Watch People Beat a Path to Your Door!

What business are you in?

Today, you, me and everyone else is in the I.T.C.H. business!

Information... to make good choices and decisions.

Transportation... to get people from point A to point B.

Communication... to send clear messages that attract resources and relationships.

Help... to serve, and improve the lives of others.

The more people whose I.T.C.H. you scratch, the more success you'll have.
The more ways you scratch a buyer's ITCH, the more business you'll get.

Information
Everyone needs sound information to make good decisions. In his terrific book,
Creating a New Civilization, Alvin Toffler says, "development and distribution of
information is the central productivity and power activity of the human race."

We organize information into knowledge. We draw upon our experience and wisdom.
All these weigh heavily in the choices and decisions we make.

Give useful information in many forms...
Newsletter, special report, bulletins, audio magazine, online E-zine, etc. If you don't
write or can't create one of these in-house, joint venture with someone who does,
provided it has value your audience will appreciate. Your readers (customer, buyer,
prospect) don't really care who writes the information. They care that it has value to them.

We spoke in prior newsletters about three keys to communication being...

Impact, frequency and medium.

Send something with impact and value...
This is critical. Information that gets attention has impact. It has value if it is usable and
can produce a result. I like to provide people with what I call the...

Three R's: resources, relationships and results.

Impact them with value in one or more of these three areas, and you'll be a welcome visitor.

Maintain frequency of contact...
Frequency builds familiarity. One contact is never enough. We said last week that it takes
fromseven to 27 contacts for people to act on most information they get. You must stay in
front of people on a regular basis, or you fall hopelessly behind the pack. Communicate
often, and be sure you have something of value to add.

Use every medium you can...
Mail, audio, video, fax, phone, radio, internet, email. People process information differently.
If you deliver it in the medium they prefer, your information will get higher priority.

Remember to ask the key question, "How do you prefer to get your information?"

You have little or no competition when you become a trusted expert to your target audience.

Transportation
During the 1980's, long before Microsoft spent billions on TV ads, our financial planning firm
asked all or our clients...

"Where do you want to go today, and where would you like to be tomorrow?"

When people asked me what I did for a living, I'd answer, "I'm in the transportation business."
They'd wonder if I were in trucking, or worked on railroads. They would ask, "Do you drive a
bus or a cab?"

My reply: "I help transport people financially, from point A to point B. Where do you want to go today,
and where would you like to be, tomorrow?"

My business was financial planning, insurance and investments. Those are vehicles; transportation.
People want to go somewhere, and your product or service just may be the vehicle to transport
them from point A to point B. An airplane is fastest, but the train is scenic and relaxing. Maybe they
like to drive by car or RV. How do you like to travel?

Everybody wants to go somewhere! How do you help transport people?

Communication
This is a master life skill. Communic-ability is a most critical and highly valued Success-Ability, and
will often determine your market-ability, profit-ability and value-ability.

Much of life is communication. Happiness, satisfaction success and fulfillment are largely a
result of what we say to ourselves every day (at the silent rate of 500 to 1,000 words each minute),
and what we say to others (as well as what they say back to us).

The person who sends the highest quality-driven messages, most frequently, wins hearts, minds
and pocketbooks.

Top copywriters earn $5,000 to $15,000 to write an ad, plus a percentage of the sales the ad pulls.
Why? Because a copywriter's ad can earn 10 times or 100 times the copywriter's fee.

Professional speakers are very highly paid people (I'm one of them). Celebrities speakers can earn
$25,000 to $100,000 to speak for one hour (I'm not one of them - yet!). I have been paid $10,000 to
speak for 45 minutes, and have earned $20,000 in a weekend. Companies pay tens of thousands
of dollars for consulting and to train their people. Why?

R-E-S-U-L-T-S!

A skill-building workshop, seminar or competency-based training can generate or lead to hundreds
of thousands of additional sales, revenues and profit. Companies (and individuals) pay a lot because
they get a LOT in return. Communic-ability is a highly valued and rewarded life skill.

Improve your communic-ability. Send clear and compelling messages people understand and can
act upon. Ask people what they want, and listen with empathy. Communicate often with customers
and your target audience.

Help
In an interdependent world, everyone needs help, advice, guidance and counsel. Being a source
of support-ability to others, you put yourself on the side of the angels. There is a new model of
leadership-ability for the new millennium. The days of the authoritative patriarch as leader are gone.

A 21st century leader is a servant-leader.

In a business world where customer contact is more like a hit-and-run accident, it feels wonderful
to have people there to support you when you need it. If you genuinely like to support and help others,
they will help and support you in return. Reciprocity is one of the oldest, most primitive and strongest
of all human drives. In the 21st century world of virtual business, and The Virtual Entrepreneur™ your
success will be proportional to your ability to help.

Provide support to others and watch people line up at your door.

Help people access the Three R's... resources, relationships and results.

What resources do you have to share?
Which relationships can you offer?
What results can you help people produce, or problems do you help solve?

Provide the Three R's and you'll forever be in people's favor.

Build your cred-ability with useful information that transports, and communication that helps.
When they are ready to buy, you stand out. Often you stand alone, #1 in line.

Even if you don't get rewarded directly, the universe has a way of balancing things out.
After all, what goes around, usually comes around.

This Week's Business Skill for Life:

Scratch someone's I.T.C.H every day, and watch people beat a path to your door!

Provide information, transportation, communication and help.