This weekend I took Mini-Me to see Stomp. What an awesome production. She loved it!

There was one performer in particular who nearly brought me to tears. (I’m such a wuss… blame it on motherhood, and watching Beaches one too many times.)

When she did her routine, she did it with an amazing degree of passion. She was flinging her braids around, and biting her lip, and banging on that trash can with such a fury. Whew! I mean I REALLY felt her love for what she was doing.

Her performance made me want to be an even better writer. To put as much va-va-va-voom into my work as she did in that trash can banging performance. What a nice extra for my $55 ticket.

Anyway, that has nothing to do with today’s blog topic.

Just a motivational commercial to say stop being mediocre, and start doing amazing things that make people remember you.

Today’s blog is really about Writely.

Writely is a FREE word processing app that resides online. It’s awesome for a couple of reasons…

• Upload/download/save your documents in popular file formats like Word, RTF, PDF, and more.
• Data backup every 10 seconds. (No more lost material when your computer decides to have a Mariah Carey-like nervous breakdown.)
• Invite others to collaborate on the document with you – in real-time – if you want. No more e-mailing back and forth. And you can revert back to an original copy of the document, if you don’t like the changes.
• Publish your document as a web page, to Blogger, etc.
• Save as many files as you want.

Writely is a Google tool, and they’ve got the infamous ‘beta’ marking on the site.

I’m loving it because I travel a lot, and it’s an easy way to keep track of my 500 documents, without having to worry about that USB memory thingy. (Where is that thing, now that I’m thinking about it!)

I can even type on my Palm Pilot, without having to synchronize my files.

I’m not crazy about it because you gotta be online to use it. And as a traveler, that can sometimes be an issue.

Definiteley a great tool to have though. At the very least, an easy way to back up your important works.

Alexis Dawes

Last week I confessed of my recent uber lazy marketing phase.

The one that was induced by my uber productive affiliates. (Whom I’m not knocking in any way, shape or form. They are simply the best.)

Well if you recall, I also said that I was getting back in the marketing game by promoting Desperate Buyers Only to segments that my affiliates weren’t penetrating.

Those being, writers (traditional freelance writers), and speakers.

So far I’ve been advertising in a popular freelance writers newsletter with 70K+ subscriber, and a newsletter geared towards speakers with more than 7,000 subscribers. Both publications are online.

Here’s a running tally of the numbers–

AUGUST 3-9
Speakers newsletter: 49 click thru’s / 5 sales
Writers newsletter: 45 click thru’s / 0 sales

AUGUST 10-16
Speakers newsletter: 70 click thru’s / 8 sales
Writers newsletter:  48 click thru’s / 0 sales

I honestly believe my salesletter was a little too hype-filled for the traditional freelance writers tastes. (When I say ‘traditional’ I mean those who do magazine articles, and write predominantly for offline markets.)

The click thru rate was decent enough. And the salesletter has held a steady 3%-9% conversion, depending on the promotion.

But it’s just like choosing a list in the direct marketing world.

You can have an awesome salesletter, and a killer offer. But if you send it all to the wrong list, you’ll flop. The copy and the offer mean nothing.

Anyway, I had a feeling this might happen. So it’s more or less a confirmation of my initial thoughts.

The Take-Away Point For Today… Be a Master Tailor.

If you have an infoproduct that’s geared towards one audience, and you believe that it would fit in with another, make sure you tailor your salesletter and offer accordingly before spending a ton of cash on your advertising.

That might mean toning down your salesletter, or pepping it up. Perhaps you’ll need to change your testimonials to include well-known figureheads within your new targeted segment. It might mean altering the price, or even changing your bonus items.

The key is to know thy audience. And when in Rome, do as the Romans.

Tailor and grow rich,

Alexis Dawes

I love souvlaki!

I love greek salads!

Greek food is so yummy to me. Except for those dolmades. You can have those.

And I’m here in Montreal where I’ve fallen in love with a place called Kojack’s. It’s like the McDonald’s or Subway of greek food.

They give you this big hunk of feta cheese on your large greek salad, and sprinkle it with oregano seasoning. Then there’s the warm pita bread. Mmmmm – Pita.

Oh how I wish there was a Kojack’s back home. It’s like close-to-homemade fast food.

Every time I travel I find stores and restaurants that are unlike anything back home – but would translate well across the borders.

For instance, years and years ago I went to visit a friend in Los Angeles.

There were nail salons on every other block. And they were inexpensive. (Still are.)

I went back home to the East Coast and told my significant other that we should open a chain of nail salons. I knew eventually the LA trend would make its way to our neck of the woods.

He laughed at me, and blew it off.

Sure enough, no more than 2 years later, inexpensive nail salons were making a killing in our hometown.

Shame on me for not pursuing it.

But that brings me to my message for today…

Ideas are transferrable across segments.

If you came to my apartment right now you’d find mens fitness magazines, gardening magazines, hunting magazines, decorating magazines, psychology and science magazines, rap music magazines, and a multitude of other colorful topics.

I read all of them from cover to cover.

It’s a strategy.

Take a winning idea from one segment and use it in another.

Something I read in Men’s Health may give me a brain spark for a completely different project I’m working on.

For example, an article that teaches men how to gain more muscle mass could become the basis for an e-book that teaches skinny women (who don’t want to be skinny) how to get some curves.

The thing is, you must have a solid understanding of at least one segment.

This way when you’re reading material from other niches, you’ll see ways to add to what already exists in your targeted niche.

See ideas in unlikely places and grow rich,

Alexis Dawes