Off the Hook Marketing: How to Make Social Media Sell for You

Off the Hook Marketing: How to Make Social Media Sell for You by Jeff Molander


In the world of books on how to sell on line, I have noticed many books make big promises but fail to deliver. In this book however, not only does the author take a different approach and thought pattern to using social media to sell on line, he also gives logical and practical examples. He gives urls to sites that show what he is talking about so that you can see how the different people took action to build their companies and make money via social media. After reading this book, not only was I full of new ideas for our home based on line business, but with the need to do homework. That homework consists of going to those many websites that he referenced in the book, reading the various blogs, websites, Facebook posts, and then studying their techniques so that I can truly understand all of what he was talking about and also to glean more ideas to put into practice. I have lots of work to do. I can say though, I took just one of the ideas that popped into my head while reading the book and applied it and got positive comments in return. Suddenly by customers were communicating with me in a way they never had before! Amazing! Of course, the whole idea is to make money, but I wasn’t even sure that my customers read anything I wrote. Now at least I know that some are paying attention and that more will as I continue to develop the concept that I am working on which will make customers want to buy from me instead of someone else.

We have been selling at various sites over the last ten years and one of the biggest problems I found to marketing and promoting our products was just exactly how to draw people into our store by way of our blog, Facebook posts or website content. What kind of content should we be using? The author makes it very clear what types of content to be using and what types of things to avoid, such as sending emails marketing a company on a daily basis which I think most of us hate. After a while that company’s e-mail heads to the junk/blocked box instead of the in-box.

If there was one bone that I had to pick with the author, it was in his use of the word ‘sexy’ in referring things like software and cell phones (at least 9 times that I counted in the book). I don’t know when our society started using the word ‘sexy’ to be a descriptive word for inanimate objects that by their very nature have nothing ‘sexy’ about them. There are so many other words that could and should have been substituted such as: captivating, fascinating, enthralling, educational, etc. Check out a Thesaurus and find some words that are more descriptive of what you are trying to say.

All in all a great book for trying to understand what you should be doing as a business person when faced with social media. This book does not help beginners learn how to start a business page on Facebook or start a blog, but it does help you to understand the types of content and information you should be posting.

You can visit the author at his website or at his blog where you can get a lot more good information about using social media to sell.

Facebook for Business in 10 Minutes by Bud E. Smith

If you have never been to Facebook and own a business, then Facebook for Business in 10 Minutes by Bud E. Smith should give you some knowledge about setting up an account for your business as it does go step by step. I am familiar with Facebook and read this book to see what I might be missing. Well, I got it the week that Facebook did it’s latest major change (the need to scroll on the right side of the page to see your friends posts) so I knew it was already a bit outdated. I read the book looking for bits that would help me have a better Facebook page for my customers to see and relate to. However, when finished with the book, I could only remember one thing that I hadn’t known prior to reading the book and that was about the Facebook Insights page. Other than that it was pretty cut and dried and really only a book for beginners. It really doesn’t help you understand what kind of content to post or ways to make sales for your business with Facebook. If you want that kind of information you might want to try this book Off The Hook Marketing: How to Make Social Media Sell for You.

Seven Keys to Unlock Autism by Elaine Hall & Diane Isaacs

This is another book review that I did for the Amazon Vine Program. As a mother of a high functioning autistic son, I was thrilled to see how these women wrote a book with understanding of these special children. It is always obvious to me when someone is writing from the base of personal knowledge or one where they read some information about autism or saw Rainman and base all of what they write on these misconceptions.

Seven Keys to Unlock Autism: Making Miracles in the Classroom by Elaine Hall and Diane Isaacs

As a mother of an autistic man, I read this book with great interest. Both of the author’s of this book have boys that are autistic and it shows. It shows in their deep understanding of ones who live with this day in and day out. They aren’t talking ‘theory’ but what they have learned in the trenches and through their work with other autistic children and those that work with them.
Although this book is directed at teachers, it would be good for anyone in contact with autistic children and adults to read to get a fuller understanding of these people that due to developmental difficulties don’t progress at the same levels as so called ‘normal’ people. Actually at times they progress faster and then some things are very or completely delayed. Even if a teacher doesn’t have an autistic child in their classroom, the many ‘keys’ given in this book, I would think, would be helpful in maintaining a smoothly functioning classroom.
The last statistic that I saw on autism stated that 1 in 110 children have this difficulty. Some may have autism mildly and others much more profoundly, yet each of these child can teach us something and all of them want their voices to be heard. By learning more about them and how they function you will be doing yourself and them a favor of being someone that understands their needs and desires and can help bring understanding to others.

The Color of Rain by Michael and Gina Spehn

This is from a book review I did for the Amazon Vine program. I'm very behind in reviews that I would have liked to have written this year as it has been a rough year physically with 2 surgeries on my knees. I have found that too much pain keeps me from reading anything deeper than a cozy mystery. Hoping to get more on track this winter.

The Color of Rain: How two families found faith, hope & love in the midst of tragedy by Michael and Gina Spehn

This book was certainly a tear jerker. Gina nurses and cares for her husband with cancer and during cancer treatments over the course of three years. He dies on Christmas day leaving her a widow with two young boys. She is blessed to have a huge church family and supportive neighborhood that pitched in with food, help and prayers both before and after his death.

Michael's wife, a member of the same church as Gina, hears of her troubles and writes an email to Gina's friend asking what she can do to help this sad family. She never gets a chance to help herself though, as a month later she too dies from a fast growing brain tumor. Michael is left with three children, two boys and girl.

This book is how they came together to help each other in their grief and how God put love for each other in their hearts and they eventually marry and combine families with full support of their children and relatives.

This is a charming book of people helping people. Of people letting God lead the direction in which they should walk. It also shows the often forgotten outpouring of love to the bereft families in the way of food and help. Michael and Gina got so much help, that they had to turn it aside finally, but how nice if more people thought of doing this act of charity towards others in distress and medical problems. This book includes pictures of the family. There is one big editing flaw that I found. No one double checked the spelling of the medications that were mentioned and there certainly was some creative spellings. Read this book with a box of tissue nearby.

I truly enjoyed this book even though there were times that the tears were flowing down my face. I love seeing how God can work and minister in people's lives, especially as they walk through the deep dark valleys of life.

Freeman Process Service

What in the world does Freeman Process Service have to do with books? Well the truth is, not much except for the fact that it is run by my son Ron Freeman who is a great lover of books and when we get together he is always ready with an oral book report for me. I've had a lousy summer and am now recuperating from surgery so haven't been up to doing many book reviews myself but have several books lined up to review when my head is a bit clearer (currently on many narcotics for pain). Ron lives in the Columbus, Ohio area with his lovely wife and is happy to help you out in your process servicing needs, especially those lawyers and legal types in other states that aren't hooked in with a process server for the State of Ohio. Get to know more about Ron and his strangely funky views on life at his blog: I Trust Ron Freeman.

Mrs. Lincoln's Boston Cook Book

While I've been having a lousy summer physically, most of my reading has been cosy mysteries or sewing magazines and books. Then a few weekends ago I was able to get to my first yard sale of the season, which shows just how ill I've felt since I love going to yard sales! Not only did I find some nifty sewing notions, I found a great book that I picked up for $2. It is called Mrs. Lincoln's Boston Cook Book: What to do and what not to do in cooking by Mrs. Mary J. Lincoln. My copy is a revised edition that was published in 1906 by Little, Brown and Company. The book was originally published in 1883.

I love to read cook books as they are much more interesting than many history books, yet also show the history of our world and what was happening during the time frame of the book's writing. After reading the first few pages of this book, all I could think was why didn't this book get republished in the pre-Y2K preparation? It apparently has been republished in 2010 but to have had this book if the world had come crashing down, would have been  a treasure to have on the reference shelf. Of all the cook books I have ever read, this was the first to actually explain in great detail (everything in this book is explained in great detail) how to get your fire going and how to bake and roast items in your wood stove or if you are really up with the times a coal stove. I had read a lot of books pre-Y2K and never saw one that truly explained how to use the wood stoves that people were buying in preparation. It instructs on how to cook meat in the stove or on top of the stove after telling how to debone it if needed. It has many scientific explanations for everything, although how accurate scientifically they are after 125+ years is questionable. But if you want to know why meat needs seared quickly before putting in on to cook for hours this book will tell you.

You will learn more than you ever wanted to know about wheat and grain and the different ways it is ground and which are the best flours depending on what you will be using it for. Fiber and the wheat bran are condemned roundly as being indigestible and not good for you. I was happy to see that Pillsbury was considered to be a good flour and one that was available back then in Boston. You will learn how to make your own yeast if you don't have a friend or family member to loan you some and then how to keep your yeast growing so that you have it for all your bread making needs.

You will be instructed on saving drippings and meat and poultry fat to make your fat for cooking and if your meat looks like it will be too dry with cooking, how and what to 'lard' it with. How to measure accurately. Cautions to be sure you don't burn yourself on your stove or the pans you are using. How to have extra space for working near your stove--a wooden box is recommended to be drawn up near the stove. While reading you start to feel like you have been transported back in time to a kitchen at it's minimum. It makes you grateful for regular ovens, much less microwave or convection ovens! So many of the tasks that used to fall on women back during the 1880's have disappeared from sight at this point. I can't imagine trying to keep a cook stove going to bake the family bread during our current heat wave, although true to how she wrote, the author suggests that in the summer you might want to do your baking early in the day before it gets too hot. Thank you, but I will buy my bread from the store when it is 80 degrees out.

The book has many recipes and also a glossary of cookery terms used in that day. I love finding little treasures that help me to understand what is being talked about in older books as it is too easy to think a word means something else than what it is being used for.

If you love poking your nose into history by way of cook books, you will want to track down a copy of this book for yourself. I would hope that the republished book has stayed true to the original and weren't updated for today. The charm of reading this book in the first place is it's old time flavor.