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Illusions Blog Tour With Wanda Campbell

A wife of noble character who can find? She is worth far more than rubies. -- Proverbs 31:10

Last week during the blog tour, we learned quite a bit about First Lady Denise Hightower and her struggles with her husband's secret addictions. This week, let's take a look at the Hightower's.

Author Wanda B. Campbell shares profiles for this couple ...
Bryce Hightower is a thirty-four year-old pastor. An only child, he lost his parents to an automobile accident at the age of seventeen. While Bryce shared a strong bond with his mother, the relationship he had with his father was somewhat strained. He's struggled with acceptance and doesn't have much of a life outside of the church. He's a proud man, and yet at the same time he's insecure. His fear of rejection prevents him from seeking the help he needs. One Sunday, seated in his pulpit, in walks the love of his life.

Denise Hisgtower is a twenty-nine year-old hospital budget director. The daughter of a deacon, she is a daughter of the church. As a college graduate, she's intelligent. After a short eight-month courtship, she marries Pastor Hightower. They have been married for three years. Denise values her role as wife and first lady above her career. After working a full day, she comes home and prepares home-cooked meals. She keeps her house clean and honors her husband. At church, she supports him and at home she tends to his every need and in the bedroom she's liberal.
Seems like the perfect couple, but there is no such thing. Below listen to an audio excerpt as Bryce realizes, he can no longer deny his problem.

If you have trouble with the player, click the link below.
Click here to listen to audio excerpt



ABOUT THE BOOK

After three years of marriage, Denise Hightower discovers that her husband, Pastor Bryce Hightower, has a secret addiction that not only jeopardizes his marriage, but impairs his ability to effectively preach the gospel.
Yielding to pressure from her mother and her husband, Denise agrees to keep his addiction a secret, although her self-esteem plummets. Her life as the perfect First Lady is falling apart at the seams. Denise suffers in silence until she is confronted with the addiction from a trusted member of the church.

Self-centered and determined to uphold his pastoral image, Bryce is oblivious to his wife's emotional state. He's convinced that he can overcome his "little problem" on his own, so he rejects the spiritual help God sends him. But when his secret is discovered, will he be able to come clean with himself, God, and his congregation before he loses it all?

For more information about Wanda, visit her at wandabcampbell.net.


BLOG TOUR GIVEAWAY

This week's winner will receive An autographed copy of First Sunday in October and a coupon for a FREE print design (choose a bookmark, postcard or business card) courtesy of Tywebbin Creations. Winner are responsible for printing.

Check Wanda B. Campbell's blog for the winners.

Attract More Customers Through Cross-Promotion

by Kare Anderson

More Information About the Author: Click Here for the Kare Anderson Home Page



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To stand out from their competition in a crowded advertising marketplace, all kinds and sizes of businesses, nonprofits, and government agencies are joining forces to reach their mutual market of "customers" more efficiently. Their cross-promotions include "bundled" offerings, cause marketing, co-branding, coop marketing, and shared space. Cross-promotion has the potential for a big marketing payoff because partners can successfully expand through one another's customer base. They can gain an inexpensive and credible introduction to more of their kind of customer more effectively than with the traditional "solo" methods of networking, advertising, or PR.

Here are some low-risk and high-opportunity ways to jump-start your first cross-promotion.

1. Print joint promotional messages on your receipts.

2. Offer a reduced price, special service, or convenience if customers buy products from you and your partner.

3. Hang signs or posters promoting one another on your walls, windows, or products.

4. Mention one another's benefits when you speak at local events or are interviewed by the media.

5. Drop one another's flyers in shopping bags.

6. Pool mailing lists and send out a joint promotional postcard.

7. Promote your partner's products during their slow times, and ask them to do the same for you.

8. Share inexpensive ads in local shopping papers or a nonprofit event program.

9. Give a joint interview to local media.

10. Put one another's promotional messages on Lucite stands on counters or floor stands in waiting areas.

11. Encourage your staff to mention how your partner's products can be used with yours.

12. Give your partner's product to your customers when they buy a large quantity of your product, and ask your partner to do the same.

13. Use door hangers, posters, flyers, or postcards to promote special offers for one another's products.

14. Co-produce an in-store or office event - a demonstration, celebrity appearance, free service, or lecture.

Some More Ways to Cross-Promote to Stand Far Out from the Competition

1. Co-produce special promotions you could not afford by yourself. Hire local community college broadcasting/cable TV students to produce a "how to use" video and/or audio tape that involves you and your partner's products and services. Show the video on an eye-level TV monitor in your outlets where people have to wait or in the window for 24-hour viewing. Or play the audio-tape portion as background.

***Example: An enterprising advertising agency, local quick-copy printer, and video production house get priceless visibility for cross-promoting with others to co-produce an educational audio/video/book package that prominently displays their company names: "Thirty Ways Smart People Make Their Homes More Safe." The package is widely displayed and distributed to their partners' customers: a hardware store, home security company, police department, real estate firm, home contractor, electrician, and school district.

2. Display combined use of partners' products in your outlet, and ask partners to do the same.

***Example: A "Valentine Love Food" display appeared in all partners' outlets a month before Valentine's Day. Partners -- a cooking school, kitchenware shop, florist, card shop, restaurant, and supermarket -- all displayed the makings for a romantic dinner menu to be served on Valentine's Day at their partner's restaurant. Their displays were created by a local theatre set designer, who designed the current play, for which the customers of the partners' outlets received a reduced price ticket when they bought the restaurant meal or certain products from the participating partners. A local newlywed couple who won the partners' "Valentine Love Food" drawing and the local couple who proved they've been married the longest joined the local newspaper's food critic at the center table for the featured meal, free to them.

3. Have a contest, with the prizes contributed by your partners. For the next contest, roles change, and you contribute your product or service as a prize for a partner's contest.

***Example: For two weeks, a dry cleaner places tags on all customers' hangers, containing fashion tips. The tags are numbered tickets for a contest to win gifts from the partners' clothing stores. When the dry cleaner's customers make any purchase from the stores, they show their hanger card to see if it matches one of the "winning numbers" on a card of numbers created by all the partners at the beginning of the contest. Vary this cross-promotion by asking partners to have a card of winning numbers for the customers of the other partners to match for prizes.

4. Give customers a free product or service from a participating partner when they buy something that month from all of the partners listed in an ad or on a promotional postcard.

***Example: Participating pediatrician practices, child care centers, children's clothing shops, and toy stores all display a "Love Means Being Prepared" child-designed poster describing the recommended contents for a home medicine cabinet for families with young children.

5. Cross-promote by literally getting closer, sharing space.

***Examples: A store or franchise leases space within another establishment (or agrees on side-by-side sites, or actually sells both kinds of products on site) -- Noah's Bagels sells Starbucks Coffee. A restaurant or fast-food operation leases space within a hospital or motel -- Pizza Hut in Days Inn. Kinko's leases space within certain hotels. Popeye's Chicken & Biscuits in a Kroger supermarket increases traffic for both guest and host companies. The post office locates a substation in a supermarket. An accessories store leases space within or next to a clothing store and is joined by internal doors. A stadium leases space to a concession operator. The less traditional cross-promotions are just starting. A campus leases space to a travel agency. Some franchises are co-branding with complementary services such as Copy, Pack & Ship.

If you'd like to learn more, look at the articles on our web site -- http://www.sayitbetter.com -- or read our book, Pocket Cross-Promotions.

Learning to Forgive

Remember, Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future. ~ Paul Boese

Scripture:
This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 1 John 4:9-11

Saints, Is there anyone in your life that you say you hate? Are there people in your life who have wronged you and therefore you can't forgive them? Do you sometimes get angry at those people in your life you profess to love and say mean and hurtful things to them? Do you have a mean spirit?

Now some of you may not believe this, but there are times in my life when I can be mean spirited. And if you are honest with yourselves you too will admit that there has been a time or two in your life when you too have been mean and hurtful to someone you love. In a moment of anger you may have said or done something to someone you say you love.

When someone hurts us our first reaction is to hurt them back; just as much or even more than they hurt us. It doesn't matter who it is. Your significant other, your children, a friend, or even your parents. There is nothing worse than someone you love doing or saying something that they know is going to hurt not just your feelings, but it will hurt your heart and soul.

However, I have good news for you. As you grow in your faith and in your knowledge in Christ you will begin to develop a forgiving spirit, a loving spirit, a spirit that will bridle your tongue and your actions. The more that you grow in the word of God, the more you will become Christ like.

Keep in mind that if someone loves you, you can overlook their moments of anger. If a brother or sister hurts you, don't just turn the other cheek, but put yourself in their place and think about what might have caused their reaction.

Remember that person loves you, so do I, But God loves you best.

Be Blessed

Prayer:
Father God we start our day with a spirit of love. We will show love and compassion to those around us. Our prayer this day is that we may learn to be more patient with those around us and try to remember that words spoken in anger can be forgiven. Father, help us to develop a more forgiving spirit. A spirit that is not easily riled. Help us to recognize when our loved ones are being used against us by satan in an effort to cause us to stumble. Lord, touch our brothers and sisters who have a mean spirit, casting out that vile and wicked demon in the name of Jesus. Have mercy and show favor to Your saints right now. Touch, bless and anoint Your saints who are reading this message. Father, we don't know the needs of Your children, but we know that You do. As we humble ourselves before You this day, in reverence to You, in honor of You, and because of who You are, we will sings songs of praise to You all day long. When we think about Your blessings, we will stop and say, thank You Lord. In the name of Your son, we humbly submit this prayer and claim our victories. Amen.