Wow. This sound kinda scary! Even though I have read a lot of good magazines and informative books  and have lots of neat informational material but gee...It's been a while but, this is the time.  I need to launch my own marketing campaign.  I like most of us, want this to be a sure thing but I feel like a kid trying to ride my bike for the very first time. 

As a kid, I was full of sheer determination and toughness, I thought "I'm gonna ride this bike like the big kids and won't it feel great!"  The carrot was just the biggest and sweetest that this kid could imagine... and yes, I did get on my bike all by myself.  No one was around and GOOD ‘cause I didn't want anyone to see.  This was the BEST time for me! I mean, I meant business and I was concentrating fully on this.  I ran the bike a little way and jumped on...the bike was kinda big for me but that was okay 'cause it was a girls bike. And I was an avid tom boy with little blue jeans and a grey sweat shirt.  I loved living in the country and jumping in brand new mud puddles, throwing dirt clods.  I'd lay down in the grassy fields nearby in the tall grass and hid from my sisters...laying face up under the warm sun, watching the big fat clouds blowing by in the wind, life was wonderful!

Come to think of it, the thoughts I feel, that my own campaign may or may not be successful should not undermine my enthusiasm either.  I know that I can send out my mailers and they'll be great.  The sheer thought of the launch is so exciting and my thoughts of doing something good in this market gives me the butterflies and the smile of nervous excitement :-)  Except now that I have myself and everything together, it seems that I do not know exactly where to start?  I mean I know want I to say, and I know who I want to say it to BUT what if I don't say it right or worse yet, what if I do not motivate the homeowner enough to call me?  Then maybe I would feel like - as my favorite inspirational guru's puts it - when the outcome is not exactly to our liking... "You messed up."

But if I recall correctly, there was a little more to trying to ride that bike.  Ugh, big bikes didn't come with trainer wheels.  So I kinda crashed and fell with my bike on top of me - ouch.  But you should've seen me! I must have gone a couple feet and it felt wonderful!  ‘Cause I checked for bruises and knocked the dirt off and got back on again...!  As you may have guessed, this went on for a while, but I did practice and got better at it and realized I needed to balanced and keep peddling all at the same time except, the fence got in the way.  I crashed again and me and my ego were a little beaten up and it hurt but I was okay.  And I was no longer sitting on the side line, wondering.

You know I have read some current marketing information and several successful authors have said to find someone (you agree with and perhaps relate too) and mimic what they do in their successful campaign and that there is no need to recreate the wheel.  I can do that, I have some great resources.  I will get started.  I will start out a smaller campaign.  As I understand it, I will need to design at least three different headlines with the right words and some sizzle, and I will keep a track record of what works and send out mailing information to those same addresses for a few months...I have a MARKETING PLAN.  I will get started and pretty soon I will be a real pro just like all of you fine folks out there :-)   Let me know if you think I am on the right track or your few pointers for me?

Oh yes, my guru also says that failure is never getting started at all.

Take care.

Hi there.

When I was first in sales many years ago, I listened to a home based course by Carnegie.  I cannot remember the correct name it's been so long. I got a job through a friend that thought I was good looking enough to handle the job, in radio sales.  Because I was young and at the very bottom of the ladder, I got the files no one else wanted or could not sell.  BUT I made sales and I brought in money!!  The station manager asked me how I was making sales.  I told him that I listened to the Carnegie course, he looked at me and shrugged his shoulders.  :-)  I smile now as I recall there was not any respect forthcoming.  Such are some people, right?

When I got accepted to Western Washington University, I thought that I was probably done with sales but after studying political science and a career as a paralegal and legislative office manager, I have come full circle.  I am taking classes again and guess what...I'm in sales again!! And I love it!

It took me a long time, life happens, kids, tuition, changing careers making major purchases.  I got into an auto accident too and hurt my back...yes, I had to recover.  Thank goodness I am stubborn because I refused to take the pills any longer than I had too and kept stretching my muscles, walking and meditating and I also bought Tony Robbins' tapes.  I had time off to listen to Tony.  I focused on overcoming some childhood family problems and building up my self esteem and deep down inside dreamed and longed of "getting paid for my results."   Fast forward...

I am so blessed to work at the Capitol, full time, part time or seasonal.  I love working with people and it has afforded me the time to pursue my other career in the mortgage industry.

Over the course of this past year or so I have read mortgage forms and articles anywhere from a declining market and soft market, the NAR, the HAR and FHA, VA, Freddie and Fannie and conventional, sub prime and JUMBO to listening to audio tapes and reading books for Dummies.  Great books by highly successful people like Harvey McKay, Jim Rohn, Brian Tracy, Napoleon Hill, Harv Ekert, Jack Canfield, Susie Orman, Gray, Nightingal, Hopkins, Zigler, Ferazzi, Schwab, Hatch, Sugarman, Parinello, Kennedy, Rambauskus the list goes on. And I got invited to join Active Rain. 

My life has taken on new meaning and I look forward to taking another Carnegie course, reading another book and making my sales.  If you're reading, can you let me know if there is something other in your library that I should read?

Take care.