Category Archives for Web 2.0
Cheeky Bastards
Tuesday, 12:20pm
Melbourne, Australia
“Buttula spruiks arrival of Spork at his new gig.” (Actual headline in last Thursday’s “The Australian” newspaper)
Howdy…
Reporting in from the fringes of the Outback…
… okay, I’m actually comfortably settled in an intriguing old hotel in Melbourne, nowhere near the Outback.
It still feels like I’m far from home, though.
Two weeks into this March Across Australia now, part of a bedraggled troupe of speakers, and I’m thrashed. Don’t get me wrong — this is a great country, and we’ve been warmly embraced by the locals and shown amazingly-generous hospitality daily.
It’s just a long damn trip… made longer by that nasty plate of deep-fried snapper I had Saturday night at what looked like a decent little upscale restaurant downtown. I forgot the old rule of traveling: Never eat stuff that arrives with the eyeballs still staring at you.
I deserved the ensuing bout of immune-system-destroying dysphoria, I suppose. Last December, in Dubai, a bunch of us sauntered down to the bad part of town to sample “native” fare the night before we spoke… and nothing happened. We gobbled questionable curries and unidentifiable chunks of stew, and lived to tell the tale.
Afterward, we all looked at each other and said “What have we done?”
For most of my life, I’ve had little angels (or maybe just confused demons, I dunno) looking out for me… so I somehow managed to stay one step ahead of the Federales in Mexico, just-missed by the would-be hit-and-run jalopy in Hollywood, and usually slightily out of reach of the snarling bugs everywhere else yearning for a vacation in my intestines. (To name a few examples out of many.)
So, this time I got caught. It’s not Oz’s fault. It’s all on me.
And, I’m recovering fairly quickly. We have a couple of days to dig deeper into Melbourne’s wonders (my second time in the city), and then travel to Brisbane for the final leg of this preposterous journey.
Seems like Sydney was a month ago.
So, anyway, I’m just checking in to let you know that I believe I’ve found the answer to the long suicidal swan dive that American newspapers are taking.
And it’s very simple: Read more…
The Big Lie
Monday, 10:45am
Sydney, Australia
Howdy…
Special guest-star post today… by my old buddy David Garfinkel (“Garf” to those us lucky enough to be close friends).
Garf has been my First Choice as “wingman” for the last half-dozen seminars I’ve given (including the Copywriting Sweatshops, the Hot Seat Marketing Makeovers, and particularly the Simple Writing System main event).
So, while I’m traipsing around Australia, scrambling to meet my seminar obligations while driving on the wrong side of the road in 3 major cities…
… I’ve asked Garf to write a guest post for y’all.
Without further ado… here ’tis:
Want To Know The Dark Secrets Behind Monster Success?
It’s Not Pretty.
By David Garfinkel
The Big Lie.
People say it different ways.
It usually starts out: “It must be nice to… “
And then they finish it with…
“… be born into a rich family.”
“… have such a natural talent.”
“… have genes that make you look like a god (goddess).”
And so on.
Well, part of it is true.
Some people are damned lucky. They don’t face the same struggles regular people do.
But an ugly and dangerous assumption lies underneath all of this.
You see the assumption played out in movies. In schoolrooms. In glossy magazine articles.
You hear it in the rumbling, grumbling soundtrack of your own subconscious mind. Hey, the powers that be have spent enough money, time, and effort spreading this Big Lie into the mass consciousness, everywhere you turn. Of course it’s going to be embedded in your deepest thoughts.
The assumption goes like this:Read more…
Yo, Aussies!
Thursday, 7:55pm
Reno, NV
“It was never part of our plans not to play well… it just happened that way.” (Ron Barassi, Hall O’ Fame footballer & Carlton coach)
G’day, mates.
In about 10 days, my biz partner Stan will morph into Road Dog Stan, and we’ll both be off to the Land Down Unda.
Three weekends, three cities, three seminars to speak at.
We fly into Sydney… will drive up to Melbourne (where my old pal Ed Dale has previously shown me the amazing hospitality Oz residents offer)…
… then fly up to Brisbane (“Brzbin” to locals, I hear).
I’m kinda freaked just listing it all out. Fortunately, Stan and I have left our womenfolk behind many times before to go trudging off like Victorian explorers… into the dense, scary jungles of Seminar Land.
Armed only with laptops, Powerpoint, iPhones, wireless cards, Kindles, iPods, Dopp kits and a wad of clothes stuffed into carry-ons.
I’m telling you, it’s almost barbaric, the way we have to live by our wits in luxury hotels and biz class jets.
I really empathize with Livingstone and Stanley. (Or was that Stanley and Oliver?)
We will be one step above subsistence on the Maslow scale.
So hey…Read more…
What's On Your Mind?
Thursday, 10:45pm
Reno, NV
“That is just too fuckin’ pretty to be real.” (Bob the drummer)
Howdy…
Sorry for the profanity in the above quote, but that’s what he said.
It was around 15 years ago, in the midst of my 3rd mid-life crisis.
I’d dropped out of advertising for a while — wasn’t sure how long I’d be floating, and gave no forwarding address to old clients — and was living off royalties and nurturing the power-trio rock band I’d formed over the prior months.
We were hanging out by the van — sober, if you must ask — after setting up in yet another filthy biker bar on one of the nastier streets in Reno, killing time until the joint filled up and we could start playing.
Mid-May here in the high desert — nestled in the bosom of the Sierra Nevadas, just below Lake Tahoe — can take your breath away.
The sun had just set, and the sky glowed with that special ambient dusk-glow that made the whole world seem like a dream from the bottom of the ocean.
We all stopped, mid-lies and mid-guffaws, and drank in that certain kind of alive-ness you can only access when you’re outside during the sun-to-stars changing of the guard.
Friday late afternoons have given me a visceral thrill since I was a kid. For most of the culture, it was time to wind down, go home and settle in for the evening. For the rest of us — the night owls and the rebels and the wayward uneasy souls — the day was just getting good.
So we remained silent for a long time, just gazing at the sky and enjoying being exactly where we were, about to do exactly what was coming up.
I won’t even try to describe the sky. Like I said — high desert, spring, mountain-filled horizons…
Bob the drummer broke the silence.
“That is just too fuckin’ pretty to be real,” he said.
And yet, there it was. As real as you or me.
I thought about that scene this afternoon as Michele and I roared down the highway to go grab some cheap Chinese food for dinner. We had the top down, and the gathering dusk swirled through the car and around my heart.
It might have been exactly this day in May, 15 years ago, that Bob said that.
But tonight, it feels like it was just minutes ago.
Why am I telling you this?
Because… Read more…
Myth Busting
Tuesday, 12:59pm
Reno, NV
“You’ll lose 20 pounds while you sleep!” (Go-straight-to-jail diet-ad lingo that nevertheless pops up every couple of years)
Howdy…
You know what?
I haven’t pissed anybody off in a while. So let’s see if we can’t rile up the mob a little bit, cause a little unrest in the ranks.
The best way to do this, of course, is to lift the blinders most people wear 24/7… and force them to face some uncomfortable truth or another.
Pop some bubbles. Expose the myths.
Oh, people HATE it when you harsh their zombie mellow… and snatch away their cuddly delusions.
Some may thank you later for the wake-up call. But most will snarl and bite, and rush back to the warm embrace of the dream they’ve languished in their entire life.
To be a great marketer, Read more…
New Digs. Same Landlord.
Thoirsday, 9:43pm Reno, NV “Ask not for whom the dog barks. It barks for thee.” (Motto on our doormat.)
Howdy.
And welcome to the new blog.
I’ve pretty much just moved in.
And, as you can see, we hauled every scrap of crap from the OLD blog over here, and dumped it willy-nilly all over the joint. Coming up on five freaking years of archives over there on the lower right.
You could get lost in that Basement Of Wonders.
Be careful… should you muster the courage to go rummaging. (I dare ya.)
Jeez. I must be one of the longest-tenured bloggers in Read more…
Hey, I Need Your Help Here…
Thursday, 8:25pm
Reno, NV
“What’s keeping YOU up at night?”
Howdy,
Quick post here, I swear.
I have a small problem…
… and I could sure use your help.
It’ll take you, like, two minutes or so.
And yet… it will be of tremendous value to me. If I’ve ever given you something of value before — a piece of advice, a tip, a hint on direction, a good belly laugh, whatever — then I’m calling in the chit.
I want you to comment here.
Here’s what’s up: Among smart marketers — those who have their money-making act together — my core message is a well-known commodity.
“Nothing good will ever happen in your biz… until the copy gets written. And… the best person to write the most important stuff… is you.”
This message is unquestioned among the top marketers I hang out with.
They even eagerly tell anyone who will listen, to listen to me.
Many of the best (like Eben Pagan, Frank Kern, Rich Schefren and others) almost never talk about copy without mentioning my impact on their own learning curves… and they help spread the message.
The heavy hitters all know — without a shred of doubt — that copywriting is the foundation of all things profitable in business.
But here’s the rub: Outside that group of “in-the-know” marketers…
… I often run into a brick wall trying to get entrepreneurs and biz owners to truly understand the importance of writing.
I feel like the first guy to see the aliens land in a sci-fi movie… and the townspeople all ignore my dire warnings of Armegeddon. They smile and nod, and agree that it certainly WOULD be nasty-bad if evil aliens were coming, but…
And their minds wander off in total distraction.
If you’re in business…
… and you’re ignoring the role of great copy in your quest for success and wealth (and your need to learn HOW to write that great copy)…
… then, like the oblivious townsfolk, you’re risking becoming TOAST.
Especially in the economic melt-down happening now.
It’s really pretty simple: Those who know how to write killer ads, emails, video scripts and everything else…
… are going to thrive.
And those who don’t…
… well, it ain’t pretty.
And that’s my dilemna: I’m very good at reaching the “insiders” in business. They immediately “get” how critical and how totally cool it is to know how to write sales copy.
As for the people who are “un-initiated” in direct response?
Not so much.
The message seems to take a while to sink in.
So here’s what I would love to hear from you: What is your NUMBER ONE problem with writing ads right now?
Are you frustrated with the process of trying to write? Do you see it as hard work or — worse — as a big voodoo mystery you’ll never figure out?
Do you avoid learning the essentials of writing for any conscious reason? Or is there something personally difficult about writing that makes you just want to skip the whole concept?
Or what?
I am seriously looking for input here.
If you’re an entrepreneur… or small biz owner… or even a rookie… and you don’t know how to write what you need written…
… could you please look inside your own brain…
… and honestly share with me what the problem is? What is your Number One constraint holding you back from digging into this skill?
I’d appreciate it.
Thanks, in advance.
Hey — let’s make it a little contest.
The person who most succinctly and clearly helps me see what I’m missing here…
… will win a free copy of the freshly updated “Kick-Ass Copywriting Secrets of a Marketing Rebel” — the course that launched so many of the online marketers now dominating the virtual landscape.
Does that make it worth your time to look inside… and give me some insight as to why it’s so hard to break through the resistance so many people have on this mega-important subject?
C’mon. It’ll take you a couple of minutes. You may even learn something about yourself.
And…
… if you’re already writing your own stuff, successfully… you can get in the competition, too.
Just remember back to what held you up from getting started learning the skill.
What was your biggest obstacle? The cost of getting help? Not knowing where to turn or who to trust? Not having the time? What?
Let’s give it until Monday to decide on the winner, what do you say?
The competition begins now…
Stay frosty,
John Carlton
Gloating
Thursday, 8:17pm
Reno, NV
“…and I’m doing this, and I’m signing that…” Mick Jagger, “Satisfaction”
Howdy,
I’m gonna be flat-out honest with you: I’m freaking exhausted.
The “17 Points” workshop is in the can, but it took a piece out of us to pull off. Three entire days, morning to evening, locked in mortal combat with Truth, Insight, and The Path To Riches & Spiritual Fulfillment.
Man, it was fun.
But grueling. In that “everything got revealed (and then some)” way.
I’ll be sharing more of what exactly was shared at this one-of-a-kind event later… but for now, I just want to gloat a bit.
I mean… NO ONE else puts on events like this. I honestly believe hosting one of these marathon teaching workshops would kill your average guru. Even the ones half my age. Just curl ’em up and leave a singed hulk trailing wisps of bacon smoke.
You really shoulda been there, you know.
Oh, wait… you were invited. But you missed out on your spot by not gaming the auction, didn’t you.
Ah, well. I’d say “next time”, but without an act of God (like the video spontaneously combusting), there won’t BE a next time. My entire career was metaphorically aimed at this one single in-depth workshop… and I pushed myself as hard as I’ve ever pushed.
And I ain’t never giving it again.
It was just too exhausting.
Have you ever stood on your feet for three solid days, keeping your mind completely engaged, in fever-pitch mode… working without a net, in front of appropriately-greedy people who have paid big bucks for the opportunity to suck every scrap of wisdom from your skull?
I can’t say I recommend it.
Other folks put on big damn seminars with a mob in the audience, and as impressive a line-up of speakers as they can bribe or cajole into showing up. The actual host is onstage for only a short amount of time. He’s more of a ring-leader and MC.
I like that model fine. It’s a good way to present a lot of stuff to a lot of people.
But my DNA just won’t allow me to host that kind of event.
I cut my teeth, long ago, with Halbert, doing intimate and shockingly-interactive seminars with relatively small groups of people… most of whom were highly skeptical of the whole scene. We had no script, no “battle plan” for how to proceed, no clear idea of what was gonna happen from hour to hour… and it was just us on the stage, with little or no backup.
And we liked it that way.
It was theater-meets-the-barroom-brawl time. We took each attendee through their paces, and kept the entire event utterly and completely focused on real-world solutions to the actual marketing problems they brought to us.
No theory. No bullshit academics. No clever speeches. And no pitching.
Just raw, nasty, front-trenches marketing hard work.
Once you get a taste for that kind of impromptu action, “regular” seminars full of talking heads seem boring and nowhere near dangerous enough.
My seminars are always small, always unpredictable, always pumping adrenaline and endorphines… because the live, unrehearsed, uncensored interaction of host-and-attendee IS dangerous and exciting.
Hey — the action kept me going for three packed days.
Kept the attendees on their toes, too.
It was a raging success, by all metrics.
But I’m never, ever, doing it again.
Still, I’m sitting here laughing out loud, remembering some of the stories we pulled from the extended weekend. It was great having my long-time buds David Deutsch and Garf (David Garfinkel) as wingmen, watching my back from the audience. The hotel was perfectly placed between Chinatown and North Beach (where Kerouac and The Dead hung out) — fabulous food, ambience up the yin-yang (literally, if you went into Chinatown), all the energy that comes from hanging out in the nerve-center of a bitchin’ city like San Francisco.
Plus, witnessing Deutsch attempt to murder Garf with an IED of olive oil and glass was just priceless. Later, we all made up and toured Carol Doda’s old haunt for laughs, along with the new “Beat Museum” (Ginsberg’s typewriter!).
Ever had a Chinese foot massage in a room filled with top Web marketers, all half-drunk and giggling?
I’m truly sorry you missed this event, I really am.
We may have a few video snippets to share with you, soon. But we will not be releasing the DVDs of the event (like we have for the other seminars/sweatshops I’ve held).
Naw. This one was too special. For now, the hot stuff is staying in the vault.
And I’m gonna bask in the warmth of having pulled it off for a little while here.
A little creative gloating. There hasn’t been anything in any of the other marketing events you’ve heard of… that is even remotely close to what was shared in this workshop.
I wish you coulda been there.
Stay frosty,
John Carlton
http://www.carltoncoaching.com
PS: Just a note to the curious here — the schedule for the much-desired “Launching Pad” coaching option (what we call around the office “Be John’s New Best Friend For A Month”) is starting to look like the 405 during the morning commute. In other words: Packed.
Over the past months, while we’ve been on the road (to Kern’s “Mass Control” event, Eben’s “Altitude” spectacular, Schefren’s Orlando seminar, and everywhere else we’ve been traipsing around) people have aggressively cornered Stan or me and grilled us on the availability of this super-intense consulting opportunity.
If even a fraction of those folks follow up, we’ll be booked solid soon. It’s first-come, first-served, though… so, while there are spots on the schedule, you have a shot.
Check it out at http://www.carltoncoaching.com.
Mahalo.
Cuz I’m The Taxman…
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…
Walk A Mile In A Jerk’s Shoes…
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