People that change your life…

From the desk of Roy Furr, Thursday, May 8th, 2008

I’m in an interesting mood this morning — kind of crabby because of the little stuff in life that gets you down, but also completely uplifted because of an email I got.

Joni from http://www.insicknessandinwealth.com and http://www.thejobberjoint.com emailed me to thank me for some of the free info I give away on my website.

That’s not what has me feeling touched though…

It’s what Joni does… what she represents… the example she sets… that’s truly amazing.

Joni’s got kind of a bum rap in life — a number of health issues have kept her from getting out and living the same life most of us un-gratefully enjoy (I’m guilty too). But now she’s turning that into something magnificent. She’s helping others who’re stuck at home due to physical limitations to succeed as entrepreneurs.

She’s teaching others about the enormous amount of work-at-home opportunities available — particularly those what work well for people whose physical abilities have been limited for whatever reason.

As a thank you, I wrote her an email about how she made my day better (and in response to a complaint about the level of hype out there, I included a little how-to on destroying the perception of hype in your marketing):

Wow Joni — you’ve really brightened my day!

Your story, your challenges, and how you’ve worked within those to create great things in your life — it’s amazing.

This morning I was feeling like crud, for those little things in life that are trivial but that can put you in a down mood if you let them. You let me know that I needed to pick my head up, look at the good things around me, and be thankful for that. And to find ways to work within what I’ve been given to make my life better.

And you did that all in just a couple quick minutes — without even intending to!

There are a lot of people who given your same set of circumstances would let the world beat them down (I know many of them). But you didn’t — and now you’re passing on that grace and grit to others through your work.

The whole world needs a little bit of Joni!

As for the hype — the world is overloaded with it! I agree! Many writers — for a lack of decent sales skills — just try to yell and scream to get their point across. They can’t recognize the difference between excitement and yelling at people.

If you have an exciting story to tell — don’t be afraid to tell it in an exciting way.

Also — the ultimate hype killer (and this is a big time marketing secret) is proof. If you’re able to unequivocally prove any claims you make, then you’ll never be seen as a purveyor of hype. You can do this by giving away free info, demonstrating your claims, and through a whole host of other methods — your creativity here will pay off in spades.

Well, I won’t let this run on too long. I look forward to hearing about your successes into the future — and I hope I can be a small part of them.

Roy

I hope, if nothing else, you’re inspired by Joni. And that you’re a little more thankful for the good things in life.

Roy

This entry is filed under Business, Entrepreneurship, Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.