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I can finally recommend a credit card processor!

February 5th, 2011 by Michael

I just interviewed Bill Pirtle, my new bff, on how to save money with credit card processing.

He’s my new best friend because he showed me how to save a bunch of money on my monthly credit card processing statement.

Let’s review: Bill Pirtle showed me how to save money on my MONTHLY statement, which I receive every 30 days, 12 MONTHS per year, EVERY YEAR that I own a business (the rest of my life). That’s a lotta green.

Consider that I sell over 75 information products and have people all over the country register for my live training events via credit card payment.

Bill first got my attention when he pointed out that I didn’t need to pay a $175 annual PCI fee. His company doesn’t charge anything for this!

Then I read his terrific book, Navigating Through the Risks of Credit Card Processing.

You can reach Bill Pirtle via most social media platforms and at 734-272-6177.

Here are some highlights from the interview, which will soon be available on audio CD through www.MichaelAngeloCaruso.com.

Q: What is one of the biggest mistake business owners make when signing with a credit card processor?
A: When they focus on the rate alone.

Q: What’s wrong with focusing on the rate?
A: Many processing agents use a “teaser” rate to get you to sign while placing up to 40 other fee types into the contract. These fees include transaction fees, authorization fees, batch fees, AVS fees, statement fees, annual fees, PCI Fees and some are even adding something called an “IRS Reporting fee”.

Q: How can merchants tell if they need a review of their processing?
A: There are several signs including: unexplained fees and surcharges on most of your transactions.

Add all of your fees from each section of your statement divide total by net sales and then multiply by 100. This gives the effective rate, the percentage of your sales that you pay in fees. If fees higher than you thought you should be paying, you need a review.

Q: True or false, reductions in rate are always best way to save money?
A: False! Reviewing a contract is more than reviewing rates. It is to review the policies and procedures of processing credit cards. Finding cause of non-qualified transactions and correcting can reduce fees several times more than just changing rates.

Q: Besides rates, what is something business owners need to know?
A: There is no such thing as a free terminal. A “free” terminal will result in added fees somewhere in the contract.

Bill’s special offer

If you share your complicated, hard-to-read credit card processing statement with him, he will show you how to save money within 6 minutes. This valuable assessment normally costs $99, but it’s available to you at no charge if you mention my name to Bill when you call him at 734-272-6177.

Finally, I can heartily and enthusiastically recommend a credit card processing vendor!

-Michael Angelo Caruso, Royal Oak, Michigan

Tags: bill pirtle, credit card processing, info products, Internet marketing, michael Angelo Caruso, michigan, pci, royal oak, Social Media
Posted in Communication, Customer Service, Growing Your Business, Information products, Internet marketing, Marketing, Problem Solving, Sales and Marketing, Selling, Success | No Comments »

Persuasion or aggression? Memories of Cairo, Egypt

February 3rd, 2011 by Michael

Michael Angelo Caruso rides a camel in Cairo, Egypt Cairo, Egpyt is a fascinating place right now. Actually, Cairo has always been an interesting place, especially for American tourists.

I visited Egypt in 2002 and remember being surprised at how passionate its citizens are about negotiating. I vividly remembering my interpreter haggling with an airport vendor about the price of a refrigerator magnet!

This reminds me of what’s happening in Cairo right now, as citizens struggle to make their voices heard. Passions are running very hot in Egypt, but when is persuasion perceived as aggression? Most world leaders are recommending peaceful negotiations, yet real change seems unlikely without even more drama.

Speaking of persuasion, here’s a fun story about something that happened when I got to ride a camel at the pyramids.

5 Cool Ideas for Being More Persuasive

(inspired by the free newsletter available at www.MichaelAngeloCaruso.com)

There’s nothing like a trip to a foreign country to learn more about various communication techniques. During a trip to Egypt, I had the opportunity to ride a camel. My encounter with the camel’s keeper inspired me to create 5 Cool Ideas on how to increase your powers of persuasion.

1. Establish desirable expectation.
Remember that persuasion works best when you are communicating with someone who wants to be persuaded. Once I climbed aboard the camel, my guide led the beast about 50 feet. The guide then asked me if I was happy. I could not stop smiling so naturally, I told the man that I was very happy.

2. Use assertive behavior to escort the persuasion.
The camel steward’s objective was to receive a good size tip. He was correct in assuming that if I was happy with his services, that I would give him one. When I admitted that I was happy, he held out his hand and said, “Now would be a good time to show me your appreciation.”

3. Be persistent.
I gave the camel steward some Egyptian pounds and he immediately asked for more. Surprised with his bravado, yet still delighted with his services, I gave him more money. At this point, I had only been seated on the camel for about two minutes. The camel then continued his stroll

4. Make it a win/win.
Having received an extra tip, my Egyptian friend gave me lots of extra attention. He provided props for photographs and arranged some special poses. He even made the camel smile!

5. Gratitude is a great pacifier.
After the ride, my guide told me it was a pleasure being with me and to ask for him the next time I am going camel riding in Cairo. The man’s nice words helped minimize any ill effects of the persuasion and set the stage for future persuasion. He asked me for another tip, which I gladly provided since I always tip at the conclusion of good service. Gratitude takes the edge off of unwanted persuasion.

Tags: 5 Cool ideas, aggression, cairo, camel, egypt, michael Angelo Caruso, negotiation, persuasion
Posted in Communication, Creativity, Customer Service, Sales and Marketing, Selling, Success | No Comments »

Random act of customer service backfires

January 31st, 2011 by Michael

Here’s the story of how a random act of customer service completely backfired . . .

A while back, I released a DVD titled, Present Like a Pro (PLP). This video of my best presentation tips turned out much better than expected, thanks to quality vendors.

Present Like a Pro continues to sell at a brisk pace, especially at during my Present Like a Pro training sessions, such as the one I’m giving March 3 in Troy, Michigan.

Nonetheless, I was shocked at what happened during my product launch.

My launch concept was inspired by two marketing campaigns I had studied:

1) Russell Brunson’s “free plus shipping” technique and

2) The Hyatt Regency hotel chain, which at the time was offering “random acts of customer service” to guests.

The DVD was priced at $49, but I decided give it away to the first 1,000 people on my list who showed interest. This seemed like a fabulous idea, but I was truly shocked at what happened next!

Random act of customer service backfires!

My data base consists primarily of business executives, middle managers, salespeople, and entrepreneurs such as speaker and authors. I thought a $49 DVD offered free would kill. But, initially, it didn’t.

Here’s what happened.

A few people were paranoid about the free offer. An East Coast woman who has been on my list for YEARS, called to make sure the offer wasn’t a phishing scam. Noted.

A substantial number of people didn’t follow instructions, resulting in lots of back-end customer service support. In other words, the auto-processes we set up actually created work for my team and me. Oops! Noted.

Finally–and here’s the shocker–after receiving my offer of a free DVD valued at $49, a stunning number of people quit my list!

I couldn’t be more surprised! My “random act of kindness” was causing me to lose customers! Er . . .noted

I suppose some of these folks never give presentations. Perhaps some of them were not interested in self-improvement. Whatever the reason, my team and I went back to the drawing board to create — a second marketing campaign that we’re using to this day.

To date, the Present Like a Pro DVD has generated thousands of dollars in sales and since I continue to market the product to my distribution list, much of that money has come from people who turned down the free offer during the product launch! Noted.

Marketing lesson #153: When customers don’t recognize a good deal that you’ve offered, it’s your fault.

By the way, I haven’t given up on offering random acts of customer service. People on my “dist list” are frequent recipients. Sign up for my free 5 Cool Ideas newsletter today and collect hundreds of dollars in freebies every year!

-Michael Angelo Caruso, Royal Oak, Michigan

Tags: 5 Cool ideas, Hyatt Regency, michael Angelo Caruso, michigan, Present Like a Pro, random act of customer service, Russell Brunson, Travis Millward
Posted in Communication, Creativity, Customer Service, Entreprenuers, Growing Your Business, Information products, Internet marketing, Marketing, Problem Solving, Sales and Marketing, Self improvement, Selling, Seminar, Success | 2 Comments »

How to rework content for your blog

January 30th, 2011 by Michael

When posting an article to your blog or creating other content for your company’s Internet presence, it’s best to do your own writing.

But, if your writing skills aren’t the best, you can also rework articles that have already been published. When doing so, make every effort to avoid two things:

1) Plagiarism, which is unethical. It’s just plain wrong to use claim credit for someone else’s work. This includes the despicable act of anonymously posting articles–as if the pieces wrote themselves!

2) Duplicate content. Google and other search engines notice when you post duplicate content and will penalize you with lower search rankings.

Here are some guidelines for reworking articles written by others.

Be sure to change the other writer’s article at least 70%. You can do this by rearranging the paragraphs and sentences and changing the order of the bullet points. Delete some of the material and maybe add a bit of your own. You can also incorporate content from two or three sources.

Perhaps the best way to go about reworking an article is to put the words in your own voice. For example, don’t keep words you would never use in conversation.

A second way to rewrite is to simply delete awkward phrasing, sentence fragments, convoluted sentences, and other nonsense. Most people tend to overwrite, so it will be easier to make your revised article shorter, just by
taking out the weakest parts.

Speaking of length, you only need about 500 words for a substantial blog post. I recently rewrote a cool article I found online, by using all the above techniques and busting the article into four blog posts.

When finished, include your favorite keywords in three places: the title, first paragraph and last paragraph before posting.

Be sure to add your contact information and attribution for the writer–you, if you followed these directions and when rewriting content.

-Michael Angelo Caruso

P.S. Learn how a soccer Mom named, Paula Parisot, now gets paid for blogging. Michael interviews her on the CD, Blogging for Profit.

More great Internet marketing info (mostly original articles!) at http://www.michaelangelocaruso.com/michael-angelo-caruso-blog/

Tags: blog, blogging, duplicate content, google, Internet, Internet marketing, michael Angelo Caruso, plaigarism, rewrite articles, rewriting articles
Posted in Blogging, Communication, Creativity, Entreprenuers, Growing Your Business, Internet marketing, Marketing, Success, Weblogs, Writing and Publishing | No Comments »

Have a Linkedin business page, yet?

January 29th, 2011 by Michael

Readers always write . . .

Here’s a great Linkedin question from a clever guy who’s figured out how to put his business phone number into his “Name” field. Very smart!

Michael,

Great presentation on Jan 14 in Macomb County!

Question: Even though Google doesn’t crawl LinkedIn, does a corporate website listed on a LinkedIn page still count toward adding external links to a site?

Dan Wolan, Director of Sales, Productions Plus – The Talent Shop

Dear Dan,

Hi, Dan and thanks for your kind compliment about my social media class.

Your personal LI page ranks on Google when you search your name and it will recognize your business page, as well.

However, Google does not crawl DEEP into Linkedin (LI) or, for that matter, Facebook.

Google, for example, may recognize the TITLE of the .pdf you post on Linkedin, but not the content.

Think of religion, as a metaphor. People believe in God, but not enough to go to church every Sunday.

Class has ended, go in peace.