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- the Online Marketing Newsletter
for Independent Professionals
from Action Plan Marketing
and Robert Middleton

In This Week's Issue: What do you do if someone rips off your material and calls it their own?

 

A Dumb Mistake

It was an eerie experience. This past Saturday I was listening to a woman reading the first chapter of my InfoGuru Marketing Manual from a sound file on her web site - as if it was written by her.

She had carefully replaced "InfoGuru Marketing" with "Joyful Marketing" (ironic, no?), but everything else was completely intact, even my case studies of client results.

Earlier that day I was in for my first rude awakening. C.J. Hayden, the author of Get Clients NOW!, and a friendly competitor, had alerted me to another site that had borrowed large hunks of copy from my web site. It was a little like looking in the mirror at my "evil twin brother," Trebor Notelddim.

I contacted these two individuals and requested, in no uncertain terms, that they immediately cease and desist. And they did. They are both in the process of removing all the borrowed material from their web sites and writing their own content from scratch.

There are several ways you could look at this. You could see those who appropriated my materials as "slimy, scum-sucking ripoff artists" or simply as people who made a dumb mistake.

I prefer the latter. We all make dumb mistakes. I made one several years ago that I regretted because I should have known better, and because it hurt people I didn't mean to hurt.

I used to design business cards and logos. I had designed what everyone agreed was an especially nice one for a client I really liked. Several months later another potential client asked me to copy my former client's design for her card. I resisted, but she insisted, and I caved in.

We changed the color and a few other things, but there was no question that the design was a ripoff. I crossed my fingers that my first client would never bump into my second client.

But one unhappy day, of course, she did. And it ended up wrecking my relationship with both clients. Thank God I didn't get sued.

In retrospect, it was a good lesson that has served me well.

When somebody rips me off (which has happened several times), I get mad but I don't get even. I ask them to clean up their dumb mistake and I move on to more important things.

As InfoGurus, our primary marketing principle is to share what we know far and wide, to be evangelists for our cause. And it's inevitable that somewhere along the way, somebody is going to do some creative borrowing and put their name on something we created.

So today's eZine article isn't about the "Ten Things You Must Do to Protect Your Intellectual Property." I'll leave that to the attorneys amongst us.

Instead, after these people have changed their web sites, I'll probably approach them and ask them to be affiliates. After all, if they are so nuts about my work, I bet they could sell a marketing manual or two.

It's a new concept: coopetition (and it comes with a whole lot less stress and angst).

More on "A Dumb Mistake" in Marketing Flashes below.

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Dumb Mistake Number Two

Ripping off my material is definitely a dumb mistake. But this doesn't happen all that often. I think a dumber mistake is not stealing what you can from my materials and applying them to your business to attract more clients.

If you already have the manual (close to 5,000 people now own it in one form or another), please make me happy and apply an idea or two and then tell me what results you've produced. That really makes my day!

If you don't already have the manual, don't you think it's about time? If you're not yet sure, here's fourteen reasons you should consider ordering it today.

www.actionplan.com/infoguru.html

- It was developed exclusively for Independent Professionals such as consultants, coaches, trainers and other service professionals who are great at what they do, but have a hard time consistently attracting clients to their businesses.

- The manual is based on a few powerful marketing principles that, once you understand them will transform your marketing. These essential principles are missed by almost everyone (and implemented by even fewer).

- The marketing principles contained in the manual will help you increase interest in your services, build trust and credibility with prospects, get prospects wanting to learn more about what you do, and create a steady stream of word-of-mouth business.

- It goes way beyond theory, vague generalizations or concepts, and contains hundreds of hands-on marketing strategies and action plans that are easy to implement, even if you have no marketing experience.

- It includes foundational marketing information on things like creating an attention-getting marketing message, and then goes into depth on the most recent marketing techniques of web marketing and eZines.

- You can read it like a book -- you can go through it slowly and do the exercises like a home-study course -- or you can refer to it whenever you have a question about marketing your business.

- It comes with over 11 hours of audio files with teleclasses and interviews on the finer points of marketing your services. These audio files alone are worth the price of the manual.

- I've included a boatload of extras, including 150 pages of articles, dozens of resources and, most importantly, the InfoGuru Support Forum, where you can get any question about marketing your services answered for free.

- The Support Forum can be used to answer questions, provide resources, and get "peer-review" of marketing materials, web sites, proposals and sales letters, as well as explore the more complex and confusing aspects of attracting clients to your business.

- It will help remove the mystery and struggle about marketing and selling that so many Independent Professionals experience, and will help you realize that marketing can actually be fun.

- It comes with my unconditional guarantee. Get it and try it. If you don't think it's worth much more than what you paid, tell me and I'll refund 100% of your purchase price.

- Unlike most marketing information sold on the web, the manual is available in both digital format (.pdf file) for immediate download, and for just a few dollars more, you can get a printed manual as well.

- The InfoGuru Marketing Manual was published in February of 2001, and it's just as relevant today, because I add to it regularly with updates of the manual that can be downloaded repeatedly at no additional cost.

- If you are looking for one tool that will help you attract clients with an approach and methodology that is highly effective but doesn't compromise your integrity, you've found it!

For complete details and to order online go to:

www.actionplan.com/infoguru.html

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Marketing Flashes on "A Dumb Mistake"

Not all dumb mistakes are ethical lapses. Most of them have to do with attaching to limiting beliefs such as...

* Being Right - If there's one thing humans are, it's judgmental. We judge others quite harshly but let ourselves off quite lightly for worse offences. Look in the mirror.

* Stopping Creativity - Most people don't think they are creative. But is that true? Absolutely not. Who would you be if you couldn't think you weren't creative? You'd be out there creating things.

* Being Too Serious - Lighten up. Seriously. Ever notice that the people who seem to be be the most successful are also often having the most fun? They focus on how to make things work instead of worrying about what's wrong.

* Avoiding Assistance - Doing it all alone is highly overrated. I know, I'm the poster child for independence. I work alone but my coach and my mastermind group keep challenging my rigid ideas of reality.

* Working Too Hard - Remember, work is supposed to be fun. And it is if we don't overdo it. Find some balance, take more vacations, spend quality time with your family. Then you'll come back to your work refreshed.

Until next week, all the best,

Robert Middleton

ACTION PLAN MARKETING
Helping Independent Professionals Attract More Clients

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www.actionplan.com

210 Riverside Drive
Boulder Creek, CA 95006
831-338-7790

Contact by email

© 2004 Robert Middleton, All rights reserved. You are free to use material from the More Clients eZine in whole or in part, as long as you include complete attribution, including live web site link. Please also notify me where the material will appear. The attribution should read:

"By Robert Middleton of Action Plan Marketing. Please visit Robert's web site at http://www.actionplan.com for additional marketing articles and resources on marketing for professional service businesses."

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