This law is meant to protect consumers from deceptive marketing, unwanted pornography, and to give subscribers a clear path to opt-out of any subscription.  But what does it mean for you, the business owner at the other end of the law?  It means that if a potential client or subscriber shows intent to sign on for your offer, you must receive confirmation from them before you may proceed.

On the downside, this law whittles away at your opt-in list because many people will not respond to your email requesting them to click to confirm.  Often, they’re wary of emails asking them to click on an unknown (or forgotten) link, due to well-meaning, but fear-inducing, warnings about viruses, malware, spyware, and other internet predator ploys.

On the upside, those people who take the time to respond to your opt-in request are genuinely interested in your product or your service.  They will contribute to the overall high quality of your list with promising purchase potential.

So, how can you increase the number of people who respond to your request for confirmation?

• Offer an incentive that they can’t refuse when you send your double opt-in email. Offer a free bonus, a savings coupon, or a membership discount if they confirm their opt-in.

• If you have their phone number, contact the prospect to remind him or her to click and confirm.

• If you collected physical addresses at the time your prospects expressed interest (maybe you gathered business cards at a seminar or conference), use the physical addresses to send personal cards or notes reminding them to confirm their opt-in.  You can help to keep your correspondence out of the garbage by:

- Handwriting the address on the envelope:  it looks more personal, and much less like marketing material.  It works…just ask master direct mailing professionals.

- Using a real postage stamp:  not a metered stamp.

- Writing a personal note on the back that makes opening the envelope irresistible:  something like, “Here’s the information you requested,” should do the trick.

- Using a white or colored envelope instead of a manila one:  it has a greater chance of making it to a recipient’s read pile.

- Crafting your postal correspondence with the care that comes with believing that this will be your only chance to elicit a response:  Gary Halbert, a master copyrighter, would recommend that you treat each piece of written copy as if your life, and the life of your family, depended on a response to it.  You probably have only one chance to make a good impression.

Contacting prospects via standard post is more effective than it once was, simply because the definition of junk mail has moved from the mailbox to the inbox.  Spam has become a bigger pain than a mailbox full of confetti material, so a handwritten letter or card can seem like a breath of fresh mail – one worth opening.

Work to build your list of opted-in contacts, and you’ll multiply your revenue building opportunities.  But remember; be prepared to step outside of the email box to get those opt-ins.

In conclusion, do your absolute best to capture those subscription confirmations with incentives and a variety of contact methods that would please our friends at the FTC.  And once you build your list, know that you’ll have quality contacts who have raised their hands high, dubbing themselves as promising prospects with very deliberate purchasing intentions.

Bernadette Doyle specializes in helping entrepreneurs attract a steady stream of ideal clients. If you want to get clients calling you instead of you calling them, sign up for her free weekly e-zine at http://www.clientmagnets.com

Handwriting has become a bit of a novelty.  We communicate with texts, IMs, emails, and spoken words.  The handwritten, post-marked letter has virtually gone the way of handlebar mustaches and hoop skirts.  So when you see your name and address in script on the front of an envelope, your curiosity is piqued, right?

In marketing, it can be helpful to put yourself in the shoes of your prospects.  If you’d like to receive a handwritten note, most of them probably would, too.

The handwritten note theory has been tested by direct mail experts and copyrighters, and the results have been overwhelming:  it works.

Here are some arguments for hand-lettered script on envelopes and in correspondence:

• Since the early 1990s, even before email was the overwhelming choice for correspondence, handwritten notes were endorsed by professional marketers.  If hand-crafted script was a welcome addition to mailboxes back them, imagine how novel it will seem now that we’re fully immersed in the Information Age.

• “Pen and ink” catches a mail sorter’s eye.  Think of how you sort your own mail.  If you’re like most, you separate it into two piles:  the “I need to read that later” pile and the “ditch it, it’s junk” pile.  Handwriting gives your correspondence a better chance of landing in the more favorable stack.

• A note, card, or letter with a personalized feel will always feel more valuable.  It flatters its recipient, and makes him or her curious to know who would spend so much time on the thought of them.

• If you use handwriting to communicate, at least a portion of the time, your communication will be among the minority, making it unique and worthy of a second glance.  Many marketers have heard of the advantages of handwritten notes, but few will make the effort to do it.  This gives your effort a “noted” advantage.

Now maybe you’re thinking, “Geez.  I’m already buried under a mountain of work.  Where in the world am I going to find the time to sit down and write out notes to prospects?”  Here’s the beauty of this approach:  it’s so simple, anyone can do it.

Your niece or nephew can do it.  The neighbor kid can do it.  Your grandma can do it.  A student or intern can do it.  The handwriting doesn’t have to be yours, it simply has to be handcrafted.

Actually, adding one more demand to your growing business isn’t advisable.  Instead, think “automated.”  A good idea or good fortune shouldn’t equate to more work.  But it should call for a system to handle it.  Even if you’re only writing 30 cards per month, and you have no problem fitting that task into your schedule, you must have a plan on the back burner…for when a big idea, or a big success, hits.

There will always be marketing trends to follow.  There will always be the next big thing, onto which you’ll want to pounce before your competition gets the chance.  But, putting all of that aside, some things simply never go out of style, and handwriting is one of them.

In marketing, your handwriting grade isn’t earned with sweeping curves, crossed Ts, and dotted Is, but rather, it’s earned with the regular use of this versatile tool that simply never seems to go out of style.

Bernadette Doyle created Client Magnets Ltd to help self-employed people solve one of their biggest business problems: attract a steady stream of clients. If you’d like to receive invaluable tips and advice on how to attract clients with ease, register at http://www.clientmagnets.com

Research the People You’re Meeting

If you’re meeting someone in particular, research the person or people you’re meeting. Lots of resources exist that can give you both professional and personal reference material. The Web is a source of myriad information, with things like company websites, personal bios, work histories, resumes, portfolios; depending on who you’re meeting, you may be able to find a wide range of information about your contact.

If the Web doesn’t yield any useful information, you could check with the company where your contact works, to see if they have any marketing information containing professional info about your contact. You could also check periodicals, such as magazine stories, newspaper articles or professional interviews. Depending on how public the person is that you’re meeting, you may be able to find everything from the name of a spouse to the first place he or she worked out of college.

Use the information you find when you meet your contact. Talk about common interests, such as being dog owners, adoptive parents, yachters; whatever common bond you can form with your contact can help you form a good relationship. Ask about things near and dear to the person’s heart – not just business talk – and you’re well on your way to forming a real connection.

Ask Questions and Show Genuine Interest

Get to know people to form real connections. Ask questions about everything; not just their professional life, but their personal interests and family life, too. The more you can show that you understand, know and really “get” the person, the better your relationship will be, and the more business opportunities you’re likely to gain. Be a real person to your connections, too – if your new business partner volunteers information about his wife, talk about your wife. The more personal you can make your relationships with people, the better your long-term success with those relationships will be.

Have Fun Making Connections With All People

Everyone can have fun building good relationships – all you have to do is be genuinely interested in people. Enjoy getting to know your business colleagues, or even that woman you met on the street the other day. Forming connections with people can help in all aspects of your life, and even random connections can help your business in unexpected ways. You never know when someone will refer a key contact; an affiliate who may have great products for your prospects, or a business or distributor that could make your product a high-demand success!

Don’t just see people as stepping stones to a better business. Form real, legitimate connections by getting to know people, and I promise good business will naturally follow.

•    Carefully choose the niche that you want to be known as an expert at.

•    Learn everything there is to know about your declared area of expertise. Go through the experiences and learn the lessons, connect with a mentor and then put it into practice to be successful. Only then can you teach and help other people to do the same.

•    Pick something that you’re passionate about; when you’re passionate, that really shows through.

•    You will make a greater impact in a place where you genuinely have some value to offer.

•    Realize that you don’t have to try to get every person you ever encounter to become a client.

•    Build your relationship with the people who have already “raised their hands” and expressed an interest in your product or service.

•    Focus your effort and energy on people who are pre-qualified to buy. It is more pleasurable to work with and for them than to try to convert people who will never be interested or will never be qualified to buy your services.

•    Approach your tasks with the right energy. A positive attitude will resonate with your clients; conversely, so will negativity.

•    Be a congruent model for success by focusing on and being committed to your prospects and clients.

•    Use one-to-many methods for connecting with clients and offering services, as much as possible.

•    Put systems in place to start building your list.  Then continue to grow and improve your lead generation systems.

•    Know the principles behind offering ethical bribes, such as a free report, and have processes in place to handle responses.

•    Incite a call to action by creating a sense of urgency for people to sign up with you or purchase your offer. Deadlines work well for this.

•    Don’t underestimate the value of affiliates and joint venture partnerships.

•    Be consistent. Systematize and automate your process so that you can make money even when you aren’t working.

•    Use articles, teleseminars and social media to increase your exposure and the perception of you as an expert.

•    Use quality software to build and maintain your websites and blogs.

•    Always offer an upgrade with every sale.

•    Build relationships by following up with the people you meet at networking events right after the event.

•    Offer something for free or do a product giveaway at an event, collecting contact information in exchange for entry.

Implementing just some of these strategies today will add many more prospects to your list and take you closer to a more profitable business.  When you’ve applied them all, you will be a true client magnet.

But, how do you make that happen?

Simply put, you need to be seen as an expert in your field.

People will then go out and look for you. They will actively search you out and ask to be added to your list.

But first, you need to know how to establish yourself as an expert.

•    Choose your area of expertise carefully.
Maybe your passion is working with divorced women, but you decide to become a marketing coach for businesses, because that’s where the money is. Your passion isn’t with businesses, but they aren’t as financially challenged as divorced women.

You have to decide what you really want to be known as an expert at. Is it business marketing, or helping divorced women? You should follow your passion. Choose your area because of your passion; don’t choose your passion because there’s a niche for it. Your passion will reflect in your attitude. That is what will resonate with clients and make you attractive to them.

•    Choose a topic where you can add value.
There’s no point picking a group of people, or deciding on a niche, if you have no proven track record in that area.  You need credibility; proof that you’ve done what you are professing to be an expert at. How can you teach it if you haven’t experienced it?

You will have the most impact if you genuinely have some value to offer. People will see this when they read your tips or your articles. When they see that you can add some value to a topic, they will want more of what you have to offer. That’s how you attract a following.

•    Write articles.
Articles work very well, both as a way to showcase your knowledge in your area of expertise, and as a means of promoting your business. I have articles posted all over the web. When you create articles, offer them to other businesses that tie into the same clientele as yours. This will increase your exposure. The more people are familiar with your name, the more you will be viewed as the expert.

•    Teleseminars
Just by promoting a teleseminar, you indicate that you are an expert with valuable information that people need. There is also something about having a timeframe and deadline that increases the perceived value of teleseminars in people’s minds. The need to sign up for something you’re doing creates a sense of urgency in people, and they don’t want to miss it. Teleseminars are great for both establishing your expertise and building your list.

•    Social Media
MySpace, Facebook and Twitter are great ways to build a following. As your following increases, so does your image as the expert. And simultaneously, you will also put things in place that will drive more people to your website, and build your list.

By following these tips, you will establish yourself as an expert and make your business so attractive that clients will seek you out. The impact on your list and on your business will be continual growth and success.

Bernadette Doyle specializes in helping entrepreneurs attract a steady stream of ideal clients. If you want to get clients calling you instead of you calling them, sign up for her free weekly e-zine at http://www.clientmagnets.com

1. Recognize People for their Value
People want to be recognized for their intrinsic value as human beings – not as social connections. Recognize people for their value and individuality first and foremost. By building successful individual relationships with people, you can later leverage those relationships to form valuable business connections. But don’t make the connections about business from the beginning – make those connections genuinely about the connections, and about recognizing people for their individual value.

2. Don’t Ignore The People Not On Your “Target List”
One popular strategy that networkers use is to develop a list of targets – people they want to meet or spend time with at events or online. People who aren’t on that list may get ignored. This is a big mistake, and one of the primary differences between networking and relationship-building. When you target people, you miss out on other people who may have unexpected things to offer.

3. Give People Your Full Attention And Be Sincere
One of the most mortifying experiences that a person can have is shaking someone’s hand, only to realize that the person they’re greeting is looking over their shoulder to see who in the room is more important to greet. Don’t be keeping one eye open for the ‘important’ people when you’re building relationships.

Give everyone you meet your real attention. Make genuine connections with people. They sense the sincerity when you make these connections, and you never know when one of the people you meet has another valuable connection that they can provide you with – a connection you’d miss if you were too busy to move on to a more ‘important’ person.

4. Look At What YOU Can Do FOR People
When people are networking, they tend to evaluate someone and think “What can this person do for me?” Don’t ask what people can do for you. Ask what you can do for people. Look at ways you can provide value in other people’s lives. Offer valuable information, or helpful advice. Help them make connections that will serve them in business or their personal lives. People will return the favor, and may surprise you with the ways they can help your business. You’d never discover this if you were too busy asking what they could do for you.

Relationship-building does take more time than traditional networking, but you will make more valuable connections from it. Take the time to get to know the people you meet, and don’t dismiss people as being ‘unimportant’ because you’re too busy looking for ‘more important’ people. Every connection you make is valuable on a human level. It’s those real, true connections that will reap the rewards of success in the long term!

You see, recently several of my clients have been having BIG BREAKTHROUGHS in their businesses:

• Katharine went from zero to $100,000 in just 4 months….

• Moira made $30,000 in just 8 days…

• Melina made more in the last quarter than she did in the WHOLE of the previous year…

• Hazel has QUADRUPLED her prices and is attracting the high quality, committed clients that she wants…

• Wendy has gone from charging $40 an hour to offering $10,000 clients…

I could go on, but you get the picture!

So what do all of these women have in common? Aside from that fact that they are ALL my favourite clients They’ve ALL been using this same strategy to experience these BIG income leaps.

Want to know what it is?

Then JOIN ME on this special webinar ‘How to Have BIG Income Leaps in Your Business – Without Working Longer Or Harder’ that’s happening Wednesday 9th June at 1pm UK time.

Register here http://www.clientmagnets.com/bigincomeleaps/

On this webinar, I will share with you:

• The critical MINDSET shift you must make to experience BIG income leaps in YOUR business

• The ‘invisible wall’ that blocks big income LEAPS – and how to bring it crashing down!

• The simple strategy that can help you QUADRUPLE your revenues this year – yes, really!
• A specific action plan for generating YOUR BIG income LEAP

Spaces on this webinar are LIMITED. So reserve your spot right now by going to http://www.clientmagnets.com/bigincomeleap/

I look forward to helping you discover how to have YOUR Big Income Leap!

Of course you wouldn’t. That would be a foolish waste of time.

But that, in essence, is exactly what you are doing if you try to recruit anyone and everyone as your clients.

There’s a huge learning curve you’ve got to adapt to when you go into business for yourself and try to do your own marketing and selling.     It’s a real shock to the system to discover that you don’t need – or want – to sell what you’re offering to the whole world.

The most important thing to remember about selling your product or services is that you don’t have to try to get every person you encounter to become your client.

You need to focus on finding the right type of client for your business. You need to find a way for the people who would be most interested in what you have to offer to come to you. To get more clients, focus your time and attention on those people who have, in effect, already raised their hands.

Focusing on clients who express their interest in your type of business will drastically cut down your selling time. You will be focused on people who are already interested and prequalified to buy, rather than wasting your efforts and energy on people who are never going to be interested or qualified in the first place.

Make sure this concept of reaching a group of people who’ve raise their hands really strikes a chord with you. Don’t let the numbers of potential clients influence you. Would you rather market your offering to 1,000 random potential clients or to 100 viable clients you know are interested in your type of service?

It’s very important that you make the distinction between the number of names that you have and the quality of the relationships that you have with those people. You can easily open up the phone book or the yellow pages, or buy a mailing list with thousands of names on it, but that doesn’t mean that those people are predisposed to buy. They haven’t done anything to indicate that they are interested.

As you build your list, look to create a responsive prospect list so you get those people who have done something that tells you they’re interested.

You will get much better results and spend less time marketing.

Firstly,  What is Twitter?
Twitter is essentially a web platform where you can share 140-character snippets with the people who are interested in what you say. In order to see your 140-character updates, people must “Follow” you on Twitter. In order for you to see their updates, you must “Follow” them back. The people who follow you and read what you write are called “Followers,” and the people whose updates you can see you are said to be “Following.”

Pick a Username that Conveys You And Your Business
When you create a profile on Twitter, pick a username that conveys you and your business. If your business has a short name, such as Bike Bandit, you might select BikeBandit as your username.  You can also sign up using your personal name.  Select whatever makes it easy for other Twitter users to find and follow you. If you have a long business name, such as Wintergreen Hospitality Services Incorporated, you might want to use just an identifying word from your business, such as Wintergreen. Pick a short username consistent with your business, and one that your users will be able to find easily.

Keep Your Profile Consistent with Twitter
When you’re building your Twitter profile, keep it consistent with Twitter. Twitter only gives you 140 characters for your bio, so think of a few words or a phrase that summarizes your business. You can also provide a link to your website in your profile, so that gives you a chance to funnel your Twitter followers to a specific page that gives them more information about you. Think of your Twitter bio as a teaser, and point them to a page that will make them want to know more about you via your profile URL.

Using Icons and Backgrounds Effectively
You can upload a picture to represent your business on Twitter, but the size is limited. Some businesses prefer to use a logo; one that’s consistent with other branding; so it’s easy to identify the business. Many people prefer to use a personal photograph, though, because the purpose of Twitter is to connect with other people. A photograph is more humanizing, and makes you more accessible as a person.

You can also put up a background on your Twitter page that followers see when they come to your page. You can use this background for your company logo, or to show your product or important things from your company.

Building a successful Twitter profile is your first step in building a strong Twitter following for your business. Remember that people want to connect with a human, so try to humanize your profile as much as possible. Utilizing your profile effectively makes it easier for people to find you and understand what your business does. If you follow these easy tips, you’ll have a successful Twitter profile in no time!

Bernadette Doyle specializes in helping entrepreneurs attract a steady stream of ideal clients. If you want to get clients calling you instead of you calling them, sign up for her free weekly e-zine at http://www.clientmagnets.com

Of this, I am positive. And you need to be positive about it too.

Do you recall the devastating tsunami in Sri Lanka at the end of 2004? There was a Swedish woman on the beach that day who became known as “the angel on the hill.”

She noticed the first part of the tsunami – the warning. She observed that the tide went out really quickly and was revealing the seabed. It so happened that years before, she had been working as a journalist and had done a broadcast in Hawaii about the impact of tsunamis.

At that moment, she was one of the few people that recognized and understood what was happening. She was able to warn many people to get off the beach immediately. Who knows how many lives she saved just by that action?

After the two waves subsided, people were in shock, and many badly injured. They assembled for safety on this hill, where this same Swedish woman tended to many injuries. It turned out that she had completed two years of a medical degree a few years earlier.

Though she wasn’t a qualified doctor, that two years of training had given her just enough knowledge to save many lives.

And, here’s what I want you to take away from this true story.

She had been a journalist and that hadn’t worked out. She had gone to medical school and that hadn’t worked out. And quite possibly, up until that day in her life, she may have had well-meaning friends and relatives and colleagues saying to her, “You’re in your 30s now. When are you going to get your act together?”

She had obviously tried a few different careers that hadn’t played out in the way she probably expected them to. But, from another perspective, she had the perfect training to save lives that day.

So, stop being so hard on yourself. Stop lamenting the things of your past or thinking they were a waste of time, or that you’re a failure for not following through on them. So what if you’ve lost interest in a promising hobby you might have had as a child. It’s no big deal if that musical instrument fell by the wayside when you got older.

Don’t beat yourself up over it.  Stop looking at these things as though you are a quitter or that you lack commitment.

How about looking at them from a different perspective? How about seeing everything that you’ve done in your life, and every single thing that has happened to you up until now, as the perfect training for adding the most value to your life today?

What greater value could that Swedish woman in Sri Lanka have had than to save the lives that she did?

You are in a position to add value, too. Don’t use your past as an excuse or justification for not moving forward. You need to look at your past in a different way. You have the perfect training to get started on what you want to do in your present. Your past experiences are all signposts leading to the next step, the next place you need to go.

You have a brilliant foundation to build upon right now.  So Step UP!, take action and move forward to where you truly want to be.