Lately no matter where I go, I’m watching some sort of dissension whether it’s the election or the merits of one social networking tool over another (or even the debate over whether social networking is worth the “trouble”).

Yesterday morning I had a friendly misunderstanding with an energy expert about a free meditation audio I created to help reduce stress a few months ago. I told her she could use it as a free bonus in her promotional materials for her on own meditation audio a few weeks ago. She promoted it yesterday as a prosperity meditation and I corrected her that it was a relaxation/stress relief audio.

But I just listened to it again, and I can see why she might have construed it as such. I really took a holistic approach to getting centered and calm, which included envisioning your overall ideal state. But my “come from” when I created the audio was witnessing stressed out folks throughout the week and even getting caught up in the drama a bit.

Her “come from” was around getting people to over come their money blocks (and overcoming money blocks overtly counts as getting a prosperity mindset!).

But what about the more acrimonious misunderstandings? Can you think about a time when you’d like to have a “re-do” opportunity and this time consider where the other person was coming from?

Ponder that one for a bit for me.

–Carol Dickson-Carr

It was my pleasure to interview Ann Rusnak, a delightful woman I met on Facebook and became even better acquainted with on Twitter, on a subject near & dear to my heart: creating more in less time!

She was very successful in both the corporate world and in running her own business. However, like many of us, she reached a point where there just wasn’t enough of her to go around. As a result, she suffered a physical “melt-down” that required her to take a year off to heal.

During that year, she found she only had the stamina to “work” for a maximum of 15 minutes at any one time. This led to several discoveries about optimizing efforts to achieve ultimate results. As she healed her way back, she found many other people were headed in the same direction - towards burnout and frustration - and without a guidepost in sight!

Ann used her experience (and her desire to help others) to create her famous “Flip Your Time” program that allows people to create amazing results using chunks of just 15 minutes at a time. So take 30 minutes out of your day to listen in as she shares some of her strategies!

 

 Interview with Ann Rusnak [29:51m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Last night I had a knee jerk reaction to a spam email I received on MySpace. The product he was promoting wasn’t offensive, but his timing caught me at a time where I felt the need to go into lecture mode (whereas I usually just delete and move on). Here’s the back story:

I was catching up on tweets on Twitter from earlier yesterday and saw a great conversation among some of my Twitter pals about Facebook Spam and building relationships and wished I’d been there live to put in my two cents.

Honestly, I thought relationship building was common sense, and said as much hours later on Twitter as a general tweet…

Then I get the “ca-ching” notification that I have email on MySpace from someone who isn’t even a MySpace friend 10 minutes later while journaling. The note reads as follows:

—-

“My name is *******, I don’t know your situation or anything like that. I would like to tell you a little bit about me. I work from home and sell discount health programs, my Company Ameriplan has been around since 1992. We have Dental, Vision, Prescription, Chiropractic, Medical, and many more plan that can save you hundreds of dollars a month. These programs range anywhere from 14.95 to 59.95 a month, We also have a 100% satisfaction guarantee that comes with membership….This is my ..web page.. so you can see the product and better understand the company and what we could have to offer you .

Thank you for your time,
XXXXXXXX”

To which I tersely respond:

“XXXXX, I hope you’ll take my advice. You might get higher conversions if you do:

Very Quick Old-School Internet Marketing Tip- Find your target market (do a key word search, use pay per click and article marketing), build relationships with them (by inviting them to a free 7 part e-course, for example), and then MAYBE, pitch your product to them.

I’m not in your target market; I don’t know you so your message is SPAM–but rather than report you, I thought I’d just educate instead.

Remember the metaphor: Most folks would rather date first before getting married!

Carol”

Dude is really clueless. His reply:

“explain to me please this is my first type of sales pitch”

Yikes. I guess I really do take for granted what people know (or more accurately, DON‘T know). I didn’t reply last night, as it was after midnight, though I figured I’d feel more generous this morning. But look at the presumption that he’s entitled to more education from me and I don’t even know him.

I had planned this morning to reply all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed by just referring him to Stephen Pierce’s free internet marketing book, but guess what! His MySpace account has been deleted. No big surprise there. I guess someone else was even crankier than I was last night.

Hopefully he’ll do some investigating on his own. Those outdated sales techniques were obsolete even when they were popular for my personality (says the girl who suffered through trying to sell Electrolux vacuums door to door ages ago and hated every minute of it).

So that’s that.

–Carol Dickson-Carr