The Confident Copywriter

Archive for the ‘Random News’ Category

Have you ever received one of those weird emails from overseas, claiming someone you never heard of died and left you millions?

They’re at it again.

I just received an email with an ominous subject line:

Internet copyright of TheConfidentCopywriter (To Principal)
The email stated:

Dear Victoria Ipri,

We are an organization specified at dealing with domain name dispute and registration in Asia. We have something important on intellectual property right need to confirm with your company.

Today we received a formal application from a company called B2bmarketplace International, who applied to register ” TheConfidentCopywriter ” as their domain name in some countries and Network Trademark. During our preliminary investigation, we found that these domain names’ keyword is identical with your trademark. I wonder whether you consigned B2bmarketplace International to register these domain names with us? Or is B2bmarketplace International your business partner or distributor in Asia?

Currently, we have already postponed this application of this company temporarily. Therefore please let the relevant person make a confirmation with me by telephone or email ASAP.

Best Regards,

Wanda Peng
Auditing Department(HK Office)
Tel:00852 95 66 0205
FAX:00852-3071-7730
Email:wanda@skasiadnr.net
wanda.peng@dnrcenter.hk
Web:www.asiadm.hk.cn

I immediately freaked out and began writing back to “Wanda”, proclaiming my ownership of this domain, the legalities of my business…I mean, the nerve of this B2bmarketplace, whoever they were!

Then the good angel, who never leaves my right shoulder, screamed in my ear, “Hey, Stupid! You’re giving away confidential information? Go check this company out first!”

And I did. And guess what I found?

You’re gonna love this one.

I found a blog, www.miproconsulting.com, and the wonderful Jeff Ventura, who suffered the exact same fate and wrote about it back in June 2008:

“This approach is obviously personalized to the owner/manager of a commercial Internet brand and hints at risk to our online trademark due to a foreign application being made for our trademark name in country-specific flavors (.asia, .biz, .cc, .cn, .com. cn., .hk, etc.). Being the nice foreign domain registrar they are, the sender of this message, SK Holdings, is asking us if we want to do business with them and secure all of the miproconsulting variants listed below so that we can protect our Internet brand from this foreign applicant. Isn’t it nice that someone halfway across the globe is looking out for our best interests? Makes me want to do business with them right away.”

Wow, people. This is a new one on me. I quickly erased my email to ‘Wanda’ and stashed her email in my FRAUD folder for future reference.

Thank you, Jeff! I see you have 111 responses to this email. So apparently, the tactic isn’t new; just new to me.

If it’s new to me, it might be new to you. So, to my readers who own domain names, watch out!

This is a sneak attack we all need to be aware of.

OK…you can go back to whatever you were doing now…

Sean D’Souza, an expert on sales psychology and marketing, has some very important things to say about writing a great headline.

His latest blog gets right to the heart of what’s wrong with most of the headlines we might think are catchy or clever. It seems most of us really don’t have a clue about what makes a headline truly effective. We waffle. Thank goodness Sean is there to straighten out our thinking. This guy makes so much sense, I wonder if I was behind the door when they passed out the headline-writing brains!

One great example is this headline: Does Your Office Have Workplace Stress?

At first glance, it seems ok to me. Not very compelling, but nothing really terribly wrong with it. We see headlines like this all day.

However, Sean deftly points out why this headline is ineffective. First, what exactly is stress? And what is stress in the workplace? Does it mean your coworkers are getting into catfights? Does it mean only a few workers are reliable enough to show up every day, and they have to cover the jobs of their coworkers?

The word ‘stress’ is simply too general. It doesn’t have any punch, doesn’t trigger any warnings in the brain…”This is something I HAVE TO read!”

So I suggest you jump on over and read Sean’s post to get the whole story. I promise it will change your mind about headline writing.

Anyway, I signed up for his newsletter, PsychoTactics, and you might want to do that too.

Check out the post, sign up for his newsletter, have fun on his website, and BUILD YOUR BUSINESS!!!

From time to time, I like to let you know about great books that are hot off the press. I even give them away for free occasionally.

A few weeks ago, the hot book was Nick Usborne’s New Path to Riches
I gave away several copies of that fascinating book to people who were kind enough to make thoughtful comments here on my blog.

Today’s hot book is The Promise Doctrine, described by the authors as “A guidebook and system for consistently delivering on your promises!”

Father and son team Craig and Jason Womack are at it again. This time, The Promise Doctrine addresses how we make promises, and how we can do a better job keeping those promises which, of course, leads to increased personal and professional satisfaction.

C’mon…how many times a day do you make promises and then forget them? “Oh, yeah, I’ll get right on it” is a common phrase we all fail to live up to. This can have a disastrous impact on your reputation and your personal authenticity, which is so important to success.

Fresh off of Amazon.com, here’s a peek at the contents:

Chapter 1 – What’s On Your Promise “Plate”?
Chapter 2 – Why This, Why Now?
Chapter 3 – So, Let’s Get Started
Chapter 4 – Promise Making
Chapter 5 – The Promise Journey
Chapter 6 – The Promise Doctrine
Element One – PROMISE
Element Two – PERFORM
Element Three – HURDLES
Element Four – RENEGOTIATE
Element Five – TRUST
Element Six – CELEBRATE
The Promise Guide

According to the book’s description on Amazon:

The Womacks set up the reason why making *and keeping* promises is important. Promises are similar to goals, in that once you make a promise, you need to be able to take the necessary steps to follow through and complete the action…A goal is really just a promise to yourself (or someone else) that you will accomplish something…treating promises as “to do” items a la the “Getting Things Done” methodology. Mind sweeps to get all your promises down on paper empty your mind so that you’re not leaking mental energy trying to remember everything…The Promise Doctrine isn’t some complex system or “way out of left field” new-age philosophy. It’s just solid information on how to stay real to yourself and others by delivering on things that you promise to do and perform.”

Sounds great to me! I’ve always been very good at keeping up with promises, mostly by carrying a notebook with me everywhere I go. Even if I walk from my desk to the coffee machine, I take it with me, because I am sure to think of something on the way there that I don’t want to forget. Obsessive? Yes. Effective? Absolutely.

However, as my business is growing (and quickly!), I am finding this harder to do. I have several virtual staff members now, and I’m having to remember my own promises, plus everything I’ve discussed with them. That would take a pretty big notebook, rendering my system ineffective.

So…The Promise Doctrine is a book I really need to read thoroughly and absorb. And I’d like to give you the same gift of knowledge.

Therefore…if you’re reading this post, take a moment to share your thoughts on promise keeping, or the lack thereof. Make it meaningful and thoughtful and real…and I’ll send you a copy of The Promise Doctrine for FREE.* All yours, no strings attached.

Have fun!

*Employees or subcontractors of The Confident Copywriter or Victoria Ipri are ineligible for this giveaway.