I found this site today which allows you to make a pdf from almost any file or url. And its Free!

Really amazing.

PDF Creator

If your file is over 2mb then you have to sign up for their free service. Which was very easy and no hassle or spam that I could tell at this point. The service may have a charge later.. but for now. Wow!

Catholic Radio

Commercial Story Starters.

If this is your first time attending this class please go to this page To officially sign up. This will put you on our mailing list to receive all updated information and changes.

If the form does not work for you… please email me below.

AND If you are a returning student and able to attend this class please email me and let me know!

I will send you the call in information. srpat@calledbyjoy.com

This class is open to anyone who is interested - so please tell
your friends!

Sr. Patricia

6:00 PM Pacific 7:00 MT Mountain 8:00 CT Central 9:00 ET Eastern

Message from Jeffrey:

Our next teleseminar begins to cover what I believe is the
foundation of effective commercials ­ stories.

It¹s called “Radio Commercial Story Starters.”

Now, in our fun-filled hour together we’ll begin discussing:

	How to start getting results by making your radio commercials ­ stories.
	How to gather the most useful input from your client.
	How to find stories in your client¹s business and life.
	And how to find stories in your life, how to categorize them, make them available for future use and adapt them to commercials.
	Then we¹ll review the 4 step process to utilize the power of stories in your commercials.
	And finally, how to Bridge the client¹s goals to the stories and the marketing to make entertaining, compelling and effective commercials.

And of course, I¹ll play lots of audio examples.

The topics above may take more than one session, because I want
to leave time for your questions and input.

Jeffrey Hedquist ]]> http://catholicpromotion.com/?feed=rss2&p=62 http://catholicpromotion.com/?p=56 http://catholicpromotion.com/?p=56#comments Tue, 10 Mar 2009 05:27:31 +0000 admin http://catholicpromotion.com/?p=56 I’m just getting into Twitter and I’m totally loving it. I don’t know a lot about it yet… but it’s rather huge from what I can tell. This post is just a spot where I can dump all the favorite articles and stuff I find about Twittering.

It’s one of those “in progress” posts.

Do feel free to share your favorites too.

Oh.. and of course my twitter is srpat twitter.com/srpat

Twitter Tips and Tricks

The 90-10 Rule for Successful Twitter Networking

10 Twitter Tools that Help You Work Smarter

Top 100 Social Media & Internet Marketing Bloggers

Top 10 Female Twitter Users in the World

Jeffrey Hedquist

Just finished with another excellent radio teleclass with Jeffrey Hedquist that Sacred Heart Radio is sponsoring. These are so over the top. I think anyone would learn a lot from them for any kind of selling that involves audio communication.  In fact Jeffrey himself stresses this at the  beginning of the  class - what you learn is not just for radio.. you can use it for

• podcasts
• telephone messages
• speeches
• sermons
• lectures
• selling conversations
• talking to your kids, friends or spouse

I will probably get the recording tomorrow and will share it with you. But for now here are a few notes I took that I hope will whet your appetite.

• Metaphor bridges - tickle people imaginations - do this by entering into the experience of the listener.
• Robert Gallard (sp) “Good advertising is “entering into the conversation that is already going on.”
• Surprise!  Start with predictability and then pop the surprise.
• On hold messages - make them fun
• the higher the imagery the better the retention

There are four ways to communicate on the radio

1. Voices - monologue, dialogue
2. Sound Effects
3. Music
4. Silence

1. Voices - the simplest is the single voice

2. Dialogue - Use his “Secret Recording Technique”  Record a conversation without anyone knowing about it. (Do this only with friends that won’t take you to court!) What you will find is that actual conversations are full of interruptions, broken sentences, and disjointed thoughts.  Do this with your radio spot and it will sound much more believable.

2. Sound Effects - the sounds become another character in the radio plot. Such as a squeaking door, tire squealing, phone ringing, etc.

The second part of the class - involved learning how to BRAINSTORM for Creativity

Gather a group of people together from different parts of your organization - folks you might not think would have anything to “professionally contribute” to the session. They will often bring in the greatest new thinking to the mix. The receptionist, the plumber, the babysitter.. whoever!

Have two rules.

1. Always say “YES” to everything. Doesn’t matter how crazy… Just say Yes!

2. Take the crazy thought to the next level by asking, “Okay, where do we go from there with this?”

I just tried this in the kitchen with two of the sisters when I was explaining Jeffrey’s techniques. In giving them an example I said (looking at the dog) “Okay.. say you want to sell dog biscuits.. and someone says,

“Yeah! Let’s give a free Rolls Royce with every dog biscuit package they purchase!”

You will be tempted to say, “That is the most stupid thing I have ever heard!” or “Who let that person into the group?” But you don’t!

You say . . . .

“YES! and “Where do we go from there?”

And next comes this…. ”

“A chocolate Rolls Royce! They can eat it while the dog crunches on the biscuit.

It’s a zany idea, its crazy - but it has possibility and its fun. Now someone else pops up with another crazy idea and you say… YES! and “Where do we go from there?”

And pretty soon you have tons of wild, crazy ideas and some that are SOLID GOLD that you never would have found if you have negated them from the first get go.

Another way to do a commercial - is to tell the story but not the whole thing. This one is harder to explain - but powerful. You really need to listen to the recording as Jeffrey has lots of commercial examples for everything he is sharing  - and you will get a much fuller picture than what I can do here.

I would definitely say this is a recording you can listen to over and over.

srpat at calledbyjoy.com    [remove space and delete "at" and use @]

Here at last is the link to the recording of the first class. Right click on audio box to save.

Optional Radio Class Assignment

1. Get a sheet of paper and create two columns. In one column list as many negative emotions that you can think of and in the second column as many positive ones.Write what your topic is about that you want to write a commercial for.Set a timer or stopwatch for two minutes and starting with the first emotion… write whatever comes to mind.Select the next emotion and do the same. Continue down the list -Using a stop watch or timer - set it for two minutes and write about your topic using the first emotion on the list. When the time is up - continue with the next emotion.2.  Make a list of the fives senses - touch, smell, etc and write for two minutes using each sense as the basis for your topic.

Finding Blog Treasure

This is a posting in progress. I am trying to add at least one good link a day for awhile.  I’m actually doing this for me… but if anyone else makes their way to my little corner of the world… perhaps they will find it helpful as well.

1.) So here is my first.  Chris Brogran’s 50 Ways to Take your Blog to the Next Level

This is a great article. Succint… with enough fuel to truly take you to the next level.

2.) Do you have a blog but don’t know how to put the feed graphic with its proper rss url so people can click on it to sign up? How to even find what your silly feed url is? I was stumped.. until I found this posting.

Syndication for WordPress and Drupal by Alfred Armstrong. Yeah.  It is written clearly - simply - and provides this valuable piece of information.

Your WordPress site generates feeds automatically: enter your homepage URL and add “?feed=rss”,

So for instance - my domain name for this site is catholicpromotion.com  I just add the ?feed=rss to that link and presto.. magic.. and I have the link.   http://catholicpromotion.com?feed=rss

The whole code I used to put up the graphic was this.

<a href=”http://poorclare.org?feed=rss”><img
src=”http://poorclare.org/i/rss.jpg” width=35 height=35 border=0> Subscribe</a></p>

which made it look like this:

(I also had to find the rss image.. save it … upload it (ftp) to my server in order for the page to show it.) that’s all for another tutorial.

You will want to read his whole article for this though.. this was just a tidbit - to let you know its worth going to!

3.) Here are a few pages with RSS icons….  you might have to resize using a graphic program.

GTMCKnight

4. This just in.  A great post on Mistakes by Leo Babauta ! A good look before you leap posting. 10 Mistakes that could be killing your blog.    These are the points that stood out the most for me.

1. Less-than-useful posts.  Leo Babauta talks about how people find your blog  through a search engine and then leave because there is nothing there.  Or perhaps he says there is something there .. but who can find it?

4. Not displaying your best posts.  I’ve been noticing this feature on the top sites. They have a listing of their top posts in a prominent place on the sidebar. I just have to figure out how to do that.  When I find that out - I’ll come back and let you know.

10. Boring or uninformative headlines - I am sort of hooked into advertising - so I can really vouch for this one.  The top copywriters will spend 90% of their time coming up with powerful headlilnes.

5.   66 Successful Bloggers and What they can teach you

This post is awesome! This one will keep you reading and growing and figuring stuff out for a lifetime I expect. You can just go down the list and check one out a day.

6. And.. I found the above link from this great page.   It looks like I won’t have time to do anything else with my life but read and study about blogging. Uh-oh! I wonder if I’ll need a 12 step program for this?

Best Internet Marketing Blog Posts of 2007

7. Here’s a new one. This will keep you checking out new blogs for a while. Top 100 Social Media & Internet Marketing Bloggers

Now we have had Adoratation, morning prayer, breakfast.. and I have 7 minutes to write my first post. I’m over the time.. got to zip to Morning prayer…