Got an e-mail message from someone I have—up until now—trusted, promoting a set of videos for the copywriting niche. The message was short and to the point, piquing my interest a little, but here's what he said about the sales letter for the product:

P.S. I know, the sales copy leaves a lot to be desired. You should have seen how bad it was before I did a quick edit on it!

Hey, some of us are paying attention here. If the sales copy for a copywriting product is bad, the product itself is undoubtedly worthless!

Seth Godin says it better than I.

Here's a few of my favorite tips sources, bite-sized pieces of information that I find useful in my business.

In a sales process, a One-Time Offer (OTO) is an offer shown to your customer after they have reached a goal you have set. Usually the goal is either the purchase of your product or opting-in to your list.

Marlon Sanders, a contributor to my site, just sent out a message to his list, asking the question, "Which first? Build list or create product?" It's a great question, but I don't think he answered it adequately.

Let me see if I can help him.

Truth is, you need to be doing both. But which should you do first?

If you're starting from scratch—no product, no list—which do you choose to focus your energies on?

The problem is, if you're just starting out in Internet marketing, you don't have any credibility.

Today's the day, you know.

The day the magic bullet ends.

I'm not here to sugar coat things, to candy coat this business and sell you sandcastles, dreams and illusions of an easy life that doesn't exist.

Here's the truth:

The money is in producing and promoting products, not in consuming "how to" info products.

Having said that, last year I spent $37,500 consuming ebooks, courses, teleseminars and so forth on marketing.

In other words, I am a consumer.

One of the toughest lessons for me to learn in life is that of ignoring "sunk costs." Sunk costs are costs that have been incurred and which cannot be recovered to any significant degree. As applied to me, sunk costs are money, time, effort, etc. I have spent in the past that can no longer be recouped.

Man, oh man! I am only 40 pages through Sylvie Fortin's new Internet Marketing Sins manifesto and I am sitting here thinking, "This girl has nailed it!" (Sylvie, by "girl" I mean, well... you know I mean no disrespect.) She's naming some of the worst tactics used in Internet marketing and calling them for what they are. I myself have called marketers who use these tactics "hacks."

I spent about 90 minutes on live chat with Host Gator today, trying to track down an inability to connect to my MySQL databases using a desktop application. (I use NaviCat, which makes accessing a database much quicker than using phpMyAdmin.) I was reminded again of why I like and recommend this web host.

In case you're not on Markus Allen's notification list, I wanted to let you know that this week's Stump Markus live podcast will be a little later in the day. He's testing a new time to see if more people are able to attend.