Thursday, 8:06pm
Reno, NV
“Here come Johnny Yen again…” (Iggy Pop, “Lust For Life”)

Howdy…

Oh, my God!

They killed the sales letter again!

Will this horror never stop?

Actually, you can relax.  Just like Kenny in South Park, the traditional sales letter is on some kind of perverse “Permanent Hit List”…

… where every marketer trying to claim he just invented a new fad stands astride the image of a quaking letter…

… and slays it.

Huzzah! Death to you, vile long-copy sales letter!  Take that… and that…

… and that.

This latest round is clever as hell, too.  The new trend is putting your sales letter in a video, and reading along with it.

The irony:  The dude selling you the “Magic Box” product that kills the sales letter forever…

… uses a sales letter to do the killing.

Hey — don’t get me wrong.  I love video.  Been using it in marketing since… well, since it was actual videotape on reels.  (Yeah, shocking, I know.  We were so backward in the last century.)

In fact, the “Magic Box” product I’m talking about is, I’m guessing, an excellent solution for many marketers who can’t figure out how to make a video sales letter work.

And all’s fair in love, war and advertising.  So all the dudes out there telling you the sales letter is dead, and you can sell without selling, and the Web has changed everything…

… well, more power to ‘em.

I just want to clarify 3 things.

Enlightenment Moment #1. Video is not magic.  No one will give you money for your product just because you have video in your marketing.

Video IS a smokin’ hot vehicle for delivering a good sales message, however.  We’ve seen (and heard of) results skyrocket in certain markets simply by introducing video into the mix.

It lets you engage your prospect with visuals, audio, and all the attention-getting power of passion-inflected voice-overs.

Video rocks.  When the Web goes 3-D, then 3-D video will rock, too.

When your monitor starts spraying you with carefully-selected odors, then smells will become a marketing tool.  Taste isn’t far off, either.

The thing is… the best kind of selling will always be a senses-consuming, totally customized experience for the prospect.

The more personalized you can make the sales process, the more you will sell (as long as you don’t screw up the message).

So for now, yeah, video is something you need to test vigorously.  (And those tests will likely show you that video is just as powerful as folks insist it is.)

However…

… it’s not the video that’s doing anything for you.

It’s the experience of being taken through a good sales process in a new way that tweaks more of your senses.

A sucky sales message in a video will still get you sucky results.

Enlightenment Moment #2. There is a trend now among some info-marketers of insisting that you can “sell without selling”.

This is an excellent sales tactic.  Vast mobs of rookie marketers crave this kind of soothing message.  They fear the sales process, and want to hear that they can skip any act even remotely associated with gnarly, unsightly salesmanship.

And so, this is the exact message that is floated by info-marketers eager for the quick kill.  You don’t need to know how to write, and you don’t need to understand anything about selling.

And it’s bullshit.

These guys are (a) excellent writers themselves (even as they insist they’re not)… and (b) astonishingly clever salesmen.

Again, I salute them.  I even urge people to check out their products.  It’s often good shit.

However, it causes my in-box to fill up with questions from confused rookie marketers…

… and it’s annoying to have to haul out the same answer every few months.

Which leads us to…

Enlightenment Moment #3: Let’s review — once again — what a sales letter really is…

… and why people keep wanting to kill it.

Ahem.

Please note this:  There has never been a time in the history of business…

… where long copy sales letters were the “norm” for most marketers.

Most advertising and marketing sucks.  It always has, and always will.

Most advertising “experts” who staff the kind of mega-agencies that create ads for large corporations (from selling cupcakes to selling investments on Wall Street)… are NOT killer salesmen.

None of the mainstream advertising you see for Coca-cola, for example, actually sells Coca-cola.   It just keeps the brand in your head.  (Okay, when they can get away with it, they’ll also try to hypmotize you into craving it… but that’s never been proven to work.)

What causes Coke to actually sell is a complex manufacturing and delivery system that dominates the sugar-water industry.  Nobody walks out of Taco Bell because they sell Pepsi instead of Coke.

However, Coke will fly off the shelves in a supermarket because they have primo shelf position, coupons and cross-sell affiliations up the whazoo, and it’s a leader in creating new vehicles for easier consumption.  (You still call the local soft-drink dispenser “the Coke machine” — even if there’s no Coke in it — because Coke created the industry of delivering cold bottles individually, automatically.)

So yeah, those cute TV commercials with Santa swilling Coke with polar bears isn’t “selling”, as in moving product.

What moves the bottles and cans is the hard-core marketing machine that keeps 7-11 fully stocked, at eye level.

Any marketer with less than a billion dollars in their ad budget, who thinks they’re gonna be successful by “copying” Coke’s commercial style…

… is an idiot.

Copying their manufacturing and delivery system, sure.  Again, if you got the bucks, the distribution channels, the deals with supermarket chains, etc.

Same with cars.  You don’t see a Ford commercial, stumble off to the dealer in a zombie daze, and buy immediately.

No.  You engage with a sales process.

These processes… the dealing with a “sales agent”, or finding yourself at the consuming end of a system that started with sugar water… all rely on pure salesmanship to work.

Top marketers, throughout the long history of marketing, either know this…

… or learn it, quickly.

It’s the only way to become successful in a way you control.  You don’t rely on luck, or on fads, or on the unexpected confluence of events for your success.

No.  You create your success.  By knowing how to sell.

Now… let’s get back to why most advertising and marketing sucks.

In the greater world of advertising, there are the huge agencies who use slogans and art, and call it an ad because no one knows any better…

… and then there is this tiny little sliver of the industry, way off in the corner, called “direct response advertising”.

It’s the bastard child of the big agencies.

The big agencies like slogans and pretty art, because all they want to do is to please their client.  So the client cries out “That’s a GREAT ad!  We can’t wait to run it during the Superbowl!”

And they happily pay vast fortunes to the agencies, believing they have done their due marketing diligence.

Meanwhile, over in the corner (sulking, because we get no fucking respect)…

… the direct response guys don’t care if the client loves the ad.

Because they’re not selling the ad to the client.

They’re, instead, creating an ad that will sell to PROSPECTS.

The term “direct response” refers to the nature of the ads.  There is some element of asking for ACTION.  A response.  Click here to order.  Opt in to get the free goodies.  Call for a quote.

This kind of response scares the bejesus out of the big fancy agencies.

They HATE the idea of being held responsible for any kind of actual RESULT from their nice-looking, salesmanship-free ads.

Because, if Ford ever asked their agency how many cars were sold from the last whiz-bang set of TV commercials…

… the answer would be a shrug.  “We don’t know.  We literally have no clue whether those ads sold lots and lots of cars, or no car at all.”

(Here’s how that game works, btw: At the end of the year, if Ford sold more cars — for whatever reason — the agency retains the account and are heroes.  If Ford sold less cars, they fire the agency and hire another one.  It’s all smoke and mirrors, alchemy, voodoo and wish-fulfillment all rolled into one big ball of bullshit.)

The direct response guys?

They can’t afford to create ads that don’t work…

… cuz everyone will immediately know if the ads bomb or succeed…

… based on the results.

No guesswork.  No magic.  No nonsense about “brand awareness” or “long-term sales strategies”.

You create the ad.  You minimize “x” factors, you test, you count up the numbers, and either it works, sorta works, or fails.

So…

Faced with the prospect of actually having to create a provably-successful ad… the direct response guys have always gone straight to the source of successful selling:

Salesmanship.

Knowing how to persuade, hold attention, overcome objections… and especially how to close the deal.

And guess what?

In one form or another…

… doing this always ends up in some kind of long-copy sales letter.

Infomercials in the 80s were long sales letters.  They were low-rent videos that ran for an hour on late-night cable for spare change, in an age when most marketers were spending a fortune on high-production 20-second spots on the networks (with zero actual selling going on).  (Those crappy infomercials brought in vast fortunes, too, and changed the way marketers think about cable — and late night selling — forever.)

Most ads in newspapers and magazines were small, tidy little affairs with cute headlines.  The ads that worked in newspapers and mags, however, were the full-page monsters that presented better stories that the publication itself… and which sold hard and crazy.

Most businesses, throughout the ages, have insisted on following the herd… and dumped endless piles of cash into sales-challenged marketing that was doomed from the get-go.

And meanwhile, off in that corner of the advertising industry, the direct response guys who knew how to sell just plodded along, piling up results and remaining more-or-less content to stay behind the curtains.

Then the Web arrived.

And with it, the biggest opportunity for entrepreneurial start-ups that civilization has ever seen.

You literally needed just an Internet connection and a cheap computer… and you could start a real business.  Kitchen table optional.

And guess what?

The smart entrepreneurs went straight for the jugular with their marketing efforts.  Without deep pockets, they had to make their advertising work right off the bat.

And so they were instantly attracted to direct response strategies.  Who cares if the ads weren’t pretty, or people bitched about long copy, or — gasp! — complaints rolled in from folks offended that anyone would use the Net to sell anything.

What works, works.

The Big Dog entrepreneurial marketers online are ALL direct response aficionados.

Even the ones who insist they’re not.  (They’re just really, really good at selling you in ways that don’t trigger the “I’m being sold!” alarms in your head.)

Don’t get confused by what stuff is called.

A minute of video is (more or less) equal to around a page of double-spaced copy.  So a 10-minute video is delivering the oomph of a 10-page sales letter.

So, fine, don’t call it a sales letter.

We don’t, anymore.  We now talk to folks about creating a sales message.  The delivery system for that message may be a real letter, or a website, or a video on a site, or a series of auto-responder emails, or a speech from a stage, or a webinar/teleseminar or…

… or any other way it can be presented to a prospect.

It’s not the “letter” part of the phrase that matters.  (The next generation of marketers now coming up the ranks have likely never received a mailed letter in their lives, anyway.)

No.

It’s the “sales” part that matters.

Learn how to sell.  It’s not voodoo.  It’s actually easy, when you have an experienced guide.

Don’t sweat the “writing” part.  If you can sell, you can do all your marketing verbally… have it transcribed into video scripts, or Web pages, or printed ads, or whatever you need… and skip the whole “writing” thing altogether.

But you probably aren’t a natural salesman.  Most people are woefully inept at crafting a good sales pitch.

So learn the simple steps behind selling.  It’s not hard.

However… if you insist on remaining ignorant…

… then you will forever be prey to the dudes who DO know how to sell.

And they will sell you one Magic Box solution after another.  Solutions they themselves have succeeded with…

… because — oops, they forgot to tell you — they are KILLER salesmen.

There are a lot of great products out there for entrepreneurs and small biz owners who can’t afford to have marketing that doesn’t work like crazy.

If you get on my list, you’ll know who we recommend.  We don’t recommend anything we haven’t tried ourselves.

But before you try ANY of the clever new shit out there…

… please… learn how to sell.

Just absorb the simple basics into your skull.

And here’s where I recommend you start.  (Just click on the blue word “here’s” in that last sentence.  Like magic, you’ll be transported to a stripped-down website where you can learn more.  No obligation.  No trickery.  Just the basics on what you can do, right now, to learn more about becoming a killer salesman.)

The best marketers out there are obsessed with closing the deal.

You’re just not in the game if you don’t understand salesmanship.

You are, in fact, meat.  Sustenance for those who do know understand how to persuade and influence and sell.

Okay.

That was a long way around the block to make a point.

But it needed to be made.  And will be needed again, no doubt.

If you appreciate this kind of no-nonsense explanation on how stuff really works…

… then climb aboard.  Opt in, above right.

It’s a minefield out there, when you’re alone and trying to make a business work without knowing who to trust.

We know who the good guys are, and who the charlatans are.

I’m sure you disagree with at least some of what I’ve said here.

The comment section is now open, awaiting your wisdom and input.

Have at it.

Stay frosty,

John

Howdy,

I’m gonna be flat-out honest with you: I’m freaking exhausted.

The “17 Points” workshop is in the can, but it took a piece out of us to pull off. Three entire days, morning to evening, locked in mortal combat with Truth, Insight, and The Path To Riches & Spiritual Fulfillment.

Man, it was fun.

But grueling. In that “everything got revealed (and then some)” way.

I’ll be sharing more of what exactly was shared at this one-of-a-kind event later… but for now, I just want to gloat a bit.

I mean… NO ONE else puts on events like this. I honestly believe hosting one of these marathon teaching workshops would kill your average guru. Even the ones half my age. Just curl ‘em up and leave a singed hulk trailing wisps of bacon smoke.

You really shoulda been there, you know.

Oh, wait… you were invited. But you missed out on your spot by not gaming the auction, didn’t you.

Ah, well. I’d say “next time”, but without an act of God (like the video spontaneously combusting), there won’t BE a next time. My entire career was metaphorically aimed at this one single in-depth workshop… and I pushed myself as hard as I’ve ever pushed.

And I ain’t never giving it again.

It was just too exhausting.

Have you ever stood on your feet for three solid days, keeping your mind completely engaged, in fever-pitch mode… working without a net, in front of appropriately-greedy people who have paid big bucks for the opportunity to suck every scrap of wisdom from your skull?

I can’t say I recommend it.

Other folks put on big damn seminars with a mob in the audience, and as impressive a line-up of speakers as they can bribe or cajole into showing up. The actual host is onstage for only a short amount of time. He’s more of a ring-leader and MC.

I like that model fine. It’s a good way to present a lot of stuff to a lot of people.

But my DNA just won’t allow me to host that kind of event.

I cut my teeth, long ago, with Halbert, doing intimate and shockingly-interactive seminars with relatively small groups of people… most of whom were highly skeptical of the whole scene. We had no script, no “battle plan” for how to proceed, no clear idea of what was gonna happen from hour to hour… and it was just us on the stage, with little or no backup.

And we liked it that way.

It was theater-meets-the-barroom-brawl time. We took each attendee through their paces, and kept the entire event utterly and completely focused on real-world solutions to the actual marketing problems they brought to us.

No theory. No bullshit academics. No clever speeches. And no pitching.

Just raw, nasty, front-trenches marketing hard work.

Once you get a taste for that kind of impromptu action, “regular” seminars full of talking heads seem boring and nowhere near dangerous enough.

My seminars are always small, always unpredictable, always pumping adrenaline and endorphines… because the live, unrehearsed, uncensored interaction of host-and-attendee IS dangerous and exciting.

Hey — the action kept me going for three packed days.

Kept the attendees on their toes, too.

It was a raging success, by all metrics.

But I’m never, ever, doing it again.

Still, I’m sitting here laughing out loud, remembering some of the stories we pulled from the extended weekend. It was great having my long-time buds David Deutsch and Garf (David Garfinkel) as wingmen, watching my back from the audience. The hotel was perfectly placed between Chinatown and North Beach (where Kerouac and The Dead hung out) — fabulous food, ambience up the yin-yang (literally, if you went into Chinatown), all the energy that comes from hanging out in the nerve-center of a bitchin’ city like San Francisco.

Plus, witnessing Deutsch attempt to murder Garf with an IED of olive oil and glass was just priceless. Later, we all made up and toured Carol Doda’s old haunt for laughs, along with the new “Beat Museum” (Ginsberg’s typewriter!).

Ever had a Chinese foot massage in a room filled with top Web marketers, all half-drunk and giggling?

I’m truly sorry you missed this event, I really am.

We may have a few video snippets to share with you, soon. But we will not be releasing the DVDs of the event (like we have for the other seminars/sweatshops I’ve held).

Naw. This one was too special. For now, the hot stuff is staying in the vault.

And I’m gonna bask in the warmth of having pulled it off for a little while here.

A little creative gloating. There hasn’t been anything in any of the other marketing events you’ve heard of… that is even remotely close to what was shared in this workshop.

I wish you coulda been there.

Stay frosty,

John Carlton
http://www.carltoncoaching.com

PS: Just a note to the curious here — the schedule for the much-desired “Launching Pad” coaching option (what we call around the office “Be John’s New Best Friend For A Month”) is starting to look like the 405 during the morning commute. In other words: Packed.

Over the past months, while we’ve been on the road (to Kern’s “Mass Control” event, Eben’s “Altitude” spectacular, Schefren’s Orlando seminar, and everywhere else we’ve been traipsing around) people have aggressively cornered Stan or me and grilled us on the availability of this super-intense consulting opportunity.

If even a fraction of those folks follow up, we’ll be booked solid soon. It’s first-come, first-served, though… so, while there are spots on the schedule, you have a shot.

Check it out at http://www.carltoncoaching.com.

Mahalo.

Howdy…

Have you seen my partner Stan’s first information video?

I think you need to see it, if you’re interested in mastering communication (which is the life-blood of selling lots and lots of stuff).

Personally, I find his video fascinating. He’s getting a ton of feedback on it, and we just spent an hour on the phone talking about it. One guy sent him such a personal email that Stan called him… not to argue, but to get the background story on why the guy had the opinion he had.

It was a calm conversation, Stan tells me… yet, at first, it was like sharing a bench on the fourth floor of the Tower of Babel. Each person was saying something important, but mere words didn’t seem to be able to get any points across.

I’m laughing my ass off over this as Stan tells the tale.

Cuz this is all about communication… and for the 25 years I’ve known Stan, we are constantly bickering about who said (or didn’t say) what, and who’s right and who’s a miserable toad for being so wrong.

It’s the foundation of our friendship.

Remember Star Trek? Stan’s like Spock, only with a sense of humor (and a taste for jazz and good beer). Very, VERY logical, and impatient with people who process info in illogical ways.

Like, oh… me, for instance.

Drives him frigging bonkers.

And I’d have to say I’m like Captain Kirk… not a “leader” as in the highest ranking dude, but rather the guy who gleefully drags everyone else on another risky, dangerous, futile yet emminently exciting adventure.

(Side note: Did you know that — in the original Star Trek — whenever an unidentified member of the crew transported down to a new planet with Spock and Kirk… he would be killed in some horrible and gruesome manner before the next commerical break? The character was named “Ensign Expendable” — and he was doomed to be a mere plot device every single time, without even a line of dialog except “Aaaaagh!“…)

(I wonder if any Trekkies go to a Star Trek convention as Ensign Expendable? I’ll tag this blog, and see if any Trekkies log on with an answer…)

Anyway…

Communicating with another human being is never simple.

If anyone tries to tell you otherwise, walk away. They’re dangerously wrong.

In a broad sense, the population is roughly divided into 3 categories of cognitive processing:

1. Left-brain thinking (very logical and concrete)…

2. Right-brain thinking (very creative, “out of the box” worldview)… and…

3. No-brain thinking.

That third category, unfortunately, dominates the world. Id-driven thugs rule with brute, unthinking force all over the map. They of course need logical assistants to run things, and right-brain creatives to write their speeches… but the final decisions rest with the knucklehead.

The first folks to get hung in any revolution are the smart ones, you know.

The triumph of modern democracy rests on the First Amendment, with its guaranteed protection of free speech (and, implied, free thought as well). We take it for granted… but most of the rest of the world enjoys no such freedom.

So the upside of life in the US is that everyone gets to talk freely to each other.

The downside… is that few of us actually know HOW to talk to another human so we’re understood.

(Quick tip: One of the fundamentals of becoming a great salesman is best explained in the classic “How To Win Friends And Influence People” — also called “the salesman’s bible.” The most important skill in that book is listening… and rephrasing what you just heard back to the other guy. This is proof that you listened… and processed what you heard. And this will astonish anyone you use it on… because everyone else isn’t listening at all — they’re just waiting impatiently until they can interupt to stress their point, regardless of what the other guy has said.)

All master salesmen are master communicators. As a copywriter, I knew I’d turned a corner in my career when I could take a complex situation… and explain it in two or three paragraphs in such an obvious way, it was hard to remember why it seemed so complex before.

Your Number One Job as a marketer… is to get your point across.

Your job is NOT to be “right”.

It’s to get your point across so it’s UNDERSTOOD by the other guy.

In Transactional Analysis, there’s a situation called “Gotcha!” This occurs when one guy explains something in ways that are perfectly clear to him… using facts, figures, statistics, anecdotes, stories, whatever… and… when the other guy doesn’t understand, and screws up…

… then the first guy gets to claim status as the “dude who should be listened to, goddamn it.” He gets to yell “gotcha — I TOLD you what would happen (or how it was supposed to work)… and you just wouldn’t listen.”

It’s a sick, sick game.

In business, you don’t “win” if you were right… but no one understood WHY you were right, and thus did not buy.

As a consultant, I am constantly faced with having to explain to a client — in simple terms, and calmly so I don’t startle him — that he’s been selling the wrong thing, in the wrong way… and that’s why sales suck.

I always get the same argument back: But these are the FACTS. It IS a great product, and…

Of course, what he’s usually doing is tossing boring features around, unmoored to any thrilling benefits that could help a prospect “feel” like buying.

It’s hard to sell your own stuff. We all have a natural tendency to burrow too deep into our own box, where we gulp our own Kool-Aid while wearing blinders. (I think I just won the Best Mixed Metaphor award there.)

This is why top salesmen — and top copywriters — are so sought after. We’re the modern wizards, craftily seeing through fog and making sense out of nonsense.

And yet…

… sometimes I meet my match.

Stan and I often have a disturbing recurring conversation. He will insist he’s told me something at least 3 different times, in 3 different ways. And he’s right — the man is honest to a fault, and sees no point in exaggerating. If he says he did somethng, he did it.

That’s a fact.

And yet, I will insist back that (a) I have zero memory of him telling me anything remotely like that… and (b) I nevertheless do not understand what it is he’s trying to communicate to me.

So, he told me, and I never heard it.

If either of us were lesser mortals, one of us would have murdered the other long ago.

However, our mutual respect is so deep, that we take all criticism seriously. I may not understand why Stan is arguing with me over some point… but the mere fact that he IS arguing means I need to pay attention and figure it out.

This is important.

Both of us are MASTER communicators. I’ve earned fortunes using my communication skills to sell massive worlds of stuff to skeptical, miserly hordes of customers. And Stan was a consultant so skilled in communicating the vagaries of software and “process analysis” to large corporations (including Cisco Systems, Wells Fargo, Exxon, and even NATO in Europe) that — for 20 years — he was among the most sought-after and highly-paid “gurus” of that essential corner of the information age.

Top of our games, both of us.

And yet we still bicker and argue over every detail of our entrepreneurial adventures.

There’s a lesson here for all of us.

First: Never assume that because YOU understand something… everyone else should, too.

It ain’t so.

Second: The fastest and easiest way to learn just how far off you are in communicating your message… is to ask for questions.

My pal Alex Mandosian perfected the “Ask Campaign” years ago online, as a way to determine exactly what needed to be addressed in any clear sales message. And you could do it before the product was even created. You just explain what you intend to do, and ask for feedback.

Before the Web, this would be a tangled process that could take months or longer. And cost an arm and a leg.

However, with email, the Internet, and all the other hyper-fast communication channels now in our toolkit, you can get an astonishing thorough FAQ (frequently asked questions) page functioning and providing info almost immediately.

And get this: I’ve never met a marketer who did this… who was not blown away by the questions people were asking. This is an almost unfair advantage — each question that comes up more than once represents an objection that can KILL sales for you unless it is countered.

So you will never be blindsided.

Knowing what prospects are actually thinking… instead of guessing (or, worse, relying on your own feeble idea of what someone “needs” to know to be persuaded to buy)… allows you to own the greatest “cheat sheet” imagineable as you create your sales message.

This cheat sheet will point out every hole in your original argument… allowing you a chance to correct misunderstands and obliterate potential un-met objections.

Result: Instant hero. Wealth beyond the dreams of avarice.

Third: Still, you gotta start someplace… even to begin acquiring questions.

This is where communication pro’s shine. Cuz we don’t rely on logic — we have nurtured and honed our peculiar right-brain tools to create something out of thin air, using vague blueprints that only we can see.

And here’s a secret tip: It’s all about SIMPLIFICATION.

Unraveling the complex, so it’s easy to understand.

Stan, for example, is easily among the smartest dudes I’ve ever met. You could lop fifty points off his IQ, and he’d still be smarter than you and me combined. (Okay, that’s a right-brain exaggeration, but I’m making a point here.)

However, all that brain wattage can be a handicap at times. I’ve learned how to “hear” him over the years — as part of my quest to be able to “hear” everyone I know (including the wacko’s, the geniuses, the dumbfucks, the agenda-driven, and the devious).

So, while he’s constructing a logically correct structure of related tangents, plus essential points that must be retained until the end of the explanation, all buffetted by blindingly-unassailable facts (facts!)… I’m doing my best to “catalog” everything according to the somewhat scattered, very intuitive and non-logical filing system in MY head.

Man, it can be a challenge.

But it’s also one of the best lessons in pure communication I’ve ever encountered.

What I do… and what I believe Stan has picked up from me (and is using more and more when dealing with us “lightweight creative-type brainiacs”)… is BREAK IT ALL DOWN.

This is a killer tactic for copywriters and for any salesman trying to communicate more than one or two points with a target audience.

The easiest method: Just enumerate each point. One, then two, then three, then on to four, five, six and beyond.

But keep each numbered point “pure” — don’t clutter it up with other points, or sub-points, or tangents, or anything else.

Stay focused on explaining a single piece of the puzzle at a time. Forget about “tying it all together” until after you’ve covered each point, individually.

Top copywriters know that a sale can be triggered by a SINGLE bullet point (even when that one bullet is nestled among dozens of others in your sales piece).

And you can almost never predict WHICH bullet it will be. Could be a different bullet for each buyer. (If you discover it’s a specific bullet behind most sales, then you’ve discovered the headline of your next piece. Lucky you.)

Breaking things down into easy-to-understand points takes away all the complexity. Even if you end up with 999 separate points… which is how you’d break down something VERY complex, like building a gas-powered internal combustion engine from scratch… if you make each step easy-to-understand, you can walk a rookie all the way through.

But you can screw it up, too.

Let’s take skipping rocks.

You would be criminally over-simplifying the process if you said “Dude, just throw a rock across the water so it skips.”

That may explain it to YOU, who already is experienced in skipping. But it’s incoherent to someone else. You’ll frustrate them, and frustrate yourself.

Try this:

1. Find a smooth, flat stone.
2. Throw it sidearm, so the arc of your toss is more-or-less level with the surface of the water.
3. Aim for calm water to minimize “bumps”.

If you follow this advice, you’ll skip a rock. It may only be one or two skips, but you’ll skip.

In fact, even if you screw up the first point, and use an uneven, round, jagged rock… you’ll still make it sorta skip if you throw it sidearm onto flat water.

Now… if you want to skip multiple times (phtt, phtt, phtt, phtt)… then you’ll want to go deeper into this basic explanation. Why a smooth, flat stone? To reduce friction. Why sidearm? So the contact of stone and water surface is gradual…

And so on.

You gotta see Stan’s first video.

First, he’s such a likeable, funny guy… that it’s startling when you realize the brain power under that gleaming bald dome.

Second, the logic of his presentation is unassailable.

And third… well, I want to hear what you think.

People are responding in all kinds of ways… from the cryptic “nod”, to outrage, to total and fulfilling satisfaction. And that’s just those responses he’s told me about.

It’s his first video. He’ll be doing dozens more, just this business cycle, and we’re both feverishly studying the “craft” of delivering great video. (And I’ll be sharing what I learn here… and I’m learning from the guys at the cutting edge of the form… so listen up.)

He’s no longer a “video virgin”. I think it’s a great learning experience to see how this guy — who communicates so effectively with certain types — makes his case to a broad swath of the population… including people he’d rather strangle. (Thousands will be exposed to this video before the night is over.)

The subject: How a Dutch auction works… and the specific strategy for winning that you don’t know about yet.

The stakes are incredibly high: As you should know by now, I’m offering a one-of-a-kind hands-on, super-interactive workshop on copywriting in San Francisco on May 2-4. I’ll be personally teaching 20 people the exact step-by-step process I go through while writing anything that has to sell stuff. (This “checklist” is the foundation to ALL of my success over the years.)

However… we’re not selling seats at a set price. There is a strict limit of 20 spots available, because I’m doing so much hands-on, personal teaching, that I can’t handle even one more person.

And those 20 spots are being offered in a Dutch auction.

Yep — you get to bid on getting in. You have a hand in setting the attendance fee at whatever you believe is fair. And EVERYBODY’S got an equal shot at winning.

It’s created a buzz in the industry.

This is important. The Dutch style auction is the OLDEST and most proven way of finding a price through an auction.

Yet, it’s the least used today.

Warren Buffett — the brilliant investor who has been one of the global economy’s wealthiest men for decades — uses it. “Insiders” in the high-end auction world completely understand it.

But most Americans have never encountered it before. We’re used to the other two types — where a motor-mouth auctioneer brow-beats an audience into coughing up dough (and there’s only one winner)… and the standard eBay style auction, where the goal is to swoop in last with a winning bid that barely beats everyone else.

The Dutch auction is different. And if you try to win one of the 20 seats we’re offering with a strategy of swooping in at the last minute… you’ll lose.

Stan explains the process in his video.

To see it, go here:

http://www.carlton-workshop.com

He’s posted it in the right-hand column.

I’d love to hear what you think. So would Stan.

Stay frosty,

John Carlton

P.S. Almost forgot — while the actual seminar is May 2-4… the Dutch auction (where all available seats will be bought) is over this Thursday, April 10, precisely at 2pm Eastern Time. (That’s 11am Pacific, for the time-zone challenged, like me.)

Every seat will sell out — there are already more bids than seats available. However, who wins each of the top 20 spots will not be determined until the bidding stops on Thursday.

So strategy matters.

Check out Stan’s explanatory video.

P.P.S. On a more sobering note…

… tomorrow (April 8th) is the anniversary of the death of my great friend, former partner, and long-time mentor Gary Halbert.

His sons, Bond and Kevin (also good friends of mine), and I have been in constant contact over this past year (while they cobble together Gary’s legacy, and get his website current again).

However, the trauma of Gary’s sudden and totally unexpected passing made that period of time a year ago very disjointed for me.

I actually did not remember the exact day — it was just part of a jumbled week or so of grief and shock. (Bond reminded me just today that tomorrow is the anniversary.)

It’s still a raw spot in my heart… and I plan on spending tomorrow in my own way, paying a private homage to a great man and a friend I shall miss forever.

I will, however, post something about Gary this week.

Just not tomorrow.

Not tomorrow.

Howdy,

You either hate… or love video.

Doesn’t seem to much of the old “in between” on this.

And I think I can clear up some misconceptions about it here in this post.

First, however…

Happy Anniversary To Us!

Last night, as my partner Stan and I were discussing the subject matter for our next Radio Rant Coaching Club call, I realized that today is (sob, choke) our one-year anniversary. On March 13, 2007, we launched the club with little fanfare, but a lot of intense interest from insiders.

Frankly, I’m stunned. Not that we lasted out the first year with bells and whistles… but that another year has snuck by.

I mean… who do I write to about this time-zipping-by thing? Is Einstein still taking calls?

Seriously. For most of my life, I followed a barely-functional form of (I guess we can call it this) hippie-tinged Zen awareness… which focused on the “here and now”. Americans have a bad habit of living in the past or the future (obsessing on past injustice, for example, or believing their life won’t actually start until they do X).

This is a horrible way to live, avoiding the present. Memories are great, and plans are good.

But you can only live in the present. The past is gone, and the future is a crapshoot. (I have friends who were killed by buses and unexpected crap falling on them. It’s no joke to realize that — literally at any moment — your ticket can get punched. Ride over. Plans cancelled.)

(Brrrr.)

There’s even an old semi-wise saying: “You wanna make God laugh? Make plans.”

Nevertheless, I didn’t get my professional life moving until I learned how to entertain the concept that thinking ahead a little bit is how you get shit done. I bought my first-ever year-long appointment calendar, and starting scheduling stuff out, like, weeks in advance.

Weeks!

Even today (long after the moment I really should know better), I feel creeped-out writing in some commitment for speaking at a seminar, or meeting some deadline, more than a few months hence.

I mean… how the hell do I know the Earth will even BE here in August? Let alone that I’ll still be a guy who speaks at seminars, or meets deadlines, or hasn’t been locked away in a mental ward?

Silly, I know.

But I swear to you that, up until a few years ago, I would agree to something a few months out… and relax, because there was plenty of time to prepare… and there really WAS plenty of time.

Now? I write the commitment down in the planner… seven months and two complete seasons away… and then, like, TWO DAYS LATER it’s time to get on the plane.

Somebody’s been screwing with my sense of time.

My father is now 88 years old. Healthy as can be. Takes his lovely wife Marge out dancing three times a week (real hard-core ballroom dancing, too), keeps up a social calendar that would exhaust me, and travels frequently to joints like China, South America, Alaska, that kind of thing.

I sure hope I have his genes.

But here’s why I bring it up: In our last phone conversation, Pop sighs and laments the way time is flying by so quickly.

Wait a minute, I say. I’m feeling like it’s rushing by like a speeding bullet. Just HOW fast is time flying for you at 88?

Faster than it did when I was your age, he says.

So now I’m completely freaked out.

I’ve even studied the phenomenon. There are tricks to “slow time down”, like learning new stuff every day, challenging your brain by avoiding habitual behavior, meditating, that kind of thing.

Works a little bit.

But I’ve kinda had a revelation here: While time is a human invention, it’s NOT gonna slow down much for me.

In my twenties, a week seemed to last forever. More stuff would happen to me in a day than happens to me in a month now. So many possibilities crowded my awareness then. Adventures cascaded upon my head like rain.

But something changes when you age. It may well be that once all those adventurous possibilities fall off the radar (no way am I joining the Peace Corps now, nor am I gonna move to Greenwich Village and form a punk band), life becomes more about finishing up goals I’ve already decided are my main focus… and that makes time more real. Deadlines, when I’m able to self-impose them, arrive like bricks thrown at the door in startling succession. (I’ve got three unfinished novels in my file cabinet — the youngest is ten years old, the geezer is over twenty.) (No lectures, please — I consciously put them aside all those years ago when I realized being a novelist would bankrupt me… and I decided, instead, to concentrate on what I’m doing now. Writing for the real world, and teaching.) (Still, I want to finish the little bastards at some point.)

This may be the ultimate generation gap.

You know, I tell everyone who’ll listen (and I’m really lucky to have so many colleagues who still find my stories entertaining) that for MOST of my career… I was the young hotshot rebel in the room. My job was to make life uncomfortable for the old farts, and inject some youthful energy and enthusiasm into projects.

Then, one day (and not too long ago in “John Time”), I realized I was the oldest guy at a big brainstorm of Internet colleagues. By twenty years, too.

It’s a testament to how hip these younger Web honchos are that they not only put up with me (cuz I WILL tell you stories)… but actually go out of their way to hang with us. My friends and mentors were always all over the map, age-wise. Frequently, Halbert (thirteen years older) and my now-partner Stan (fifteen years younger) would sit around bullshitting and having a good time. Age tends to be irrelevant when you’re hip, smart, and open to evil fun.

Still… it seems to me that dogs have it right.

A dog truly lives in the moment. When you’re gone, or dinner’s late, she’s understandably ferklempshed and upset. When I’m gone for a week on biz, my little rat terrier mopes and checks my office for signs I’m there, constantly. Yet, the MOMENT I arrive home, she is happy to see me… and promptly forgets that I was ever gone.

Dogs — as any vet will tell you — have zero sense of time.

And the good ones — the lucky dogs among us — live each day with passion and gusto and lots of groovy naps.

Bark heartily, is their motto. Then go eat the cat.

I know this time thing is just a worthless obsession. There’s no way to tell how other people experience time, because it’s such an objective perception. (Though, I once made Yanik Silver shiver in horror in a San Diego bar when I told him to blink… and then said “The next time you notice you’ve blinked, twenty years will have zipped by.” Startled him. Almost spilled his vodka.)

It’s all freaking relative, I know. I’m as happy, and more healthy, than I was twenty years ago. If my genes play out, I have another mini-lifetime left to enjoy. (Consider that, in 1900, at the dawn of the last century, the average lifespan of an American was around 30 years. My generation didn’t begin to feel like adults until we hit our 30s, for cryin’ out loud. The current generation is still living at home at 30.) (So, if 30 is a lifespan, I’m heading toward the end of my second shot at it. It’s not exactly “borrowed time”, but I’m very aware that my health and happiness is a product of living in the times I live in, and not because I’m special. My friend Dave Kekich is obsessed with increasing our lifespan, and I’m listening closely. But, mostly, I really want to concentrate on squeezing the most from the time I know I’ve got — today.)

Is this relevant for a business blog?

Hell, yes, it’s relevant. I get “woe is me” email from young men who are convinced their life is over because they’re not wealthy yet. And I get “can’t wait to test more shit on my new Website” email from ancient geezers who only recently got over their fear of turning a computer on.

And, when you consider all factors, that young guy’s life might really BE over soon. I’ve lost a big damn bunch of the people I grew up with at this point… and way too many dropped dead before their first wrinkle. Life ain’t fair, never pretended to be, and the inherent risks of being a carbon-based oxygen-breathing mammal in a semi-hostile environment isn’t gonna change anytime soon.

And, just as possible, the old guy may live another mini-lifetime yet. May write the Great American Novel (it’s a stupid, mostly-American myth, that the best writers are young — they aren’t). May invent that flying car I was promised back in the fifties in my brother’s beat-up copies of “Mechanics Illustrated”. Might even father (go for it, dude) the child who will grow up to save the planet.

Movies don’t help much. I have to force myself not to break out of the suspended disbelief required to get absorbed in film and realize “Hey — he’s dead” when I’m watching a great actor do his thing. (And because a “classic” movie buff like me gravitates toward REALLY old movies, I often remember that ALL the actors are dead. Been dead, too, for a while.)

Time is fleeting.

Anybody up for the Time Warp, again?

And… I guess that’s a good enough segue into video, as promised.

So.

In honor of the one-year anniversary of the Radio Rant Coaching Club… I have pulled another post of mine off the Forum. It’s pretty good, and a good example of the cool stuff you can enjoy as a member.

So, with no more fanfare (I’m running out of time, you know), here’s my reply to someone’s post asking “Does anybody read copy online any more?”…

(Note: The “Jason” I refer to is my young colleague, Jason Moffatt. He answered the post just before I logged on, saying — as a self-admitted “video guy” — that getting a sales message across online was really a “mixed bag” that includes copy and video and everything else.)

Ahem.

” Dear [name omitted for privacy]. I’m really glad that Jason popped back into the Forum — he truly “gets” the entire marketing mindset online, despite being mainly a video guy.

The “mixed bag” theory of communicating a sales message goes back to the very beginning of direct response marketing. Companies used print ads, door-to-door salesmen, direct mail, television (you didn’t think the infomercial suddenly sprang into exisitence full-blown in the 80s, did you? The very first commercials in the fifties were looooooong damn ads… in fact, single companies sponsored entire shows), radio, spectacular PR events, supermarket tastings, etc.

You want to engage as many senses as possible, and video expands the visual. (Reading is visual, as are photos, but it’s static. Video moves.)

The only thing we’re missing, today, is smell. We experiment with it, occasionally, with mail samples, perfume samples in magazines, and Smell-O-Vision at the movies. But the virtual experience kind of makes it impossible, for now, online. (Can you imagine a Wii console squirting out odors for, say, an adventure game in the jungle?) (Even bowling alleys have a peculiar smell, you know — I grew up in one, Lebowski-like, and remember it well.)

The split between people who prefer to read, or watch, or experience things in multiple ways, is NOT age related — it’s part of your DNA, how you perceive the world. We’re complex creatures, but you can still draw a flow chart of finite ways we engage with the world (kinestetic athletes and risk takers, introverted readers, gourmets, sculpters vs painters, and so on).

Smart marketers use it all. I love video, and plan to do more and more… but as Jason points out, it still needs to be scripted (even if only with notes). And of course, I’m primarily a writer — you cannot edit or rewrite with video, and the best writing is the result of many go-throughs.

The top marketers avoid using one medium over any other on ideological grounds — we do what works. Right now, you can enjoy the “mixed bag” of possibilities in getting your message across.

These are special times, full of possibility and generously tolerant of new ways of doing things.

Enjoy them.

Before you blink, and it’s 2028 (and your flying car is in the shop).

Stay frosty,

John Carlton
www.carltoncoaching.com

P.S. Love to hear your thoughts about time, and about video.

I’m all over YouTube these days, you know. Though I look so much younger in the film taken last year…