What a contest! For the past two months, Art of Eloquence had a contest going that got really interesting, especially toward the end. The idea was to help us get the word out about Art of Eloquence by posting links to our website. The winner of the $350 prize package was the one who posted the most links, but we were also giving away other prizes by picking 10 other entries at random.
When we first started, I thought we would have hundreds of people entering once with several entering a few times. I expected our winner to have posted about 5-7 links in the two months allotted and I figured the motivation to post the most links would come from the fact that folks really wanted to win the very generous prize package ($350 value) donated by several wonderful companies! Boy was I wrong!
The winner posted 82 links during the two month period of time and our second place winner was not too far behind with 43 posts!! Wow! Wanna know something else? As I corresponded with these two winners and with several of the other entrants, I found something quite interesting.
Almost all of them said they were happy to post because they really loved Art of Eloquence products and felt that effective communication was an important topic! In fact, I can’t even count the number of times I found an Art of Eloquence link posted where the person didn’t even email me to enter the contest! And when I contacted them to inform them that they could email me to enter to win a prize package, many of them said they just wanted to share the information. WOW! I am truly humbled!
Education and enlightenment can come from the most unexpected places. We may often wonder if our life’s work is making an impact or if folks even take the time to read what we post. 2009 was such an awful year for so many that it seemed to leave people with little time or energy to post comments. I knew folks were reading my newsletter and blog and were using my studies but, as negative communication travels so much farther and faster, I would receive the occasional note that someone was unhappy with the focus of an article, wanted more for free or didn’t like the Christian focus of my studies. I was completely unprepared for the magnitude of the appreciation I would receive for this contest and the willingness of my customers, readers and subscribers to forward our website link. I am truly honored and humbled that God would use me in this way and allow me to see such support back from so many!
Well, in case you are wondering who won our little internet contest, we have posted the winner and second place winner up on the contest page of the Art of Eloquence website. There you will still find the massive list of precious prizes donated by some of the most amazing and generous companies out there. I would like to formally thank each and every one of them for their participation and generosity!
I would also like to thank our winners, all 11 of them, and every person who posted our links for taking the time to post about Art of Eloquence and for the lovely comments made both in their posts online and to me in private. God’s blessings upon you!
