Tag Archives for " advertising "

About That “Secret” Collection Of My Best Ads…


Saturday, 2:00pm
Reno, NV
Any writer who doesn’t write for money is an idiot.” (H.L. Mencken)

Howdy…

You know what real writers do?

They study other writers…

especially when those other writers have been successful.

And in direct response marketing, it’s easy to define “successful”: It’s the ads that brought home the bacon.

Well, I’ve got some good news for y’all here.

We just found a previously hidden cache of my best ads (meaning: the ones that worked like gangbusters)…

… complete with background stories (written exclusively by me) about how I created them.

(These stories include insider stuff about my pals Gary Halbert, Jay Abraham, Dan Kennedy and others — stuff you simply won’t hear about elsewhere.)

You can spend a lot of time tracking these little beasts down online, but you’ve never find all of them…

and you’ll never find the stories behind them. So you won’t know which ones worked, how well they worked, or how they came to exist in the first place.

This little bundle includes lots of rare stuff.

You already know I developed the most hard-core copywriting style out there.

If you’re hot to find out how these legendary pieces came into existence (and how they did), you’re gonna swoon over this collection.

Just go here to grab access.

Enjoy.

Stay frosty,

John

P.S. The photo up top was snapped in Mexico during another round of writerly debauchery in my early career.

When your heroes are the hard drinking, hard partying writers who chewed up scenery and devoured life in huge gulps, you gotta work hard to keep up.

Live large. Be a good human. Love what you do. And hug the people closest to you.

Just be safe while this Plague rages…
 

Special Gift For New Blog Fans!

Friday, 2:09pm
Cleveland, OH
Momma’s all right, Daddy’s all right, they just seem a little weird...” (Cheap Trick, Surrender)

Howdy…

I sure hope you were in Cleveland last night, and caught the “Old Dogs Bark” show that Dan Kennedy and I did onstage at his huge event.

If you were… congrats. You witnessed something people should be talking about for years to come.

And if you didn’t…

… well, shame on you for missing it. How often do you think the geezers of the marketing world (the guys with all the best stories, and most reality-based profitable advice) are going to be around to share this stuff?

Time to make the effort to gobble up the great advice and golden stories while we’re here to tell ’em. 

This blog is a great place to start, too.

And hey — I’ve got a little gift for everyone.

If you’re new to the this blog, you’re in for a treat. Twelve years of free archives, for your education and enlightenment, are available 24/7. Jump down two posts below, and you’ll find an article entitled “How to give this blog a good ‘test drive’… in just 3 minutes”. Blow through that post, and you’ll be totally hip to everything this blog has to offer.

And even better…

… if you sign up right now, you’ll not only get notices for new posts (and other cool stuff I’ve got going on you should be interested in)…

… but you also get a free gift. A free report called “11 Really Stupid Blunders You’re Making With Your Biz & Career Right Now”.

It’s a brilliant short-course reality check that should help you avoid murdering your future, quickly and efficiently.

All the common mistakes I see entrepreneurs and freelance copywriters make are in there…

… identified, deconstructed, and solved.

Best damn special report I’ve ever written. Killer stuff. All the best angles and solutions I use in my lucrative consulting biz.

And…

… it’s free. Just for signing in.

And if you’re already a sign-in fan of the blog, just sign in again to get that free report. We’ll take care of duplicate sign-ins easily enough. No hassles.

Here’s how to get your free report: Just fill in the box below…

… and you’ll get your free report emailed to you post haste.

Meanwhile, check out everything else here. The posts below are a great intro to what you’ll find in the 12-year-deep archives. And if you don’t have my books, well, get on that right now (in the right hand column). Plus, lots of other goodies.

Have fun. Don’t hurt yourself in the archives — I’ve seen people get obsessed with reading everything all at once, and it can lead to brain-freeze.

Pace your bad self.

I’ll be back here with a fresh post soon…

Stay frosty,

John

P.S. We just switched hosting companies, so all the comments here were left in the dust.

Please feel free to comment on any post — I hang out enough to usually answer every one, if you have questions or just want to share something.

We had a great, long run with Host Gator as our blog hosting company, but they’re gone way downhill lately, to a dangerous place where the site was down a lot. So we’ve moved to Liquid Web, which so far is a totally bitchin’ outfit. Very professional, very much on top of making sites like this work smoothly. I’m happy now…

The Entrepreneur’s Checklist

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Friday, 2:15pm
Reno, NV
“I read the news today, oh boy…” (Lennon, “A Day In The Life”)

Howdy…

One of my favorite quotes from Gary Halbert: “There is nothing that cannot be accomplished by a man who refuses to face reality.”

You laugh, but he was dead serious. One of the reasons we became fast friends was our mutual outlook on life – whenever reality was inconvenient to our goals, we just ignored the facts, lowered our head, and bulled forward.

That photo, above, is me in high school (from the yearbook). I loved basketball, and was good enough to become the captain of the “B” squad my junior year…

… however, as should be evident in this photo, I ran into a brick wall trying out for the varsity a year later.

The guy guarding me as I took that jumper is taller than me by a foot. I was the smallest guy on the squad…

… and really, at some point a caring coach probably should have taken me aside and said “John, I know you love the game… but look at your family. No one is taller than 5’10”, and basketball is a sport for tall folks. You’re not going to magically grow into the size they want on the varsity team…”

I wouldn’t have listened, anyway. I’m like a Jack Russell terrier – a big dog trapped in a small dog’s body. Eventually, in sports, my poor eyesight and lack of height stopped me…

… but I had fun for a couple of years in the meantime.

Later on, as I was gathering my courage to try copywriting, an actual professional copywriter earnestly informed me that I should not even try.

“It’s too hard,” she said. “You’ll never be a pro writer.”

That was, of course, the BEST thing she could have ever told me. I doubt I could have survived the first years without that internal motivation of needing to prove her wrong.

I call it “negative motivation”… and it’s actually one of the most powerful forces available for getting stuff done. I never saw her again, and don’t even remember her name…

… so it wasn’t a need to flaunt my success in her face. It was all internal for me – I used her as the “face” of the obstacles in front of me, and I even laughed when I later realized I was in a position to tell her “Fuck you, I made it anyway.”

Yes, my internal ego is an immature twerp sometimes. Chip on the shoulder, snarling underdog attitude, and an almost stupidly-aggressive and irrational refusal to face reality.

I am so grateful for it, too.

(By the way… I nailed that shot in the photo, above… and ended up with 20 points while also hitting the winning basket. Easily my finest moment in a futile, doomed effort to be a “real” basketball player. A has-been at 16.)

You do not need to be a belligerent rebel to be a good entrepreneur…

… but it can help sometimes.

Certainly, given the choice of sitting down to dinner with the business types in suits, who are uber-polite and careful in their conversations…

… or the rowdy crowd of rule-breaking ne’er-do-well whack job entrepreneurs who may easily get kicked OUT of the restaurant….

… well, you know which one I’d pick.

I was Halbert’s sidekick for a very long time, and one of the most enjoyable parts of the gig wasRead more…

Buzz And Awe, Redux

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Tuesday, 2:08 a.m.
Reno, NV
Is there gas in the car? Yeah, there’s gas in the car…” (Steely Dan, “Kid Charlemagne”)

Howdy…

Those of you in the loop know we’ve re-launched the coaching program of the Simple Writing System again.

We rarely offer this hand-holding, personalized, one-on-one mentoring (by coaches who are also successful copywriters). The last session was a couple of years ago.

No idea when another session will come around… if it even does.

We take this one program at a time. It’s notorious among marketing insiders, because of how effectively we’re able to transform almost anyone into a sales-message-producing machine… quickly and efficiently. It’s life-changing, and business-changing mojo…

… and that’s why the top marketers in the game have demanded that the folks in their organization responsible for marketing TAKE this course.

The personalized coaching in the SWS is extremely interactive Perfect for anyone who knows that hands-on mentoring is the best way to learn the simplest possible system (crammed with short-cuts) for creating all the sales messages needed for a profitable business…

… including all your ads, websites, video scripts, emails, AdWords, blogs and other social media broadsides…

everything that pumps eager prospects into your Sales Funnel.

So you can close the heck out them.  And get filthy rich and happy, and become the most successful entrepreneur or biz owner possible… because without killer, persuasive copy, you’re not going to find, nor close very many prospects.

Most marketers wander through the wasteland of Bad Business Practices their entire career…

… and never figure out how to SELL anything.

So, no matter how totally hot and good and righteous your product or service might be…Read more…

How To Hire A Copywriter.

photo-1Tuesday, 2:14pm
Reno, NV
Are you going on this crazy voyage?” (Sailor in “King Kong”, 1933 version)

Howdy…

It’s high time for a little “public service” message here, for any marketer wanting to hire a freelance copywriter.

Cuz it’s a jungle out there.

There’s a veritable mob of available writers, of all levels of expertise (from world-class down to “should be hung”), charging all kinds of fees and making all kinds of promises.

It can get confusing, abruptly, and you can end up mismatched (or getting roughed up financially) if you don’t know what you’re doing.

So, here’s a Quick Start overview of what you – the dude or dudette doing the hiring – should get straight on before heading into the Big Scary Jungle Of Freelance Copywriters to find your perfect scribe. (This works for hiring ANY consultant, actually, so pay attention.)

Step One: Deconstruct and list what you want done.

Do you need a single ad written, or do you need your entire website created or overhauled? Do you need someone to write the necessary emails, Video Sales Letters and sales pages for a launch? Do you need a sales funnel created, starting with Adwords and traveling through landing pages, auto-responders, landing pages, and sales support?

Or what?

Step Two: Admit it if you aren’t sure what you want (or need). Double admit it to yourself if you’re absolutely clueless.

This is a critical step.

You’re about to shell out a lot of money, and put a lot of your hopes and dreams on the back of the writer you hire…Read more…

Top 10 Secrets To Make 2011 Your Best Year Ever (All Of Which You’re Currently Ignoring Or Screwing Up)

Thursday, 4:51pm
Reno, NV
“I’ll have what she’s having…” (When Harry Met Sally)

Howdy…

I figured I’d end the year in a ball of fire, and just lay it out for you here.

If you tried, really really hard, and weren’t successful last year…

… it was probably mostly your own damn fault.

Yeah, sure, the economy sucked, politicians were mean, your prospects are all screamin’ idiots, and God had it out for you.  All totally excellent excuses for having a crummy bottom line again.

It’s not your fault.  It can’t be your fault.  That… that’s just…

… that’s just completely unacceptable that it might be your fault.

And, hey, maybe you did piss off the universe, and spooky forces beyond your control mucked things up so you had a bad year.

I believe you.  I really do.

However…

After you’ve been around the block a few times in life, you start to notice some very interesting things about success.

And the big realization, I’d have to say, is that the idea that success is somehow magically bestowed on people in a spontaneous burst of luck and being in the right place/right time…

… is just bullshit.Read more…

Who Do You Trust?

Friday, 3:33 pm
Reno, NV
When the world is a monster, ’bout to swallow you whole…” (R.E.M., Can’t Get There From Here)

Howdy…

Quick post today (I promise).

It’s about a HUGE freakin’ disaster lurking behind many entrepreneurs right now…

… like a snarly ugly googly-eyed monster sneaking up on your ass with fangs bared and claws clutching.

Some of you, right now, can feel its hot fetid breath on your neck.

Boo!

You know what this beast is?

It’s the Great Unknown Future that most marketers are facing right now, as 2011 comes galloping around the corner.  And there are no fangs sharper, and no evil hunger more devouring than a recession-addled economy (licking its chops as it creeps up on you).

Now, here’s a free piece of advice from a grizzled veteran of 30 years in the biz world:  I’ve successfully navigated at least 3 huge (and at least 3 other less-huge but still extremely painful) recessions since I began my career as a marketing expert.

I’ve done it alone…

… and I’ve done with the help, mentoring, and insight of folks who had been down that road before.

And I gotta tell you:  It SUCKS to do it alone.

And having a little solid, experienced help watching your back can almost immediately transform your progress.

In my consulting practice, I see a lot of lonely cowboys wandering the marketing range, trying to figure everything out on the fly. They have no one to shuck and jive with… no one to bounce ideas off of (so they never get honest feedback)…Read more…

Night Of The Living-Dead Sales Letter…

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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…Read more…

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