How To Unfreeze The Credit System and Gather New Streams of Wealth (By Jacob Bear)

This article comes compliments of fellow copywriter Jacob Bear.

I’ve been implementing bits and pieces of these suggestions in 2008. Some with great success, others are still in the testing and tweaking stage.

Apparently, Jacob was compelled to write about this because, in the midst of an “awful” credit freeze, he got three… Count them – 3 – New Credit Card offers in the mail on the same day?!

Which got me thinking, “The Credit come-ons haven’t slowed down. I’ve been getting 2 – 3 New credit card offers each week, like clockwork.” Hmmm…

So instead of being frugal with credit cards and freeze them in a block of ice like some late night financial gurus recommend, Jacob came up with six steps to thaw this mess out and be a credit to our economic system.

Take it away Jacob…

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Repeat after me: “I am a bank.” This is your new mantra.

The people who’ve been privileged to keep the money circulating around have made a hopeless mess out of things, so it’s time for us to step in and take over.

Now hopefully you’ve spent the last few years building strong alliances and relationships. You’ve got a solid marketing plan to keep bringing in the money, and you’ll weather this storm.

But your customers and clients may not be so lucky. So in the spirit of the Fed, I’m going to show you how to be your own bank, bailout your clients and create new money out of thin air.

Give your customers some credit
If you’ve got good long-term clients whom you know you can trust, let them pay you later. Set up clear, written agreements on who does what, and how much must be paid and when.

There’s no need to slow down your business if you can wait a bit on cash flow. You may even be able to charge interest, or charge more for this extended credit.

Get paid for results
If you’ve got a business that helps clients cut costs, increase revenue, or offers some other measurable benefit, then a cash-strapped prospect might be thrilled to pay you once you help them to be less cash-strapped.

In some cases, you could make more than you would from your normal pricing system.

Payment in Kind
The mobile marketing team ScooterGirls Gave their printer a scooter when they couldn’t afford to pay him, and their mechanics often get to ride the vehicles that they work on. A lot of your clients may have something other than money that you need.

A straight-up trade is the most obvious way to use this tactic, but you and your prospects have a lot of other assets as well. For example customer lists, advertising space, storage and so on.

Accept credit cards
If you’re not doing this yet, you’re missing out on a lot of opportunities. When all the world is conspiring to make it harder for clients to part with their cash, you need to do everything you can to make it easier. Enough said.

Print your own “money”
Robert Kiyosaki, of “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” fame, made the disturbing observation that “money doesn’t exist.”

I’ve thought about what he meant by this and realized that money is a fluctuating value assigned to everything. And the value can be very subjective.

Every time you create something new to sell, or package something old in a new way, people will assign a value to it. If that value is high enough, you’ve just created money out of thin air.

Th easiest way to do this is to bundle your products and services into new packages. Or use take of your specialized knowledge and make a book or a CD out of it.

You should be constantly tinkering, experimenting and reinventing anyway, but right now it’s especially important.

Reactivate old clients
Anyone who’s spent money on your business once is likely to do it again, unless you utterly disappointed them. You’ll be amazed at how much business you can get from clients you’ve worked with six months ago, or even six years ago.

I hope you’ll try these measures in the coming months. You’ll help a lot of fellow business owners get through this rough patch, and incidentally you’ll gain a lot from it too.

>>Jacob Bear is a marketing copywriter for the nutraceutical and nutritional supplements industry. Natural ingredient suppliers and marketers will find more helpful tips on his website, http://www.NutraceuticalsMarketer.com.<<

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Thank you Jacob.

If you want to discuss how you can use these six steps to help your company promote, market, and advertise in this international economic funk, contact me. There’s no obligation.