“Tim Burton Made Me Late for Work”

 

“Now come on, Glenn! What’s the deal with the whacky headlines? Last week you were telling us that all search engines are soon to close down, this week you’re talking about Tim Burton!”

Well, yes, a good headline is important to pique curiosity and I shall talk about this some more as we go on.

But why the headline about Tim Burton?

Well, it’s actually genuine! It was the first line in a text (SMS) message that my brother sent me last week. It turns out that there’s a film being shot at the moment called, “Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiars” and it’s being directed by Tim Burton.

Some of the film has been done in the town of Blackpool, where my brother lives and, due to filming been done on that day, the promenade was closed, there were no trams going to North Pier (near the train station) and the town centre was clogged with traffic. So, he ended up missing his train and being late for work.

So why am I telling you this?

Well, as soon as I saw that opening line to his message I thought of lesson to be learned number one: the importance of having a good headline, as I mentioned above.

When I received the message and saw that first sentence, I was immediately hooked and just had to know what on earth my brother was talking about! He knew that it would get my attention and, in fact, commented on that very point in his next sentence.

The second lesson learned was to do with the way my brother reacted to the inconvenience. Normally, if we need to be somewhere by a particular time and there is a series of events that prevents us from doing so, it can be quite frustrating.

But clearly, my brother thought the whole thing was quite novel and amusing, especially as he’s a fan of Tim Burton. He felt compelled to tell me of the event and was clearly not too bothered by his delay. However, if it had been for a more mundane reason, I know that he would have been fuming!

So, lesson learned number two: in your business, be someone who stands out, who makes an impression and whom people like. Yes, you want people to know, like and trust you.

For example:

When you write a new blog post, do you readers think, “Ooh great, a new post!”?

When you send out an e-mail, are you one of the people who gets their e-mails open on the strength of who they are rather than just the subject line?

If you sell products or promote other people’s products, do people buy from you because it’s YOU rather than having to be sold on what the thing is and what it will do for them?

I only promote good quality stuff that I know can help you.

Click Here to Get Access to a Special Blueprint that Many Marketers – Both Newbies and Pro’s – Are Using to Generate $100s and Even $1000s!

If you were to call up one of your prospects or customers, would they be overjoyed to hear from you?

I could go on, but hopefully you get my drift.

The thing is, if you’re on a number of mailing lists I’m sure that you get e-mail after e-mail and sales pitch after sales pitch. Sometimes it can get to the point where you think, “Oh no, not another message from that person…” or, “I’m getting sick of hearing about this product from all these different people”.

Or, if you get an unsolicited phone call from a telemarketer, you can feel quite inconvenienced or even annoyed.

But here’s the thing:

You want people to be glad to hear from you. Even if you do something that might usually irritate them, you want people to feel that, because it’s you, then it’s no problem. Perhaps they’ll even be excited to tell someone else about you, just like my brother was when he sent me the message about Tim Burton.

So, even though they have a lot to read and get through already, you want people to be eager to read your content.

Even though they may get a lot of e-mails, you want people to spot your name in the sea of noise and see what you have to say.

Although there are many ‘shiny objects‘ out there, you want your products to stand out as different and be something that can really help your customers.

In a nutshell, you want to get yourself to a position whereby your reputation precedes you.

Now, this doesn’t come overnight, but if you ensure that you are honest, ethical, approachable, always give value, always connect with your audience and give them stuff that will really help them, then you will be on your way to being someone who people will be more than happy to hear from.

And if you can throw an intriguing headline or two into the mix then even better! 😉

 

Next Week

 

Next week will be podcast time. Phew, it comes around quickly!

I’ll be completely honest and say that I haven’t a clue what next week’s podcast is going to be about! But make sure that you jump onto my mailing list (and get my free stuff!) and subscribe to my RSS feed to be alerted as to when it’s live.

See you then!