about?

Everything from a purchase, to an email opt-in, to a phone call. Other landing pages help you target specific search engine traffic, present various pricing options, and tell people what they need to do next after they’ve taken initial action.

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It isn’t hard to write about something you hate.

What’s hard is to do it well.

Hello, my name is Julien Smith, and I have a sickness — I’m absolutely obsessed with 1-star Amazon reviews.

It started with reviews of my book, Trust Agents, but it has since developed into a full-blown addiction.

Now I can’t stop reading them. I seek them out. I even bookmark them.

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