Thursday, 10:54pm
Reno, NV
Howdy…
I was gonna write this post last week, but I put it off and forgot about it.
Okay, that’s a bad joke.
But it could have been the truth. Humans have a lot of belligerent, wicked-clever demons lurking inside… and procrastination is one of the nastiest.
Often, during one of my ridiculously expensive consultations, I’ll hear all kinds of excuses from the client concering why he can’t “get” anywhere in business.
Disorganization and time management get the blame a lot… but really, I know it’s nearly always just a virulent case of procrastination.
Oh, it’s bad stuff. People have all kind of different names for it — writer’s block, stress-induced catatonia, frozen nerves, lack of inspiration…
But it all really just comes down to being a lazy S.O.B.
We choose to Read more...
Sunday, 8:06pm
Reno, NV
Howdy…
Let’s talk about boozing it up, shall we?
I mean, tomorrow is Amateur Drunk Night, after all. The streets will be an obstacle course of big damn SUVs and expensive sedans driven by people who have just discovered — just tonight, at the big New Year’s Eve party — that they love Irish whiskey or Mai Tais or Mad Dog 20-20 or whatever… and look! it doesn’t affect their ability to drive even one li’l teensy li’l tiny bit, buddy, and whadya gon’ do ‘bou it, huh, mishter? Shime da bescht der-river inna worl! Hey! Where’d da tree come fum, huh? He he he he…
Don’t do it, man.
Don’t drink and drive. And don’t even drink a lot, if you’re not used to it.
Especially if you’re around friends or co-workers.
Bad, nasty, evil mis-adventures will befall you, and haunt you for decades.
I know.
I’ve been there.
And no, I’m not gonna Read more…
Thursday, 10:15am
Reno, NV
Howdy…
Sometimes marketers like to pretend they exist outside the “real” world of politics, war and social upheaval.
This attitude is especially evident in certain commercials and ad-heavy publications that reveal a thick-headed cluelessness about life outside the box of privilege. In the past months, I’ve seen TV ads mimicking revolution in the street for a frivolous product… and read articles on celebrities that used references to famine and actual murder cases, trying to be ironic and hip.
These efforts are clunky and embarrassing. Yet, they never abate. (Mind you, I adore irreverent humor and M*A*S*H-style commentary… but you can’t accomplish this kind of wit from the sidelines. Cluelessness makes knowledgeable people cringe.)
I first noticed this disconnect between pain and fun as a teenager waiting for my draft notice during the Vietnam war. The evening news was dominated by combat zone film bringing the war right into America’s homes (something The Man has since realized should never happen again, if he wants to continue blowing people up for vague and unsupportable campaigns)… so for half an hour between typical fluff like “The Beverly Hillbillies” and “Gilligan’s Island”, we were treated to glimpses of Hell, half a world away. Guys just a few months older than me crouched behind shattered walls, bullets zinging into the stucco while swaying palm trees burned under distant napalm assaults. And the wounded were evacuated, swathed in bloody bandages, the stretcher-bearers ducking and weaving.
And then, during the break, here comes this bright and cheerful commercial for laundry soap… with a pretty housewife flying a WWI-era bi-plane, dropping tablets like bombs from the sky. The slogan — and all TV ads back then were centered on slogans — was some bullshit reference to “blowing up” germs in your dirty clothes with this new, improved way of keeping your family clean.
Seconds away from the grime and gore of a real battlefield, here’s Read more…
Thursday, 7:54pm
Reno, NV
Howdy…
A colleague of mine recently shared an interesting tactic for instantly increasing cash flow.
It’s very low tech.
It’s the phone. And no, it’s not telemarketing.
Here’s what he did: During an afternoon lull in the workday not too long ago, my friend (let’s call him “Joe”) realized he had nothing urgent on his plate that required immediate attention.
So he picked up the phone and called a long-time customer who he’d been playing phone tag with over some minor matter. It was a “B” list kinda task.
During the chat that ensued, however, Joe happened to mention another project he was involved in… and his client expressed immediate interest.
Joe wasn’t pitching the event. Just bringing it up in conversation.
But it triggered a sale.
Interesting.
Very interesting.
So Joe made another call, out of the blue, to another long-time customer… and after some brief small talk, brought up the project. That client, too, wanted in, at full price.
No pitch. No hard sell.
Just a casual mention of something coming up.
Joe sat back and considered things. Both of these clients should have already heard about this project… and should have had ample opportunity to sign up previously. There had been email, direct mail, blog postings, etc.
In fact, before the phone calls, Joe had taken it for granted that all his best clients had of course already heard about this upcoming project. He was very thorough with his marketing.
But no. The project hadn’t entered their attention span. Until he brought it up in a friendly phone call.
Hmmm.
So Joe picked up the phone again…
Long story short… Joe spent the next couple of hours calling random numbers on his “hot list” of best customers… and grossed something like $51,000 Read more…
Thursday, 12:02am
Reno, NV
Howdy…
How would you like to frustrate the hell out of all your competitors… and get so good at sales that people start believing you’ve made a pact with the Devil?
Okay, that’s too many satanic references in one sentence. (Though Frank Kern would dig it.)
But the analogy holds, once you learn this one simple salesman’s tactic I’m about to share with you. Other biz owners will swear at you, and fresh customers will swear in appreciation of your Read more...
Sunday, 5:49pm
Reno, NV
Howdy…
One of my favorite hobbies is to go into stores and be insulted by clueless sales staff.
It used to offend me… until I realized all the really good marketing lessons inherent in every face-to-face encounter with anyone selling anything. (One of the coolest taxi rides I ever took was in Vegas, many moons ago, when the driver spent twenty minutes trying to pimp out his personal line-up of hookers. He used every salesman’s trick possible — including take-aways, upsells, cross-sells, urgency, guarantees and special offers. I actually took notes.) (And no, I didn’t become a customer. Shame on you for thinking so ill of me.)
For online marketers, the offline sales encounter might not seem relevant, but it is.
Your ad is your salesman, and your ordering process is your checkout experience.
All the things that can go wrong in the store, can and do go wrong in the online virtual sale process.
Quick example: I’ve been hot to get a Nintendo Wii gaming console since, oh, about five minutes after the product was announced last year. (I’ve been a gamer longer than you, and I don’t care how old you are. Back inRead more…
From: Reno, NV
Thursday night, 9:26pm
Subject: Going off on The Man, Part II
Howdy…
One of the talents I’m most proud of is my knack for naming stuff.
I’m good at it because I love all forms of language, and I’m not afraid of mixing up forbidden slang with fifty-cent words to arrive at something fresh and compelling.
I could, for example, have called my first course “A Really Good Tutorial on Creating Ads” and written it in proper English … and it would have promptly (and justifiably) sank to the bottom of the barrel of courses on advertising.
Fortunately, I eschewed mediocrity and — instead — went for the jugular.
And the slang-ridden, take-no-prisoners course I did write — “Kick-Ass Copywriting Secrets of a Marketing Rebel” — hit a nerve among entrepreneurs and small biz owners world-wide.
The lesson: Words matter.
Never confuse “smart sounding speech” with real Read more…
Howdy.
I just fielded a GREAT question in the Marketing Rebel Radio Rant coaching club Forum… and I liked my answer so much, I decided to share it here with everyone else. (It’s an excellent “taste” of the quality of info/advice/insight you get in that club, too.)
One of the “forum rats”, as we affectionately refer to each other, posted the question that is on the mind of most business owners’ when they first encounter the concept of “learning” to write their own copy.
Essentially, that question is this: “Really, why should I bother to learn the skills of writing copy at all?
When you look around at the mega-wealthy, they OWN things and manage from the top.
Like a crime boss. They want someone hit, they send out Guido.
Hard to imagine Donald Trump chewing a pencil, coming up with a dozen new headlines.
So… why bother to learn copy, if your dreams are big? Wouldn’t that time be better spent playing Monopoly-style biz boss, amassing property and holdings and moving and shaking?
And just hire the best writers to do your copywriting work?”
And here is my answer:
You ask a very good question. It’s so good, in fact, that it mimics exactly how I’ve been postioning my copywriting course lately in seminars.
My general message is this: Sure, you can (and probably will, in some cases) end up hiring writers to do the bulk of the writing for you as you grow your biz.
However, just as a crime boss hires hit men to do the dirty work… chances are, the boss still knows HOW to do the hit himself… and probably spent mucho time in his “rise to power” days actually doing just that. (Very Shakespearean, these modern crime lords.)
Same with biz.
ALL the top multi-millionaire marketers I know — from Jay Abraham to Dan Kennedy, from Eben Pagan to Frank Kern, from Rich Schefren to Mike Filsaime — know how to write killer copy.
And, for the most part, they still handle the important jobs themselves. Even though they may hire out the less-than-critical projects. (Eben — who will gross tens of millions this year — recently spent weeks sequestered, alone, in his home office pounding out copy for his recent launch. Wrote every word himself.)
The reason for this is fundamental: If you don’t know how to write good copy, how will you be able to JUDGE whether whoever you hire has done a good job?
If you are clueless, you’ll be at the mercy of your freelancers. You won’t understand what’s needed, you won’t know if the copy submitted is any good, you won’t be able to set real deadlines… you’re just a babe in the woods, vulnerable and potential lunch for every predator who catches your scent. (And even good, ethical writers will take advantage of you, because it’s so easy. Never forget that the writer/client relationship is inherently hostile — each person wants the best deal for themselves, and wants to do as little work/pay as little money for the process as possible. It’s the nature of the world.)
Just like a crime boss who has no idea how hits happen. The freelance killers he hires (if they know he’s clueless) will jack him around, take forever, botch the job, etc. It’s the stuff that built the Sopranos lore. Remember: Tony did his own hits, when he wanted it done right. (Like offing his cousin.)
There is NO other skill in biz more important than writing copy.
Period.
Show me a CEO who doesn’t understand advertising (which is built around the copy), and I’ll show you a screw-up about to tank the stock. He may get the recognition, but he’s utterly dependent on whoever he has doing the actual marketing… and his entire existence rests on the competence/incompetence of that hired dude behind the scenes.
Shudders all around. Sleepless nights. Ulcers and early death.
But hey — he didn’t “waste” any valuable time learning how to write copy.
Same with politics. The guys who rock as politicians write most or all of their own speeches. The hacks hire it out, oblivious of how embarrassing and exposed they become when their ghost writers put the wrong words in their mouths. (Plus, they get that “deer in the headlights” look whenever they face the press without a script.)
You ever see an actor on his own in an interview? Fielding tough, unexpected questions, they reveal that they are not even close to being as witty, or charming, or smart as the characters they play.
The power of writing has never been proven more important than the way network and cable television has nearly shut down entirely due to the current writer’s strike. Leno, Letterman, Stewart, Colbert, et al, are funny dudes… but they rely on writers to provide the bulk of their show’s wit. (Slight twist here: All those guys COULD write their own stuff, if they had the time, though. They are all seething bastards when it comes to judging the quality of their hired writers, because they know what they want. Thus, they produce high-end shows that rock. But pay attention: During free-form interviews, they are on their own, and they’re “writing” their own witty, funny stuff AS THEY TALK. This, too, is writing copy, even though there’s no typing involved. When you understand HOW to write what you need, you eventually get good enough to write it in your head as you talk. You become a living, breathing copy-producing monster.)
No copy, no action. It really is that simple.
Operation MoneySuck demands that you spend your precious (and very limited) time honing your most important chops. And yes, amassing the outside fortifications of larger and more efficient businesses is important… but they will crumble without the foundational support of killer copy. (All the largest mailers in the world — Rodale, Phillips, Agora — were started by people who understood and wrote copy. Some have stumbled along the way, whenever non-writers gained control and lost sight of basic salesmanship. Great lesson there.)
Copy is salesmanship-in-print. Selling is what you do. The largest and most efficient business is just an empty shell if it cannot sell what it produces.
Learn the craft.
Stay frosty.
John Carlton
www.carltoncoaching.com
P.S. One last point: The idea that you can just hire the “best” writers to do your copy has a big hole in it.
Why?
Because, the “A List” of top writers is only around two-dozen names long. And they are all pretty much booked through eternity. No amount of moolah can get them to write for you, until you start offering partner-sized equity in your biz.
The “B List” of writers are also booked solid, most of the time. If you intend to pay for your most important copy, you may as well hook up an umbilical cord from the writer to your bank account… because you’re gonna pay a LOT (even if you can’t find an “A List” writer to do your job).
Worse — there’s a mob of untested, unproven, and weak-skilled freelancers out there masquerading as grizzled professionals… charging huge bucks to write lame-ass copy.
So you can’t tell from their fees how good they are.
You can shell out gold for peanuts… unless you know how to judge good copy.
The only way to do that: Learn the craft.
Don’t make me come down there…
News flash: If you are neither on, nor in need of, attention-deficit medication… you’re probably at a serious disadvantage marketing your business online.
I’m not judging anyone here — I’m just making an observation.
A few weeks ago, I was sitting at a big sloppy banquet hosted by one of the top online entrepreneurs. Very nice restaurant, and we had a back room all to ourselves.
Seated around me were a dozen other rich, respected online entrepreneurs — mostly men in their thirties, and one or two women in the same age group. Everywhere you turned, there was another fun and invigorating conversation going on.
I really like my colleagues in the online marketing world. And I appreciate the fact that, while I’m much older (and I’ve been around the block about a thousand more times), we all have so much in common that we treat each other like equals.
Which mostly means we engage freely in totally uncensored conversations that are hilarious, revealing, and often amazingly profitable.
At this particular dinner, however, I had a sudden realization… and was able to field-test it immediately with the people sitting around me.
That realization was this: While we have much in common as marketers and advertisers and just being cutting-edge creative types… we ALSO share another trait that I almost NEVER used to see in the pre-Web days of direct response advertising.
Once I tell you what this trait is, it will seem obvious.
But few of us have ever put a finger on it before.
Wanna guess what this trait is that so many online entrepreneurs share?
It’s…
… being a misfit.
And not just a run-of-the-mill misfit, either.
I started asking my table-mates, point blank, if they had ever been diagnosed with ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder), OCD (obsessive/compulsive disorder), or any of the other less common “social outsider” categories that doctors seem to love using to catalog people.
Everyone started sharing their private histories… and it was eye-opening.
I’m not gonna name names here. (Insiders will probably be able to guess who I’m talking about… but then, they probably also share the same diagnosis.)
I just think this is an important insight to online marketing success.
There were brilliant people at this table… and at least one honest genius, IQ-wise. There were technical wizards, stunningly talented thinkers, writers with breathtaking talent, and lots of super-savvy guys who had learned to “game” the online system so massive quantities of moolah flowed in their direction.
Often with little extra work.
And yet, in the offline world, nearly all of them would be STRUGGLING to hold down a regular job… or, in some cases, possibly forced out of “polite” socieity altogether.
These people were misfits. Literally, they didn’t FIT in the mainstream world very well at all.
Some of the brightest ones had common memories of being forced into “special needs” classes in school. Many were dropouts, because their intelligence was overlooked and understimulated.
For the ones who were most successful… the birth of the Web presented SALVATION.
Many started online as gamers — staying up late (or for days at a time) dodging dragons and shooting aliens, sharing the new fantasy worlds with an ever-growing community of other misfits. They got to know each other, started exploring the capitalist possibilities of the Web, and traded in games for marketing.
While the Web frightened and confused traditional businesses, these younger guys were fearless about code, software, building sites and everything else in the new virtual world-wide city center.
I got into freelance copywriting because I was a notoriously bad fit in the corporate world. I can’t stand wearing ties (they literally chafe my neck), and I’m a flagrant night owl — which, I have now discovered, is something else I share with many of the best online entrepreneurs out there.
As far as I know, I do not have any attention deficit problems… yet, I can enjoy long and chaotic conversations with the worst of them, and I even enjoy the non-linear thinking.
So, I dunno, maybe I’m ADHD, too. Can you have a mild case of it?
Actually, I kinda doubt it really exists. Getting to know these brilliant, wacky online entrepreneurs leads me to believe that — in the bad old pre-Web days — there simply wasn’t a place for them.
“Normal” society hates misfits, cuz we make uptight people uncomfortable. (I’ve been fired from almost every “real” job I’ve ever had.) (With good reason, too — I refused to play by stupid rules, and I still consider the REAL insane people to be the ones who surrender their individuality to The Man for a paycheck.)
The Web has nurtured a fabulous explosion of entrepreneurial opportunity… and now smart misfits can work their own hours, dressed however they like, from chaotic home offices, doing whatever funky project they dream up.
You can make your own rules, and change them daily. You can obsess to your heart’s content, or be as lazy and distracted as you like (once you’ve set your systems in place) and still rake it in.
The entire playing field has changed, drastically. In traditional corporate environments, the people who rise to positions of authority and power (and high salaries) are often the jerks who know how to play “the game” at work. Kiss ass, take credit for other people’s efforts, avoid responsibility for failure, stab co-workers in the back, etc.
The biz-as-usual soap opera.
Online, however, you’re essentially naked except for your brain. There’s no corporate game to play… and none of the skills that normally shoot a person up the ladder are relevant.
Online, being good looking, or suave, or a good worker, or even likeable won’t win you any victories.
Online, the misfits have the advantage. They can create their own attention paradigms, set their own standards, and take their biz directly to people who want what they offer… with nary an intervening newspaper, magazine, television standards and practices attorney, politician, store shelf position, billboard or sweet talking salesman to harsh anyone’s mellow.
I don’t know if anyone else has fully understood the implications here. Maybe I’m slow getting on the band wagon… but the other entrepreneurs I’ve talked to have all agreed that no one’s really noticed how many true misfits there are at the top of the online world.
There’s room for everybody, of course.
But I think I now see why so many wannabe entrepreneurs I counsel are having trouble getting traction onine — they need to get in touch with their Inner Misfit.
It’s a brave new world… and I, for one, welcome it.
Misfits of the world, unite!
And stay frosty,
John Carlton
www.marketingreble.com
Bulletin from the powerful Altitude event in Los Angeles last week: Testing equals Big Bucks.
This shouldn’t be news, but it is for an alarming number of even veteran marketers. (I’ll certainly cop to being guilty of not testing anywhere near enough.)
The bottom line is that, at some point, you’ve got to step away from what you “believe” to be true about your market, your advertising, and your sales funnel… and test the critical parts of your pitch. Price, headline, bullets, voice, attitude, layout, guarantee, name capture, email follow-up, freebies, all of it.
The rewards of dedicated, focused and obsessive testing have never been made more obvious to me… than when, smack in the middle of the seminar, Eben asked the room how many people tested “regularly” on their Websites.
Bunch of folks raised their hands.
Then he asked how many tested EVERY DAY.
About half a dozen kept their hands up.
Then… and this is where it gets good… he asked each of the “every day testers” how much they were grossing.
Wow.
The low end take of that small group was over $12million/year. The mean average was over twenty million.
Moral: Testing rocks.
You will, of course, continue to do what you want to do. It’s your biz, after all.
However, you’ll never know how much moolah you’re leaving on the table until you test. And test often. And learn from your results.
Just a small tidbit from the vast mountain of stuff I learned (and re-learned) at the Altitude seminar. Eben really threw himself, and his entire organization, into making that event a shocking success… and you know you’ve done well when grizzled, cynical, “seen it all before” veterans like me give you an enthusiastic thumbs up.
Everyone I talked to — and the room was packed with movers and shakers — was ecstatic over the material presented and the opporunities offered.
Well done, Eben.
I’ll be synthisizing my notes over the next weeks, and sharing more soon.
My head is still buzzing from the overload of input…
Stay frosty,
John Carlton
www.marketingrebel.com
