There’s a hot bidding war on over at Ebay this very moment.

Clayton Makepeace has taken his favourite T-Shirt and put it up for auction (I hope he washed it first)…

And so far this hot little item has attracted bids of $1025 but… this money is not going to end up lining Clayton’s pocket. Not at all. In fact the higher the price goes the more HE will have to pay.

You see, he’s agreed to match the winning bid – up to $10,000 – and that’s a lot of money in anyones book.

But, why is Clayton being so generous?

Well as you know. Recently the lovely wife of Michel Fortin, Sylvie, recently started her own personal war. She vowed NOT to let the breast cancer that had attacked her out of the blue destroy her life.

She’s been fighting hard and is winning the battle. You can read her story here on her blog, BreastCancerVictory.com.

The Fortins are big friends of Clayton’s and he has decided to help all breast cancer victims, his mother also suffered from this terrible disease shortly before she died, so he decided to put his favourite T-Shirt up for auction.

Emblazoned across the chest are the words “Squeeze a Boob, Save A Life” — You can see a picture of it here.

Can you imagine the contacts you’d make if yours was the winning bid and you were to walk into a conference wearing this Copywriting legends favourite T-Shirt?

Everybody would be scrambling to talk to you – what a wonderful way to build up a contact list.

Go over to the auction right now and see how much YOU can make Clayton pay out… And hurry there’s only a few days left.

Here’s the link again

Let’s hope he pays a bundle!

Stuart.

Have you had a similar problem with Skype?

The other day I received a chat message through skype. It was from an unknown sender and written in Chinese so I ignored it.

A little while later a couple more messages came through, also in Chinese. I don’t understand the language but there was a link in these messages that looked like they came from Skype (skypeht.com/skypecn — don’t go there just in case) and telephone numbers from them so I asked my wife to translate…

She said that there was a draw and Skype had chosen me as a winner – “Oh Yeah?”

I thought this was a scam so I asked her to call the number and see what they said.

The guy who answered confirmed the draw story and said “… to claim your prize, go to the Skype website – there’s a link provided – Enter the passcode from the message in the form provided and you will be taken to another page where you will be asked to fill in some more details…”

Now this sounded highly suspicious to me especially as the guy mentioned that I’d have to deposit Y1100 (about $140) ‘tax’ into their account then I would be given the prize of Y28,000 ($3500) — deposited to my bank account – no less!

And… A new Sony Viaos Laptop would be posted to me which I would receive in 3 days.

Here’s where I said a double “Oh Yeah, Really!!”

Now I think this could be a scam of the highest order, so I’ve sent the info to Skype and await their reply.

The chat was in Chinese so it may be limited to mainland China users. But it was well done and looked official – three or four manned landline numbers. Pictures and graphics from Skype and Sony – Logos, screenshots of the computer and the like – all over the one website I visited out of curiosity. (I didn’t click the link just in case, but typed it in my browser.)

I wasn’t even in ‘Skypeme’ mode, I had my status set to ‘online’ when I received the chats… (This begs the question… “Are there ’scraper-bots’ picking up Skype ID’s the same way they pick up email addresses off your web page now?” If so it would be wise to only accept chats from known users and be careful who you add to your address book)

I am living in China at the moment so you may not have been troubled by this type of thing ‘attack’. This is certainly the first time I’ve heard of this type of suspected phishing / pharming attack on Skype.

So… I thought I’d ask you if you’ve ever had a similar experience… If you haven’t here’s a warning for you of what could be a new trend.

I’d be interested to hear your thoughts, you can leave a comment below.

Take care online!

Stuart.

Hi there,

I’ve just been reading through the ‘guruscam’ report which has generated quite a storm in the warrior forum and elsewhere…

The report purports to blow-the-lid-off of the ’scams’ of the so-called ‘gurus’ whose only want in life is to fleece the little guy.

You know how it goes…

Everyday you get bombarded with emails launching the latest and greatest wonder products…

Niche this, niche that and now it’s the turn of ‘Day Job Killer’ – wherever you turn you’re hit by dozens of emails promoting them… and in a month or so, once all the fuss has died down then there’ll be the next avalanche to hit your inbox…

Some of them may be good, but I get sick and tired of all the continual bombardment and subject lines like “Don’t buy this product” only to see a mile long list of bonuses from xyz if I buy through his link.

One even went so far as to say if you’ve bought ask for a refund then buy through my link… I ask you.

Then there is the web 2.0 frenzy…

It seems that this is the best thing since sliced bread…

But, and forgive me for asking, just what is web 2.0 in any case? Is it going to be the saviour for the Internet marketing community? I’ve seen umpteen different websites that are supposedly web 2.0 and in all reality they don’t look any different to me…

Sure they may have video and a few more wonder tricks but really… What is this web 2.0 thing after all?

And…

It seems that I’m not alone in this question if you go to Henry Gold’s blog you’ll and read the comments there it seems that a large portion of the population are in a haze about web 2.0 as well…

But, back to the Guru Killer report

Despite the fact that it purports to be a scam expose, and the fact that there is some storng language in the report, one thing does come through very clear… To quote the author:

So what should a newbies do?

Exactly what they’d do if this wasn’t the Internet. Create or source a product then sell it. Don’t get sucked into the ‘expert’ rubbish.
All experts are is people who can write copy.
I’ll say that again because it’s a good point. The ONLY difference between someone who sells and someone who doesn’t is how well they can write a sales page. The quality of their product DOES NOT MATTER, it’s the quality of their sales page that counts…

… The best copywriters on the net are very rich. If you can’t write good copy you can do three things:
1. Learn
2. Act as an affiliate for someone who can write good copy
3. Pay a good copywriter to write for you (doesn’t actually work)

I can’t agree with the statement about not needing a good product, sure a lot of mediocre products sell well because of the copy and vice-versa. but a really bad product will not sell period. Or if it does the refund rate will be astronomical.

Point three… not sure where he’s going with that one — people are happy with the results of my services and those of many other top copywriters.

Copywriting, after all, is one of the most in-demand skilss there is today…

If you ignore the tone of his words, the thing that comes through very loud is that you need to be able to write or have someone write for you, good copy in order to sell your products. And I don’t only mean copy for your websites.

Think about all the different ads you post, or emails you send all of these are ‘copy’ of one kind or another. Even the script for videos or audio is copy…

This means that in order to get where you want you need to brush up on your copywriting skills…

Further on in the report the author talks about copywriters waiving their fees:

Or ask them if they’ll waive their fee for a percentage of the sales revenue. That should see how confident they are in their own work.

I’m afraid I’ll have to disagree with him here.

Imagine writing a sales letter for a client, presenting it to him only to be told “that’s not the way I’d say things” or “I don’t think it will work”

Helllo, what the client was doing before wasn’t working, that’s why he approaches a copywriter in the first place. Now to tell the copywriter that he must write in the same way as the client…

It happens all to often, even once a client has paid a %50 deposit for the job in hand. After looking through the draft they sometimes get ‘cold feet’ and don’t want to use the copywriter’s sales letter.

Or maybe the client simply doesn’t market the product well then turns around and blames the quality of the copy.

Ask any copywriter… you’ll get the same answer, we’ve all met clients ike that.

Some copywriters will work for a deposit and commision if they feel the client is trustworthy, each has their own individual criteria.

Let me know what you think, and if you’ve not seen the gurukiller report you can pick up a copy here. You’ll have to leave your name and email address though. And by the way I’m not promoting the report, it’s interseting and makes you think so I thought I’d bring it to your attention.

And don’t forget to keep on honing your sales letter writing skills, it’s one of the most valuable assests in your business.

To your success, always.

Stuart.

Hi there,

I was just reading a post by Willie Crawford on the Warrior forum. He explained how theives are using ‘Myspace’ and similar social bookmarking sites to steal peoples log-in details.

Using these they are then able to gain access to peoples paypal and other banking accounts, email addresses – the whole works.

You can read the full post here.

Many people use the same password for multiple accounts which makes life easy for the lowdowns…

I personally use Roboform available from http://www.roboform.com/ (not an affiliate link) to generate and store all my passwords. It’s also works from a USB drive so even if your computer is compromised you won’t have your passwords stolen. There’s a free version which limits you to 20 identities and a pro version (small investment necessary) with unlimited identities.

Another great tool I use to help protect me from phishers is the Netcraft toolbar. Have a look here. It’s free and has picked up many suspicious sites whilst I’ve been researching.

Yahoo also have similar protection in their toolbar, however I’ve not used that so cannot comment on it’s effectiveness.

Don’t let the theives take you to the cleaners — be careful out there…

To your success, always.

Stuart.

Wow! The festive season came so fast and before too long will be way past…

Now is the time to sit down and start working on a plan for the New Year – don’t know about you but I think 2007 is going to one of the best years ever.

I’ve got many things up my sleeve for this coming year but before I can reveal too much it’s time to take a step back in time. Look back at the past year and see what worked, what didn’t and what really sucked!

I had a slow start, but changes and strategies I made started to take shape toward the end and, more importantly, started to pay off – financially.

I urge you to take a little time for yourself and your business – remember you need to treat the Internet like a business – in the next few days and work on starting 2007 with a bang!

Go on sit down and take a reflective look at the last year and see what you can do to capitalise on all events, good and bad, that happened – every cloud has a silver lining but sometimes you have to look a little to discover it.

One of the keys to success in any form of business is a great sales letter, if you haven’t mastered this simple but vital skill yet then put that right at the begiinning of your list – here’s a free report to help you on your way.

Wishing you a wealthy, healthy and extremely exciting New Year.

Stuart