From The Contest Queen

The 3rd Edition of Advertising and Marketing Law in Canada by Brenda Pritchard and Susan Vogt was officially released on January 14th at Gowlings’ head office in Toronto.

Read the rules is the #1 tip I give entrants.  Have airtight rules is the #1 tip I give to contest sponsors.  I give that tip to companies because most people do not realize that the rules are a legal and binding contract between the sponsor and the entrant.  If a contest’s rules do not properly follow Canadian promotional laws, a company could find themselves in legal hot water.  Chapter 8 covers Contest and Promotions.  Brenda and Susan discuss topics such as: the Criminal Code, the Competition Act, no purchase entries, skill testing questions and the Regis des alcools, des courses et des jeux.  Sometimes the law, and legalese, can be complex and difficult to understand.  With that in mind, they have written their book with the corporate advertiser and marketer in mind.  It is easy to read and quickly grasp the important points of each section.

Of course, I do find myself bias to Contest and Promotions chapter, as I quoted several sections in my book You Can’t Win If You Don’t Enter, but as a marketer the other chapters are also very relevant to me depending on the project I am working on.  Advertising and Marketing Law in Canada is their largest edition to-date (532 pages) and covers a myriad of topics such as: basic principles, false advertising, advertising claims, Worst Case Scenarios, pricing in advertising, User Generated Content, Green Marketing, Advertising To Children, packaging, labelling, Drugs and Natural Health Products, cosmetics advertising, food advertising, regulations of specific market sectors, trademarks, marketing communications, Privacy Law in Canada, Uniquely Quebec Issues, advertising agencies, and more…  If your job function touches advertising or marketing in any way, or if your business runs contests and sweepstakes, Advertising and Marketing Law in Canada is a must read.

I also had the pleasure of finally meeting both Brenda and Susan at the book launch!

ENJOY, GOOD LUCK & HAVE FUN!

Sharon Elaine and I are kindred spirits.  We both love entering and winning sweepstakes.  We both believe in the Law of Attraction and we both enjoy sharing our fun and excitement with others.  Sharon has shared her winning secrets in Ready, Click, Win! How to Find and WIN Legitimate Online Sweepstakes and her Law of Attraction secrets in The Book of Affirmations.

As a college computer teacher, Sharon has used her teaching skills to make Ready, Click, WIN! a wonderfully easy book to read and understand.  Sharon only talks about online sweepstakes.  She begins by introducing readers to the hobby, for the “newbie”, through; how to find sweepstakes, how to enter, how to win, and how to stay safe online.

Chapter 2 is titled Rules of Thumb. Here are the tips that every sweeper should follow:

1. Don’t check the odds!
2. YOU go looking for the sweepstakes, don’t let them come looking for you.
3. Once you enter it, LET IT GO.
4. Get your mind right!
5. Be patient.
6. HAVE FUN!!

Sharon’s #1 tip is to expect to win.  When she goes off to enter her daily sweepstakes she says, “I am off to WIN!”, not “I am off to enter.”  No wonder Sharon wins so many online instant win prizes!

Sharon is an active member of Sweepstakes Advantage.  You can find her in the forum, ready to help others win, or on her website Unleashed Minds. Sharon was also a guest on my online radio show With The Contest Queen on Monday May 18th. Listen here.

ENJOY, GOOD LUCK, HAVE FUN!!

If you have seen the movie The Secret, you know the story John Assaraf tells about his experience with putting visual images of his goals on a board and meditating on them every day.

Well, Eric Mack found a product called Road ID and used their product to create a “portable vision board”.  He now keeps his goal list with him at all times and he can focus on them whenever he has a moment.

What a great idea!

(Notice, he originally posted his goals December 2007.  He managed to reach all of his 2008 goals except 4 & 5.  As Helene says, “There is no failure. Only a delay in results.”  I am sure he’ll reach those goals this year.)

At some point after the movie The Secret came out I decided I wanted my picture taken with Jack Canfield, Joe Vitale and John Assaraf.

Last week I won tickets to The Phenomenal View featuring John Assaraf.  On Tuesday we went to the Royal Ambassador Event Centre to see John speak.  After we arrived, while we were getting settled, helping ourselves to coffee and tea, a gentleman came up to me and said, “Hi. I am Frank. We have meet before. We had a close encounter.”  I did not recognize him right away.  Maybe it was because he wasn’t wearing his sumo wrestling suit!

It was Frank Pointek, my sumo wrestling competitor and the fellow contestor who encouraged me to start contest clubs in Canada.  (Read all about our first encounter here.)

He and his wife had also won tickets.  Lucky guy won the grand prize which included lunch with John!

If you have never heard John speak, I highly recommend attending.  He is worth seeing at least once.  I thought he was so good, I ordered his CD course Having It All, so I could continue the lessons we touched upon that day.

I asked my husband if he had any cash on him as I also wanted to buy John’s book The Answer.  Turns out, niether of had any on us.  Then, when we were lining up for our buffet lunch, as we passed the registration table, there was his book with a Post-It Note with my name on it.  I had won his book too!  After the break, I got my book autographed and my picture with John.

Now I just need to meet Jack & Joe!

Contesting: The Name It And Claim It Game – WINeuvers for WISHcraft by Helene Hadsell, the woman who wins every contest she enters.

WOW! If you only read one contesting book, this should be it!  On the surface, Helene’s book is about her contesting journey, but it is far more than a contesting book. It’s a book about how to use the power of your mind to have anything you wish in this life. I can’t even begin to touch the depth of the wisdom she bestows upon the reader in this review.

Helene has a fantastic imagination and gift with words. She loves playing with words to get her point across. To get anything you wish for in life, Helene sugests you use the SPEC method:
SELECT IT
PROJECT IT
EXPECT IT
COLLECT IT

She also has many fantastic quotes. This is one of Helene’s favourite. She actually wrote it out twice.

“Watch you thoughts, they become words; watch your words, they become actions; watch your actions, they become habits; watch your habits, they become character; watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.”
Frank Outlaw

If you wish to purchase her program, click here.

Helene was also a guest on my online radio show on Monday August 4th.  You can listen to the archived show here.  She was so popular, I promise to have her on again.

The Prize Winner of Defiance Ohio by Terry Ryan is the perfect book for summertime reading and has become one of my all time favourite books. Not just because it is a wonderful true story about a woman who has inspired many a contestor, but because it also changed my life.

In 2003, after seeing several people chat about the book in an online contesting group I decided would like to give it a read. I remember walking around the house, with a duster or vacuum in one hand and the book in the other as I could not put it down. (I also highly recommend having a tissue box nearby.)

Apparently, someone in Hollywood was also inspired and in 2005, Julianne Moore stared in the movie of the same name. As soon as the movie came out on DVD I bought it. I was watching the extras and saw that Dortha Schaefer was still alive, living in Payne OH, and writing for The Paulding Country Progress. I wrote her at the paper, and she me wrote back!

I eventually met Dortha, the remaining Affidaisy members and even became an honorary Affadaisy for a day. I was also lucky enough to interview all of them for my book. (The Winning EDGE Vol 3 Issue 5 and The Affadaisies.) Sadly, both Evelyn, the book’s heroine, and the author have both passed away and I did not meet either of them.

This is not your regular book review. I am not going to give anything away as I want you to run to your local bookstore or library and get it. And, only after have you read the book do I want you to see the movie.

I hope you enjoy the book and movie as much as I do.

The Complete Guide To Prize Contests, Sweepstakes and How To Win Them by Selma Glasser was published in 1980.  What an interesting book.  It’s focus is on contests.  She teaches you how to win by writing all types of verse including; couplets, quatrains, limericks along with naming, caption and slogan contests.

Selma offers up some cute examples:

This book is what contestors need
To help their entries take the lead.

You needn’t be so very wise
To snare a handsome contest prize.
You only need to take a look
At winning lessons in this book.

What I really liked is she gave us a bit more history on the hobby.

We can look back on years of prize give-aways in the United States since 1900.  Of course, there had been some contests-more literary than commercial-in this country before the present century began, but they were too rare to be recorded here.  Even in 1900, contesting was a comparatively unknown hobby, with few followers and with awards amounting to only $15,000.

By 1910, newspaper files show that $500,000 in prizes were offered, and there were about 100,000 contest fans.  Within ten years the number of prize-seekers had grown to a million, mostly attracted by newspaper and magazine contests.

By 1930, national commercial advertisers had become convinced that prize contests offered a fertile field for promoting the sales of their products.  During that decade, their ever-increasing offers of cash and merchandise brought the number of entrants to nearly 12 million, and the total value of prizes for the ten-year span soared past the $100-million mark.

Selma also wrote one chapter on recipe contests and one chapter on sweepstakes.  The book is very detailed and I felt like a D student in English class.  While reading I was quietly happy the hobby moved to sweepstakes, because I don’t think I would win a single prize entering contests of yesteryear.

I interviewed many people for my books and I know, without their help, my books would not be as interesting. It turns out I helped another author make his book much more interesting. My story was selected for I Should Have Stayed At Home: Hotels.

My section is entitled Carolyn & Louise. No spoilers here, but I will give you a quick glimpse by reprinting the entry I used in a recent contest describing my worst vacation: 1991, travelling alone, Bora Bora, Club Med, manic-depressive post-op transsexual roommate, cyclone.

Should I have stayed at home? No. Bora Bora was the most beautiful place on earth I have ever been, regardless of the weather and, the trip has provided me with one of the best cocktail hour stories, ever.

How to Win Lotteries, Sweepstakes and Contests in the 21st Century by Steve Ledoux (aka America’s Sweepstakes King) was originally published in 2000 and the second edition was published in 2004. This is one of the few sweepstaking books I review that is still in print.

Our books do differ slightly. Steve covers the hobby as a whole writing much more extensively on lotteries and mail-in promotions, plus he also writes about how to win from game shows. I too cover the hobby as a whole, but focus on entering via the Internet and your cellphone. I even quote Steve in my book as his definition of the differences between lotteries, sweepstakes and contests is the best I have ever read.

How to Win is one of my favourite sweepstaking books because both Steve’s writing style and his philosophy on life and the hobby are similar to mine.

“If you only remember three things from this book, they should be: (1) follow the rules exactly; (2) enter as often as possible; and (3) have fun!”

If that advice sounds similar it was also written about in And The Lucky Winner Is… As I stated before, good advice never changes.

I just finished reading And The Lucky Winner Is… (subtitled The Complete Guide To Winning Sweepstakes and Contests) by Carolyn and Roger Tyndall with Tad Tuleja published in 1982.

It seems some things never change. After interviewing dozens of very successful contestors and sweepstakers, some of which had been entering since the 1930s, they came up with three principles they believed to be the core actions the big winners always took:

Principle One: Enter often

Principle Two: Follow the rules

Principle Three: Think “win”

I find it fascinating that their three principles are the same tips I give new contestors. Good advice remains consistant.

I especially find the third principle interesting because these people were promoting the law of attraction, aka The Secret, and didn’t even know it. I say, “Half the hobby is in your head and if you do not think you will win, you won’t.” Carolyn, Roger and Tad confirm my statement and that positive thinking has been prevalent in the hobby for decades. My advice is not “New Age” thinking, but a thought process all contestors must embrace to be truly successful.

The book focuses on contests versus sweepstakes, features interviews with contestors and judging agencies (including some I interviewed for the American Edition of my book) along with having many tips and tricks, still applicable today, sprinkled throughout.

The final line of their book is almost identical to mine: REMEMBER: FOLLOW THE RULES-and have fun!

So true!