Tag: Marketing

After playing with Stumble Upon for a week or so, I found a handful of sites that I bookmarked and then actually revisited.

Bookmarking a site is easy, of course. The real test of its value is if you go back to it.

I thought you might be curious to know what my top five stumbled upon and then revisited sites are:

#1. The Institute of General Semantics, established in 1938 by Alfred Korzybski, is online at http://time-binding.org/about/13-common.htm That particular link will take you to an article I find fascinating, titled “13 Common Symptoms of Language Mis-Behaviors”. Here’s one of the 13 symptoms:

“We fail to differentiate facts (verifiable, historical observations/events) from inferences, assumptions, premises, beliefs, etc. ”

#2. What’s the meaning behind your name? Go to www.behindthename.com/ and find out. Type in “Joseph” and you’ll see:

“From the Latin Iosephus, which was from the Greek Ιωσηφος (Iosephos), which was from the Hebrew name יוֹסֵף(Yosef) meaning “he will add”. In the Old Testament Joseph is the eleventh son of Jacob. Because he was the favourite of his father, his older brothers sent him to Egypt and told their father that he had died. In Egypt, Joseph became an advisor to the pharaoh, and was eventually reconciled with his brothers when they came to Egypt during a famine. This is the name of two characters in the New Testament: Joseph the husband of Mary and Joseph of Arimathea. Also, rulers of the Holy Roman Empire have had this name.”

#3. I’m interested in psychology, but only of the practical sort. Go here www.spring.org.uk/2007/07/10-practical-uses-for-psychological.php and you’ll get some useful tips, such as: 

“If you want to convince others that your opinion is representative of the majority, then just repeat yourself. This surprising psychology study finds that if one person in a group repeats the same opinion three times, it has 90% of the effect of three different people in that group expressing the same opinion.”

#4. If you’re interested in attracting a new car but want a more environmentally friendly one, consider http://puregreencars.com/ I keep going back to this one. It’s got info on virtually all the green super cars out there, from the sexy Tesla all-electric sports car to hybrids, biodiesel, natural gas, ethanol, and more.

Right now I’m trying to get Panoz to build a street legal hybrid GTLM for me. In 1999 Panoz installed a hybrid drive train in a Panoz Q9 GT hard top race car (I’ve even seen the car), so I know a street legal Panoz hybrid is possible. Besides, Francine wants a sister. Anyway, here’s one news item from the pure green cars site :

“Father and son engineers Joe and Jason Palumbo announced their plans to build a sleek high-performance Ferrari fighter that uses hybrid technology to deliver a fuel-efficient and user-friendly supercar called the Palumbo M-80.”

#5. Hitting Zero. I was surprised to stumble across this very blog while surfing with Stumble Upon. Obviously, I come back to this blog often (to post or review comments), and bookmarked it, so it stays on my top 5 list.

Where are your top 5 newly discovered sites?

Ao Akua,

Joe
www.mrfire.com

PS – A lot of gadget, cigar, book, marketing, writing, magic, health, fitness, martial arts, spirituality and guitar sites show up when I use Stumble Upon, as those are also interests of mine, but I haven’t yet found anything in those subject areas worth writing home (or to you) about. Stay tuned, though. I’m still looking.

 Daniel Hall took Nerissa and me out to dinner and told us an inspiring story.

He wrote a little book on how to get dignitariaes and other famous people to send you awards, or cards, or even name a day after you or someone you know. It’s called Prestigious Acknowledgements.

Writing the book took him an afternoon.

He then uploaded the book to Amazon by using www.createspace.com/Products/BooksOnDemand.jsp 

That’s not the only service that prints books on demand, of course, but that’s the one Daniel used, thanks to Nerissa’s suggestion to him in an interview long ago.

The entire process — start to finish — took him 11 days.

Most of it was waiting time, so he could approve hard copies of the printed book, etc.

Daniel told us his story with excitement. He knows that in the old days getting any book published could be a long and complicated process, and getting a distributor could take even longer.

Not today.

A few clicks and you’re on Amazon and in business.

You can find his book at http://tinyurl.com/3b5cjk 

Don’t you just love the Internet?

If you don’t have your own ebook written yet, maybe visit www.endselfsabotage.com

Where will you be in 11 days if you don’t act now?

Ao Akua

joe
www.mrfire.com

PS – Daniel’s major info-product is something you might want to check out. It explains how speakers can go on cruise ships for free. See www.SpeakersCruiseFree.com/ Happy sailing.

I’ve been asked to be in several movies recently. I’ve been filmed for three, all due out later this year. But I couldn’t give a nod to all of them. Here’s one I may regret not being in:  www.nextinternetmillionaire.com 

The Canine Concert — the promotional event where a band played rock music at a sound level only dogs could hear — is now available on DVD.

This is the entire event – before, during, and after – documenting how such an outrageous publicity stunt took place, and why.

It was all created to promote my book on P.T. Barnum, There’s A Customer Born Every Minute.

It’s hilarious, informative, educational, and entertaining.

You’ll love it.

Even if you’re not a dog.

See www.createspace.com/Store/ShowEStore.jsp?id=227296 

The other night Pat O’Bryan picked me up for a play day in San Antonio. We both needed a break from our work and we both longed for a short trip to one of our favorite cities.

Our first stop was Hovey Motor Cars, where I found Francine last year, and where we quickly relearned a marketing lesson.

We didn’t stop because I wanted to attract a new car, but because Pat was curious.

Hovey had another Panoz exotic sports car on their lot. Pat knows how much I love Francine, my 2005 Panoz Esperante GTLM, so he wanted to try a Panoz on for size.

He climbed into Amanda (all Panoz cars are given names upon birth) and quickly discovered that his 6’3″ frame didn’t fit in it — at least not if he wanted to put the convertible top up. Just take a look…

   Pat and I agreed that there needs to be a sports car for the big and tall man.

After all, there are big and tall men clothing stores, so why not big and tall men sports cars?

This is how you spot money-making ideas.

This is what Donny Deutsch www.cnbc.com/id/15838512/ is always trying to tell you on his fantastic CNBC television show, The Big Idea (which you should watch religiously).

This is also what my coaches teach people in the Joe Vitale Executive Mentoring Program.

Whenever you experience something negative and say, “I wish they would fix that” or “I wish someone would do something about that”, you are announcing the discovery of a money-making opportunity.

As Donny would say, “You could make millions!” 

Pat and I aren’t interested in building sports cars for big guys, but I think someone should. In fact, I’ll be telling the Panoz family about this. Maybe they can do something about it.

The lesson for you is to be alert to those times when you wish things would change.

Change them and you just might get rich.

That’s how I came up with the idea for Fit-a-Rita.

I was in a fitness contest and wanted a healthy margarita, as the usual ones are loaded with sugar and add up to 200 to 600 calories each.

My complaint/observation that I needed a healthy margarita mix led to the creation of Fit-a-Rita, the world’s first zero sugar, zero carbs, only six calories a serving healthy margarita.

And right now Willie Nelson is trying one, as I sent him a few packets via a mutual friend.

Opportunities are everywhere.

Stay alert.

Seize the moment.

As I told Pat last night over margaritas at Mi Tierra in San Antonio, the secret to success is to use your ears and do what you fear and get off your rear.

He said it sounded like the beginning of a song.

Where’s that new guitar of mine, anyway?

Ao Akua,

Joe
www.mrfire.com

PS – In the top picture Pat is wondering how to smoke the three-layered cigar I gave him. It’s a hand-made Culebra Especial.  The unusual shape of this 3-in-1 cigar was invented in the early 1800s. Cigar rollers were given the tri-bundled cigar at the beginning of their shift, to savor throughout the day. Some unrolled the Culebra (which means “snake”) to smoke each cigar separately; others smoked all three at the same time. Not knowing the “correct” way to smoke the Culebra, Pat smoked his all at once. He said, “It makes me giggle.” I guess he prefers big man cigars, too.