A short time ago on the Warrior Forum, Patrick Pretty, who happens to be a damn good writer, made a post about the Obama fist bump, how it showed him to be human and really became the talk of, well, the whole country. I had some time to think about this and it brought me to what I think are some interesting questions…the primary one being, “How true is YOUR fist bump?” If you’re scratching your head wondering where I am going with this, keep on reading. I think you’ll get my drift.

There is no question that the more personal you are with your prospects the better chance you will have of converting them into paying customers. Also, the more personal you are with your paying customer, the better your chances of retaining them as long term customers. But is being personal enough? A better question is, can it be faked and if so, is faking it good enough?

Being truly genuine with somebody is hard to define. It is an intangible that goes beyond definition. For example, there would be many times that I’d go to a car dealership and be greeted by a salesman at the door with a handshake and a painted on smile. While do I say painted on? Because it just felt that way to me. I didn’t really feel any genuine caring in this person. I just saw somebody who was out for the almighty dollar. I was immediately turned off and went elsewhere.

Judging by the way it seems most of the country has responded to the Obamas, it would appear that the consensus is that the fist bump was genuine. I personally, after watching it, just saw it as a political gimmick. Am I right? Who knows? The point is not whether or not I am but how the majority of the people perceive it. And this is where I now come to YOUR business.

If you want to be a car salesman with a painted on smile who only cares about making a buck, fine. It’s your business and you have to run it the way you see fit. My suggestion to you would be, if that is the case, to make sure that the smile you paint on is a damn good one. There are some shrewd people out there who will see through you in a minute. And when somebody paints on a smile, usually, their actions don’t correspond and they do something to trip themselves up as the charlatan that they are. It’s much harder to fake being a caring, decent person.

A better course of action would be to not only present yourself as an honest marketer, but conduct yourself as well. This includes giving real value in your newsletters and products; putting up honest sales pages, squeeze pages and blogs; and essentially running an honest business that is more concerned with giving its customers what they want than just making a buck.

My gut tells me that if you follow my very simple and maybe even sublime tip above, you find that you have happier customers and more profits than those salesmen with the painted on smiles.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

If you want to discover the REAL truth about Internet marketing and get some solid tips to take your business to the next level…get my free report at http://www.stevewagenheim.com/realtruth.html and subscribe to my REAL Truth newsletter where you’ll discover more than from all those high priced ebooks combined.