One: No, it’s not. Your business isn’t different. Nor is anybody else - Dan S. Kennedy

What Excuse Do You Make When Asked for Your Fax Number — and You Haven't Got One? Can you afford to appear “behind the times” to your clients, customers, vendors, and associates? Or is it important to you to be perceived as successful, savvy, in tune with the trends leading the American business scene?

Many use an “application process” to make people qualify to buy. But none of them have gone to the extremes one did. At various times, he required prospective purchasers to listen to seven hours of introductory material and sign an official-looking affidavit attesting that they had done so before they were permitted to buy.

How an Outsider Becomes an Insider Here's a letter I got from my Platinum Member, Jerry Jones, president of a direct marketing and coaching company providing services to dentists nationwide: “Back in 1997, after about two months of owning this business, I read the ‘10 Smart Questions’ in this chapter. The list exposed my biggest handicap in marketing to dentists: not being one of them. Because I'm not the customer in my niche, I have had to work hard at understanding what motivates them, keeps them awake at night, what the current desirable carrot is to them. Here are six things I do to stay in that frame of mind. And I'm apparently managing to do it, because I am frequently accused of being a dentist! I read every industry publication every month. I visit websites that host discussion forums for dentists. I subscribe to e-mail groups where only dentists communicate back and forth. I attend industry functions, conventions, seminars, and trade shows. I ‘play prospect’ with other product and service providers to dentists. I routinely ‘mastermind’ with dentists and with other marketers and vendors who provide services to the profession. I think this is so important that I even invested in three dental practices to get more firsthand understanding and to have laboratories to test my new strategies, ideas, direct-mail campaigns, and products.