Don't Sell Enable People To Buy

The reason I chose the word MAGNETIZE in the subtitle of my book is because I, like a lot of business people, would rather jump off a ten story building than make cold calls.

Sure, I've made cold calls before. But I can honestly say that after all these years; I've only booked ONE speech as a result. Which apparently makes my closing ratio pretty crappy.

So, that either means:

a) I suck at cold calling
b) People won't buy from you unless you've given value first

Probably all three.

On the other hand, consider this example. I've been contributing a monthly column to the St. Louis Small Business Monthly for the past three years. They don't pay me, but then again, I don't do it for the money. I do because it I love to write. I do it because I've developed a mutually valuable relationship with my editor, Ron. And I do it because I know that an article is one way to MAGNETIZE more business.

Because an article gives value first. It offers helpful content, displays credibility and expertise, and most importantly, builds trust between the author and the reader. And my hope is when the reader completes the piece, she's thinking to herself, ?Wow, what a great article! I'd love to learn more.?

Then the reader comes to the bottom of the page and sees my bio. (Scroll down if you'd like to read it.)

And that's why articles beat cold calls any day of the week: because they don't sell, they enable people to buy.

It really works, too. In fact, I can attribute over $20,000 of business in the last three years as a result of articles. Which is exactly why, since 2003, I've been writing and publishing one article per week, every week. And while not every piece gets picked up, the more content you have out there, the greater probability you have to MAGNETIZE more business. It's like Peter Montoya says, ?Personal branding means business comes to you, even when you're not around.

But not everybody likes to write. Some people would rather make a thousand cold calls than write an 800 word article! And that's cool. It's not about writing, per se. Articles are simply one of many techniques that use your UNFORGETTABLE personal brand to MAGNETIZE more business.