ComHacker.org

by Patricia Mayo

Of course you’re not. What, you - afraid to read a blog post? Pshaw. No way. Couldn’t happen.

Photo by Sophie

Yet if I had titled this “Ambiguity Aversion” and just left it at that, I bet you wouldn’t be reading this right now. That’s because of a hard-wired fact of humanity - we’re fully-trained trained skeptics of anything unfamiliar.

And I’m willing to bet that if I didn’t tell you I’m about to detail how to overcome ambiguity aversion to increase any metric, you probably wouldn’t read beyond this point. But since I just did - well, let’s move on, shall we?

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed so you never miss the next great communication tip. Thanks for stopping by, I hope to see you often!

Trisha, @mayobrains on Twitter

by Patricia Mayo

A little while ago, I posted a little ditty on reading between the lines in Internet Marketing. One of the things I mentioned was to read the benefits and see if you could predict what they’re selling.

via Fail Blog

Well, I analyze a lot of lists from a lot of supposed top marketers to keep up to date. Today, one big name “guru” sent me a whopping sob story about getting slapped by Google and losing millions, and blah blah blah.

by Patricia Mayo

Here’s a news flash - the quicker information can spread on a medium, the faster that medium evolves. Online marketers who have been successful since the 90’s don’t know jack.

Ok, maybe that’s a little too broad stroke, but if they’re touting techniques that catapulted them to success way back in the 90’s - those techniques won’t work quite as wildly well today. Don’t drink their kool-aid.

Or at least, don’t drink their kool-aid plain.

by Patricia Mayo

I don’t like link lists. In fact, I downright hate ‘em. Whenever I see “Del.icio.us Links for 4-19-08″ I just keep on scrolling. Why?

Original Photo by Daniel K. Gebhart

Don’t you feel like you’re being screamed at? “Look at me, look at me! I’m clickable, you should click! Yes, yes… click! Click now!” Yeah, big deal. Just because I can doesn’t mean I should.

The only reason I am productive - and stay productive - is being picky about what gets my attention. 80% of headlines don’t say enough, and 99% of blog titles don’t say enough. I need more.

Maki over at DoshDosh has the right idea and gives a bit of context. Call me anal retentive, but that’s what I like to see. What about you?

by Patricia Mayo

Believe it or not, there are actually quite a few truly useful things sold by those 10 mile long sales letters (with the distinct exception of “make money online” information products). Not all products promoted in such ways are crap - and thinking that way is just the coward’s way out.

Original Photo by Steve Woods

However, in order to fully understand whether you’re being sold a rip-off or a real resource, you need to know the full-on ins and outs of sales letter marketing.

It will take some practice before you’re good at reading between the lines, and I’m sure some deceitful marketer is going to read this and revise their marketing - but I’m going to have a go at making this as bullet-proof as I can.

by Patricia Mayo

Photo by TW Collins

You can plant a field by starting with just one seed.

You can get a million subscribers if you publish just one podcast.

You can have server-crushing traffic if you write just one blog post.

You can become the biggest and the best company in the world with just one customer.

When other people can see what you imagine, you make the saying “seeing is believing” work to your benefit. Don’t hesitate to simply make a few things a little more concrete - because now you have something to show for all your great ideas.