When I was a new salesman, I was scheduled to give a product presentation to my branch about a new product our company had. I had given presentations to customers about it before and I had above normal knowledge of it and was comfortable with it.

The night before my talk, I partied with my group and had a really good time. So, the next day, I started my presentation and had a complete case of memory block. I could not remember basic facts and information about the product that I knew so much about. I looked stupid and incompetent. It was the first time I realized that having a hangover could affect my ability to function.

The next year I gave a talk on a different product. I hit the presentation with belief that showed and presented the facts and figures without a hangover. I won the branch prize for the best talk. I went on to give a lot of product presentations nationally.

This last Thursday and Friday, I attended a presentation skills training class given by Anne Warfield, CEO of Impression Management Professionals. Anne is a nationally recognized speaker and author. She is friends with many nationally known speakers and (to me this is awesome)is a friend of Vince Flynn who is a New York Times best seller every time he writes a book and admired by former presidents like Bill Clinton and George Bush.

Anne’s training held my attention for two whole days and with me being an Internet marketer that isn’t easy. I’m convinced that IMers develop ADD as a side effect of our business. But Anne held it completely because she knows how to teach and she knows how to speak to an audience or in our case a class.

Full Disclosure: Anne is a client of mine for Internet Marketing but, if I didn’t believe what I am writing here, I wouldn’t write it at all. This is unsolicited and she won’t know I’ve written it until after it has been published. I only share what I think will be helpful to my readers.

Anne showed us new ways to approach and begin our talks like telling stories that others can relate to. She went over personality types and how they think about things and how we should present to them. She taught us about their hot buttons and how they receive what we are saying. Basically, she taught us how to give a presentation from the audience perspective.

One of Anne’s abilities is being able to drop into role playing so that you can picture a message she is teaching you happening before your eyes. Its an incredible experience and the learning happens at the subconscious level which is more effective than learning at the conscious level. That is also important because learning from Anne is like drinking out a fire hose. There is so much information that it will take time to soak in and germinate. but when you need the information it will be there to pull out. And, in case I need to review the information, I left with a binder of notes and other materials Anne provided.

While I have given quite a few presentations over the years and had various levels of training, I have never had training that is so (and I hate to use this word) transformational.

In case you are wondering how this all relates to Internet Marketing, well, IM is connecting with your customers at a level they can relate to and learn from. The best copywriters are doing this all the time even if they don’t know it. That is also what makes Social Marketing so successful.

Now back to my original story, I hope I never have to give a presentation again after partying too much the night before, but if I do, I think Anne gave me the tools to get through it just fine.

If you want to know more about Anne’s training go to http://www.impressionmanagement.com.

In a joint survey conducted by Hearst Electronics Group and Goldstein Group Communications (GGC) it was discovered that companies with marketing budgets are moving to online marketing rapidly.

“This type of data reveals best practices among business marketers at a time of tremendous flux,” said GGC President Joel Goldstein. “The sense of urgency to move to online marketing has been felt by leading marketing organizations for some time now, but the extent to which budgets have been redefined is dramatic.”

This is because the quality of the leads is proving to be better.

“Part of the reason marketers are so willing to devote such a large portion of their budgets to online may be tied to lead quality. The single best source of leads, they report, is their web site, at 24 percent, followed closely by search engines at 19 percent. While one might expect that high spending for online tactics would lead to strong lead quantity, this question dealt instead with a marketer’s source of their BEST leads.”

What this means for Internet Marketers is they are going to have stiff competition in their niches if the larger companies are there too, once companies get what Internet Marketing is about. They are starting to show signs that the large companies do get it. For instance, they are starting to show up in social networking sites like Twitter and participating i.e. BestBuy and Comcast not to mention Microsoft and Apple.

In reality, this just reinforces that the small and medium business marketers are doing the right thing and since smaller is faster (remember the British defeat of the great Spanish Armada?) then the SMBs can be more focused and use guerilla marketing to profitably grow their businesses.

This is not to say that Direct Marketing is dead or even dying. It is to say that if the not so large companies are not using the Internet then they are missing a great opportunity to expand and survive during the current economic condition.

When I first saw the people were starting to use something called Twitter,
I thought the concept was really dumb. After all, why would I want to read
micro-blogs that allow only 140 characters? Who would want to read what
other people are doing?

After reading what several people said about Twitter on the Warrior Forum,
and having made a comment that I couldn’t see the use of it, I decided to
try it anyway.

Here’s what I found:

I found people who I am interesting in who use it and make interesting
tweets.  These are people like Frank Kern and Andy Jenkins to name just
two of many.  Both Frank and Andy give heads-up on Twitter of their most
recent posts and website offerings.  It’s a great place to be among those
who get information first.

You can find many interesting people on Twitter and you can choose to
follow them or not.  Just by seeing who other people follow I’ve been able
to find some these really cool people.  It becomes very viral and
addictive.

There are people I didn’t even know existed that I now follow because
they are interesting, have interesting opinions, and add links to other
interesting things.

Without even trying, you can get people to follow you because they are
interested in what you’re doing.

Here are some things that you can do:

You can get breaking news.  Even CNN has Twitter links.  You can share
your photos with a Twitter application.  You can alert people when ever you
make a blog update.  And, whenever you make a new Twitter post, you can
have it update your FaceBook account.

Some of these things are possible because of fancy applications that have
been written for Twitter.

You can find out more about it by checking out my Twitter account.

Frank Kern is known for his super mind control methods.  He is also known for giving away awesome information and techniques.

This time he has outdone himself with this information about implanting controlled thoughts into your mind without you even knowing it.  It’s really spooky how much he knows about this stuff.  It makes me wonder if Frank has been part of the supersecret cult or something.

Maybe he’s part of the “illuminati”.  Oh well…

Just go here now and download Frank’s video.  You don’t have to sign up for it or anything.

tinyurl.com/57bb5v

If you like this (or not) let me know…

Two journalists attacked Internet Marketers and specifically John Reese for getting involved in Twitter and Web 2.0 in general. It is their belief that when IMers get involved in something they are going to ruin it because of (heaven forbid) commercialism.

SIDEBAR: For a long time, I thought Twitter was a stupid idea but after reading it praised by other IMers who I respect, I decided to check it out. I became hooked after about 10 minutes. My Twitter page his here ==> twitter.com/danfoleyusa

Well, those journalists ragged on the wrong guy and John went back at them. Read his GREAT post here ==> tinyurl.com/5qa9us.

One thing John is good at is articulating his passion for the Internet.