The Muse Blueprint

I had the chance to interview the founder and CEO of Richard Branson’s latest venture, Virgin Charter, Scott Duffy yesterday afternoon for I Am An Investor.com. One of the questions that I asked him was about getting started. Listen to what he has to say.

We spoke about Virgin Charter, the how and why of the opportunity they have, why it makes sense for people to use their services, and advice on how to invest in what is perhaps your own best investment, investing in yourself.

What Virgin Chart does in a nutshell is that it works with operators of private jets and and helps keep them filled with paying passengers. Quite often, a jet will take a people to their destination, and end up flying back to home base empty. So, rather than flying empty with no paying passengers, Virgin Charter lets people bid on these otherwise empty trips.

You can book jets like a Citation, Lear, Gulfstream and everything else in the modern jet fleet.

The jet operator receives basically found money and the new Virgin Charter customers get a great deal on travel. How is that for a win-win situation?

In a truly free capitalistic society, inefficiency usually gets solved by someone making a profit for solving it! –Andrew Anderson

This is a much more efficient use of resources don’t you think? You can also book a regular charter flight there as well. So if you have an aircraft or use charters, you should definitely look into what they have to offer.

Also, if you have never flown by private jet, there is nothing like it. It can literally save you a whole day when traveling. You are normally able to fly directly into smaller airports which are usually closer to your actual destination. There is no delay or hassle with running the security gauntlet while they pat down old ladies in wheelchairs and you don’t have to jostle for a cramped seat next to someone that has not discovered that new invention called deodorant.

You can actually get work done while flying. It is nice to arrive fresh and ready to go close that deal. If you ever want to make an impression with a potential client, have them pick you up at the airport as you step off your charter. They don’t have to know that it did not cost an arm and a leg, or better yet let them know that it didn’t. They will probably appreciate the tip the next time they travel and be impressed by your thrift and efficiency.

If you are traveling with a group of 8 to 10 people with your company, this can really be an economical way to travel, especially with last minute trips.

Here is the interview.

If you want to look at booking an empty leg, you can bid on them here.Next week, I will also look to post a conversation on what it is like to work with Richard Branson. It is sure to be interesting and informative. Enjoy!

How Not To Offer A Guarantee

I won’t hold you in too much suspense here. The Lamest Guarantee Of The Year Award goes to drum roll please……

And the winner is……. Match.com.  They  take this year’s prize for the Lamest Guarantee.

I have been thinking about handing out this award for awhile now and I thought I would give the company a break, but I just can’t take it any longer. Every time I see their commercial I just laugh myself silly and can’t believe that they paid someone to come up with the Schpeel like that. It is by far the lamest Guarantee that I can remember seeing…..ever…

If you have seen Match.com’s commercial you know what I am talking about.. They say that we are so sure you will meet someone special within 6 months that if you don’t, we will give you another 6 months for free.

Tell me if this is not what a non-happy customer would be thinking. “What? I have not found the “special” woman/man of my dreams in the past 6 months as you promised on your lame site full of weirdo’s and I spent $100 bucks and have answered 97 emails from people that are less interesting than my cat/dog/ferret/goldfish and you want me to spend another 6 months talking to people that post pictures that are 10 years old and their most creative hobby is collecting their own nose hairs? “ ….or something like that.

I personally can’t believe that they are still in business. How about Money Back Guarantee People? Duhh…

With all of the Free competition from MySpace, Ning, Facebook, and others, it is a wonder they are still in business.

Anyway, my point is not to pick on Match.com per say but to point out that as a very smart participant of the Muse Blueprint, you are not going to do dumb things like that!

If you want to get ahead and be competitive with your Muse (uberBusiness) , have at least a 7 Day Money Back Guarantee. It will pay off for you in spades.

Anymore, I just plain refuse to purchase anything that does not have one period. Every time I do it seems that I get ripped off.

As I say, “ If you are not willing to stand behind your product or service, don’t put it in front of someone else, especially me!”

I am going to be releasing some videos this week that I think you will enjoy and should find helpful on putting your product or service together or polishing up an existing one.

Happy Musings,

JFA
PS…I found the graphic by typing in “Dumb” at a US Government site.

Adverting Alternatives

As you may have figured out by now, Advertising, or Adverting (more on my definition later but basically what my definition of Adverting is as a direct conversion to sales from just one Advertisement impression) and Guerrilla Marketing techniques are two of my favorite subjects. In this day when everyone else is talking about paid ad words, pay-per-clicks, and click-throughs that for the most part don’t really work all that well, there are some wonderful alternatives.

Here is one that I have been using for years with great results. I stumbled upon these somewhat by accident many years ago and when I started studying the results, I was amazed. I was looking at a 300 to 400%better response rate dollar for dollar versus any other paid medium that I was advertising in!

I have kept this one under my vest until now. As a Member of The Muse Blueprint you are the first to hearabout this.

The powerhouse advertising alternative that I am speaking of is none other than the little old FREE newspaper that gets left on your doorstep, tossed in the yard, or hung on the mailbox.

These things really get read and they can produce huge results and there is not a lot of competitionin there either as hardly anyone knows how to use them correctly.

If you run an ad in your local one, which is still probably a good deal it will cost you around $25 dollars or so.But with The Muse Blueprint’s help, we can put them in a paper for just $1.25 .

These little Freebies get read far more often that the big newspapers as the large newspapers are losing readership fast and yet they are still charge very high rates. More on how to get around that later.

Would you believe that you can get a 25 word classified ad in front of about 13 Million people for right around $1,250. The cost per thousand or CPM rate is right at 10 cents! So, you end up paying 1/100 thof a penny per possible viewer? Pretty cool! You can even do just one zone for about $220 per ad.

Not only is this a great price but the demographics are very solid as well, unlike with pay-per-clicks. These are a great way to test you Muse. I am not saying you can’t use pay-per-clicks, but, you have to do so wisely.

Check out these awesome demographics for these newspapers!.

AGE

18-24 = 11%
25-34 = 18%
25-44 = 22%
45-54 = 20%
55+ = 27%
unreported = 2%

INCOME

Over $100,000 = 30%
$75,000-$99,000 = 19%
$50,000-$74,999 = 24%
$35,000-$49,999 = 15%
Under $35,000 = 12%

Education

4-year college degree = 43%
Some college = 27%
High school graduate = 25%
No high school degree = 4%

Home Ownership

Own Residence = 83%
Rent Residence = 17%

Gender

Female = 51%
Male = 49%
You can now place your ad in over 990 Newspapers with 1 order! Advertise to over 13 million households for less than $1.25 per newspaper! We can access an Advertising Network that consists of 995 suburban & community newspapers throughout the US & Canada.

Community newspapers are the backbone of a community. They print stories and have information that can’t be found anywhere else.

Their readers are loyal, always excited to pick up the newspaper to see if they recognize anyone in the pictures, or the articles. To know what is going on in their town, the community newspaper is the source they turn to.

With 1 call, and 1 payment, you can advertise in all of the 995 newspapers or advertise in a geographic zone. This saves time and money!

When you book an ad with The Muse Blueprint your 25 word classified advertisement will be placed in the specified category the following week * (*due to some deadline restrictions, some papers may place the ad into the 2^nd week following deadline).

You can also advertise in 4 different zones starting at just $220 per week! Click Here to view Map.

To run your add or if you have questions, please drop us a line by Clicking Here .