Category Archives for Brainstorming

The Big Damn Potpourri O’ Good Stuff


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Tuesday, 2:42pm
Reno, NV
“What you want, baby, I got it…” (Respect, Otis Redding)

Howdy…

I’m not bragging here (okay, maybe just a little)…

… but I’ve been maxed out with “friends” on Facebook for years now. That’s because ol’ Zuckerberg sets a limit of 5,000 of your closest BFFs for your personal page, for the very simple reason that…

… well, okay, there isn’t any good reason for it. But FB is Zuck’s playground, and we’re just hogging the swing set on it.

However, you can always “follow” me on FB, and get most of the same privileges that “friends” do. Yes, it’s just that confusing — why even set up these arbitrary definitions if there isn’t much difference in the stratification? I will never understand the uber-geeks running things. (There are currently over 4,600 followers on my page, so you’d have lots of company.)

Anyway…

… I occasionally get a note from someone who isn’t on Facebook (and who in the sane world isn’t wasting time on this amazing slice of Internet hell regularly?)…

… who wants to know why they keep hearing about all this wonderful posting I do there.

I admit it — I tend to write some truly awesome crap on the site. Stuff that, in a universe without FB, would be here, on the blog.

So, to keep things even, I’ve collected a little “Best Of” stew here for you. The better posts I’ve shared recently — or at least the ones that garnered the biggest load of comments and shares and likes. That’s how they measure quality over in Zuck-Land.

Thus, you can consider yourself caught up. Though, I still suggest you go sign up to follow me, anyway. There’s always more on the way.

Enjoy:

Skill Tip #47: Don’t start reading your next biz book until you’ve put at least one thing into action from the last book.
Idea junkies seldom develop actual skills. Don’t be that guy. Read, act, repeat.
There are only a handful of fundamental ideas required to succeed in biz. Putting those ideas into action requires skills, which you master through real-world application.
Movement beats “coulda, woulda, shoulda” excuses every time…

Professional Advice You’ll Hate: You can never have enough idiots in your life.
Seriously. The smarter you are, the smarter your close circle of friends will be… and the further removed from the reality of the marketplace out there you will hover. And labor to understand.
I’m not suggesting most people are idiots. I’m TELLING you most people are idiots. Or, at the very least, have idiotic moments in their quest for more money, a better life, a nicer house, whatever goal brought them into your world.
Even the guys in orange at Home Depot have their opinion of the quality of the human race’s intellect dramatically lowered after a few days on the job. Your doctor thinks you’re an idiot. The clerk at the grocery store (who had to run to replace the carton of eggs YOU broke in the cart) thinks you’re an idiot.
And you know what? We’re ALL idiots on this bus. At times, anyway.
You cannot be a great marketer or writer if you’re isolated from the broad spectrum of idiocy out there. I once hauled a wannabe movie director to the mall, and had him just sit there and people watch. He laughed at the goofy hair styles and clothes, got bored and irritated at the scrawling babies, recoiled at the trail of food left by folks munching as they walked… and kept asking why we were there. “Because these people are your audience,” I told him, finally.
Startled him. He’d been making movies aimed at his classmates at USC film school. No, no, no.
Not those idiots. The OTHER idiots out there. That’s your audience.
Anyway, sorry if I harshed your idealism about the inherent dignity of humans. But you can’t pretend that bullshit is true as a marketer, if you wanna be successful.
Reality bites, indeed. But it’s where the real action is…

Wisdom To Ignore: I never wanted to become some kind of possessionless monk, but the Zen ideas of “letting go” have always appealed to me. Modified for how I actually move best in the world.
What you think you own, actually owns you. There really is joy in giving up the bullshit in life, and keeping things simple and essential. (And yes, you KNOW what the bullshit is in your life.) For years, my banker’s box of “stuff I cared enough about to haul around even when I was living in my car” was a tidy little time capsule of my life up to that point — essential, because the writings, photos and keepsakes really were irreplaceable. And that box grew exponentially along with my success.
Now, we’re talking about multiple storage units.
Which was fine, until recently when it’s not fine anymore. Life doesn’t go in a straight line — there are side trips, deep holes, soaring mountains, and long stretches of desert along the way, and you have to forgive yourself for straying and screwing up and not handling adversity well all the time.
That’s what mid-life crises are for. Stop, rethink things, try some new shit, make some changes. Radical or small, doesn’t matter — the point is that it’s your life, the only one you’ve got a ticket for. When you’re fortunate enough to have someone special enough to come along with you — or you have little ones dependent on you for a while — you adjust. It’s NEVER just about you.
But you’re still the star, the hero, the main character in your movie… and, to a large degree, the director, writer and producer. And you can change the script a lot more than you probably believe possible. Until you try, you cannot imagine the actual power you have over what happens to you.
Modern humans are plagued with unhappiness that possessions and moolah does not fix. And there isn’t such a thing as “lasting happiness”, not really — you have today, and maybe some input over the next short period of time. How you operate, and feel, and move in this limited time frame IS your life. And it all will pass, and change, and morph in ways you can’t predict.
Your script should focus on the things you can do now. And embrace the happiness available to you now… because down the line, the universe has the weirdest shit waiting for you. Count on it.
Live the adventure that is your life. Be kind, take your responsibilities seriously, but claim this biological clump that is you, FOR you.
You don’t have to listen to this strange advice. But I’m telling you (and I’ve been around the block many, many times)… traveling light, seizing the day, and letting go of the bullshit is the only way to go.
Hope you’re enjoying these first days of summer…

Looking for something truly trashy and titillating to read on summer vacation?
Well, stop the search. My book, “The Entrepreneur’s Guide To Getting Your Shit Together“, is just the ticket.
By the pool, on the beach, nursing a hangover in the hotel room… it’s the perfect summer read for the guy who wants to finally kick his boring old life to the gutter, and get started fresh with all the mojo required for massive, almost-embarrassingly-good success.
I think it was also voted “the number one book to be stolen by jealous jerk wads when you leave it on your towel to go pee in the ocean”. Yeah, pretty sure it won that award last summer, hands down.
So don’t get left out! Grab a copy now, while trees still exist (or while the pixels on your virtual reader are still buzzing)…

Gear IQ Test: I have a great shortcut to determine if a kid is destined for working with tools and stuff, or is better tilted toward the creative life. Give him a pencil and paper, and ask him to draw a funny face. Then have him open and then close a short folding step ladder.
I’ve probably tried to either open or close a folding step ladder a thousand times in my life. Never got it right once, without bashing my shins against it, or getting an important part of my body pinched. It is a great, joyous victory when I finally defeat the evil engineering nightmare and can actually use, or put away, the damn thing.
On the other hand, I was a whiz with drawing from my early crayon days forward. And, as a graphic artist (back in my 20s), I got so good with an Xacto knife that I could cut cleanly through a page in the phonebook, WITHOUT scoring the page underneath it.
Okay, you don’t even know what a fucking phone book is, do you. Just think of the thinnest possible paper in existence. Try using a blade to cut through one sheet, without touching the sheet it’s laying on top of. Not just hard — it’s really, really, really surgical-hard. The point is, I got really good with detailed creative stuff.
If I’d been given such a test early on, it would have saved me a ton of grief in the “get a job” phases of my life. But I wouldn’t have all those stories of pissed-off bosses firing my ass, either, I guess. I mean, it takes some world-class fucking up to get fired from a dishwasher position.
So, everything worked out, I guess, after a few decades. Still can’t figure out the damn folding step ladder thing. And collapsible ironing boards. And fixing faucets.
Damn. I’m lucky I eventually found something I could squeak out a living at…

Psych Insight #12(c): Nobody’s got it all figured out.
There’s a major kink in our human operating system (which comes with no manual, btw) that allows us to believe (for brief periods) that we got this existence thang nailed. Then reality intrudes (and yes, the universe does have a very twisted sense of humor) and you realize that what you thought was competence was really just the product of hiding from your consciousness all the uncomfortable crap you hate dealing with.
We’re juggling emotional, intellectual, physical and metaphysical balls every moment we breathe and — again — nobody’s got it all figured out.
If you crave leadership, look for reluctant leaders. If you crave an audience who will buy from you, look for people having the same internal conversations you’re having.

Monday Warning Quarterback #1: I love this quote by Oscar Wilde: “Some people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.” It applies to other things, too… like knowledge.
In life, love and biz, you’ll encounter folks who are well-read, clever and quick with opinions… yet lack the most essential ingredient for good advice: Experience. They’re bursting with common sense that ain’t, specific plans untested in the real world, and theories free of the bothersome complexities of how things actually work.
Some of the most blunder-prone marketers I’ve known had library shelves sagging with books and courses (and ticket stubs from seminars up the yin-yang). The missing ingredient was an inability to “grok” anything — to understand how the lessons applied to their own behavior as they went after goals. They’re like doughy, bloated couch-potatoes who watch every exercise show on the tube — they “know” what to do, but never DO it… and thus, are no help whatsoever for anyone actually hitting the gym to workout.
Beware the clean-handed man advising you on gardening.

Americans have a gruesome love/hate relationship with stress. We say we hate it, but a space alien observing our daily behavior would have to assume we actually love stress…
… cuz we seek it out, gather it in, and never let it go.
Pretty schizophrenic, but very typical of how humans operate. Nobody sane ever said we’re rational beings.
Here’s a nice little zen mind trick: You have 20 things to do today. You’re freaked out with stress trying to get it all done.
So… how would you go about accomplishing everything if you WEREN’T stressed out? Imagine tackling each task calmly, doing the best you can, finishing and moving to the next task. No stress. Just head down, move forward, be productive.
It’s doubtful you’d get worse results than doing this in your normal hair-on-fire mode. And you might even get BETTER results.
It’s happened before.
So what productive job does stress do in this case?
Nothing. Except raise your BP, dump toxic hormones into your system, and fritz-out neurons.
Thus, stress is a choice. You’ve decided, on some fucked-up level, to approach your day freaked out, rather than calmly. Why?
Who cares? Bad training, bad habits, faulty wiring… it doesn’t matter.
Look — for decades now, I’ve climbed up on stages in front of vast snarling mobs of audiences, armed with nothing but a handful of notes and maybe a PowerPoint presentation. Sometimes I have a planned speech, sometimes I just wing it (like when I do hot seats, spontaneously picking people from the crowd).
Most folks list public speaking as their #1 fear. They wake up screaming at night, just imagining having to do it. And I could be freaked, too — but I’d have to choose to do so. I’m calm, and feel pretty much at home on stage, cuz I don’t give a flying fuck what people think of me, or how I do. Win, lose or draw, I’ll have a story to tell, a lesson to learn, and another experience under my belt.
Being stressed over any of it is counterproductive. It’s just a dumb choice to make.
So, just consider your own case. Stressed or calm, you’ve got the same tasks ahead of you today.
Why not enjoy the ride, and take the adventures and misadventures as they come, rather than awfulizing things and dreading the near future.
Make your choices, move forward, and leave the stress to the rookies.
Zen out, man.

Pro Hint #40: Because customer service isn’t “sexy” (in the way a hot new tech fad is), biz owners tend to starve it over time in budgets. (See: Gateway computers, then Dell computers, every cable tv joint in existence, and probably the once-good contractor who fucked up your plumbing.)
Huge freakin’ mistake.
A basic (and mostly ignored) rule of biz: A sale saved, is EQUAL to a new sale made.
Or, as the poker players say, “folding a great hand, when you would have lost, is like winning a small pot”. It’s a little hard to wrap your brain around the idea of expending effort to KEEP money, when your primary focus is mostly on bringing in new money. But it’s exactly what the pro’s do.
You SHOULD have a certain amount of customers asking for a refund, in any biz endeavor. A zero rate means you’re just not marketing aggressively enough, playing it too safe. But a too-high rate means, probably, that your customer service sucks.
People routinely rave about the customer service in the Simple Writing System. Real humans respond real fast, with real knowledge of your situation (meaning: They actually read your complaint). And they have real solutions available (including parting ways, but remaining friendly).
But it’s not just the coaching program (where real pro copywriters guide you through the process of learning how to create killer ads). Our entire biz revolves around customer service — first, providing astonishing value… and then, making sure every customer is taken care of, even on small-ticket buys.
It’s not rocket science. It’s just plain old human caring.
You know — everything you’re not getting from the majority of the businesses you deal with today.

Deep In The Language Files, Part 37a: Most entrepreneurs struggle to find their “voice” when writing copy for ads, VSLs, webpages, emails, and everything else.
They often resort to “sounding” like a former English teacher (who may have beat them during class), or how they imagine a “smart” person might write.
This sucks, if you want your marketing to work.
Much better to embrace the language that has provided you with so much — cuz whatever you said to your main squeeze, got ’em to give up resisting and marry your sorry ass… and your garbled messages still nailed you that job or career or gig… and you somehow manage to make your point (eventually) when arguing with your drunk uncles around the holidays.
Where would you be without language? Nowheresville, that’s where. Nothing that you enjoy, or thrive from, or rely on for a good life would exist.
So stop treating your Mother Tongue like it’s an ape that just sauntered into your living room and shat on the couch.
Using language is how you find prospects. How you sell them, and nurture their customership, and resell them, and get the book written (which expands your lovable nonsense worldwide), and do everything else that makes life better for you and yours.
I’ve always said that great salesmen lead better lives. Part of the reason is that they’re reality-based — they don’t give a rat’s ass about theory, or how you think the world should work. They care about how things actually get done.
And a big part of that is realizing how important language is to everything you want to accomplish.
So drop the stilted blabber already. The BEST kind of sales writing is a good mix of proper English, hefty doses of slang and insider jargon, mixed with personality and honest empathy.
There’s no second best way to market anything.
How do you find a new “voice”, when all you’ve been able to manage so far sounds like some robot with a wrench up it’s butt?
You read, first of all. Fiction, history, good authors, bad authors, letters-to-the-editor (and all the troll-laden comment sections you can stomach), emails from marketers fighting against stiff competition, magazines, graffiti, song lyrics, ads… everything around you.
Then, you listen. I know, I know, this is soooooo hard to do, cuz you’d rather talk. You’re so witty and everything, and everyone else is so booooooooooring.
It’s freaking excruciating to have to sit there and let them blather on and on, when you’ve got such a GREAT point to make. And you’re not hearing what they’re saying, anyway, cuz it ain’t you talking, is it.
Just stop. You can resume dominating every conversation AFTER you’ve made your imprint on the biz world. For now, listen. Hear the patoi of those around you, the way some folks speak in a sing-song melody, the way others stumble to say even the simple shit, the way most never find the right word, or get tongue-tied when trying to make a complex point.
Listen to the good orators, too. To Alex Jennings smoothly conquer twenty different languages in a session of Jeopardy. To your one drunk uncle who can tell a riveting story. To your pals who can’t shut up, and to your pals who rarely say anything.
Language is all around you, every minute of every day. When you’re alone, there’s a voice in your head droning on and on. When you’re racing through an airport, a thousand conversations hum in the clutches of people you’re bumping aside. When you’re in the theater trying to watch the movie, the idiots behind you are commenting on the plot just like they do at home.
Listen. Hear.
And keep a notebook with you. Write down phrases you like, words you don’t know (and need to look up), make notes on who won what argument, and how…
… and just allow yourself to fall in love with language again. You did love it, once, when you were little and unable to communicate one day, and a little chatterbox the next. And things started happening. You were able to ask for what you wanted, argue your side, tell long aimless stories, talk to your toys, to invisible monsters, to everyone and everything around you.
And it was cool as shit, too. You loved adding new words to your arsenal, swooned when you convinced Mom to give you ice cream (just cuz), swelled with pride when your little gang decided to follow you off on some harebrained adventure because you’d made them believe it would be fun.
And then you learned to lie to Mom about why Jimmy was trapped down the well. Why you were late for supper. Where you were going with Susie Q (hint: Not the drive-in, like you said.) Why your grades sucked. Where you were the last two months, never calling, not even a postcard…
And then you stopped listening, stopped caring about what a doofus you sound like when you try to make a point, stopped working on the one skill with the power to place you amongst the more awesome humans on the planet.
You gotta turn this around.
Language kicks ass. It’s what separates us from all other animals. It’s why our neocortex evolved to the size of a small casaba melon, and it’s why you haven’t starved to death yet.
Give it respect.
Give it love.
And get off it’s lawn. It’s old, and has no time for you if you’re not gonna nurture a real relationship with it…

My colleague Kevin Rogers tells me a trusted health expert sez that people under stress should increase their veggie intake dramatically.
As in, normal vegetable servings per day are, what, 5 for an adult. Stuff a handful of spinach in your yap, chew on some carrots and broccoli, work some lettuce and beans in there during the day. Most of us utterly fail at even this light task, by the way.
But when you’re freaked out — deadline, zombie attack, argument with the ball-n’-chain, identify theft, cops surrounding your house, whatever — you need up to THIRTEEN servings of veggies to battle all that evil cortisol and adrenaline you’re dumping into your system.
You ain’t noshing at the fridge at this point — you’ve sat your ass down in the veggie aisle at Safeway and gorged on everything within reach. Soaking up the toxic wasteland in your tubes with greens and roots.
I’d never heard this advice before. I’m gonna check it out, cuz it has the ring of validity. I’ve gone through years of limiting meat and finding my protein sources elsewhere… and I may have intuitively been keeping stress at bay this way. By accident.
Any of you have info or insight to this theory of veggies dousing out the cortisol fire in your gut?
I SO want this to be true. Easy, natural, no pills, proactive.
Still, I’d enjoy seeing some proof, not just anecdotes…

Not saying I endorse this…
… but, jeez, you gotta respect Homer’s life philosophy. Sometimes, the dude just resonates…
“All right, brain, I don’t like you and you don’t like me… so let’s just do this and I’ll get back to killing you with beer.” Homer Simpson

And there you have it. Your basic steaming pile of Carlton rants, blurbs, info, advice and blatherings. Some brilliant, some not-so-much.

But it’s fun, right? And laden with real insight and advice you can actually use.

So, you’re welcome. I hope you’ve been inspired to come join us on my FB page.

Hope you have a great July 4th.

Stay frosty,

John

Rumors Of My Demise Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

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Monday, 12:45pm
Reno, NV
Hey, you bastards, I’m still here!” (Steve McQueen, “Papillon”)

Howdy…

I was talking to a colleague the other day, and he asked me how I liked retirement.

Uh, what retirement is that, I asked.

Well, he said, I thought you’d pretty much left the biz.

Sigh.

I guess I need to address this now. I mean, seeing as how I’m speaking next week to a seething crowd of 500 copywriters at one of the biggest bootcamps of the year (the sold-out AWAI gargantuan event in Florida). AND, the following week, hosting our autumn Platinum Mastermind meeting (now in it’s 7th year). While, you know, handling multiple calls from colleagues looking for advice, plus paid consulting gigs, writing a new book, monitoring the next Simple Writing System classroom, and…

If this is “retirement”, it sure looks an awful lot like a regular workweek.

But, yes, there has been a rumor floating around that I’m retired (or “semi-retired”), not traveling anymore, not taking clients, etc.

And, in a word, it’s all bullshit.

What happened was, a couple of years ago, I decided I sucked as a manager, and sold the Marketing Rebel corporation to my longtime business partner, Stan Dahl. Who has been handling it quite nicely ever since. The Insider’s Club membership site is cooking on high heat… the Simple Writing System just had another All-Star Teachers session (with A-Listers like David Garfinkel, Mike Morgan, Lorrie Morgan-Ferrero, and former Gary Halbert sidekick Scott Haines all hosting classes)… and all the good work we’ve always done in the advertising and marketing worlds has continued without a hitch.

It’s working so well now, because I realized what a bottleneck I was as a manager. Once I got out of the way, things blossomed.

Jeez Louise, that’s humbling. But it’s all worked out great.

And I got back to what I do best: Writing, consulting and being one of the most notorious bad-ass creative advisors in the game.

This is a VERY common entrepreneurial blunder, by the way. You get a biz going by handling almost everything personally… the ideas, the planning, the implementation, the writing, the schmoozing and networking, and all the hiring of tech help and support teams and lawyers and contracts and…

… and pretty soon, you’re working 70 hours a week, the biz is thriving, but you aren’t doing the creative stuff you’re good at.

For me, the calls and meetings with lawyers and accountants and affiliate managers and everyone else’s lawyers and biz operatives just crushed my spirit and will to live.

I was unhappy.

And so I sold the biz, and moved back into my old role as writer, creative dude, and consultant extraordinaire. The “wheelhouse” of my talent and skill-set, where I’ve always made the most impact.

And, I was happy again. While working around 20 hours a week, just like the first decades of my career. A 20-hour workweek is just about perfect, and because I know all the productivity hacks allowable for humans, I get more done in that 20-hours than most folks do in the 60 hours they slave at.

So, I’m in my “bliss groove” again. Good writing requires lots of down time, so your brain can cogitate on the crap you’ve stuffed in there, cook it up in a fresh batch, and make it all accessible when you sit down to actually write. Reading lots of books on different subjects, including gruesome fiction and light articles on diverse (even dumb) subjects, is also part of a well-lived writer’s lifestyle. Plus engaging in the adventures, pleasures, misadventures and bumbling horrors of modern life.

In fact, without immersing yourself in the culture and the Zeitgeist, you quickly become stiff and boring as a writer.

Yuck.

But I don’t count the cool, fun stuff as “working”. I love the process of being a complete, well-rounded writer with his pulse on the culture. It’s what makes this the best damn gig on the planet (for introverts or wannabe introverts seeking influence, wealth and happiness).

In the 1990s, I both wrote most of the ads for which I’m now infamous (all the screamingly successful golf, self-defense, health, music and small-biz ads that changed the way entire industries approached marketing)…

while ALSO taking off three-to-six months a year to go do something else. I was following Travis McGee’s advice (from the “you gotta read ’em” novels by John D. MacDonald) of “taking your retirement while you’re young, in pieces, and returning to work when you need to replenish the coffers”. For me, that meant indulging in exciting mid-life crises (I’ve had six so far, and loved every single one) like when I disappeared from the business world for half a year, formed a 3-piece rock band, and played all the biker bars in Northern Nevada. What a blast.

I also took time off to write some novels, and dip a toe in the world of writing fiction for a living. It was enormous fun, but the pay was dismal. Most of the working novelists I met made less in half a decade than I did for writing a couple of winning ads in a good market (and it only took me a few weeks to write those ads). I decided to keep fiction as a side hobby, and came back to my old clients to write a string of ads that doubled their bottom line.

And then, just after the turn of the century, I decided to get serious for a few years. And write a monthly newsletter (the notorious “Marketing Rebel Rant” that mailed for 6 years to the most influential marketers alive), while maintaining a client list that required me to be available the entire year. No more taking off massive chunks of time. I loved the whole process, which happened to coincide with the explosion of the Web as a viable marketing vehicle…

… and I hung out in a very insider network of movers-and-shakers that included Frank Kern, Jeff Walker, Eben Pagan, Joe Polish, Dean Jackson, Tony Robbins, Jon Benson, Joe Sugarman, Ed Dale, and of course my best friend in the biz, Gary Halbert.

It was FUN. And thrilling, because we were inventing the marketing models that would become the STANDARDS for all online marketers for a generation. My first website, which I designed on a napkin, was a go-to template for many businesses for a long while. I recorded one of the first ever podcasts in the marketing section of iTunes (with help from Dean Jackson)… became one of the hottest speakers on the global seminar circuit (hosted by Armand Morin, Dan Kennedy, Rich Schefren, Kern and others)… and of course our Simple Writing System has pumped over a thousand entrepreneurs and copywriters through the process of creating killer ads on demand.

While some old-school marketers fought the Web and resisted new technology, I was an early adopter. I grabbed many of the first generation gizmo’s, created early video sales letters (before the term was even invented), hosted some of the first online webinars and membership sites, and in general surfed the new wave of modern possibilities right at the crest.

I’m not bragging. I’m just as amazed at the way things have turned out as anyone else. I happened to write “Kick-Ass Copywriting Secrets of a Marketing Rebel” at the precise time a vast mob of newbie marketers were becoming online entrepreneurs… and it was the perfect fit for them.

But it also led almost directly to those 60-hour weeks that eventually started to fry my brain.

I’ve counseled biz owners against burning out a lot in my career as a consultant. It’s common, it’s horrific, it can ruin your life…

… and, it’s completely avoidable.

But you have to act FAST when you sniff the burning rubber coming off your brain.

For me, it meant backing away from the reins of a business I’d nurtured for a decade… and sliding back into the more comfortable position I knew so well, of being a writer-consultant. Working a fraction of the hours required of a manager.

To some folks, this somehow meant I’d “retired”.

Nope. Just moved back into my former career lifestyle.

Like I said — I suck at management. I’m not built to argue with lawyers, or proofread contracts, or get deep into the weeds of making the day-to-day details of running a biz work. I KNOW what needs to be done, and I can spell it out for you in precise steps.

But that doesn’t mean I’m the guy who should be doing it.

A big part of happiness is finding out where you fit. And then sliding your bad ass into that position, away from the drudgery and angst of doing stuff you’re NOT built to do.

And let’s set the damn record straight: I’m NOT retired.

I love this biz too much to leave. I’m traveling as much as I ever have (though being more picky about which gigs I travel for). I’m flying out to Florida next week, as I said, to speak in front of 500 folks who rightfully expect to have their cages rattled by me from the stage. I’m flying to Los Angeles both for our mastermind, AND to hang out with Jon Benson at another biz gathering (including James Schramko from Oz).

And we’ll be in Vegas in January for another mastermind, in Phoenix for secret tapings of a new show, I’ll continue co-hosting the rollicking (and still free) Psych Insights For Modern Marketers podcast with Kevin Rogers…

… and I still maintain a full-time desk in the Marketing Rebel Insider’s Club… where I personally answer questions from members, do monthly “Hot Seat” consultations (free, for members) alongside Stan Dahl, and generally act as the community’s resident copywriting expert.

Okay, I’m not putting the old rock band back together, though. It was fun, but I’m kinda done with the bar scene. And I get bored on cruises and tourist-trap trips. I like to travel with a purpose.

I’m built to handle the advanced, high-level workload of a top copywriter and business consultant. So that’s what I’m concentrating on these days. While flying out to speak at seminars, networking with my pals, and staying rooted on the pulse of the modern business environment.

It’s a wild time to be alive, and to be an active member of the hottest entrepreneurial movement the world has ever seen.

I ain’t retiring for a long, long time. Baring getting hit by the occasional city bus while jaywalking, I should say. Nothing’s guaranteed in life, is it.

Will I see you in Florida… or at one my upcoming other seminar appearances? Or, gasp, at my Platinum Mastermind? (Got a seat waiting for you, and there’s still time to grab it. Go here for details.)

If you, like so many of the best (and happiest) marketers and writers around, value the input, savvy, advice and experience of a guy like me…

… who’s been around the block a few times, and knows the game inside and out…

… then check out some of the stuff we’ve got for you all over this blog page. Including a deep, roll-up-your-sleeves-and-get-down-to-work consultation.

It’s only going to get more exciting out there in the big, bad biz world… with more opportunities to either thrive or get lost in the weeds than you can imagine. If you’re in biz, you need a resource like me watching your back.

Why not make 2016 (coming up fast) the best damn year of your life? Put your team together now, and see if including me and Stan and the rest of the gang here doesn’t make so much sense you can’t stand it.

Meanwhile…

Stay frosty,

John

P.S. The photo, by the way, is from another huge event this past year where I was a featured speaker. And got to hang with my buds (from left) Kevin Halbert (Gary’s son), A-List copywriting legend Clayton Makepeace, marketing legend Dan Kennedy, me, former CEO of Boardroom Brian Kurtz, and A-List copywriter (and my podcast partner) Kevin Rogers.

Quite the little braintrust right there…

Magic And Reality Walk Into A Bar. Only One Comes Out Alive…

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Friday, 1:46pm
Reno, NV
You want it, you take it… you pay the price.” (Bruuuuuuce Springsteen, “Prove It All Night”)

Howdy…

One afternoon when I was around 9, I found a $2 bill laying in the parking lot of the local plunge (where we’d just spent the day trying to drown ourselves and trick each other into doing belly-flops off the high dive).

I was as ecstatic as Sinbad when he discovered the Cyclops’ treasure cave. The rarity of the bill just added to the sense of forbidden loot and mysterious swag. Bought us a lot of candy back then.

However, it also changed me.

I spent years looking under cars in parking lots after that, obsessed with the notion that vast caches of moolah were laying around, waiting to be found.

It was magical thinking at its finest.

I was half-convinced it might be a way to fund my childhood, just harvesting the cash laying around.

I mean, Santa had already been outed as “not real”. And Zorro, when I met him at a supermarket opening, was shorter than he looked on TV (and smelled like beer). I had these gaping holes in my belief system of “how things worked”, and since no one was offering better ideas, I just picked up on whatever silly notion entered my head and ran with it.

Later, when we realized The Monkees weren’t a real band, and that Nixon lied to us, and…etc…


No magic, no nonsense. Just a whole lot of real world, actionable advice that helps you grow your biz. Get my free report right over here.


It was HARD keeping a bullshit myth-laden belief system operating.

You had to really dig in and ignore facts, and even get burned a lot.

Finally, when I became a freelance copywriter and there was real money on the line (and not just opinions or hurt feelings)… I saw the light.

And it remains one of the Big Revelations I had, early in my career:  

The role of reality in becoming a world-class salesman.

In order to persuade large groups of people to buy, act now, or even just begin to see your side of things… you have to see the world as it is. 

Not as you wish it was. Not as you believe it should be. Not as you were told it was.

As it is.

The stark, cold reality of how things actually work, and how people actually behave.

This is often scary, at first.

It requires you:

  • To look behind your go-to belief systems (which you may have had since you were a kid)
  • To challenge authority’s version of what’s going on… and — most important…
  • You must willingly exit the shared delusion among the majority of your fellow humans that what they say they’ll do is more important than what they actually do.

This kind of critical thinking drags you away from the main party… and can seem lonely.

Folks will even get hostile at times, because you’re no longer playing along.

(I had multiple occasions, before I learned to just let it go, of ending a family argument by pulling out a dictionary or encyclopedia… and later, hoping onto Google. Thus ruining everyone’s mood, because no one enjoys having their bullshit beliefs challenged.)

This sense of becoming alienated from friends and family sometimes keeps copywriters from tossing their myth-based belief systems, and diving deep into the murky waters of reality. They’re afraid it will change them for the worst. Make them azzholes and doubters and unpleasant realists.

But that’s not how it needs to work.

Here are a few Starter Rules to help you get going:

Starter Rule #1: Observe how people act, versus what they say they’ll do.

This just gives you a tool to avoid being bamboozled.

In its simplest form, you’ll notice that the folks who are most emphatic in their promises (“I will absolutely be there on time. No excuses…”) are the ones who will chronically let you down.

In the advanced form, your Bullshit Detector will start buzzing whenever a client says “money isn’t a problem”… because, much of the time, that means money is very much a problem. (Resist the urge to automatically assume the opposite of everything anyone says… even when your experience shows you it will often be the case. Don’t get into the habit of making rash decisions, based on what you’ve seen before. But DO put your instincts and experience into the mix.)

Starter Rule #2: And for God’s sake, don’t let this make you cynical.

It’s not your job to call folks out on the inconsistency of their actions, versus what they insist is their intention. You can, however, quietly understand that the rare individuals who DO fulfill their promises are the ones you want around you professionally (and probably romantically, too).

Personally, I’ve found that you start to attract professionally-minded colleagues quickly, once your reality-based modus operandi kicks in.

When money, results and the success of a biz venture is on the line, promises count for nothing. The cold hard reality of how the market reacts to your ads is all that matters.. and you must react accordingly.

Starter Rule #3: Keep your ego out of it.

At first, you’ll need to monitor your own bad habits of not following up on your promises… and this will change you fundamentally as a person. Don’t announce that you’re suddenly a “new man”. Instead, just start acting as if your word really does mean something.

Early on, I developed my version of a “professional’s code”: You are where you said you’d be, when you said you’d be there, having done what you said you’d do.

This means you meet all deadlines, no matter what (even if it means staying up all night working, missing the big party, disappointing Susie Q, defying the insults and demands of your old pals who hate the idea of you becoming a pro and leaving their slacker butts in the dust). You honor your contracts, even if it’s just something you said (and could, if you weren’t such a pro, weasel out of).

You become “that guy” who can be trusted… not because you say you can be trusted, but because you really can be trusted.


Knowing how to spot a killer ad — even if you didn’t write it yourself–is an essential skill if you want to become that go-to dude or dudette in your field. You can get every single one of my secrets in the Simple Writing System.


Huge difference that requires behavioral changes at your cellular level. It’s hard to pull off, but you can do it.

Starter Rule #4: When you first start living in reality, there is a danger of becoming cynical and angry.

Just move past it — your goal is to become a world-class persuader and provider of actual results.

You may become a quieter person… because all that time you once spent trying to convince someone you were going to do something is no longer required. You simply agree to do it, and then do it. On time. With all the expertise you can muster.

You never, ever need to explain yourself.

You become a Dude Of Action. This becomes your reputation over time — not because you’ve announced it, but because this is who you’ve become. You’ve got to be patient, and hold yourself accountable for everything you do.

And yes, I’m serious when I say “everything”. Stop lying, pretending, wishing and cheating. It’s stunningly easy to do, but it requires a commitment.

Starter Rule #5: There is never a need to argue.

As a rookie copywriter, I realized (after meeting my twentieth VP of Marketing or CEO or entrepreneur) that incompetence is the RULE, not the exception, in business.

Most bosses — no matter how good-hearted they are, or how smart they are, or even how experienced they are — simply cannot know all there is to know about every part of running a biz. So they’ll insist on using certain (dumb) sales angles, demand that offers be presented in specific (dumb) ways, and — worst of all — have their niece with the degree in English Lit edit your work.

Early in your career, this is not a problem to worry about. Get your money up front, with any other royalties or payments in written form, and just keep moving. Most of your clients will suck, and not follow through, and botch the marketing up. That’s just the way it goes.

As you gain experience, and especially as your reputation allows you to have more of a voice in what goes down, you’ll eventually be in the position of forcing every client to do what you tell them to do. But that doesn’t happen right away.

(For more on these high-end freelance tactics, including details on how to get paid, check out The Freelance Manual, available here.)

When you work through reality, the mysteries of the world play less and less a part of how you proceed.

If you don’t know something, you don’t pretend that saying you know it makes it so. You go learn it. Or hire someone who’s proficient at it to do it for you. You research, you comparison shop, you do whatever is necessary to achieve your goal.

You say “I don’t know. I’ll find out,” a lot.

You are relieved from the task of keeping your lies and boasts and pretend-knowledge straight.

And suddenly, you’re spending your time honing your chops, filling in the gaps with actual skills and know-how, and getting shit done.

Most folks prefer the world to remain full of mystery. It’s that childhood thrill of simply deciding that something is so, and then never questioning it again, even as evidence mounts that it’s bullshit. (I never did find another $2 bill on the ground. And I missed a few rainbows along the way, because I was always looking down…)

Reality is unforgiving, and requires you to be responsible, take action, and stop pretending.

But it’s really the only way to go.

I found that, rather than making me more cynical about people, I actually loved them more. I instantly forgive them their bullshit promises, even while fulfilling all of my own. I also never allow someone to steal time from me, or ruin my day with a failed promise — I give them a reasonable window, and when they’ve failed, I go to Plan B.

You always have a Plan B (and Plan C, and Plan D) when you live in reality.

Sometimes you find yourself saying goodbye to unreliable friends and fun-but-sketchy colleagues… and you have to be okay with that. You’re going after long-term and short-term goals, and it takes commitment and sweat to reach them. If your old crowd still believes that success comes from luck (like finding a $2 bill on the ground), you may have to find a new crowd.

There will always be a little mystery in life. You encounter new stuff all the time, in business and in relationships and in everything you do.

But each mystery can be broken down into knowable parts, and figured out, and solved. Every time. Eventually, after you’ve worked with a lot of clients in a lot of markets, you realize you are never stumped by the obstacles that freeze most entrepreneurs up. There is always a reason why sales are down, or returns are up, or something that used to work ain’t working no more.

When the reality of business and life become second-nature to you… you become That Consultant Every Biz Owner Wants To Hire. And the top copywriting experts are all consultants first, solving the mysteries with reality-based solutions. The writing comes later.

Living in reality is a much better way to go, every time. And it really can make you a happier, more fun and pleasant person… who just happens to get a lot done.

Love to hear what you think, in the comment section below.

Stay frosty,

John

 

The Rest Of Your Freakin’ Life (Redux)

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Wednesday, 6:50pm
Reno, NV
Hey, you bastards, I’m still here!” (Steve McQueen as Papillon, floating away to freedom…)

Howdy…

I’m re-publishing — for what has become a very popular tradition on this blog — one of the more influential posts I’ve ever written.

It’s a good one, worth rereading even if you read it before.

What you’re about to encounter is a slightly tweaked way of looking at the best way to start your new year…

… but this tweak makes all the difference in the world. I’ve heard from many folks that this particular technique finally helped them get a perspective on where they’re at, where they’re going…

… and why they care about getting there.

So, even if you’ve read this post before… it’s worth another look. Especially now, as you gaze down the yawning gullet of 2013, trying to wrap your brain around a plan to make the year your bitch.

This is a critical step for entering any new period of your life. To keep your life moving ahead, you need to set some goals, dude. And most goal-setting tactics, I’ve found, are useless. Worst among them is the traditional New Year’s resolutions (which seldom last through January).

This tactic I’m sharing with you (again) is something I’ve used, very successfully, for decades…

… to reach goals, to clarify the direction of my life, and to change habits. I first shared it in the old Rant newsletter a few years back, and I’ve hauled it out here in the blog on a regular basis.  It’s timeless, classic stuff that will never let you down.

So let’s dive in. Here’s the relevant part of the post (slightly edited):

“Goal Setting 101 And
The January 15th Letter”

Yeah, yeah, I know a chat about goals can quickly turn into a boring, pedantic lecture. But then, so can a chat about space flight.

And, in reality, both space flight and your goals are VERY exciting things.

Or should be.

It’s all in the telling.

What I’m not going to discuss are “resolutions”. Those are bogus pseudo-goals that have the staying power of pudding in a microwave.

No. It’s merely a coincidence that I’m suggesting a review of your goals in January, just after the New Year’s supposed fresh start.

I mean… there’s not much else to do, so why not sit down and plan out the rest of your life.

This is, of course, a very damp, cold, and bleak time of year. The depths of winter and discontent.

A good percentage of the population suffers fleeting depression because of lack of sunlight… thanks to the geniuses behind Daylight Savings Time, who arrange for dusk to arrive around 2:30 in the afternoon in these parts.

We also just got slammed with back-to-back-to-back “Storms of the Century”, each one dumping a record load of snow on us. I sent photos to friends, and many emailed back wondering when I’d gone to Antarctica to live.

We had a little cabin fever brewing. Didn’t help when the local PBS channel ran a special on the Donner Party, either. Three feet of snow drifting down, the lights flickering, enough ice on the road to make the SUV sidle like a Red Wing goon slamming someone into the boards.

The safest place was home… but man, the walls start to close in after a few days.

I’m telling you, I had excuses up the yin-yang for allowing my senses to get a little dulled. The natural response is to turn your mind off, and hibernate until March. And I succumbed. Started moping around, watching CSI: Miami reruns instead of reading a book, surfing the Net for stuff I didn’t care about… you know the drill.

I’m sure you’ve done your own version of it now and again.

And I’m also sure you already know that no amount of “buck up” happy talk will mitigate the gloom.

In fact, there are a few enlightened health pro’s who say we should let our bodies wind down every year or so. Get a full system-flush type of cold, crawl under the covers for a few days and let the demons and other bad stuff bubble to the surface. So you can purge the crud. Evacuate the used-up bacteria and tube-clogs out of your pipes, physically. And shoo the whispering monsters out of your head.

We’re not perfect creatures. We need to sleep, we need to recharge our batteries, and we need to stop and get our bearings. At least once a year. So don’t beat yourself up for the occasional down period. We all have them, and the healthiest folks just roll with it. It’s not good to repress this stuff.

It only becomes a problem when you sink into clinical depression. That’s the cold, empty state where nothing looks good, and hope is an absurd memory.

I’ve been there. Several times. The year I turned 30 (for example) I lost my job, my girlfriend and my place to live all within a 45-day stretch.

That shit can wear you down.

Now, I have two things to say about this:Read more…

The Grizzled Pro Speaks

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Friday, 2:29pm
Reno, NV
Ch-ch-changes, oh look out, you rock and rollers…” (David Bowie, “Changes”)

Howdy.

All last week, on Facebook, I opened myself up to the mob…

… and promised to answer the best 5 questions posed in an experimental “Bug The Grizzled Pro” post. I just wanted to see what was bothering folks, holding them up, disrupting sleep and profits and happiness.

I was pretty damned impressed with the level of questions that poured in, too. Finding 5 good ones was easy. Answering them required my full focus… and the stuff is good.

So, just to make sure this advanced Q&A isn’t lost in the mire of Facebook (where stuff fades away forever), I’ve posted the entire exchange here. (If you want to see the comments, you’ll have to go to my Facebook page and root around in the posts for the week of November 9-14. And while you’re there, thrilling to the banter, trolling, and fevered debate, sign up to follow me, why don’tcha?)

Here’s the relevant posts. Enjoy:

Post #1:

Bug The Grizzled Pro: Anything you’d like to ask me about, or see me rant about here or on the blog?

I’ll never run out of my own ideas (you oughta see the cluster-mess of untapped stories, advice, epiphanies and general bullshit roiling around in my head)…

… (just be happy you aren’t experiencing this kind of internal chaos yourself)…

… but I’m always happy to see what folks are curious about.

I mean, really — how often do you get a chance to strafe the deck of a veteran, seen-it-all professional like this?

Give it a shot. The worst that can happen is public humiliation, or accidental enlightenment that forces you to change your life (or something in-between).

Don’t be a coward. Ask.

I’ll answer the first… um… five good questions during the week. But they gotta be good…

Read more…

Department Of First-World Problems

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Thursday, 10:37pm
San Francisco, CA
If you want it, here it is, come and get it…” (Badfinger)

Howdy…

Quick post today — I’m hosting my awesome Platinum Mastermind early tomorrow, and have a little prep work left to do.

However, I thought you might enjoy sampling the kind of posts I’m getting global recognition for… on Facebook. So I ripped a recent one from the site, and put it here for your delight and consumption.

Social media confuses most marketers — many refuse to even engage with Twitter or Facebook (or any of the myriad other options online to share silly secrets and post photos you’ll regret later). But I was an early adopter, and eagerly so — I had one of the very first marketing blogs (which you’re enjoying here), one of the first biz-oriented podcasts on iTunes (and if you haven’t listened to the latest free podcasts I’ve been hosting, go to the Psych Insights For Modern Marketers site now and indulge: www.pi4mm.com)…

… and I’ve been breaking every “rule” on Facebook ever since it hit the mainstream. I use FB to have fun, sometimes… but also to share insight, advice, lessons and some of the more obscure (and funny) war stories I’ve gathered in my 30 year career. (I currently have 5,000 “friends” — the limit — plus another couple of thousand “followers”… and I expect them all to show up at my wake and cause trouble. I’ve made them promise, in fact.)

To get the full flavor of what’s up — including the very long comment threads that you are invited to join — you’ll need to pop over to my Facebook page (www.facebook.com/john.carlton).

However, here’s a nice little taste:Read more…

How To Force Me To Personally Advise You On Your Business… For Cheap.

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Friday 8:09pm
Reno, NV
“Just move on up now…” (Curtis Mayfield)

Howdy.

Quick post here to help you figure out when you should probably consider consulting with a respected, proven veteran marketing expert…

… and what your perfect consulting option is, once you’ve decided it’s time to kick your biz or career into high gear.

Step One: As a small business owner or entrepreneur (especially if you’ve been going at it alone, or mostly alone)… if you have any kind of success at all… there will come a time when you’re simply overwhelmed and need a little help. Or a lot of help.

For example:

[] It may be time for you to move up a level in your marketing… and you know that having a veteran marketing expert comb over your new plans can shortcut your path to increased wealth, while jumping over the unseen pitfalls that ruin so many other biz owners trying to expand.

[] Or, you may have a problem that needs serious attention… like sales going into the toilet, or new competitors chewing you up, or sudden changes in the marketplace that crush your bottom line (like a Google slap, or adverse rule changes at Clickbank, or the obsolescence of your product, or technological left-turns that disrupt your sales process). Even worse, what was working before suddenly isn’t working anymore, and you don’t see a clear reason why.

[] Or, you’re just working harder and harder, but sales are stagnant. Time, perhaps, to bring in an objective, experienced marketing whiz who can help you restructure your biz plan… so you maximize results, and get your life back (by working less, not more.)

[] Or, you may want high-end professional advice on your current sales funnel… just to make sure you’re not hemorrhaging money somewhere, or murdering potential sales through marketing blunders you can’t even see.

[] Or, you may be ready to start a new business adventure, and just want to be positive you’ve got your ducks lined up and you aren’t forgetting something critical.

[] Or, you have copy that may or may not be working, which you know could jack up your bottom line if a professional copywriter helped you with a total make-over.

Step Two: The best reasons to seek professional help from a veteran dude like me always have one main goal: To fix problems, and goose your bottom line into obscene levels of newfound wealth.

When your situation is urgent, the cost of hiring a consultant who can provide solutions is almost always “cheap”, because you’re extracting yourself out of a dangerous reality that threatens your business and peace-of-mind.

And it’s a screaming bargain when that consultant can offer you simple fixes inside of a plan you can put into action immediately…Read more…

The Rest Of Your Freakin’ Life (one more time)

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Wednesday, 6:50pm
Reno, NV
Hey, you bastards, I’m still here!” (Steve McQueen as Papillon, floating away to freedom…)

Howdy…

I’m re-publishing — for what has become a very popular tradition on this blog — one of the more influential posts I’ve ever written.

It’s a good one, worth rereading even if you read it before.

What you’re about to encounter is a slightly tweaked way of looking at the best way to start your new year…

… but this tweak makes all the difference in the world. I’ve heard from many folks that this particular technique finally helped them get a perspective on where they’re at, where they’re going…

… and why they care about getting there.

So, even if you’ve read this post before… it’s worth another look. Especially now, as you gaze down the yawning gullet of 2013, trying to wrap your brain around a plan to make the year your bitch.

This is a critical step for entering any new period of your life. To keep your life moving ahead, you need to set some goals, dude. And most goal-setting tactics, I’ve found, are useless. Worst among them is the traditional New Year’s resolutions (which seldom last through January).

This tactic I’m sharing with you (again) is something I’ve used, very successfully, for decades…

… to reach goals, to clarify the direction of my life, and to change habits. I first shared it in the old Rant newsletter a few years back, and I’ve hauled it out here in the blog on a regular basis.  It’s timeless, classic stuff that will never let you down.

So let’s dive in. Here’s the relevant part of the post (slightly edited):

“Goal Setting 101 And
The January 15th Letter”

Yeah, yeah, I know a chat about goals can quickly turn into a boring, pedantic lecture. But then, so can a chat about space flight.

And, in reality, both space flight and your goals are VERY exciting things.Read more…

Staying Out Of “The Lonely Hearts” Club

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Monday, 5:55pm
Reno, NV
“Train whistle blows, lost on its own track…” (Dwight Yoakum, “Long White Cadillac”)

Howdy…

I thought you’d want to see this.

I first posted it on Facebook, and it generated an avalanche of “likes” and comments… which always means I’ve hit a nerve. And since many of the nice folks on my main list are curmudgeons who refuse to participate in social media (“Facebook, bah, humbug!”)…

… I’m reprinting it here. So you don’t have to sully yourself by dropping by Facebook. (Bonus: The post below actually trashes large swaths of the Web.)

The cold, dark days of December are, traditionally, a breeding ground for both regret over mistakes in the past year…

… and (more happily) for bold new plans in the coming year.

So, in the spirit of helping you end the year on a positive note… while also teeing up 2014 as possibly your best new year ever…

… let’s see if this advice (which has transformed so many entrepreneurial adventures into something amazing) will have any effect on you. Maybe get a head-start on wading through the mounting piles of nonsense out there, and snuggling up closer to the reality-checks and truths that can help you attain your wildest goals and dreams.

Here’s the post:

Warning (and your brain may curdle if you ignore this): I’ve been paying close attention to human behavior for longer than many of my readers have been alive. And because I felt so clueless, even as a kid, I devoured every available source of “spying” on how everyone else managed to exist in such a strange world…

… which included reading advice columns (street-level psychology at work with Ann Landers and sis Abbey), monitoring adult conversations, and stalking older kids (who were navigating life just a few hormones ahead of me).

So I’ve been a one-man research center for decades. I still haunt multiple advice columns online, see what the trolls are up to in the comment sections of NYT opinion pages, and (here’s the important part) discuss human behavior with a wide selection of colleagues both online and in person.

The discussions are critical… because there is a FLOOD of bullshit cascading down on us from every direction in the culture. It’s impossible for one individual to keep track of the spin, urban myths, misinformation campaigns…

… and (especially) the really, really, really awful investigative reporting that passes for news organizations today.

My colleagues are biz owners and pro writers well-trained in applying high-level skepticism to incoming data, and following through on research when necessary. We represent every age group of functioning adults in the culture, from all over the world (including the US hinterlands, Canucks, Limeys and other uncivilized joints), specializing in all kinds of different markets, hobbies, lifestyles and professional goals.

So when — for example — the media gets looped into a meme on how millennials (the generation of kids just now emerging from college) are bringing their parents to job interviews, and are incapable of critical thought (because of helicopter parenting) and just generally not becoming adults at all…

… we can look behind the glib stories and anecdotes and see a deeper truth.

Such as how all of us, from every living generation, have oodles of friends and family who meet every single detail of the problems now being assigned to millennials. The lack of independence, the living at home until late 30s, the whining and narcissism and sense of entitlement…

… all of it. And when you get a broader view, from older and younger colleagues, you quickly see how DEEP the bullshit can get in a media firestorm.

I hunt down photos and resumes of the reporters, and sigh. They’re like, twelve (or 32 going on 12) — insulated, given vast unearned attention through posts and stories, and dishing out accusations based on minuscule life experience.

And yet the stories stick, and become “common wisdom”.

As a marketer, you need to immerse your bad self into the culture, and understand what your prospects know and — very critical — THINK they know. And what they suspect they don’t know, or feel paranoid about not knowing.

That means you’ve got to go deep, all the time, and have resources you trust to bounce incoming data and ideas off of.

Masterminds have always been my #1 tool for this. I’m in multiple free ones, have paid for membership in others…Read more…

The Answer (and Winners) Revealed…

photo-1Thursday, 2:30pm
Reno, NV
Every time they were sure you were caught, you were quicker than they thought…” (Bob Seger, “Still The Same”)

Howdy…

Well, we do have a couple of winners to announce here.

It was a hell of a quiz, wasn’t it. Over 400 responses (and still climbing)… and, as several posters noted, just reading the thread was an enlightening experience (with dozens of great stories and insight shared).

Crowd-sourcing at its finest.

Before I give the two winners their moment in the sun, however (and ship out their signed copies of “The Entrepreneur’s Guide To Getting Your Shit Together“)…

… let’s get straight on the answer to this one-question quiz.

Recall: I asked what — in my 30 years consulting with biz owners, freelancers, entrepreneurs, inventors and dreamers — was the Number One problem I saw folks encountering in their quest for wealth and happiness.

There may indeed be many other problems troubling folks…

… but in my experience, there is only one Big Kahuna problem.

And solving this big one also solves vast chunks of other problems in your life and career. Just like that.

The last great clue (no, I’m not gonna just roll over and tell you the answer without preamble) is in the photo up top here: That’s (from left) Joe Polish, the marketing whiz-kid who wrote the forward to my book…

Gary Halbert, my uber-infamous mentor, biz partner and close pal…

Gary Bencivenga, whose controls I stalked and whose teaser copy inspired me to rewrite my own bullets 30 times for every ad I penned (and who I actually wrote some stuff for in the late 80s)…

… and me.

Bencivenga loved this photo. We’d all known each other and worked in the same part of the direct response world for years… but we’d never all been in the same room together. (This was in NYC, at Gary’s legendary “Bencivenga 100” seminar.)

Think you have the answer yet?

Consider: Just from these four guys, you’ve got generations of successful copywriters and marketers who owe their “breakthrough moment” to one of us. Ads that brought in gazillions, and created empires. Advice that transformed a moribund business plan, or a headline, or a career. An entire revolution in biz attitudes, success strategies and persuasion methods…

… all emanating out like rocket-fire from just these guys.

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We leaned on each other, borrowed from each other, learned from each other, watched each other’s back, traded war stories and admired each other’s skills…

… and, in general, shared often large parts of our professional lives in the thin, rarefied air of world-class movin’-and-shakin’.

In short… Read more…

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