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…

Photo Orgy

Thursday, 10:06pm
Reno, NV
“There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs.” (Ansel Adams)

Howdy…

I grew up in a photo-loving family.

Pop still has his trusty Kodak folding camera — a true antique now — and I cannot yet bring myself to dig through that box in the garage with all my old cameras (cuz I know it’s time to start assigning them new fates somewhere else).

I swear to you I still have a box of Polaroid film in the butter drawer of the fridge. Might even be the last batch they ever made (and R.I.P. Polaroid, dear departed friend).

Mom was the photo archivist of the family, and even as other families gravitated toward 16mm film, I retained a purist’s preference for the snapshot over the home movie.

(Side note: I remember meeting someone 20 years ago who mentioned that they were on video from the moment of their birth, and it was unsettling.

Now, it’s rare to meet anyone under the age of 30 who isn’t cataloged on film through their entire childhood. I can’t even imagine watching myself being born. I have a hard time watching old seminar footage of me from ten years ago, for cryin’ out loud.

Anyone out there hauling around a library of self-referenced film with them? What’s it like?)

I believe I fell in love with photography the moment I saw my first photograph… and realized it was actually a moment in time captured forever.

And I formed some very intense ideas about what makes a “good” photograph as a third-grader thumbing through the still-amazing stack of Nazi photos Pop brought home from his stint as a rifleman during WWII.

(There’s no way to tell for sure, but those two dozen shots seem to be a German officer’s front-line cache of “Here’s what I did during the War” snapshots. Fascinating subject material that forced us to imagine what the story actually was behind those uniformed men… especially the one with the open bullet wound in the dorsal lat.)

As I grew up, I would become captivated by very few photos in the piles coming back from the drugstore of family and friends and pets and outings.

I never questioned why I found those few snapshots so iconic.

Later, one of my first jobs in advertising was overseeing the photography for a computer supply catalog every quarter.

That job meant gathering all the equipment (cables, monitors, furniture, floppies, etc) and spending a week or so with a professional photographer in Palo Alto trying to make plastic crap look good.

(I won’t bore you with the hassle that pre-digital photography presented — the need to refrigerate film, manually load it, and nurture it like a fragile duck egg until it could be color-separated and made “camera-ready”, which means ready for the printer to fuss with during the offset process of applying wave after wave of ink until the correct color was achieved.)

(Okay, sorry, I think I just bored you there.)

Anyway… I learned a lot about the technical aspects of photography (like using mashed potatoes as a substitute for ice cream, cuz the real treat wouldn’t survive under the required hot lights for a good shot).

Pro photographers in the ad field earned big bucks. They knew the voodoo.

But you know what?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…

Goin’ Down To Kernville, Gonna See Some Friends o’ Mine…

Sunday, 9:48pm
Reno, NV
“Jerry was a race car driver, 22 years old…” (?)

Howdy.

Just checking in, to make sure you know I’m still kicking.

Busy, busy, busy. Virtual classes for the Simple Writing System start this week, you know.

Tell you what: To celebrate, let’s give out some…

PRIZES!

In fact — what the hell — let’s have TWO contests.

C’mon. What d’ya say?

Contesto Numero Uno: First person to name the band AND fill out the last two lines of the song I quoted above (just below the date)…Read more…

I Think We Beat NBC For The Entrepreneur Demographic

Thursday, 11:55am
Reno, NV
“I’m mad as hell, and I’m not gonna take it anymore!” (Network.)

Howdy…

I hope you had a chance to drop by the “Carlton Talking Head” video show last Monday.

It was a blast. Thousands of folks from all over the globe tuned in…

… and while I have no intention of actually checking, I’m saying we beat all other media for that hour in the demographics we care about: Entrepreneurs and biz owners and budding writers.

That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

It was a proper launch for the now-infamous Simple Writing System at-home mentoring program (the 5th time we’ve offered it, and possibly the last). It was wild, it was fun, and it was a breathtaking learning experience that will change forever the way we do biz from here on.

Here are 2 background notes on the story you might find interesting:

1. The power went out all over Reno 15 minutes before we went live.

But did I panic?

Read more…

John On Live Video!

Sunday, 1:30pm
Reno, NV
“5… 4… 3… 2… 1…”

Howdy.

Quick note here for anyone who wants to know:

We are officially opening the doors to the Simple Writing System 5 at-home mentoring program… tomorrow, Monday, April 6th… at 2pm Eastern/11am Pacific.

However…

… I will begin a live video feed — of me, in my cluttered office, uncensored and unrehearsed — one-half hour earlier (1:30pm EDT/10:30am PDT).

You can ask questions by posting in the live chat feed. (Don’t be shy about just saying “Hi”, too — it’s always good to know that friends are tuning in just to see if I screw it all up.)

And you know what?

I just may open the doors early. To reward those folks smart enough to check things out when the action starts.

By “open”, of course, I mean we’re finally releasing spots in the mentoring program. It’s a big damn deal to know about the precise hour we open ‘er up… because there really are a specific number of slots available… and when they’ve been snatched up, that’s all she wrote.

This is the fifth time we’ve held some version of this SWS at-home mentoring program. All previous programs filled up quickly.

We do NOT, however, have current plans to hold another one.

Why not? Because it’s nearly freaking impossible to corral all the professional writers in the faculty into a 2-month commitment like this.

And that’s why this program is totally unique… and why it works so well.

I have a dozen of the most recognized pro copywriters in the world under contract to be hands-on teachers in this interactive program. They’re more than just helping me out, so I don’t get spread too thin with students. They are a vital part of the mentoring, getting down into the details with you on an almost daily schedule.

To get more info on the program, go here:

http://www.simplewritingsystem.com

You’ll see the full faculty line-up. (We’ve got ALL the pro writers from SWS4 returning… and there are a couple of new writers eager to get involved this time out.)

Plus, you’ll get the lowdown on the hot new addition to the program: The sizzling “777 Sessions”.

These are special webinars — using students in the SWS5 program — hosted by some of the biggest names in Web marketing: Rich Schefren, Jeff Walker, Brian Clark (of copyblogger.com), Perry Marshall, Jeff Johnson, Andy Jenkins (Stompernet), and Tellman Knudsen.

This is eye-poppin’ stuff. Literally, the opportunity of a lifetime to finally get hip to easily and quickly writing killer sales copy (whenever you need it, from now on)…

… while being mentored by the best in the game.

This is one-on-one coaching, with lots of opportunity to interact with other students, other mentors, and everyone else in the program.

It’s dirt cheap, too. As so many graduates have said: The first time you use even a single step from the system, you’ll make your money back.

And the first time you DON’T have to hire a freelancer to do your writing for you… well, you’ve probaby saved two-to-ten times your money, right off the bat.

But the REAL fun comes when you realize just how FAST you can put your business on steroids… because you can suddenly slam out EVERYTHING that needs to be written, in record time…

… and KNOW that you’re doing it right.

You’ll hit all the right buttons to grab the attention of your prospect, guide him through your sales funnel, get him so excited he can’t stand it…

… and be able to close the deal like a pro.

And this system works for ads, websites, video scripts, email, speeches… everything you need from here on out.

No matter how long you’ve been in business — from raw rookie beginner, to grizzled veteran — this program has been PROVEN to blow right through all the skepticism, all the learning problems you’ve had before, and all the excuses you’ve ever had that have kept you from finally learning to write.

It happens quick. You’re in great hands — we know what we’re doing…

… and we do it really, really, really freaking well.

So hop over to the site, early Monday morning.

Watch me get all hyped up and crazy on live video.

There’s no telling WHAT the heck I might do, you know.

There are “early sign up” bonuses, too.

Oh, it’s gonna be fun.

See you (literally, you’ll see me) tomorrow.

Stay frosty,

John