How much should one write?

This is an important question to ask. And the answer to this lies in the understanding of your consumer mental makeup because customer in every category has different expectation from the stuff they find during the research. You need to find for yourself how much your customers are going to read.

Provide them less

Do not give your customer everything she wants. Create a craving for more information by providing only what she needs at the moment is one way to keep your prospects coming back for more. Do not just go over and spill all you know on the face of the audience, your audience may not be ready for that. He may never wanted to get all those information in one go.

Do not outstay your welcome

As there is an entry door, there is an exit door as well, and a smart person knows that, and he uses both doors at appropriate time. He understands that no matter how smart, cool, entertaining, or “fun to be with” guest is, people get bored if he does not leave at the appropriate time.

You should learn to do the same with your words. You need to teach them how to leave and at what point. Your words and the wisdom you are sharing with your audience should not outstay the welcome.

Take, talk, and talk, and people will die of boredom

This happens in a party, it happens at home, and it happens in copywriting as well. People cannot stand a constant chatter — not unless you are the most hilarious or knowledgeable guy in the whole universe who knows one thing and everything — therefore, you need to learn to keep your paragraph shorter, and paragraph way shorter, which should culminate in making the whole piece an inch shorter than customer wants.

Always remember, the only way to keep your customers engaged is to keep them craving for more. This could only happen if you know how much to speak and when to speak.

In the following paragraphs, I am going to talk about 3 indicators that tell you that it is you who is stopping you from getting hired, and when I said you, I meant your habit.

3 reasons you are not getting hired

Too high an expectation

Nothing is perfect in this world; neither you nor any job. If you are waiting for a perfect job to fly from the land of fairy and set down in your lap then I am afraid to say the wait is going to be rather long. Meanwhile, I would recommend bagging a not-so-perfect job that matches your skill set, and which can provide sufficient money for you to survive on.

Be realistic. Weigh every aspect of the dream job you want, and see what all you can let go. You will soon be employed.

Too small a net

Are you relying on just one technique to search for the job? Do you feel uncomfortable trying out different job-search tools and techniques?

To catch a lot many fish, a fisherman needs to have a net that is wide enough and strong enough. Similarly, a job hunter needs to widen his net using all the possible tools and techniques to land up in a good job, which sadly enough, very few people are doing, for they are slave of their habit of using one tool.

Too Egocentric (I, me, and myself) cover letter

This is stupendous mistake committed by a job hunter. No one wants someone who has an ego as big as the size of the Milky Way. I know your ego is comparatively smaller in magnitude, but why does not it reflect in the cover letter you send out? Why your cover letter is talking too much about “I”?

Writing I, I, and I will not land you up in a job, forget about a good job, as no one cares how smart, talented, Einstein-esque you are. Your interviewer cares only about his needs, and about an employee who can meet that need. I know what big a dork he is, but at the end of the day, he is the one who will sign your paying slip, month after month.

Wouldn’t it be smart then to satisfy his needs by talking about his company and how you will add solve the problem he has in a cover letter? From where I am standing, it would be smarter, far smarter to this than to talk about I, me, and myself.

If you, unknowingly, committed any of these mistakes then it is time to undo them, should you want to get hired. After all, we call it habit because we do it unknowingly, as a habit.

Why?

Because an interviewer has only so much time and attention for one candidate, and even that time and attention shrinks down to bare minimum, for the candidates are too many. As a result, what an interviewer gets is a nearly suitable candidate for the job, and an average interviewee, who is street-smart, gets the job.

A street smart person knows the art of survival. He knows that not the best but the swiftest wins the everyday battle. He also knows what to say in which situation because he can intuitively tell what others want to hear. The tips I am going to share are the ones a street smart job searches usage to convey the interviewer how qualified he or she is.

The goal of this article is to do the same, to help you become and street smart and succeed in an interview, even if you are not the sharpest.

Experience

Your interviewer is interested in knowing about your experience in doing the job you have applied for, so instead to beating around the bush come directly to the experience part during your interview. And tell them some details of the work using jargons.

Expertise

You need to show you expertise in your domain while talking about the experience. Talk of the details tells your interviewer that you know nuisances of the job, which only the experts of the field can hope to know. And use of jargon suggests the depth of your understanding of your field. Use acronyms for “3 or more words” jargons.

Exceeding Expectation

Cracking an interview is an art of understanding the requirement and over delivering on it. There is no way that an interviewer can know about you, in any detail, in the limited time he has for you. You should, therefore, serve them what they want the most. Blow them away by showing them what they need, and more.

Follow these three advices, and you will end up getting every job you will ever apply for.

In this article, I am going to share some “too-obvious-to-notice” e-mail marketing tips that will help you maximize your ROI.

3 E-mail marketing ROI maximization tip

Do not sell what you don’t trust

Selling crap is the fastest way to push audience towards the “Unsubscribe” link. You should not push the products to your list that you have not used, or you have not seen other using it. If you are not sure about the success of a product then do not push it.

Alternatively, you can do a research to find out how the product has worked for the people who have used it. If you are still not sure, but want to push the product as it is backed by some big shot then write so in the mail. Tell your users that you have not used it, but you think it is good, and provide the reason why you think so.

Be honest

We have been told many times in our schools that honesty is the best policy, but seeing the world around, we found it hard to believe. It is time now to believe that maxim, and even to adopt it. In fact, there is no other way to make a killing through e-mail campaign than being honest with your list. Start selling lie, and soon you will have a list of absolute zero subscriber.

Build expectation and stand true to it

At the time of subscribing, or before they get the first mail, your subscribers should know about the frequency of the mails they will receive. You can also talk about the quality of the mails. Building expectation does not end here. It continues to build up with the mails you sent out in the first week. Afterward it is about meeting that expectation.

These are the things that you must care about should you wish to increase ROI of your e-mail campaign. An e-mail campaign, when done right, will significantly boost your profit.

See his point of view

If your client is angry of you then try to find out the reason for his anger. Do not just judge the situation from your point of view only. You may be right, but it is the client who has to decide if he liked your work or not. After all, he is in better position to say whether your article or content will meet is his goal or not.

Do not argue, let him do the talking

No one wins the argument, so do not invest time in that. Let your client do the talking. This will help you understand his point of view, and will also vent his anger out. Do not interrupt, and speak only when he is done. Afterward, patiently explain everything, and logically build you case and tell him why you think the content in question will work.

Offer rewrite

Do not fight over the content, if you do not wish to lose that client. If your client is not satisfied by the output, offer a rewrite. Tell him you will rewrite everything to meet his expectation, and before you do that ask him about his particular requirement, in terms of style, presentation, and structure of the content that you are supposed to rewrite. Take every step necessary to remove the ambiguity from the project. This will help you rewrite it.

If your client’s anger is just then this will pacify him, and if it isn’t then you cannot do anything about it. But still, you should try to understand his point of view and solve the issues he has.

Question 1: How performance is measured

You need to ask your interviewer about the criteria on which you will be judged when taken for the job. It will give you a target to match in order to get promoted or rewarded. A good company will have a set practice for employee evaluation, and HR people will not shy away from telling you that.

Question 2: Why previous employee left the job

This is a tricky question, but you need to know why the place became vacant. There could be a genuine reason for the previous employee to leave, and office politics or unfair boos could also be a reason, which you can only find by asking about it. The answer to this question will give you good idea about the existence and complicacy if office politics.

Question 3: Remuneration

You need to know about your salary, perks, performance bonus, etc. After all, it is the money that you are working for. You also need to ask about the salary date, deductions, etc. You will not want surprises here, so do not hesitate in talking about your remuneration. If you find the package offered below your expectation then tell the interviewer what you were expecting. Interview is the best place to talk about your salary and other benefits.

Answers to these questions will help you understand whether your personal goals will be met in the company or not. This will help you weigh the job opportunity properly.

I had only this to say, what else do you think should one ask during an interview?

Pre-sales

Pre-sales is the phase in which a salesperson make a list of the probable buyers, qualify them, fix a meeting, and study about the prospects. This phase is important as it gives the salesperson idea about who client is, what he does, and what approach to take during the meeting.

Sales

This is the second phase where actual sales happen. A salesman meets the client, know client’s problem deliver the sales pitch presentation, tell the client about his company, offer the solution to client’s problem, ask questions, and handle objection. This phase is very important as this is the phase in which you meet the client and talk to him in person about his problems, and tell the client how the product you are offering is going to solve his problem. Do not over promise. Over delivery (delivering the solution that exceeds expectation) is great, but over promise is bad. This phase culminates with asking for order and making a sale.

Post-sales

This is the third and final phase of a sales process. This is a “follow-up and thank you” phase in which you, the salesperson, need to call up or write an e-mail saying thank you for his time, and if you have not yet got the order than mention that you are looking forward to serve him. And if the product was sold then you should ask the client if he or she is facing any problem with the product you sold. This is very important step and it helps you build rapport with your client.

Each step in the sales process has a role to play. Missing any of the steps is risking business.

The existence of eBooks has been caused entirely by the development of the Internet and the web publishing software. If the former sped up the dispersion of an eBook, the latter made the creation of eBook a domestic process. The nature of publishing has changed forever. Now, publishing books is no longer just about sending your manuscript to big printers and then the printed pages to the book binders and pasters.

Initially, there was some debate about the standard of the eBook, and also about the acceptance of eBooks. Both the issues more or less have been addressed. Now, you will not hear about those eBook publishing software (like eBook Gold, eBook Maker, etc.) that were creating news on the Internet till early years of 21^st century, nor you will hear about the format war between Adobe (maker of pdf files) and Microsoft (maker of LIT files) as pdf has become de facto standard for eBook publishing for the web or PC, .mobi, .epw, etc. are closing in, but .pdf is still the preferred publishing format.

As far as the acceptance of eBooks is concerned, we all know its standing in comparison to paper books. The eBook surely has failed the expectation of digital gurus of later 90s, who were swearing by eBooks and claimed, an eBook will altogether replace a paper book. Although eBook has failed the expectation of the digital gurus, it nonetheless, has made it mark, and shown the world that it can co-exist with paper books. An eBook is now commonly believed as small, less than 100 pages pdf files.

This assumption is a bit far from truth because the digitalization of the documents by companies like Google and Microsoft, and growing acceptance of eBook readers – Amazon Kindle, Sony eBook Reader, Foxit eBook Reader, etc. – has started to shift the balance towards eBooks. These devices have neutralized the advantage – mobility, portability, and radiation-free reading – paper books had over eBooks. You do not need to sit on your chair anymore and consume the screen radiation in order to read an eBook. All you need is a device that uses E Ink technology to display texts, and it is just a matter of time before we get eBook readers with color display.

There is not any particular set location in space and time where you can look for writing ideas, rather you can get writing ideas from almost anywhere and at anytime. Magazines, books, blogs, periodicals, forums, movies, questions asked by others, answers to those questions, old blog posts, old articles, or your immediate physical surrounding can be a good starting point. However, there are many ways to get ideas to write upon, you should only choose the idea that fit into the bigger picture keeping in mind the nature of the medium and the expectation of the target audience from it. If you are just starting out with writing then avoid taking any complex topic, and try to keep the sentences short.

Be a voracious reader. Books can be a good source for sourcing writing ideas. Try reading books from different genre and as many as you can. Blogs can also be effective in sourcing writing ideas. Do not confine yourself to reading blogs from your niche only as reading blogs from your niche alone will limit your ability to see the bigger picture, the context in which your readers see your blog. Reading blogs from different niches will also infuse freshness to your thinking. Writing updated versions of old articles can also be considered. This will open many writing avenues for you.

The bottom line is to be observant. Keep close eye on the surrounding and see what is changing and what effect will it have. Try to look for small changes; these are the things that at times have bigger impact. Always keep a pocket notebook with you to write down the observations you make and the ideas that come to you. This repertoire will keep you away from getting into the writer’s block.