How a Simple Site and a Great Story Launched a Million-Member Business

September 30, 2010

Don’t miss the special reader offer at the end of the post!

FreeBirthdayStuff.com is not only a business, but a ministry and a passion for Celest Benn.

Celest Benn was attending a child’s birthday party where she lived at the time in Scottsdale, Arizona when the remaining adults gathered on the patio to relax around some refreshments.

Someone commented that everyone celebrates kids’ birthdays, but once you become an adult, the party is over.  OK, maybe there’s the occasional party when you [...]

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Learn How to Tell Stories From the World’s Great Religions to Market Your Business

September 10, 2010

Want to know how to market? Study how religions use stories.

Regardless of your religious beliefs – or even your lack thereof – stories shaped who you are today.

Perhaps you learned Bible stories from your grandmother’s knee. Devoured Greek mythology. Read stories about Muhammad retreating to a cave in the mountains for reflection outside Mecca, or about Buddha sitting under the lotus tree seeking enlightenment.

The purpose of this post isn’t to argue which of these might be the true path [...]

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Get Yourself a Story Like This

September 2, 2010

Connections form stories, and stories form connections.

Here’s what I mean by telling a story.

This came across my computer this morning, and to tell you the truth, I’d read it before. It had made an impression on me the first time I read it, back in December when Jon Morrow wrote it for Copyblogger, which I subscribe to. (If you don’t, you should.)

Now Jon is marketing his own blogging course, and he referenced this article about how to stand [...]

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Getting to Yes: The Fastest Way to the Head (and the Pocketbook) is Through the Heart

September 2, 2010

Stories touch our hearts, and our hearts are where decisions are made.

We like to think that we’re all so smart and rational. We study the facts. Do careful analysis. Construct decision trees. Build matrices that reveal the ROI on this option and that.

Then we make a decision based on pure intellect. Right?

Wrong. Researchers have shown over and over again that emotions are not only an important part of decision-making, but are critical to the process. In fact, one neuroscientist, [...]

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Where to Buzz Your Story to Get the Biggest Bang for Your Buck

August 30, 2010

After spending the resources to uncover and create content around your story, whether that takes the form of a blog post, video, photo spread, podcast or other communication vehicle, you want to leverage the most powerful online applications to get the widest distribution. You also want to use applications that return the most SEO “juice” for your investment.

Just because Facebook is the most popular social media application, does that make it the most valuable in terms of optimizing your web [...]

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