Friday, 3:33 pm
Reno, NV
“When the world is a monster, ’bout to swallow you whole…” (R.E.M., Can’t Get There From Here)
Howdy…
Quick post today (I promise).
It’s about a HUGE freakin’ disaster lurking behind many entrepreneurs right now…
… like a snarly ugly googly-eyed monster sneaking up on your ass with fangs bared and claws clutching.
Some of you, right now, can feel its hot fetid breath on your neck.
Boo!
You know what this beast is?
It’s the Great Unknown Future that most marketers are facing right now, as 2011 comes galloping around the corner. And there are no fangs sharper, and no evil hunger more devouring than a recession-addled economy (licking its chops as it creeps up on you).
Now, here’s a free piece of advice from a grizzled veteran of 30 years in the biz world: I’ve successfully navigated at least 3 huge (and at least 3 other less-huge but still extremely painful) recessions since I began my career as a marketing expert.
I’ve done it alone…
… and I’ve done with the help, mentoring, and insight of folks who had been down that road before.
And I gotta tell you: It SUCKS to do it alone.
And having a little solid, experienced help watching your back can almost immediately transform your progress.
In my consulting practice, I see a lot of lonely cowboys wandering the marketing range, trying to figure everything out on the fly. They have no one to shuck and jive with… no one to bounce ideas off of (so they never get honest feedback)…Read more…
Tuesday, 3:59pm
Reno, NV
“Of course, some people go both ways…” (Scarecrow to Dorothy, “Wizard of Oz“)
Howdy…
Here’s a quick bit of wisdom ripped from the ongoing coaching in the current Simple Writing System program.
It’s actually a tactic I’ve been sharing with consulting clients and mastermind colleagues for decades. I haul it out whenever someone expresses frustration on what next decision to make.
Key point: It doesn’t matter what the situation is. This works for business, love, revenge plans, shopping, starting wars, arguing with idiots, wondering what to do on a nice afternoon…
… any situation at all where you need to make a decision.
It also works even if you’re looking at lots of “gray” area… so you’re not facing an either-or, or a fork in the road, or a choice between two clear options.
In fact, it probably works best when you have no idea whatsoever of the POSSIBLE decisions to make. You’re clueless. Frozen. Absolutely blank on the next step.
(This is, by the way, a common reason serious small biz owners come to me for consultation.) (In the larger corporate world, another long-observed excuse for hiring a consultant is to have someone to blame for making a decision you either can’t or won’t make. CYA. Not the best reason to bring in an expert…)
So here’s the tool… Read more…
Wednesday, 11:56am
New York, New York
“Truckin’, like the Doo Dah man…” (Grateful Dead)
Howdy…
Sorry for the little vacation here from the blog. I’ve been hunkered down in “launch mode”, on the road, and ministering to various biz projects…
… all of which have messed with my “sit down and write, dammit” time.
I’m actually handwriting the first part of this post in a hotel room, just before heading to La Guardia to fly home after a week in the Big Apple. (Those of you following me on Facebook may have seen pics of the dispicable weather display we braved to watch the Jets b-slap the Vikings on Monday Night Football. We spent 4 solid days in meetings, while the city basked in perfect Fall splendor… and the one time we ventured outside, thunder and lightning and a deluge of biblical size dumped on our sorry asses.)
(Still, it was worth the drenching. Great story to tell whenever anyone needs one-upping on weather disasters…)
By the time you read this, I’ll be back in exciting Reno, catching my breath.
I am one bone-tired road dog, I’ll tell you what.
And I can’t wait to be sitting back at my cluttered desk, writing. Dammit.
So…
… quick post here, just to get the blood moving again.
I was thinking about this subject while reading up on the gossip whirling around the online entrepreneurial community. It’s starting to jive with the blistering political attacks dominating the mainstream news cycles…
… and it’s scary.
The details of the gossip don’t really matter. Rumors come, rumors go… same as political movements and all other fads and moments of temporary insanity.
But there is an overriding theme here that will never go away: Read more…
Thursday, 8:06pm
Reno, NV
“Here come Johnny Yen again…” (Iggy Pop, “Lust For Life”)
Howdy…
Oh, my God!
They killed the sales letter again!
Will this horror never stop?
Actually, you can relax. Just like Kenny in South Park, the traditional sales letter is on some kind of perverse “Permanent Hit List”…
… where every marketer trying to claim he just invented a new fad stands astride the image of a quaking letter…
… and slays it.
Huzzah! Death to you, vile long-copy sales letter! Take that… and that…
… and that.
This latest round is clever as hell, too. The new trend is putting your sales letter in a video, and reading along with it.
The irony: The dude selling you the “Magic Box” product that kills the sales letter forever…
… uses a sales letter to do the killing.
Hey — don’t get me wrong. I love video. Been using it in marketing since… well, since it was actual videotape on reels. (Yeah, shocking, I know. We were so backward in the last century.)
In fact, the “Magic Box” product I’m talking about is, I’m guessing, an excellent solution for many marketers who can’t figure out how to make a video sales letter work.
And all’s fair in love, war and advertising. So all the dudes out there telling you the sales letter is dead, and you can sell without selling, and the Web has changed everything…Read more…
Friday, 3 a.m.
Reno, NV
“Is there gas in the car? Yeah, there’s gas in the car…” (Steely Dan, “Kid Charlemagne”)
Howdy…
First…
… what are you doing up this early? Or late?
You need your beauty snooze, don’t you?
I know why I’m up, though.
It’s from excitement. I just cannot sleep.
Why?
Here’s why: Those of you in the loop know we’re launching the coaching program of the Simple Writing System again.
This is Number 7. We only offer this hand-holding, personalized, one-on-one mentoring rarely. The 6th one was all the way back in the Fall of last year. (They’ve all sold out, too, quick.)
No idea when Number 8 will come around… if it even does.
We take this one program at a time.
It’s extremely interactive. Perfect for anyone who knows that hands-on mentoring is the best way to learn the simplest possible system (crammed with short-cuts) for creating all the sales messages needed for a profitable business…
… including all your ads, websites, video scripts, emails, AdWords, blogs and other social media broadsides…Read more…
Thursday, 7:41pm
Reno, NV
“Please allow me to introduce myself…” (Stones, Sympathy For The Devil)
Howdy…
This is one of those lessons that arrived accidentally…
… and I had to stop and ruminate about it for a while before it made sense.
I’m lucky I learned it early, too.
It’s provided me with a home base of sanity when the chaos has reached shuddering crescendos and it was hard to think straight (let alone make snap decisions when crisis loomed).
You may find it obvious.
That’s fine. Just don’t go thinking it’s obvious to the rest of the mean ol’ world out there… cuz it ain’t.
Here’s the story: One of my first jobs working for Gary Halbert was to fly to Detroit… and interview a guy who’d just lost 750 pounds.
Yeah, you read that right.Read more…
Thursday, 12:15pm
Reno, NV
“It’s too hard. You’ll never figure it out.” (What the first copywriter I ever met told me about writing ads.)
Howdy…
I’m going to tell you about two promises here.
The stories behind them may help you chart out the rest of your life… as they did mine.
Harken:
Promise #1:
The above quote (“It’s too hard. You’ll never figure it out.”) are the exact words that a professional copywriter said to me when I innocently asked for advice.
They are burned into my cerebral cortex, because it was one of the first times I had ever nurtured a small ember of actual hope about my future in business…
… and she crushed it like a bug.
All I’d wanted from her was a smidgen of advice. Maybe point me in the right direction. Or offer a small word of encouragement.
I was lost at the time. Trapped in the drudgery of a dead-end J.O.B. that sucked big-time.
And I was genuinely clueless about the process of writing anything for business. I’d never met a real copywriter before, and was very interested in finding out more.
I didn’t even know what the word “mentor” meant at the time… but I suppose I would have squirmed with joy if she had said, instead, something like “Let me help you learn how to do this.”
Still, she did me a HUGE favor by being such a miserable, hateful bitch.
As I stood at her desk, burning with shame for having asked for something and been so brutally refused…
… I promised myself that I would prove her wrong.
And I used that promise as motivation whenever I needed some extra oomph in the next year or so, as I figured out — on my own, without help from anyone — how to write killer sales messages.
So I owe her one. She did me a proper by igniting my until-then-dormant ability to Do It Myself. Literally with a vengeance.
I launched my solo career as a freelance writer entirely on my own. I took the Do It Yourself ethic and ran with it…Read more…
Sunday, 7:57pm
Reno, NV
“It’s alive!” (Baron Von Frankenstein, kickstarting the Monster)
Howdy…
We’ve just fired up the Simple Writing System blog (www.simplewritingsystem.com/blog)…
… which means a stunning (and unprecedented) pile of free tools, tactics, advice and insight can be yours…
… just for the grabbing.
This is an all-out assault on reason and logic. We’re just GIVING AWAY stuff that — not too long ago — would have cost you a pretty penny just to get a quick glimpse of.
We’ve created a beast here, and it’s name is FREE.
Here’s just a small taste of what’s piling up over there (that you’re missing out on if you haven’t signed in):
What? You didn’t see that presentation?
It’s marketing theater at its finest… Read more…
Tuesday, 8:54pm
Reno, NV
“You can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave…” (Eagles, “Hotel California”)
Howdy…
Today, let’s explore a little-discussed part of running a biz…
… using a couple of enlightening (and very brief) anecdotes from my recent (and continuing) “Adventures With Hotels”.
Let’s call this lesson: The Faded Lady and the Trump.
With all due apologies to Disney’s classic dog-romance movie, of course.
See if you can spot how the following short story applies to YOUR business…
Ahem.
Each of the last two weekends found me in different cities, staying in hotels I booked online, sight-unseen.
In Sin City, it was the splendiferous Trump International Hotel Las Vegas.
In San Francisco, the once-famous, now-infamous Cathedral Hill Hotel.
Now, the Trump joint was built with luxury in mind. Shiny, tall, imposing building with huge well-apportioned rooms and super-modern equipment like elevators and art.
As a “product”, the building was great. (Though it seems idiotic not to have any gambling on the premises, as a wanna-be “player” in the Las Vegas scene. I heard that Trump got skunked on getting his gambling license, but that’s not the spin the staff offered. “We just didn’t want gambling here,” is what they said, unconvincingly.)
Great price for the rooms, too. (Most likely because of the lack of casino amenities and dearth of unit sales, which turned it from condo to hotel.)
I have complaints about the joint… but not because of the room, the rate, or the basic delivery of stuff like air conditioning, clean water, nice beds, etc. (In fact, their pillow-top beds are amazing to sleep in. Like being cuddled by angels.)
Now, back in SF, it was a completely different situation.
We hosted a gathering of writers, affiliates, and other mucky-mucks at the Cathedral Hill Hotel because we wanted to treat everyone to an evening with the world-renown “Beer Chef“, who puts on fabulous dinners there once a month. (You can read more about Bruce Paton’s unique meals at www.beer-chef.com. )
You want the “Beer Chef”, you deal with Cathedral Hill. (And yes, we very much wanted his magic. He creates these shockingly-tasty gourmet meals there, with each course matched by a local micro-brew beer instead of boring old wine. It’ll knock your socks off, even if you aren’t well-versed in pilsners, ales and lagers.)
We also started the day off with an afternoon-long brainstorm session in the hotel’s main meeting room. (I’m sure you caught some of the updates on Twitter from the luminaries and stars in attendance.)
However…
… none of us had ever stayed at the hotel.
And while it has a storied past (well-chronicled in San Francisco lore), it has, alas, fallen on hard times.
Culminating in being bought out a short time ago and scheduled for the wrecking ball.
Ouch.
We made the most of it. The stories and jokes we all shared about our rooms and experiences in the hotel are howlingly funny…
… but still, as a “product”, there’s no getting around the fact that the building was in serious disrepair.
Sort of like a once-beautiful lady who has fallen on hard times, and ended up sacked-out in a filthy alley, soused with cheap booze and a reputation heading south at light speed.
The price was actually a red flag: You cannot stay in the city, in a decent room, for anywhere near the rate Cathedral Hill was asking.
Kind of like seeing an ad for a luxury Caribbean Cruise in the paper for five bucks. It sort of sets off your early-warning alarm. (Five bucks and your kidney, maybe.)
So… while no one got robbed, or found a dead hooker in their room… Read more…
Monday, 12:10pm
Reno, NV
“Let’s just say I was testing the bounds of reality…” (Jim Morrison of The Doors)
Howdy…
We have a winner!
Actually, the winning answer to last Friday’s quiz crashed the gates within ten minutes of the post going live.
But it was good to let the test string out, anyway… because the hard-core thinking and pure cogitation going on was excellent mental exercise.
In fact…
… there was so much fresh thinking in the over 200 responses (as of right now — they’re still trickling in)…
… that I feel compelled to bestow THREE prizes.
One, for the first right answer. And two more for honorable mentions — one for Best Exhibit Of Pure Kick-Ass Attitude… and another for Cracking Me Up with real wit and cleverness.
I’ll reveal the winners in a moment.
First, though… let’s unravel what we’ve all learned here from this little brain teaser.
Revelation #1: James Surowiecki, in his book “The Wisdom of Crowds”, pointed out how often polls and crowd sampling is dead-on correct.Read more…