Dear Friends,

I walked into my favorite neighborhood boulangerie before my writing group on Thursday evening to pick up the delectable strombolis. The owner, who is pretty gruff, loves to gamble on horses, but makes the most deliciously light dough (by hand), and creates the most heavenly combination of cheese and pepperoni. Typically I call and ask him to hold a few for me as he often sells out, but I hadn't planned far enough ahead.

"No more strombolis?" I asked. "No," he replied.

"They sold out early today?" I queried. "I'm not making them anymore," he responded.

"What? They are my favorite thing here."

Silence.

"But you made your own dough," I protest. "Your strombolis are the best. Not even the ones back east can compare." He shrugged. "How can you not make them any more?"

"They're not profitable."

I was stunned. Not profitable? So? People loved them. They came in specifically just for the crispy yeasty dough cooked in his giant brick oven.

"So what's most profitable here?"

He pointed to his homemade jams. "But I don't care about jams," I said. "I want the strombolis." Again, he just shrugged.

You see, when I visit for the strombolis, I don't ever walk away with just strombolis. I'll pick up a rhubarb and cherry crisp for my writer's group, or a pot pie for my sweetie. But it's the strombolis that I'm after.

This got me thinking about what I call "The Stromboli Strategy™." Those delectable things that draw us in to a person, product or cause, even if it's not your most profitable item. Are you losing important business because you've chosen to eliminate something just for the money? Or have you chosen to focus on something just for the money even if it's not your most favorite thing to do? Either way, you're losing an essential something.

I miss my strombolis, and won't be visiting his shop often in the future. If you have a Stromboli Strategy™, I'd love to hear about it. I will feature the best ones in my next newsletter.

Warmly,

Susan

P.S. Find out about more unusual strategies to expand your business at this year's Conscious Entrepreneur Telesummit here: 2007 Tele-Summit

Niche Marketing: The Stromboli Strategy™

The owner of my favorite neighborhood boulangerie stopped selling strombolis because they were "not profitable," even though the delectably tangy toasted "sandwiches" were immensely popular. He wanted customers to buy his jam, his expensive jam. What he doesn't understand is that the customers who come in to buy the strombolis could be converted into jam buyers. But without the strombolis, the jams are irrelevant to people like me. I'm not a jam eater. But I am a big stromboli fan. And the other savories in his shop nearly always enticed me, so while I walked in to get strombolis, I walked out with soup, chicken pot pie, gingersnaps, and cobbler.

When I first wrote "Sell Yourself Without Selling Your Soul," I thought that the title would pack seminars. What I found was people wanted results fast, and most didn't want to take the time to build a business from the ground up. They wanted to start at the top! I put my heart and soul, and the most important insights, tips and techniques into this book, but the premise didn't catch on in a big way.

Understanding this basic human psychology (short cuts are king), I thought about how I could get people interested in my core message while giving them what they wanted at the same time as giving them what they needed. So I created the seminar "How to Get Booked on Oprah and Other Top Talk Shows" and wrote "The Ultimate Guide to Getting Booked on Oprah." These were my strombolis.

The seminar was packed, the Oprah book sold, and so did "Sell Yourself", along with my consulting services (my jam). The Oprah products got entrepreneurs and authors deeper into the essentials of good publicity though my book and working with me personally.

Here are 3 ways to develop your Stromboli Strategy™:

1. Discover What Clicks.

Tim Ferriss, author of the New York Time Best-Seller, "The Four-Hour Workweek", thought the best title of his book was "The Vagabond Millionaire." But that's not what his audience thought. He tested about four titles with Google ads to see what took and found out that "The 4 hour Work Week" won unanimously. In order to find out what your audience needs, ask them. Don't assume.

I wrote "The Ultimate Guide to Getting Booked on Oprah" because my email and voicemail boxes were filled with requests to get on The Oprah Show. I understood that people's desire for this was strong. Many people who bought the Oprah book later hired me for media coaching or to create a pitch to get on the show. The book was what drew them to me, then they bought other more lucrative services.

Many became clients who wanted me to help them create a long term marketing strategic plan to grow their businesses with media. That work often involved media coaching, developing their website to convert visitors to buyers, and more. I knew that some key Google words for my product contained the word "Oprah" and "Be a guest on Oprah" etc., so there is a constant stream of people who come to my website for Oprah and leave with other products or services in their shopping cart.

2. Don't Dump the Dough.

Don't worry about profit to the exclusion of what's important. I would never eliminate a popular product or service because it didn't make a profit. I'd figure out another way to configure it so it worked. The gruff boulangerie man could have taught his assistant how to make that time-consuming dough. He could have made a huge batch of his strombolis and frozen them so he'd always have them on hand. If you've found your Stromboli Strategy™, streamline it so it works for you, your customers and clients.

3. Jam.

Once you know your jam, make it sweet. Sometimes the price of jam is hard to swallow. Think about how you can move someone gently from stromboli to jam in a way that tastes good. Is there a way to sweeten the pot so that there is a natural progression from what someone craves to what someone needs? For example, many people who have bought "The Ultimate Guide to Getting Booked on Oprah" do get that call from the producer to be on The Oprah Winfrey Show, but don't make the cut.

That's because I can't media coach people from a book. While these Oprah hopefuls may still not be able to afford my consulting or media coaching (the jam), they may be able to afford The Sound Bite System for Success™ online class and CD series (the chicken pot pie) to help them develop their distinct message, so when the Oprah producer, or any producer calls they get selected as a guest. Use the pot pie as a segue into your jam. The Stromboli Strategy™ is a gentle way to satisfy your good clients and customers, and insure your business keeps drawing people in the door.

Conscious Entrepreneur Telesummit & 4 Free Audios

I'll be speaking at this event, along with some of the most prominent conscious business and personal success mentors in the world, including:

• Neale Donald Walsch, Best-selling Author, Conversations with God Series
• Kendra Todd, Winner of The Apprentice and Author, Risk and Grow Rich
• Loral Langemeir, The Secret Guest and best-selling Author, The Millionaire Maker Series

Go here to find out the details: 2007 Tele-Summit

Christine Kloser, the entrepreneur hosting this event, has generously off.ered to gift my subscribers 4 free audios (from last year's tele-summit) for taking a look at this year's event, including audios from:

• Michael Gerber, Author, The E-Myth
• Arielle Ford, Celebrity Publicist for Deepak Chopra
• Joe Vitale, The Secret guest expert and Best-selling Author, The Attractor Factor
• Marcia Wieder, Repeat Oprah Guest, Author, Make Your Dreams Come True

Join us now at: 2007 Tele-Summit

Hollywood: Two Teleclasses in One

Is this you?

• Do you have a project that you know will make a great film, television show, or book, but just don't know where to take it?
• Do you have a story to tell, but find yourself still stalling about starting or finishing your project?
• Have you tried selling your project with no success, and don't understand why your project isn't finding the right home?

In these 10 live teleseminars with Philippa Burgess (Miss P.), who heads a Los Angeles entertainment firm, you'll learn how to:

• Find your key message and the right way to tell it.
• Decide which medium is right for you and learn how to captivate the corresponding audience so your show, film or book is a success.
• Work with a professional team with deep connections in Hollywood and the New York book and literary world.
• Get your story told, read, sold.

With Philippa as your guide, you'll get group coaching to develop a roadmap to reach your goals, understand how to create characters and narrative that hooks, get a view of packaging and deal making inside both Hollywood and the literary world, all while developing your unique brand along the way.

Classes start July 7 and there are only a few spaces left. Register Here.

New Networking Website for Women

There is a fabulous new website called YourOnRamp.com. YourOnRamp is a destination site for professional women who want to balance their work and life with flexibility and creativity. Whether you're onramping (entering) or offramping (exiting) your career, YourOnRamp provides the networks, resources, and job opportunities to succeed. Specific site features include a social network, job board, career resources with an online career coach, nonprofit section, business and lifestyle marketplace, newsdesk, reading room, blogs and discussion forums.

YourOnRamp facilitates women networking and provides a great platform for women to sharing insights and tips with each other on anything ranging from business topics to lifestyle trends. Visit the site, sign up and share with others. Women have a wealth of knowledge to share and we can all help each other.

YourOnRamp.com is a place for all professional women to connect, learn and discover. Go visit and enjoy. YourOnRamp

The First San Francisco Writing-for-Change Conference:
Changing the World One Book at a Time

This conference is dedicated to nonfiction books about change from the personal to the planetary, including business, culture, the environment, health, the media, personal development with a social dimension, politics, social issues, spirituality, and technology.

The keynoters:

• Rachel Naomi Remen, Kitchen Table Wisdom
• Philip Zimbardo, The Lucifer Effect
• Riane Eisler, The Chalice and the Blade
• Susan Harrow will speak about publicity.

Attendance is limited to 150 writers who will have the chance to: network with agents, authors, editors, and other publishing professionals; get feedback on their work; and choose from more than 40 breakout sessions. Tuition: $395. For more information, visit Writing for Change or contact co-founders: literary agents Elizabeth Pomada and Michael Larsen, 415-673-0939, www.larsen-pomada.com.

Thursday-Saturday, August 23-25, 2007, in Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. Hope you can join us.

Services I Highly Recommend

Many people ask me about the services I use and trust. The businesses below are a few of my partners or companies that provide services and products that I rely on that truly work.

I recommend them without pause. Please explore them to find out if they are right for you.

PRESSKIT 247: Both an online database where journalists and producers find you when they're searching for experts and your online presskit where all of your press materials including audio and video are instantly available to the media. Get listed here and to increase your media appearances and expand your business: PRESSKIT 247

OUR SHOPPING CART: I use a shopping cart system called 1shoppingcart for online transactions, autoresponders my affiliate program and tracking links. This shopping cart is the most widely used one by successful entrepreneurs and online marketers. You can trial it here: 1shoppingcart

THE WEB SITE TOOLKIT: "This is a complete tutorial and guide (written and audio) on creating an effective professional service business web site," says Robert Middleton, the creator. This is a best, most organized and comprehensive system that I've found to guide you through writing the copy and organizing the content for your website. Included are resources and directions for writing, design and technical requirements. Hundreds of people have used Middleton's methods to develop sites that attract the clients they want: Web Site Toolkit

EZINE MARKETING: Using an E-zine like mine is one of the fastest and easiest things you can do to promote your business. To learn how to create yours so it works for you and gets you ongoing results, I suggest taking a look at Alexandria Brown's complete manual on marketing with your E-zine.

THE INFOMERCIAL TOOLKIT: Online videos are the wave of the future. Your clients or customers may be all over the world, but they can meet you quickly right on your site. Sell your products and services, demo new ideas or just give people a small taste of what it's like to do business with you. Infomercial Toolkit

PRLEADS: This is the best deal on the planet. The only complaint my clients have lodged about it is, "I wish I would have done it sooner." You respond to reporters and producers queries for comments and insights on stories they're working in your area of expertise and then get quoted in the media instantly: PRLeads

THE SEDONA METHOD: Order your fre.e two-hour introductory Sedona Method DVD and introductory CD or tape and learn to instantly release uncomfortable or unwanted feelings on the spot. Whether it's fear of speaking, becoming a more public person, losing weight, or letting go of stress, or past issues or trauma, this will help you achieve your goals effortlessly and with great joy. The Sedona Method

TELECONFERENCE SERVICE: For all my Teleclasses I use a service that's reliable and free. I also use this service to record all my consulting calls. Teleconference Service

Come Meet Me

Anywhere in the World
Christian Work at Home Moment
March 5, 2006
6:30pm CST on KCRO 660 AM
KCRO 660 AM, Omaha or listen
anytime at http://cwahm.com/wordpress/blog/

Anywhere in the World
Q&A to Get on Oprah & Other TV Talk Shows Teleclass
1 hour
Download it at no charge at:
http://prsecrets.com/free-sign-oprahtvtalkshow.html

Anywhere in the World
Get a 6 Figure Book Advance Teleclass
1 hour
Download it at no charge at:
http://www.prsecrets.com/free-audio-signup-6f.html

Anywhere in the World
Become a 60 Second Sound Bite Genius
(For Pitching, Producer calls, Networking or Presentations)
1 hour
Download it at no charge at:
http://www.webmarketingmagic.com/app/adtrack.asp?AdID=114141

For further schedule information and course descriptions
please visit:
http://www.prsecrets.com/speakingkeynotesworkshops.html

NOTE: Some new classes do not yet have descriptions. Your patience is appreciated.

Quote

"We don't make movies to make money, we make money to make more movies. That's the attitude at Pixar."

~ Patton Oswalt, the voice of Ratatouille, the rat in the new Pixar movie