Monday, 8:46pm
Reno, NV
Shake, rattle ‘n roll… ‘n roll… n’ roll… n’ roll…
Howdy,
Not sure if you’ve been following the micro-news or not… but our little town here nestled against the Sierra Nevada has been Earthquake Central for the last week or so.
That’s right. Reno made the national newscasts by shaking its butt.
Actually, a flurry of heart-pounding smallish quakes has been unsettling the joint since February… but things got really interesting this past week: On average, we’re experiencing over a hundred shaking events a day (!), with the largest so far nudging 5.0 (knock you off your feet level).
The experts assure us a volcano isn’t about to emerge from under Fourth Street and shower us with lava or anything like that.
Still, the whole city is holding its collective breath, waiting for the punchline to arrive.
Now, I’m from California, and we’re so blaise about seismic activity, we named our minor-league baseball team after earthquakes. (Literally, the Cucamonga Quakes, single A.) I slept through most of the big ones while growing up — my bed would bounce across the floor, and everything from the walls and bookcases would doink off my head, yet I refused to leave slumberland. (Probably helped that I grew up less than one hundred feet from active train tracks, where the Southern Pacific freights would rattle the house several times a day.)
So I’m not particularly nervous. Been sleeping fine, even when the big jolts arrive in the wee hours. I’ll get up, calm the dogs down, check for flaming lava in the hallway, and fall back into a deep snooze before the first aftershock arrives.
Of course, everyone who didn’t grow up in California is freaking out. Michele’s downright jumpy — her hometown of Chicago was, she insists, firmly nailed down like a city is supposed to be. Damn it. She is actually offended by my smug refusal to sit up all night waiting for the next tremblor.
And hey, being jumpy is fine. As long as you channel that energy into being prepared. We’ve been chatty with neighbors we haven’t noticed since last summer (when everyone spent the evening sipping wine in the middle of the cul de sac, watching the nearby hills burn and taking bets on whose house would go up like a matchhead first if the wind changed). Trading info and phone numbers and secret emergency plans.
And also trading fears.
It’s gotten me thinking about what life is really all about, again.
You know — once the danger passes, how are you gonna change things so you enjoy this corporeal ride with a little more gusto?
Gary Halbert and I used to gleefully have a very similar conversation, over and over, whenever the mood struck: We asked ourselves, what does a good life look like?
It’s a subject worthy of repeated exploration.
If you need help getting started, consider those inane celebrity interview modules in magazines… where somebody pitches them 20 fast questions like “What is your perfect day?” and “What do you see yourself doing five years from now?”
They ask these questions as if, of course everyone has an instant answer handy. I mean, who doesn’t constantly obsess on what a perfect day would be?
Try it on your friends, and on yourself. You’ll find that, in reality, very few people have even considered the concept of looking ahead like that. (I’m betting the celebs have their PR handlers do most of the answering in those articles, anyway.)
Many folks are just plain superstitious about imagining the future, like they’ll jinx any chance they may have of attaining a good life down the road…
… when — once you understand how goal-setting works — that kind of avoidance is actually a damn good way to guarantee you’ll never get close to a perfect anything.
A good life seldom just happens to you.
You gotta envision it… go after it… and attain it.
You want it… you take it… and you pay the price.
Here’s a tip you may not discover immediately, that will help you understand why it’s so hard at first to see your future very clearly: Your desires, and thus your “perfect” goals, will change dramatically over time.
If you have your old high school yearbook, go read what your pals wrote about the impending future. If life just kinda “happened” to any of them in the cruel adult world, there wasn’t much in the way of startling surprises. Or adventures.
It’s very much worth thinking about what a good life looks like.
The rules Halbert and I came up for our incessant chats on this topic were simple: We had to be painfully and excruciatingly honest.
Sometimes, this meant our talk degenerated into locker room fantasies. That was allowed. We both had bloated biological imperatives.
Mostly, though, we talked of finding not a moment in time where bliss was attained… but rather an ongoing series of opportunities for exploration and sampling.
In other words… we suspected that the Perfect Life would be too full of surprises, too unpredictable, and too intertwined with edgy adventure to allow a quick, pat, consistent answer.
So our vision changed, constantly. Curiously, neither of us gave a shit about material possessions. Or power.
In the end, the Introvert usually triumphed within us. A good life had its lovely carnal pleasures, sure… but central to complete fulfillment was a pursuit of intellectual goals and long greedy spells acquiring knowledge and (as silly as it sounds) wisdom.
(I’ve recently heard how Gene Simmons, the bass player from KISS, describes his perfect day… and I gotta admit, he has a point about not getting too philosophical about shit. Fortunately, I’ve had a few extended spells of hedonistic excess to enjoy… and while I do not regret a single hour, I will admit that it gets boring after a while. Especially for someone who spends an inordinate amount of time deep inside their head.)
(Still, you go, Gene. Party ev-er-y day…)
Now, here’s the kicker: You cannot just possess wisdom. To set up a life where you have the LUXURY of pursuing such lofty crap… you need lots of freedom.
I realized something a very long time ago: Many entrepreneurs really do get into biz for the money, and all the things money can buy. The freedom they enjoy is the freedom from want, and the giddy gorging at the teat of modern pleasures.
However, there are just as many others for whom money is just a way to buy different kinds of freedom: Never having others choose for you, never needing to shoulder responsibilities you don’t freely seek, never wondering when “life” will begin… because you’re highly aware you’re deep into it, every day.
As you explore your own notions of a good life, judge harshly against your intuition and your gut. Make sure no one else is influencing your dream, unless you welcome the influence. (My first lists of goals — while I was struggling with the concept of being able to actually “want” something and go after it — were heavy with rewards I didn’t actually want… like boats, or a big mansion, or fame. I had to extract myself from the quicksand-like influence of other people’s desires, before I could find where my heart truly lay. It’s a process. I had a long way to go, but each attempt at refining and reshaping my peculiar goals paid off hugely.)
Is freedom important to you? It’s not, for everyone. Like Dylan said, you gotta serve somebody. A higher purpose, a god, an addiction, a family model, something. If you choose something hard-to-define, like a “higher purpose”, then your everlasting homework assignment is to explain to yourself HOW you will serve that purpose.
You can’t just say you’re after it, either. When you’re engaging life on all cylinders, you get busy, not philosophical.
You go after it.
In Gary’s case — and this still influences me today — he had a peculiar inability to settle down and enjoy any reward he’d attained. For him, the happiness of succeeding meant only that another chapter in his life had ended… and he had to hunker down to find that next challenge, that next hill to climb, that next dragon to vanquish.
That’s an exhausting way to live, but it’s also invigorating when you do it right.
And, because you have the freedom to choose your goals and directions… and the freedom (in your mind and your bank account) to pursue them with balls-to-the-wall fervor… you can change direction any time your gut tells you it’s time.
Consider, as you mull your own perfect day and good life, if the destination or the journey is more important to you.
For me, it’s always been about the ride.
Sometimes, I get too complacent about success, and make the horrible mistake of thinking “I’ve done it, by Jove!” When, according to my private scorecard, I haven’t done jack shit yet in life.
I’ve been telling people lately to think about their life story as a movie. Because that’s easy to digest. For me — and maybe for you, too — the better analogy is a big long novel.
When chapters end, new ones begin immediately. The tale has no clear final act, because life isn’t a static frozen moment, but a continual jaunt through ever-changing scenery.
Still, it’s good to think (and to talk about, with good friends) what your good life looks like.
I’m always fascinated by other people’s ideas on this, too.
Comments are welcome. If you’re just beginning to consider your own journey, all the better — here’s a forum for your thoughts.
I am constantly blown away by how smart, how involved, and how alive the commenters in this blog are. It’s a rush, I gotta tell ya, to know so many people of quality and insight are out there.
Love to hear from you.
My good life is taking me over to San Francisco this weekend, of course — out of the Sierra Bed O’ Earthquakes, into the quivering bosom of The Mother Of All Fault Lines in the Bay Area.
If we survive, I’ve got a big damn fresh list of “good life” things to indulge in over the summer.
What a ride we’re on…
Stay frosty,
John Carlton
http://www.carltoncoaching.com
P.S. If you’re still bummed about missing out on this upcoming copywriting workshop… and who in their right mind isn’t bummed about missing it?… remember that we’ve still got several coaching programs in place, all heavily loaded with personal attention from me.
Check out www.carltoncoaching.com, while you’re contemplating your future.
Might be a great fit there, you know.
Monday, 10:44pm
Reno, NV
“…and you’re working for nobody but me…” George Harrison
Howdy,
Just plowed through the old tax grind here. Spent several hours chasing down documents, digging through files, double-checking my math.
Cuz I suck at math, you know. How I got through trig in high school is a mystery (let alone statistics and matrix theory in college).
In fact, I’m only half-joking when I say I’m pretty sure I’ve lost the ability to multiply by 8. That entire synapse has just dried up and fluffed away. (I still have vivid memories of squirming in my third grade class during the vicious head-to-head multiplication games the teacher forced us to play. I got tricked more than once with “five times zero”, blurting “FIVE!” before realizing my blunder. Argh!)
This is why one of my first splurges when my career got going was hiring an accountant.
Accountants like numbers. Watching their hands fly across a calculator is something to behold. Looky there — all my money vanishing like dots on a digital screen…
But here’s the thing: The first time I wrote a check to the IRS for an estimated payment… I was actually thrilled to death.
This first quarterly payment was proof that I was — finally — my own man. In my own biz. Paying my own taxes.
No withholding. No payroll check. No timing my bills to The Man’s schedule for doling out my hard-earned dough.
But I enjoyed that thrill alone.
Many of my early gigs as a freelancer were with business owners who considered taxes to be evil, evil, evil. Reagan encouraged them in this hatred — it was a time when government was seen as the problem, and unfettered free enterprise the solution.
The only solution.
I’m not gonna get into it… but after last month’s bailing out of Bear Stearns with taxpayer money (mine!) — because deregulation allowed them to act like four-year-olds with someone else’s piggy bank — I’m gonna slug the next guy who spouts ideological bullshit about the free market being able to regulate itself and fix any problem.
Economics has never been easy to understand, no matter what anyone else tells you. It’s a complex mix of theory, emotion, psychology, greed. con-man tactics, and lots and lots of wishing and hoping.
Oh, and gambling. The entire financial infrastructure of our civilization is essentially a big damn roll of the dice. If everybody woke up tomorrow and decided that paper money was worthless… it would be. Same with gold. And IOUs, and everything else of “value” you can’t eat, use for fuel, or build anything with.
Still…
…I was damn proud to start paying my taxes as a rookie freelancer.
Damn proud.
This confused nearly everyone I worked with at the time. Especially since I was hip to Ayn Rand and Robert Ringer and a small bit of economic theory…
It was like, I should know better or something.
Back then, it was almost heresy to like paying taxes. A few of my colleagues even became tax rebels, refusing to pay anything under the hazy notion that income tax wasn’t “in” the constitution, and so… blah, blah, blah.
They got in trouble. Ayn couldn’t save ’em.
I kept my thoughts mostly to myself. As a vandal in my formative years, I destroyed lots of stuff. We were removed from the creation of bridges, street lighting systems, even stop signs. So we burned, blew up, cut down and defaced public property like it was a game.
Seriously. It seemed like a game.
I’ve had this idea for a “basic lesson” I’d like to deliver to “pre-vandal” kids in grade school and junior high. In this lesson, I would explain to kids where they “fit” in the culture, and where stuff like street lights and earth-moving equipment came from. Cuz no one ever did it for me.
My theory is that kids are too removed from the creation of the stuff around us. Strangers arrive in uniforms, build and fix shit, and vanish. In earlier times, you may have known the folks who put up the lights (“Hi, Mr. Edison!”), ran the tractors, painted the walls, dug the holes for power lines, etc. (Heck, you may have even been involved — I doubt a kid who helped raise a barn would later vandalize it.)
I got a taste of this when my little town formed a Little League. Parents got together, pooled scarce resources and money, sought out sponsors… and my Pop helped build the freaking baseball field. From scratch. Went out there and leveled the field, cleared the debris and rocks (big rocks in the dirt, too), erected the stands and concession, wired the microphones, poured concrete for the dugouts… all of it.
We treated that diamond like church, too. It was sacred ground.
Slowly, it was dawning on me that anarchy was dumb, and could harsh your mellow.
Building stuff… and (gasp!) even taking care of it… could make life better.
Once I became an entrepreneur, I was ready to step up and be an “owner” of the civilization I was living in. Taxes weren’t “taken out” of my paycheck anymore. Instead, I wrote quarterly checks to do my part in funding the upkeep and creation of local and national crap.
Crap we needed. Like roads, sewers, firehouses, power lines, the whole interconnected mess that kept the lights on, the beer cold, and garbage picked up.
Yep. I’m a proud taxpayer.
I have never forgotten listening in on a heated conversation between a couple of advanced businessmen, back when I first weaseled my way into those kinds of meetings. (Literally smoky back rooms.)
Most of the guys were all pissed off about taxes, hated the thought of paying even a single penny to “the gummit”, and considered the whole thing extortion.
But there was this one guy… the wealthiest and most Zen-centered dude in the group… who just shrugged.
He said — and I remember the sound of his voice — that he made his millions, and paid every penny he owed in tax, when it was due. And slept like a baby, and went about earning another million.
The other guys grumbled and bitched and moaned and agreed with each other that this was the wrong way to go about being a success. You fought with the taxman over everything, smuggled money into hidey holes whenever possible, lied, cheated, played dumb and dumped vast sums into off-shore accounts.
Over the years, I paid attention to who led the better life. No contest.
Off-shore money vanished (“Oops!”)… years were spent wrangling with attorneys and IRS agents… and many sleepless nights ensued.
And I slept like a baby, having taken the rich guy’s advice. And got busy with my career.
No one understands my joy at being able to say I pay for the upkeep of my quirky little town and my staggeringly-big nation. And though the checks I write are pretty damn huge (I quickly got used to paying more in quarterly’s than I used to earn in a year), I do not begrudge Caesar a single coin.
Sure, lots of it is wasted, misspent, stolen and worse.
The world’s a messy place. Choose your battles.
I focus on the never-ceasing wonder of living in a joint where a guy like me — lowly, formerly-clueless, working class me — had the opportunity to grab a seat at the Feast… simply by getting busy and setting goals.
This is an astonishing playground we live in here. Most of the rest of world is agog at our freedoms, and would happily pay twice the tax we dole out just for the privilege of being able to bitch about paying it… and not being jailed or shot in the process.
Taxes suck.
So pay ’em and forget about it until the next quarter.
You really should be too busy making hay to even notice the money’s gone…
Stay frosty,
John Carlton
P.S. Important note to anyone who’s been gazing longingly at any of the offers over at www.marketingrebel.com: Every single package there is on the front burner for being taken OFF that site (probably forever).
In particular, the mega-popular “Bag of Tricks” package is about to be retired.
It’s just too good a deal (especially with the personal attention from me included).
We’re not getting greedy, mind you. We’re just getting hip to the structure our new biz model is becoming. And that killer offer needs serious revamping (and higher prices).
However, as long as it’s there on the site, we’ll honor the deal. I’m heading down to San Diego this week to speak at Frank Kern’s spectacular seminar, and I’m kinda focused on the upcoming “17 points of copywriting” workshop just around the corner.
Still, we’ve got geeks scrambling… and as soon as we can, the entire current set of deals at www.marketingrebel.com vanishes. I can’t tell you, right now, what will replace them… but I CAN tell you this: You will never see an amazingly hyper-generous deal exactly like the “Bag of Tricks” again.
So pop over and check it out while you can. This particular “menu” of essential info and tools and skills is what fueled so many of the top marketers now doing their thang online. Just check the testimonials.
We’re not shelving the “Bag of Tricks” to be mean… it’s just time to grow into a new model. Changes online demand it.
Don’t dally. I know you’ve been lusting after that package. I’m announcing it’s demise at the Kern event, and we’ll follow through soon after…
P.P.S. By the way… all incoming comments were disabled last night, due to a technical glitch while our server was upgraded. I know at least a few people emailed me, privately, to tell me they were denied.
Anyway, it’s all working fine now. Fire away, if you like…
Monday, 9:27pm
Reno, NV
“Things will have to get more clear before I can even say I’m confused…”
Howdy,
I’m gonna need your feedback on this.
See, I’ve always been a wave or two out of the mainstream… and that’s actually helped me be a better business dude, because I have to pay extra attention to what’s going on (so I can understand who I’m writing my ads to).
This extra focus means I’ve never taken anything for granted — especially not those weird emotional/rational triggers firing off in a prospect’s head while I’m wooing him on a sale.
And trust me on this: Most folks out there truly have some WEIRD shit going on in their heads, most of the time.
It can get spooky, climbing into the psyche of your market.
Still, though, it is, ultimately, exquisite fun. This gig — figuring out how to Read more…
Monday, 9:38pm
Reno, NV
“We better all hang together, or we’ll all hang separately.” — Ben Franklin
Howdy,
Here’s a question for ya.
What does politics have in common with marketing?
I’ll give you the answer in a moment… but first, a short rant from our sponsor (me):
There’s some stellar TV happening right now, and I’ll bet you’re missing it. HBO is doing a multi-part series on John Adams, the “forgotten” Founding Father of our little experiment in democracy here.
It’s just killer. The executive producer is Tom Hanks, who has become a national treasure by insisting on using his mojo in Hollywood to get “good” stuff made.
If you like history, you’ll go ga-ga over this series. They nailed the late 18th-century down to the nail, literally — showing the exact implements and tools and clothing details of the period. I mean, they researched how grape vines were held upright in gardens, and used real oxen to pull wooden sleds with real canon through real mud.
And if you like this country, you’ll be freakin’ Read more…
Thursday, 7:55pm
Reno, NV
Waitin’ for the guaifenesin to kick in…
Howdy…
I seriously want to hear from you on this.
It’s kinda driving me nuts.
Here’s the situation: Just around a year ago, my partner Stan and I hoisted the curtain on the Marketing Rebel Radio Rant Coaching Club.
The format is simple and elegant. There is a feisty Forum where members can post ANY question they have, on any subject they believe we (the grizzled pro’s) might have an answer (or insight) to.
And twice a month, Stan and I record a call answering and offering insight on all those questions. It’s a mini-seminar, delivered in the balls-to-the-wall conversational style you would expect from successful guys who’ve been around the block a few times.
But hold on.
There’s moreRead more…
Sunday, 9:17 pm
Reno, NV
Methinks she doth protest too much…
Howdy,
Without the insights of good pop psychology, I cannot fathom how my neighbor isn’t wracked with shame every second of his miserable life.
Because he truly is a Grade A asshole.
It’s not just me. Six other neighbors, on all sides, hate this guy’s guts with varying levels of passion (cuz he harshes everyone’s mellow and disrupts the groove of the cul-de-sac). The Homeowner’s Association regularly slams him with fines (cuz he thinks he’s above the rules). And I’m never surprised to see cop cars parked in his driveway.
I could go on, but you get the idea.
The dude’s obviously a low-life scum, living among people who just want peace and quiet.
If I was him, I’d immediately sign up for industrial-strength therapy, and maybe start a brisk program of frequent self-flagellation as punishment.
But I’m not him.
I’m someone else, looking at him with utter bafflement, because I cannot understand how he can live with himself, being such an asshole.
Yet, using the simplest basics of psychology… I “get” it.
And “getting” it makes me both a better story-teller, and a better marketer.
It’s really very straightforward: In Mr. A-hole’s mind, he’s a great guy. Misunderstood, prone to accidents that could happen to anyone, a smidgen too quick to get angry about stuff that anyone would get pissed off about.
He has a whole menu of excellent reasons that — in his mind — explain everything he does in a way that makes him either totally forgiven and excused… or the victim of unpreventable circumstances.
He has rationalized his behavior so that he’s the good guy at the center of his world.
And no amount of incoming data that challenges that rationalization will change anything.
The dude is bottled up tight. Certain of his own righteousness.
Serial killers think like this. Politicians, too. Also thieves, social outcasts, actors, perverts and scamsters.
And you, too. And me. And everyone you market to.
It’s part of being human.
Now, you and I may also have some redeeming traits, like a code of behavior that prevents us from hurting other people or avoiding doing the right thing (or parking half on a neighbor’s lawn).
We are, in fact, a roiling pot of conflicting and battling emotions, urges, habits, learned behaviors and unconscious drives.
Every day, if we’re lucky, the mixture remains mostly balanced and doesn’t explode or morph into something toxic.
But it’s all in there. And it’s all fighting for supremacy.
The book ‘How To Win Friends And Influence People”, by Dale Carnegie, is called the salesman’s bible because of a simple tactic that works like crazy.
That tactic: Learn to walk a mile in another man’s shoes before judging him.
Or sizing him up.
This tactic does NOT come with our default settings as humans. You gotta learn it.
Once you’ve been around very small children, you realize how deeply ingrained our selfish desires are. We excuse them in kids, but strive to civilize the little terrors by corraling those desires into submission.
Takes a while.
People who grow up without that kind of mentoring can be hard to deal with. Some special cases — those blessed with an endless supply of sociopathic charm — can still make it work, and live lives of selfish abandon. Good for them.
But most of us realize that we gotta share the sandbox with others, and that means sublimating our greedy ape-urges most of the time.
Still, if you’re gonna be a great salesman, you gotta become a great student of human nature… and notice, catalog, understand, and USE insights like this.
So when you tell a story, it’s easy to figure out what the listener needs to hear to stay interested. When you sell something, it’s easy to know how to incite desire, because you know what people want (which is almost always NOT what you want them to want).
And when you’re approaching prospects cold — cuz they don’t know who you are — you are able to quickly discern who THEY are, and adjust your tactics accordingly.
But you cannot attain this state of understanding human behavior… without experiencing all the different parts of human behavior out there.
Okay, you don’t want to experience everything. People do some truly disgusting and repulsive stuff that is beyond the boudaries of acceptable experience for the rest of us.
But within reason, you at least need to learn how to walk in another person’s shoes for a mile. (That’s supposed to be an old American-Indian saying, a take-off on the Judeo-Christian “golden rule” of treating others as you would be treated yourself.)
It helps to understand basic psychology. It’s probably out of print, but the old best seller “I’m Okay, You’re Okay” (which is about transactional psychology, but never mind that part) lays out a pretty good start for rookies. Once you see a few examples of how your thinking on a matter may not jive with the other guy’s thinking… you’ll have the seeds of understanding how to delineate what those differences are, and how they affect your relationship.
It’s really not that tough, once you get wet.
Basically, the bottom line of understanding human behavior is all about accepting the reality of the situation.
Yes, he’s an asshole, according to your rules. But in his rule book, you’re probably the asshole. If you insist on not allowing his viewpoint to exist, there will be blood.
In marketing, if you don’t learn to understand how other people see you and your efforts to sell, there will be no sale.
It’s tough to walk in another dude’s shoes even if you LIKE him. Think of your best friend. His taste in clothes is abysmal, he insists on wearing his hair in a stupid style, he watches bad television shows, and eats horrible crap.
Yet, somehow you overlook these things, and get along.
The challenge, as a marketer, is to suck up your distaste for people who don’t share your worldview… and be a chameleon. That’s the lizard that blends in with any background (except plaid — we used to try to make the little lizards explode by placing psychedelic prints on the bottom of their cage). (Doesn’t work, in case you’re wondering.)
You don’t have to compromise your cherished beliefs, or alter your own worldview. (Unless you discover you should.)
Just understand that there are more complex personality tweaks in the people around you than there are stars in the sky.
And your job, as a marketer, is to understand that the person you’re selling stuff to may need all sorts of weird, twisted info or soothing advice or whatever to make a buying decision.
It’s not hard, once you learn how to walk a mile in other people’s shoes… and then DO it, on a regular basis.
And you gotta do it even with the assholes around you.
I still loathe my neighbor, but I can’t really hate him. He’s infuriating, but the real reason he pisses everyone off… is that he’s just not good at social interaction. HE cannot walk three feet in someone else’s shoes, has no clue what that would accomplish anyway, and lives in such a tight little box that he’s really just a walking prison of discomfort and exitential anguish.
I still wish he’d move, though.
Anyway…
Here’s a little task for you: Identify a trait in someone around you… that irks you no end. (Maybe humming off-key, or always being late, or telling boring stories.)
And spend a few minutes seeing that behavior from the inside.
Become, for a moment, that guy. Walk a mile in his shoes, and rationalize how you feel.
You don’t need to adopt the trait, or learn to “like” it.
Just understand it. Get hip to the way the other guy has come to terms with himself.
This is powerful knowledge.
This is how top marketers move through the world, with deep personal insight to how other humans get through their day.
I’d love to hear, in the comments section, what you discover when you do this task.
Stay frosty,
John Carlton
www.carltoncoaching.com
Thursday, 10:03pm
Reno, NV
Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of economic nastiness…
Howdy,
I’m gonna want your opinion here in a minute.
But first, I have a very relevant question for you: Has the looming recession got you scared yet?
The mainstream media sure hopes so. Sells more newspapers, boosts cable ratings on CNN and Fox and MSNBC, makes the populace hyper-aware (like jittery squirrels gathering nuts in a dog park), and gives advertisers a tidy little narrative to help position product.
An audience with frayed nerves is an audience paying attention.
They like that.
Entrepreneurs and small biz owners can be especially vulnerable to economic downturns.
Or even talk of an economic downturn.
Frequent news stories about financial doom tend to bring on the “Yikes, we’re all gonna die!” response. Even in people who should know better.
My pal Perry Marshall reminded me of the “should know better” part today, when he sent out a blog-alert email titled “My rant about this so-called recession”. Damn good rant, too.
Basically, he noticed that his list seemed to self-select themselves into two distinct categories: (1) The whiny 95%, who seem to almost welcome economic disaster (as definitive relief from the anxiety of waiting for the hammer, so they can blame any pending failure on “outside circumstances”)… and (2) the “Alpha Warriors”, who barely acknowledge anything the mainstream media say about the economy.
Perry thought the Alpha Warrior segment of his list hovered around 5%. After I called him (to congratulate him on an insightful post), we both immediately agreed that it’s really probably closer to 1%.
In other words, in a room of 100 people, the folks ready to latch onto recession fears as an excuse to crawl into a fetal position and suck their thumb would dominate the discussion, the physical space, and the mindset.
There would be one lone dude, in the corner, ignoring them and getting on with business.
This is an important observation.
The narrative of your world-view can deeply affect how you act.
I hear from entrepreneurs all the time who were shocked, saddened, and even discouraged by the cacophony of negative voices around them when they decided to try their hand at marketing. If the opinion of your family, friends, co-workers and even future colleagues matters to you… just skip starting your own biz.
Cuz you will rarely hear an encouraging word. Most folks don’t like change, and resent the turbulence you cause by ignoring obstacles and overcoming problems to go after a goal.
Consider how many people around you base their world-view on the idea that “you can’t fight city hall”, or “The Man controls everything”, or “The little guy doesn’t stand a chance”. No dream of independence or getting rich can survive that kind of negativity. If they HAD a dream, it’s gone now.
And you’re kind of throwing that sad fact back in their face by going after your dream.
Not everyone is like that. But do not be shocked when you hear about even close friends secretly rooting for your collapse, or taking delight in the struggles you encounter. If you fail, they are proven right — you never really stood a chance. What a fool you were for even trying.
Worse, if you succeed, you very likely will drift away from the slacker world they are so comfy residing in. You’ll force them to come up with new excuses for their own lack of movement.
And that’s a horrible thing to do to friends. You naughty person, you.
The media loves a recession, because it means no slow news days for a while. Every utterance from the Fed is a headline, weekly columns write themselves (just pick two recession cliches from your cliche file and rub ’em together), and “man in the street” interviews will always yield some nice emotional sound bites.
Great marketers see a recession as something else: An economic burp that may or may not affect them. If it does, then you adjust accordingly. If it doesn’t, then it’s full speed ahead.
No hand-wringing allowed.
As Perry pointed out, it’s now a global market, dude. The dollar’s fade is the euro’s goose (and, if you’re exporting, the best news you could ever hear). Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs doesn’t vanish just because the Gross Domestic Product does a prat fall.
People still need to eat, still need a roof over their heads, still demand luxury.
And still need advice. Maybe more than ever.
Many will need new jobs. A recession isn’t fun by any means, and neither is it a joke.
However, neither is it an excuse to fold up shop and go hide.
I happen to know the number one real estate broker in town here. The Reno market went from being one of the top five hottest housing booms just a year or so ago… to becoming one of the worst in the nation. Prices, values and capital are plummeting.
Yet, people still need houses. They move away, or move here from somewhere else. Or move up, or down, as the nest requires more or less space. Many still see the cheap loans (as the Fed lowers rates to almost ridiculous levels) and distressed sales available as excellent reasons to buy or sell, or both.
Sure, the easy days of the boom are gone. Have a good cry, wipe your nose, and get back to the job at hand. Adjust your strategy to meet the challenge.
This guy was the top realtor during the boom, and he’s the top realtor now that the market has lapsed into a fever. He just adjusted.
It’s the same with every other market I have hooks in. The smart guys note the nuances of how things have changed, and redirect their energies to what works NOW.
The not-so-smart guys shriek and lose sleep and curse cruel Fate. And pine for the good old days, when their limited bag of tactics was effective.
There’s a saying in the financial world: Never confuse genius with a bull market.
That concept holds for everything else, too. I remember an obscure comedy show where Gilbert Gottfried (the shrimpy little guy with the scrunched-up face) asked a couple of buffed-out GQ male models for tips on picking up women. Their first piece of advice: Never acknowledge a woman the first time she approaches you and begs for your attention. Just keep talking to all the women who come up to you and…
“Wait a minute,” yells Gottfried. “I’ve never had a woman approach me in my life.”
The two studs looked baffled. And had no further advice.
Dan Kennedy and I have often joked with each other about what will happen to the youngest part of the online entrepreneurial world the first time the economy has a fit. There are gazillionaires out there (Mark Cuban comes to mind) who barely sweated earning their mint, because they stumbled blindly into virgin groves of low-hanging fruit, and gorged without effort or competition (sometimes for years).
Taking advice from them would be like asking a Vanderbilt how to cook a steak. (“Just ring for the downstairs maid”, of course.)
Take it from a guy who’s weathered multiple recessions, the collapse of entire financial institutions (I was a rookie copywriter writing financial direct mail packages when the S&L crisis lopped an entire arm from the banking community), and the meltdown of more hot markets than I can count (from Pet Rocks to McMansions).
Ignore the doomsayers. Focus on the fundamentals — good product, good value in your offer, good traffic generation, and the dedicated nurturing of your list. If it feels right to downsize (either in your life, by living debt-free, or in your biz, by trimming the fat), then do so. If your old way of doing things isn’t producing the results you need, try something else. Test more diligently. Study your market for pain that needs attention, and attend to it.
I like that term of Perry’s, “Alpha Warriors”.
But in my mind, you’re really just the Adult In The Room when you continue to take care of biz when everyone else is freaking out.
You may be the only adult in the room, too… and you may be trashed for your refusal to panic… but when you know a fresh game is afoot, you gather your resources and engage anyway. To succeed as an entrepreneur, you gotta be your own best friend.
Seems like obvious advice, doesn’t it.
Isn’t.
Takes a little courage, a little faith in your skills and ability to face unpredictable obstacles and overcome them, and a lot of M*A*S*H style humor. Because things can get gruesome, and the media will make sure everyone feels the pain from every obscure corner of the economy.
I actually increase my charitable donations during downturns, even when my income may be flat-lining a bit.
Just to remind myself that true success is the ability to make a difference. In your own life, and in the lives of people you share this hunk of wet rock with.
So please don’t panic. Take a deep breath, and know that the media will continue to treat things like an ongoing George Romero “Night Of The Living Dead” sequel.
And I’d really like to know…
What do YOU think about the talk of recession?
Are you doing anything differently? Are you losing sleep?
Any additional advice, either from experience or from a mentor or advisor?
Blogs like this are the “antidote” to the ravings of the mainstream media, you know. If you’ve got insight to living through roller coaster Dow rides and market busts, let’s hear it.
Stay frosty,
John Carlton
www.marketingrebel.com
P.S. Over half-way to the 21-day habit challenge finish line.
I’m holding my own. How’re you doing?
Thursday, 8:37pm
Reno, NV
Coyotes in the distance, making sweet music to the snowfall…
Howdy,
How’re you doing with your 21-day habit change challenge?
I almost screwed up last night. Walked by the kitchen around midnight, and I swear the last box of crackers in there was calling my name.
Bastard carbohydrates.
First sign you’re gonna win is when you just shrug, acknowledge that giving in would be glorious and tasty and, you know, worth it in a way… and then don’t give in.
It’s not even a sign of strength, really. It’s just adult management of the ancient, murky, often self-destructive parts of your mind. The ape-brain wants, gimme, gimme, gimme. Ape-brain must have.
Ape-brain not happy when denied.
And yet the sky doesn’t cave in when you shoo the beast back into the shadows.
Day by day, your old habit goes from struggle, to weak impulse, to vanquished behavior pattern. It’s a grind… but results are incremental.
Heck, I’ve got to go through SuperBowl weekend without eating chips and dip.
You gotta feel for me, dude.
Still, the little victories mount quickly. Several years ago, in antipation of doing a full weekend seminar (where I would be on stage, on my feet, needing to be super-sharp and on the ball the entire time), I hired a trainer and started working out twice a week.
I loathe working out. I’d rather play tennis, or pick-up round-ball, or raquetball, or do anything other than schlump my ass back into the gym… but those sports, while exhausting, will not give you a thorough workout.
I knew I needed the whole shebang… and I knew from past experience that hiring a trainer was the best way to “trick” myself into following through.
See, you can join a gym, figure out a routine, and even schedule workouts for yourself, and not need a trainer. Read up on specific workout strategies, write out plans, do it all on your own.
But I knew I needed that extra condition — the very real tactic of having to pay the trainer for his time whether I showed up or not.
That works for me. Just knowing I’m screwing up, by not working out during my appointed hour… and knowing that someone else is also privy to my shame… is enough to kick my butt into gear.
I hate it.
But I go.
And I’ve been going for around four years now. Same trainer, too. I see him more than I see most of my friends, and it’s a relatively pleasant way to suffer twice a week.
It’s a habit. When I travel, and miss more than a couple of workouts, I get uncomfortable… and I like that. I’m more uncomfortable NOT working out, than going through the hassle of actually working out.
I’m in that groove where I crave the burn. Nice.
It’s a drag getting in shape, especially after a few years of slacking. It hurts, it’s annoying, and I don’t wanna have to do it. Been there, done that.
But once you’re there, it’s easy to see the benefits. Obvious health, energy and well-being advantages up the yin-yang, in fact.
Last time I was out-of-shape, I had chronic back pain, I strained muscles easily, and I had the energy level of a wounded slug.
Still, I have to gear up to attack each workout, week after week. I resent the time it takes to get to the gym, I resent having to change clothes, I resent gasping for air during aerobic training… I’m just a resentful pig all the way around.
But it’s a habit now. I don’t have to rearrange my day to workout — the scheduled workouts are already there, built-in, week after week. I plan biz stuff around them, and it’s EASY. Once you’re in the habit, and you make it a priority.
And that small victory — just showing up for my workouts regularly and grunting through them without thought of quitting — gives me a foundation to build other victories.
There’s an old standard goal I used to put on my weekly list I called “The Nasty Bit”. My task was — every time I sat at my desk to start my workday — to choose the ONE thing I really, really, really did NOT want to do… and then do that first.
Usually, it was a phone call fraught with dread. Or reading some long, dull report for a client. Or finalizing the death knell for a relationship.
Neurosis, basically, is the built-up mire of ignored tasks. If you have a problem in life, then you have a task: Face that problem, and resolve it (even if resolution simply means making your peace with it).
You do that, you get to move on. There will be new problems, new tasks, and more down the line when you plow through those. But you will be moving… and gaining strength as you roll.
If you don’t engage the task laid out for you… then the problem festers, and the lack of resolution creates an anchor around your soul.
You stop moving. Instead of engaging life’s new problems, you are stuck in neutral, unable to leave the rut that gets deeper each day you ignore your duty.
And it IS a duty. You have the option of crawling into a rut and going to sleep for the rest of your days, just like the zombie hordes that stumble around you. It’s a tempting decision, because it’s “easy” (if you can live with the self-loathing shame) (which an alarming number of people seem content to do).
So here’s the bottom line: Attaining happiness isn’t easy.
It’s a task, just like potty training. Do it, move on, engage life fully. Don’t do it, and… well, you get the picture.
What I’m saying is that the goal of goal setting… is to get good at attaining goals. Not just having them… but attaining them. Mastering difficult tasks, embracing the joy of victory… and then asking for more.
The small victory of attaining your goal — of either establishing a new, “good” habit, or ditching a “bad” one — is very much like that first step on a fresh path that leads to exciting places.
So… how’re you doing with your 21-challenge?
Stay frosty,
John Carlton
www.carltoncoaching.com
Sunday, 6:23pm
Reno, NV
The street’s become one big damn dirt-flavored slushie…
Howdy…
Hey — great job on the stories, guys (and gals).
I just grabbed a few, totally at random, for comment here:
Ian, one of the last to post, nailed it. As a dog lover, I laughed out loud about his short, vivid tale of the dog who didn’t know what to do with the squirrel — after a lifetime of chasing them, she’d never caught one before. And so it got away.
Weak segue into a product, but definitely the right idea. Nice work, Ian.
Karen, Dean, Jason — nice work. Especially Karen — vivid, funny, poignant finish.
Bill went long with his story about slacking his way into college while his poor brother struggled for good grades and failed… but it’s just damn good storytelling. Human interest, compelling narrative, an opening wide enough to begin a truly killer sales pitch. Kudos.
There were two very short posts, by Kris and Udo, that illustrate the lesson. I suggest everyone dig in and read them.
Kris relayed the old “3 men went out, only 2 came back” saw. I appreciate the thinking behind it, but it’s not a story. An opening line for a story, perhaps…but it’s totally unmoored, with no plot elements, no punch line, no action.
This is best illustrated by Udo’s submission about the 300 Trojans stopping 200,000 at Thermopylae (subject of the recent movie based on Frank Miller’s graphic novel), coupled with the modern idea of a single “Trojan” now stopping half a million. I’ll let you, the reader, fill in the details… but I “got” it immediately. Maybe a little too cute, but good — set up, plot elements, coy twist, punch line.
Two extremely sparse submissions, both trying for pithy delivery. One connected, the other fell into the trap of not completing the process of set-up/action/punch-line.
This is not a knock on you, Kris. Thousands of people read this blog, and you had the guts to sit down and give the task a whirl. You are already ahead of everyone else who didn’t lock into “think hard” mode… and your next effort (if you take the lesson to heart) will put you even further ahead.
This is how writers get good.
I’ve been studying writing since I was a kid (when I tried to figure out how Bradbury and Asimov were able to suck me into their novellas). And, as an adult, I’ve dug deep into the “art”, shelling out big bucks to attend fancy-ass writer’s workshops in various states (like the famous annual events in Swannee, TN, and Squaw Valley, CA).
And I discovered two very important things:
1) Writer’s write. It’s that simple.
Almost every accomplished writer I have ever met started out struggling…. and even after becoming successful, continued to drive to get even better.
Not a single one was “born” into it. Their early stories were garbled garbage… but they kept after it, learning the craft by making mistakes, and then absorbing the lesson.
2) Most of the people running around those workshops were not writers… nor did they ever intend to become one.
No. They shelled out the thousands and thousands of bucks required to attend these week-long workshops… because they wanted to have already written something, and enjoy the imagined self-respect and glory of “being” a writer.
The one thing they had in common: They seldom actually sat down and wrote.
They complained of “writer’s block” (which doesn’t exist), they knew how to talk a good game, they even set up meetings with publishers.
But since the only way to get a book written is to… um, excuse me if I shock you here… is to WRITE IT, these pathetic wannabe’s were just shit outa luck in their desire to be seen as writers.
They are the worst kind of poseur. (Unfortunately, the workshops can’t survive without them. The “real” writers — a definite, tiny minority — need the wannabe’s to fund the events.) (Though, after attending five or six, I’ve concluded they’re mostly a waste of time. If you want to become a writer, write. And find successful writers to study. Oh, and take advantage of free blogs like this one.)
I’m relaying this tale specifically because many people who posted their stories here did something that a HUGE part of the population simply cannot bring themselves to do: Face the blank screen, and then write.
For every marketer out there writing his own copy — and learning from his mistakes and testing and inter-acting with guys like me — there are a hundred more who are frozen just by the thought of putting their fingers on a keyboard and engaging their brains.
The invention of email — which wasn’t all that long ago — has been a godsend for many people… simply because it forces you to grab a coherent thought, wiggle it down through your body from brain to fingers, and type it out.
I’m sure you’ve experienced this same situation: My father (who, at 86, may be one of the oldest dudes alive who knows how to surf online), at first could barely peck out a single sentence in an email. He was so terse, it was hardly communication at all.
Quickly, however, by repetition, he got the hang of it. And now pens emails easily and unself-consciously.
He got better… by doing it.
Believe it or not… the essentials of killer storytelling require nothing more than the few specifics I handed out in the past few blog posts… combined with your continued effort to see the world around you, and translate it into a pithy, concise, well-told tale that meets the simple requirements of set-up/action/punch line.
If you’re doing it badly now, you soon won’t be. Just keep after it.
Now…
Here’s another challenge for y’all.
It ties in neatly with the idea of keeping after it.
Harken: Most folks know the “science” behind forming a habit.
I can’t quote you the research, but the standard anecdote is that it takes 21 days to create a habit… whether it’s a good habit, or a bad one.
You gotta get up every day, for three weeks in a row, uninterrupted… and do your thing in a proscribed way that eventually gets set into muscle memory and into your brain.
The bad habits are easy.
The good ones… not so much.
My trainer, Bryan, reminded of how important it is to focus on creating good habits last week. He’s forcing all his clients — he’s a sadist, the man is — to think about a good habit they want to cultivate… and he’s not shutting up about it once you make the committment.
This is great stuff.
Think how quickly your life could change if you had a slave standing behind you at your desk… and every time you did whatever it is you’re trying to change (like slouching in your chair, or obsessively checking email, or downloading porn) the slave would whack you upside the head until you stopped.
Well, what Bryan’s doing is pretty close. I see him three times a week for punishment (okay, for a workout)… and he is relentless about getting into my face about my goals.
Heck — I PAY him to do this to me.
I highly recommend it.
But even if you’re on your own right now… the whole 21-day challenge thing is worthwhile.
Just pick a single good habit you want to instill. And use the next 3 weeks as your “forge” to make it stick.
At the recent Altitude “check up” event, there were dozens of rich marketers who talked about this very thing — changing your life in increments, habit by habit. (The necessity for “being a good animal” ranks up there with “earn another million bucks” for the most successful guys in the game. Often enough, it ranks even higher.)
What could you accomplish in your life by, say… getting up an hour earlier every day?
Or forming a morning ritual that allows you to efficiently meet the day pumped full of good nutrients, clean, alert and already exercised?
Or setting up a single day each week to take the phone off the hook, and just write all day long without interruption?
Or, heck, even the old standby’s: Is it time to quit smoking? Time to get serious about mentoring your kids? Time to start reading a novel every month?
As humans, we are all woefully inept at creating our “movies” in any perfect way. I would never strive for perfection, anyway — sounds boring to me.
Still, there are ways I want to live that I cannot access until I create better habits. Incremental changes, made permanent, can quickly form the foundation for amazing transformation.
I’ll tell you what my little 21-day challenge is. I’m addicted to carbohydrates — bread, cereal, chips, all that good stuff. And so, despite being in excellent over-all shape and health (cuz, you know, I work out)… my cholesterol isn’t cooperating.
So I’m simply jettisoning all the crap from my diet. (The beer stays, though. I’m not a monk.)
It’s not tough. I’ve done it before. In fact, last year I got into the habit of NOT eating so many carbs… but over the holidays, I dedicated myself to perversely destroying that habit.
Such is life. Constant vigilance is required.
However, without an actual deadline, it might take me years to even attempt to readjust my diet. (I swear, I bought a big damn bag of tortilla chips in a trance last week. I told myself “Don’t do it, man” as I watched my hand reach out and toss the bag into the grocery cart. Carbs are great zombie fuel.)
So here I am, a week into it. And already thinking twice every time I walk into the kitchen. And just waving hello to the Cheeto’s at the deli when I grab a sandwich, and not buying them.
Because I set a simple, very reachable goal: Just do it for 21 days, and see what happens.
It’s cheating, of course. I know full well that, after 21 days, I will have replaced the old habits with a new one: Eating healthy.
So…
Wanna come along?
Pick a goal. For the next 21 days, engage in your chosen new behavior. Just 3 short weeks.
A cakewalk. (Unless it’s cake you’re trying to get away from.)
If you’ve done this before, then you know how powerful it is. If you’ve never done it, you’re in for a treat.
Start simple, if you like. Take a long walk every day. Start brushing your teeth more effectively. Meditate for twenty minutes in the afternoon. Be nice to your mate, no matter how aggravating they are to you.
Or… keep a journal, and every evening, write down a short story of what you observed during your day. Take ten minutes, and tell yourself a little tale.
Heck… post your new goal here in the comments section, if you like. It’ll be there for God and everybody to see… and that will help you breeze through the 3 weeks.
Twenty-one days is not an eternity (unless you’re quitting smoking, which is one of those big damn deal goals) (which you need to get to at some point).
It goes quick. (Think back to your New Year’s Even celebrating. That was FOUR weeks ago. A mere blink.)
And, at the end of your 21 days, you’ll have your new good habit.
C’mon, let us know what you’re eager to instill. We all need good ideas for the next challenge, you know. And I’ll remind you, each time I blog, about it. I’ll keep you aprised of my progress, and you can post yours.
This could be the year for you. The big breakthrough year, where it all comes together.
And it can start with just a little focus and dedication to change…
Don’t be a putz. Let’s change things around…
Stay frosty,
John Carlton
P.S. Speaking of turning things around, the Simple Writing System has changed the life of thousands of marketers, business owners and copywriters and has helped launch countless careers.
Could it do the same for you?
It wouldn’t hurt to check things out now, would it?
Thursday, 5:34pm
Reno, NV
Okay, I’m tired of snow now…
Howdy…
Let’s take a deep dive into storytelling, what d’ya say?
And, if you’re still up for it, let’s do another exercise to get our chops honed to dangerous “street-wise salesmanship” levels.
If your final goal is to sell stuff, then you need to be able to bring your story home to a reader.
And before anyone starts huffing about how “crass” that sounds, let’s get straight on something right here:
Most of the stories in our modern culture are about selling.
Movies sell stars, and sell themselves.
Television stories are just attention place-holders for commercials. (You think actors get the big bucks because they’re “good”? No way. It’s because they connect with a paying audience. Bob Hope was one of the richest actors to hit the stage, and he never even tried to “really” act — he just goofed his way through a stunningly-lucrative career. But people identified with him, and he cashed in on that identity.)
If you think stories should be “pure”, then move away from society.
Even your weird Uncle Whazoo has an agenda with most of his stories.
He wants attention, he wants to shock and entertain, or maybe he just feels family gatherings would kill the young-un’s with boredom if he didn’t retell the adventure behind his filthy hula dancer tatoo.
So, just to refresh: If you offer something that your prospect needs or wants… then shame on you if you don’t use every tactic available to get your sales message across so the poor guy can justify buying it.
And stories are a killer way to set that situation up.
Okay?
Okay.
So… back to the lesson.
Limiting your stories to just 3 lines will help you become more concise.
Even the most rollicking tale can put people to sleep if it’s too long, and has too many tangents.
And most people are not natural storytellers… so they ramble off on quirky paths, repeating themselves, unable to clearly explain plots, and bombarding the listener with irrelevant bullshit.
↓ Like this: ↓
“Did I tell you about the UFO that attacked us? No? It was Tuesday last week… no, wait, it was Wednesday. Yeah, it must have been Wednesday, because I was headed to IHOP to meet Suzy for waffles — you know they have specials every Wednesday, don’t you…”
↑ That there is how people get strangled.↑
In my long experience trying to force people to tell better stories, the first task is nearly always trimming the excess verbiage and fluff.
The outline to follow is:
- Set up (the tease of the payoff to come)
- Plot elements… action (the fulfillment of the tease)…
- The moral. Which doesn’t have to actually be “moral” in any righteous sense — it’s just the punch line of the story.
You have a reason to tell your story. It could vary from pure entertainment, to pure desire to sell lots of stuff.
When you’re done, you want your listener or reader to FEEL something.
- Happiness (aww, the puppy got rescued)…
- Alarm (my God, I’m gonna keep a loaded gun by my bedside from here on out)…
- Astonishment (my neighbors are doing what at night?)…
- Or, yes, even greed (hey! I want that kind of deal, too!)
To be more biological about it… the process can also be described like this: Foreplay… climax… resolution.
Stories, like sex, benefit from a focus on the goal. The less extraneous interruption, the better.
In other words: It’s not about you at all, even if you’re the star of the story.
Rollicking stories are always about your reader.
Do you really want to master the ability to tell stories that sell? It’s way more fun than writing about features all day, and more profitable. That’s why I devoted an entire lesson to the topic in the Simple Writing System. Get all the details right here.
Ideally, your reader will “see” himself in your story. Or feel like he’s temporarily “in” the world you create with your words.
Have you ever read a story to a kid? Once they get the taste for it, just saying “Once upon a time…” will glaze their eyes over, as they eagerly prepare themselves to be transported to a world far different than their own.
(Side rant: I think it’s a friggin’ travesty that kids today are being shielded from the violence and chaotic messages of such wild tales as the Brothers Grimm laid out. I had zero idea what life was like in the Middle Ages, but I readily suspended all disbelief because I craved the story so badly. If everyone was wearing lederhosen and eating gruel — whatever that was — then fine. Just make sure the wicked witch or headless horseman scared the bejesus out of me.) (And I grew up fine. The real world, and all the people in it, is not some Kumbaya fantasy… and the often morbid lessons of classic children’s tales are damn good preparation for living amonst the deceit, the unfairness, the unpredictability, and the raw unbridled terror of reality. So there.)
This concept of “transporting” is critical, by the way.
You’re driving the story, and it’s your responsibility to keep it on the road. Your reader will abandon you at the first hint you don’t know where we’re going… and he’ll despise you for getting his hopes up for a good tale, if you then dash them with a feeble punch line.
That’s why striving for pithy, concise stories is so important for writers. Set up… action… punch line.
This 3-line classic is one of the best:
“I’ve been poor. And I’ve been rich. Rich is better.”
No need for any other detail. In this example, the words “rich” and “poor” are Power Words.
They carry their own payload of emotional backstory with them, because in this context nearly everyone will have a feeling about the concept of being rich, and a feeling (probably very personal and visceral) about being poor.
No one needs a long-winded rant about HOW poor you were, or HOW rich you were.
Concise, memorable stories pack a punch.
Even better, there is a segue into the life of the reader in that 3-line beauty. “Rich is better” may seem like an obvious statement, but coupled with the set-up lines, it delivers a strong message that smacks of truth.
Now, the classical “rags to riches” sales pitch requires more detail, of course. But not so much that you lose the flow of a quick story, told with feeling, ripe with implications for the reader.
However, good ad copy doesn’t rest on implications.
It’s got to move quickly to specifics.
So here’s a simple tactic from my Bag of Tricks that has helped me bring many a story “home” to readers:
- First, you tell your story, and you aim for the kind of breathless prose that makes your prospect afraid to exhale, for fear of missing a delicious detail.
- Then, you tidy it up. Deliver the punch line, or the moral, or just the ending. Don’t try any clever transitions back into your sales pitch.
Instead, you merely say:
“And here’s what that means for YOU…”
When reading fables to kids, any such attempt to explain the moral would ruin the transcendant pleasure of listening to stories. Ideally, you’d want the end of the story to rattle around in their heads, while they mulled over the ethical implications and came up with their own (right) conclusion. (Kids hate it when adults wag fingers and try to force lessons on them.)
But when writing to adults, you can’t assume anything.
Adults are so numb to incoming data, they will suck up even a great story, absorb it, and move on to the next volley of arriving stimuli without coming to any conclusion whatsoever.
So, as the copywriter, it’s your job to complete the thought.
Not in any condescending way, of course. You just continue the thread, going deeper into your sales message.
“I’ve been poor. And I’ve been rich. Rich is better. And here’s what that means for you:”
“You can continue on with your life believing that ‘money can’t buy happiness’ if that makes you feel better… but I’m here to tell you that having a pile of extra cash is actually a fabulous feeling… and your life will get better almost immediately. Plus, since I’ve already done the hard work of going from clean broke to filthy rich, I know all the shortcuts… and I’ll share them with you…“
Et cetera.
Ready for your assignment?
Tell a short, 3-line story (using the concept of set up, plot, action and punch line)… and then write a one or two line segue bringing your story home to your reader.
You’re allowed to be non-sensical for this exercise. In other words, you don’t actually have to be selling anything. You can make it all up.
Just think — really, really hard — about how the moral or punch line of your story MIGHT lead to a sales message.
(Another side rant: If you read all the stories in the comments section of my previous posts, you probably noticed the frequency of “we met, we kissed, something went wrong” stories in the submission pile. That’s great — to get good at story telling, you first want to practice (a LOT) with telling tales that have emotional impact or meaning to you. Everyone remembers their first legitimate kiss. (Those sloppy pecks from Auntie Mame don’t count./End rant)
Most people’s stories tend to be pretty typical, but if they’re told right, they can still be funny, or shocking, or even corny in a way that gets the reader nodding in agreement.
And while it may not seem obvious that you could possibly sell anything, after sharing the humorous story of your first fumbling efforts at romance in junior high… just reflect on all the commercials and ads you’ve seen that blatantly couple sex and product.
Heck, they sell laundry detergent with sex.
And while Warren Buffett might put you to sleep with his theories on compound interest, a real entrepreneur would explain the exact same concept from the deck of his yacht, surrounded by bikini-clad beauties. And get more attention, too.
Be concise, and bring it home to the reader.
You cannot “fail” at this exercise, because you’re just warming up your chops.
And, as a number of commenters noted, these are MEGA-important exercises if you want to get good. You COULD have been honing your storytelling chops all along, every day of your life. But you didn’t, did you.
Because no one challenged you to do it.
So, here is an excuse to engage that scary brain of yours, and force it to work for you, for once.
You don’t learn to ride without hopping into the saddle. And it’s okay to fall off, as long as you climb back on.
Stay frosty…
John Carlton
P.S. Stories sell. It’s just that simple… That’s why honing your storytelling chops can change the game for anyone who is an entrepreneur or copywriter…
You’ll find a lot more about storytelling and other pro copywriting tactics here…
