Let your sales soar. Engage these Marvelous Marketing Strategies:

1. Powerize your marketing letters: Write marketing letters that match how decision-makers read them. They first scan the greeting or headline. Next, they skip to your signature. Then, the P.S. (Always include the P.S. Let it intrigue your reader. Make it carry your reader back into body copy.) If your greeting/headline are not grabbers, your letter may be tossed.

Let your first paragraph be a short, crisp, enticing benefit statement.

Start sentences with the word you. Do not begin any sentences with the words I or we. Make your signature bold and confident. This is marvelous marketing.

2. Be impeccable: Some years ago I watched as a well-known speaker presented himself in slightly scuffed shoes. He displayed, as point-provers, dog-eared original newspaper articles. He used transparencies that had seen better days. He completed his demonstration of disarray with a stained tie. His speech was good-and it was ruined by the marketing flubs just described. Here's how to not be that speaker:
• When you travel, carry your presentation clothes in your luggage. All of them. Wear travel clothes for travel. Put on your costume within an hour or two of going on. (Carry a mini shoe-shine kit, a small steamer, a spare tie/scarf, an extra shirt/blouse, needle, thread, buttons, scissors, just in case.)
• Do not carry original anything-except replaceable supplies. Leave your original art, master copies at home. Carry mint-fresh copies that look great. Replace these periodically. This investment in marketing crispness pays off. Did you ever enter a fine dining room and get handed a dog-eared menu? How did handling that menu make you feel? Let your fresh, sharp accessories make a statement for you.
• Remember-you're on from the minute you get to your home town airport. The person seated next to you may be on the way to attend your program. At the property you carry your reputation with you every moment. Bring along a pair of old jeans and a pullover for relaxation in your room. (I remember arriving exhausted from a full day seminar and a difficult evening flight at the Brown Palace [Denver]. I ordered a great dinner served in the room. Then I relaxed and enjoyed it-in my old jeans.)
• Set high standards for your platform performance. Be a tough boss-of you. Make each outing your very best ever. Ask yourself, what can I add to this presentation, something I've never said or done before? I like to buy a couple of local newspapers at 7 AM, scan them, seeking an article or news report that can be related to this group, this place, this day.

Did the local team win? Refer to the win and the coach or the star who was the hero-and watch your audience warm to you. Mingle with early arrivers at your program. Create conversation. Learn of interests, needs, wants, hopes, topical matters, local color. When you speak, weave in your findings in whatever way they may fit-or as asides. Your audience then knows this is no canned delivery. You are present, alive, alert, aware, here and now. The cherry on the top is that some incognito decision-maker, some quiet influencer, moved by your spontaneity, may decide in that instant that she wants you to speak or consult for her company.

Listen, reader, I do this stuff. All of it and more! And, does it pay off!!! Wow! In 1991, presenting a Keynote for a major Association, doing this got me a five figure consulting assignment.