Real Work

My father’s visiting, and I have essentially shut the office until next week.

He’s 84, but looks twenty years younger, and has more energy than I do. Dances twice a week, bowls in leagues, travels the world. (Last couple of trips: Australia, China, Alaska…)

Took him a while, back when I was struggling to find my place in the world, to understand what kind of son he was dealing with here. Pop worked hard his entire life — a foreman in a construction crew that put up most of the big buildings in and around Los Angeles from the 1940s through the early 1980s. He would grab a few hours sleep at night, leave before dawn, slam around hammers and machinery and materials for eight hours, and come home.

A true stud, but a dedicated father.

And then I came along — a kid who drew cartoons and logged hours writing stories. Hard physical labor just mortified me. I knew, as a small kid, that I did not want to work like that for a living. However, most of the jobs I had were exactly like that, until I busted into advertising as a color-blind commercial artist with minimal design skills.

Still, it was working at a desk, and taxing my brain. I enjoyed it.

Anyway, Pop always likes me to have a project for him and I to do when he visits. You know — reroof the house, dig out a basement, that sort of thing.

We’re futzing with the landscape irrigation, actually. And you know what? I love the physical part of the labor. I miss getting dirty, sometimes. (I do get dusty when I write, but that’s only because I never vacuum my office.)

I’ve purged a lot of anxiety these past two days, through sweat and real toil. Not working out in the gym, which is my usual method. But getting filthy in the yard, hauling pipe and finessing fittings.

Not sure what the lesson here is. I just feel… better for the work.

And there’s something pleasing in figuring out how to solve the problems — I was killing the grass because the watering system had broken down. Now, it’s fixed. I’m a proud homeowner again.

I’ll be back with something meatier next week.

In the meantime… go get dirty.

John Carlton
www.marketingrebel.com

Expertise

Tuesday, 9:20pm
Reno, NV
“Yep, nothin’ gets by me, cuz I’m a real fart smeller… uh, I mean smart feller.” (Cousin Donald)

Howdy…

It took me an awful long time to figure out that — to get anywhere in life — I would have to buckle down and actually get good at something.

That was a painful realization. I was thirty-two at the time, no longer young, no longer having fun doing the things that had pleased me so thoroughly just a year or so earlier.

I was done with having potential.

Screw potential.

Potential can murder your life.

All through my formative years, I was given special attention because I could draw well (I had weekly cartoon stips in both my high school and college newspapers) (even won a Quill & Scroll award)… had some musical ability (my ragged bands played for friends’ parties and at school dances)… and evidenced a little precociousness with my fiction writing.

Relax. I sucked at fiction. I wrote complete stories, was all. On my own time. This amazed teachers, but it wasn’t anything all that great. Any early signs of authorship had absolutely no correlation to copywriting. In fact, it probably set me back a couple of years.

As I’ve often said, it’s easier to teach a near-illiterate salesman to write good copy, than it is to teach salesmanship to someone with a Ph.D in English literature.

But back then, I was just good enough at several creative skills to suffer the curse of potential.

You know what potential does? It gets you credit for not actually doing anything difficult. You get used to the easy accolades… and never develop good work habits, cuz it’s no big deal for you.

During my days hanging with the “D” list Hollywood crowd, I saw the ravages of potential up close and personal. Most of the folks who’d ever been praised for a small acting gig, or had a bad TV screenplay optioned, or had scored a “meeting with John Candy’s people”… coasted on that cloud for as long as possible.

For many, their brush with success became a standing joke. We’d make bets on how long they’d wait before bringing it up to someone new. (Average time: About three minutes.)

If I was in charge of the world, I’d take every kid with potential aside… and clap them all into a boot camp, where we’d wipe that smirk off their face. And make ’em earn some real kudos.

It’s the only way to save most of them.

The most vivid example of potential versus reality I ever saw was down in Miami Beach, after it’d become a hotbed of the fashion world. Every day, several buses would arrive, crammed with young women who were the best-looking creatures who’d ever graced the small town they’d just come from.

And it took about an hour for them to realize that, as god-like as they were treated back home, here in the center of the model universe, they weren’t even on the map.

It isn’t fair.

But it’s the way it is.

So the person with a little “natural” talent at something may have a tiny advantage over the raw rookie who never heard the term “potential” tossed their way.

But that tiny advantage is irrelevant… unless it gets honed into a big advantage.

And guess what? It takes just about the same amount of hard work to hone a little talent, as it does to go from zero to hero.

Never let your perceived lack of natural ability stop you from trying something.

I’m thinking about this, after seeing Bela Fleck, Stanley Clarke and Jean Luc Ponte at the Hawkins outdoor amphitheater tonight. Stunning expertise there — on violin, gut bass, and jazz banjo.

They were dressed casually, they didn’t require any formal introductions, they joked and were at ease with each other and the crowd while they played.

And it was exquisite.

These guys are experts. And if you listen closely, you can catch pieces of Bach, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Coltrane and Weather Report licks thrown in, as teasing references.

Nice stuff. I’ve been following these musicians, separately, for thirty years. They were damn good back then. They are transcendental now.

Earlier today, I hung out in the kitchen while a new repairman took apart the built-in microwave, found hidden ice blocking the fan in the freezer, and showed me the right Allen wrench to use on the locked-up garbage disposal.

I thoroughly enjoyed watching him work. In another life, I could have happily been an odd-jobs artist… going deep into the mechanical flotsam of our lives.

He had a complaint — he’d hired, and fired, almost twenty different guys in the past year, trying to find someone who could handle some of the repair work for his thriving business.

The problem was best illustrated by the last guy — who wasted forty-five minutes trying to remove a plastic cover inside a broken dishwasher door… and finally brought the entire door back to the shop. He insisted it was permanently welded shut. The boss took it apart in twenty seconds.

“The thing is,” he told me, “that guy should have been humiliated. But he wasn’t. These rookie repairmen all want me to teach them the specifics of doing each job… but it ain’t like that.”

“It’s the process they need to learn,” I said.

“That’s right. Not the details of just that one job. They need to fall in love with figuring this stuff out.”

“It’s the same with advertising,” I said. “Great ads are the result of great sales detective work. And few want to put in the sweat.”

“Damn straight,” he said. And refused payment for fixing the fridge. Said it was his pleasure, because he enjoyed talking to me as he worked.

So… I’ve been thinking about expertise. What it is, what it takes to attain it. And what it means, after you have it.

And while I’m thinking… I get an email from someone that says: “Hey John. I want to be a world-class copywriter. What do I do to get started?”

Ummmmmm….

And it dawns on me. Finally.

There’s a great quote I like: Learn your craft first. It won’t stop you from being a genius later.

The musicians tonight displayed genius, yes… but they expressed it through a master craftman’s skill level.

The repairman seemed to be working magic, listening to the freezer and finding the exact problem as if by divining the source. But really, he was just using the skills of his craft — figuring things out.

I’ve argued before that Picasso ruined painting. Not on purpose, of course. He went off on a totally bitchin’ tangent that riveted the world.

But everyone who learned painting after that, started with Picasso’s abstracts. They completely ignored the fact he was an accomplished realist, first. Knew his craft.

He broke the rules, only after showing he was a master of those rules.

The minions who followed, showed little consciousness of any rules at all. They want credit for being creative… “like Picasso.”

They want you to gaze at their crap, and fathom the potential there.

Because, you know, it’s abstract.

But they lack real craftmanship.

Pisses me off.

You can get away with it, of course, in “art”.

But not in marketing.

All the top guys are super-skilled craftsmen at their job. They learned to write well, and they learned the essentials of great marketing… sometimes painfully, taking however long it required.

Draft after draft after draft. Job by job. Client by client.

There are shortcuts to the gig… but you still have to patiently learn the craft first. This is the thing so many rookies can’t quite get a handle on. You don’t just become world-class because you really, really, really want it.

Be a craftsman. There’s some transcendental joy in knowing you’ve mastered something beyond the smirk of potential.

Stay frosty,

John Carlton

“The Tabloid Stuff Bumps The Numbers”

Listen up, people.

Homework assignment for all marketers here.

Here’s the story: For eons, almost every top copywriter willing to spill secrets about writing killer ads has revealed a common sordid fact — the headlines of the tabloids like the National Enquirer are among the best study materials around.

It’s a standard part of my speech at seminars. Check out the tabs. You’ll discover what America is really interested in.

Tabloids still outsell “real” newspapers and magazines by astronomical numbers. It’s not even a contest.

And the headline writers pay very close attention to what boosts sales. They are wired into the national psyche.

You’d have to be nuts to skip this mini-education on word-to-sales truth. So what if your spouse is embarrassed when you pick up the latest Weekly World News (the one with the “Cannibal fetus chews through Mom” headline).

No one ever said advertising was nice work. Sometimes you end up facing dark and disturbing insight into the mind of your fellow man.

Ah, the power of words.

Other verteran writers who cop to scouring the tabs: Gary Halbert, Gene Schwartz, Gary Bencivenga, Jeff Paul, Dan Kennedy, David Deutsch, Michel Fortin… the list goes on forever.

And yet… rookie writers remain skeptical.

Like we’re kidding them or something. “Ha, ha, ha, you top writers are all alike! So quit with the tabloid jokes already!”

All right. Don’t believe me.

Instead, believe the top television shows in existence.

There’s a killer article in the current New Yorker magazine (8/8-8/15) by Ken Auletta — “The Dawn Patrol”, all about the war of the morning network shows Today and Good Morning America. I won’t rehash the article here — it won’t kill you to go buy an actual magazine for once in your virtual life — but the candid truths revealed are just gold for savvy marketers.

The audience for these shows are 70% female… just like most general markets in the economy… and thus, there are “rules” that must be followed for success. These rules aren’t made up — they were realized, after fifty years of testing, and paying VERY close attention.

See, these morning shows earn hundreds of millions in ad revenue each year. They carry the water for the networks.

So the producers leave their egos and their “common sense” out of all decisions.

They do what they do because they see that it works. They count up the ratings, and test everything in painful detail.

So, what works? First — as I’ve been saying for years now — it’s all about personality. The weatherman Al Roker’s job has very little to do with the actual weather. He’s there to be a friendly, non-threatening guy who can talk nice to women about how great the day is gonna be. Regardless of the storm outside.

Second — and the reason I’m bothering you with all this — is a quote by a former co-anchor Harry Smith: The minute-by-minute viewer response monitors show that “the tabloid stuff bumps the numbers.”

Not hard news. Celebrity, slander, silliness and outrageous social behavior. The run-away bride, the lost kids, the latest blonde murder investigation, Michael Jackson’s trial… the stories closer to UFO landings than earnest Senate committee reports.

That’s what opens the profit pumps.

And yes, it works for male-dominated markets just as well. Even your staid old CEO perks up when a celebrity walks by (or self-destructs on the national stage).

Now, just as I warn seminar audiences… this doesn’t mean you need to start referring to Bat Boy or Sasquach in your next online posting.

What it means is that… again… the best written headlines are NOT boring, pedantic recitations of the facts.

Rather… the best are attention-jarring wake-up calls to your prospect’s brain.

There’s an old saw in marketing that goes like this: First, sell them what they want. You can sell them what they need later.

What that means is simple — it’s a much easier path to offer something your prospect is already predisposed to like. Trying to educate him on why he needs what you have is a losing proposition.

However, once you’ve established that you can deliver what he wants, he will begin to trust you. And you can THEN start the process of working him into the more complex relationship where you give him what you clearly know he needs.

It’s the same with headlines. You have a split second to get his attention, and you won’t do it by trying to educate him.

Instead, go in through the already-open door in his brain — the door that is ALWAYS open to anything fun, or gossipy, or titillating. Or that makes him do the “whaaaaaaa?” double-take.

It’s the fastest way to bump the numbers.

John Carlton
www.marketingrebel.com

How To Be A Sap

Jeez Louise. Did you catch Sunday’s episode of Six Feet Under?

It was… shattering.

I was jarred back to every funeral I’d ever attended, and had emotions wrung out of me I’d long forgotten about.

Screw reality TV. The truly well-written fictional shows (most of them on HBO) can still rattle your cage like classic literature.

That episode was quality emotional-wringing.

Got me thinking, too. About empathy. And writing.

I’ve known people who seem to have shut down their empathy gears. I recall uncles who fell asleep during the pea-soup-spewing scenes in the Exorcist… friends who laughed all through Jaws… and even an acquaintance who wondered what the big deal was when a colleague freaked out over a cherished cat’s sudden demise.

I also first saw Saving Private Ryan with a friend who was still a little shaky over his years in Vietnam during the war. He’d asked me to see it with him for moral support… and he didn’t seem to have a tough time watching the movie. But I kept an eye on him anyway, not sure what sort of poison might be brewing back up.

Those three films — and my experience with pets and people dying and careers ending and relationships imploding — were all emotionally jarring on various levels. Executed by master craftsmen, using scripts written by writers who knew where the tender spots were in most audiences.

I always felt a little estranged from people who either were — or claimed to be — removed from emotional reactions.

In real life, we experience things from inside our heads. It’s a claustrophobic point-of-view even the best Hollywood-quality cameras can’t yet mimic. Everything happens just outside (or just within) our personal space, minute by minute, with no editing and no replay button.

When you personally feel emotional trauma, it’s a second-by-second trial by fire.

Watching a TV show or a movie is a removed experience — pure voyeurism. You’re not there. It’s not happening to you. It shouldn’t have the same power as real life.

And yet… sometimes all the emotion of the real experience IS there, bubbling up from deep inside.

All of the good writers I know are drenched with emotional self-knowledge and empathy for the emotional experiences of others. We aren’t walking around sobbing hysterically… but we are easily overcome with the feeling of a situation.

Sometimes too easily. Several times, while giving a talk at a seminar, I got off on a tangent about something I really cared about, and felt myself start to choke up. I had to back off, and gather my wits. I know other speakers — the good ones — have had similar experiences.

This extra dose of emotion is no accident. You cannot be a good writer without empathy — without understanding, viscerally, what it’s like to feel everything humans are capable of feeling.

At full strength, too. The industrial-quality stuff.

The intensity of your ability to feel infuses your writing with power, and a connection to the most complex tragedies, comedies and dramas of human interaction.

In short… feeling strong emotions is a good thing.

If your emotions are in lock-down… from a bad childhood, or from a misguided sense of what it takes to be a man… you will never be able to get into another person’s head. And you’ll never find that sweet spot of need and connection that makes great literature great… and great sales copy a license to print money.

You don’t have to become a Drama Queen.

But you do need to stop pretending that emotions are some foreign intrusion on your coolness. Embrace your ability to know joy, sadness and yes, even pain. These are the building blocks of a well-lived life.

No one gets out of here without a few tears.

Be a sap. It will help your writing.

John Carlton
www.marketingrebel.com

Profitable Doldrums

It’s hot.

It’s damn hot.

It’s August, it’s damn hot, and any self-repecting mammal is laying low in a shady spot catching extra zzz’s.

This includes many right-thinking humans. Europe practically shuts down for the month, and the cities empty as everyone goes on a month-long vacation.

Here in the States, our Puritan genes recoil at such frivolousness. And many business flog away at their markets pretending there’s nothing different going on.

My advice: Calm down. Take a deep breath.

Go have a nice cold drink.

There are, and always have been, “dead spots” in most markets during the year. You don’t want to mail into a major holiday like Christmas or Thanksgiving or the Fourth of July. You don’t want to schedule seminars in June or September if your target audience has school-age kids — or you’ll get caught up in the going-back-to-school and graduation exodus.

Unless, of course, you’re selling stuff related to those events.

And, for many of us, August is just a black hole for sales messages.

Understanding your market on a deep level requires a little focus and effort, to track the buying patterns of your flock. You cannot rely on “common sense” all the time. For example: The best time to send out golf-related pitches is not in the Spring, when everyone is dragging their clubs out of the closet.

Rather, it’s in the shivering months of January and February… when everyone is dreaming of that first warm round. When the pleasing picture of future benefit already has a toe-hold in their mind.

Markets differ in their patterns, and it’s one of your main jobs to find both the bad times to reach your prospects, and the best times.

For many markets, August just sucks.

So don’t panic if your response just took a dive, and you can’t find any good reason for it. Just stick your head outside.

It’s too damn hot to pay attention to anyone’s sales pitch right now.

But that doesn’t mean you need to turn off the lights and go into hibernation.

Instead, use this down month to spend some quality time with your house list. If you haven’t sent them something recently that didn’t include a plea for money… you probably need to. Every once in a while, it pays off huge to just contact your best customers… and GIVE them something.

For free.

No strings attached.

It’s part of the long-term bonding process. All year long, you’re tortuing them with message after message about something they want or need. If you’re writing good copy, then you’re teasing them mercilessly about it, too.

Now, it may be that they are comfortable with being hit on all the time by you.

Still, like any relationship, you stand to gain if — once in a while — you bestow a generous, unexpected gift on them. For no reason at all, other than the fact you are happy they’re part of your life.

And you’re not the greedy bastard they thought you were, never contacting them without wanting something.

They may react suspiciously to this gift, so you really need to make it clear you’re not using it as a ruse to get into their wallet later on.

No strings.

No obigation.

No need to even do anything. You’ve included the free gift in the package you just sent. It’s theirs, to dispose of or use as they please.

You can make it a free report that offers huge value. But that’s kind of cheesy, if you’ve been slamming their bank account for any significant amounts. Much better is a published book — not your own latest best-seller, either. Something you’ve read and profited from.

A real gift.

You’ll be amazed at the good will you can generate with something that costs you a few bucks to send out.

And what do you do to make your nut for the month?

Easy. First, I’m not suggesting you never actually try to sell anything during down times.

Just know that you’re up against huge distractions — like the damn heat… and the fact your prospect may be on vacation a thousand miles away — and structure your offer to reflect that fact.

This is why so many smart marketers plan for “fire sales” during August. Or “we’re cleaning out our warehouse” sales. Or “damaged goods” sales.

Your prospect base may have been cut in half, or worse, for the month. So don’t do any huge rollout. Instead, offer a one-time opportunity, to your best customers, and use the fact it’s a down month as your excuse.

Reason-why copy works because it gives your prospect, literally, a reason why he should buy right now. Just the fact you’re having a sale isn’t a full reason.

But a more fleshed-out reason… like your need to generate some action during a heat-stroked down period… makes perfect sense.

And perfect sense often results in a decision to buy.

Personally, I’ve used August to let my assistant go off on an extended vacation… so I could shut off the phones and devote myself to writing.

Nearly all the courses and books I’ve written were completed during a sultry August break. I plan for the projects in the months prior… but I get the concentrated writing done in an air-conditioned orgy while the world bakes.

Shutting up shop completely can make good sense, too. Give yourself time to regroup, stop obsessing on the biz for a few weeks, let some whacky ideas simmer.

Read some good fiction, to really get your mind off things.

If you’ve been performing Operation MoneySuck all year long, you SHOULD be able to slip away for most of August, and not lose a beat when you return for a refreshed, cleared-brain Fall assault on your market.

Heck, if you have any special ways you’ve been spending August profitably, let’s hear about it in the comments section.

I kinda doubt there are too many of you out there reading this, though.

It’s too damn hot to log on, even.

Keep cool, y’all.

John Carlton
www.marketingrebel.com

Fluff

Howdy…

My server, bless it’s bleeping little heart, decided today was a good day to crash.

Nothing new there. Comes with the territory.

Fortunately, my Web guy was on it in a flash, and all seems fine now. However, I’m under deadline here at the home office, and wasn’t planning on writing an entry.

So this is just a “filler” post, so you don’t get a blank page when you log on.

There’s plenty to enjoy in the archives, of course. And I’ll be posting for real in a day or so.

Right now, though, I’m stalking the computer and getting riled up enough to assault another blank page with killer salesmanship.

Grrr.

Thanks to everyone who contacted me as soon as the site went blank — I appreciate people watching my back. We should all watch each other’s backs, all the time, anyway. (Special nod to Phil Alexander, my Canuck magician friend who always seems to be on top of every recent development — and burp — on the Web.)

Stay frosty, y’all.

John Carlton
www.marketingrebel.com

P.S. By the way… please feel free to offer a link to this blog to your list. It’s a nice little bonus, and shows people how hip you are.

Spilling My Bag of Tricks

Several months ago, a fast-talking Web marketer named Rich Schefren tracked me down… and we began a long damn conversation about something near and dear to both our hearts: Creating a killer “money funnel” online that automatically attracted, captured and vitually hypnotized vast mobs of prospects… and flipped them, fast and easy, into becoming eager, loyal paying customers.

That’s Web Heaven.

Rich (and his partner Stephen Pierce) are waaaaay out there on the cutting edge of active Web selling technology. They understand the bells and whistles part on a deep, functional level.

I have never billed myself as a geek, and never will. I hire people to handle the code writing and meta-text wrangling and linking up of ‘Net pages.

It’s not that I techno-phobic. Far from it — I love the Web. Maybe more so than many people who are hip to the infrastructure details (and even the metaphysical “Matrix” style potential).

To me, the Web is, first, a very efficient delivery system for your marketing message.

But second, it’s a living, breathing science fiction novel we get to live in.

That’s what keeps me goggle-eyed. This is fun, and it’s a marketer’s wet dream.

I’m still pissed I don’t have the flying car I was promised in the late fifties (ala George Jetson)… but no one back then had a clue what kind of world would be ushered in when eggheads with duct tape on their horn rims started using silicone to shrink circuit boards.

The big damn Univac became a tiny little chip.

Soon, your phone, iPod and wireless broadband connection will simply be a speck dropped into your ear… and you’ll be able to access your email just by closing your eyes.

And type, I dunno, by tapping your teeth with your tongue. Or something. Maybe just thinking out the message. (I’ll have to check with Isaac Asimov on that detail.)

But for now, the main concern is maximizing your opportunity to make a killing online. With what’s available NOW.

Things are changing at warp speed, too. Certain tactics (like email blasting and old-style pop ups) that worked like crazy just a short time ago are now pretty much “game over”.

And many marketers who were dumb enough to bank their entire online business on a handful of such “too good to last” tactics… are now crying the blues.

It just was so easy, before AOL and hotmail and other large holders of prospects decided to get medieval on marketers by blocking messages.

That’s just one example, of course. Google changes their Adword rules often and capriciously — like an evil mad doctor sowing chaos in the land. Entire populations of emerging nations are plotting to steal your database, or at least buy a ton of your stuff with phony credit cards. And right now, somewhere, a greasy little cyber punk is getting ready to test The Mother Of All Viruses on your laptop.

Veteran marketers — those with experience both online and in the “other” worlds of selling, such as direct mail and print advertising — just roll their eyes at the vagaries of playing the game on the Web.

We’ve seen this movie before. The early days of informercials, 900 phone lines, fax blasting, seminars and a dozen other “delivery systems” for selling messages were also like the Wild West. Just like the Web is today.

And they all eventually ran up against establishment-type competition who changed the rules to suit their selfish desires… and ruined the free-for-all that allowed scruffy entrepreneurs to thrive.

Such is life in the capitalism food chain.

The details of the game are always in flux. Everything changes, sometime so fast you get dizzy.

And what may be making you wealthy today… can be completely outlawed by tomorrow morning.

Thus: Relying ONLY on technology for your marketing viability is a huge mistake.

Because the technology will change. (I’ve known dozens of business based entirely on fax blasting, cheap infomercials, and early varieties of spam… which all eventually went belly up. Yet, to their dying breath, they all insisted they could, and would, make it work again. The glory had only passed briefly, they said. It just couldn’t be gone forever. It just couldn’t…)

Do you know what NEVER changes in the marketplace?

Salesmanship. The art of persuasion. The ability to present your case, inspire trust, and move your prospect along your “money funnel” until he has the reasons and information he needs to give you money.

That kind of skill hasn’t changed since the dawn of time, and never will change. It’s the KEY to getting rich, in any market, in any business, using any delivery system.

And that’s what Rich and I have been urgently talking about for over nine months now. The conversation has been intense… and very profitable for both of us.

What Rich brings to the table is a detailed knowledge of the technology now working online. That’s important. He undertands the “rules” of the Web game.

But what I bring… is a deep, finely-tuned knowledge of salesmanship. It’s what I’ve studied my entire career, and what I use in every copywriting job I do.

It’s why Rich sought me out. His idea was to finally combine the cutting tactics of the Web, with the classic salesmanship of world-class writers like me… to create a “knowledge dump” of amazing proportions.

What we have discovered — after some intense detective work and long hours of going over and over it all — is that the “missing link” of most online marketers… is the ability to inject killer salesmanship into every “gateway” section of your money funnel.

It’s like setting up tiny little salesmen inside your online process… so you apply world-class persuasion tactics at every step. From siphoning off huge volumes of traffic, to capturing names and info, to moving your prospect through your sales process.

From tenative “looky loo”, to intensely loyal customer.

That’s what classic salesmanship chops can do for your business.

Results? If you’ve been following the long list of testimonials I’ve posted at www.marketingrebel.com, you should know that DOUBLING your results at each stage is almost a given.

And wouldn’t you love to double the traffic to your site? Double the qualified names in your house list? Double the sales?

And yet, it gets better.

Often, because you’re only getting “heartbreak” results right now… enough to be profitable, but nowhere near what you SHOULD be getting… just force-feeding some truly effective salesmanship into your process can multiply your results (at every stage) by a factor of up to TEN.

It’s happened. It’s happening right now, as you read this.

But not by relying on technology.

It happens… by getting hip to what’s working now, techology-wise… and then combining that tech-savvy with killer salesmanship.

Anyway, that’s what we’ve been doing.

And now, Rich (and his partner Stephen) are taking this conversation public.

They’ve set up a series of tele-seminars, starting in just a few days. They’re grilling me on the application of killer salesmanship to the online marketing model they know works so well right now.

To get all the details, just hop over to this link:
http://www.carltoninternetstrategies.com/cmd.php?af=276489.

Yes, it’s a mouthful of a URL. Just copy and paste it into your search engine. You’ll see what the fuss is all about, fast.

And you need to hurry, too.

Let me be clear here: I’m not putting this event on. Rich and Stephen are. They’re the ones to go to for the details (and for any weasel-complaining you may want to throw in).

I’m just the guy getting grilled on the hotseat. Thus, my name on the domain. I’m doing this willingly. And I’m excited about it.

But I’m just the guy getting grilled.

I’ve done a ton of live seminars, and also a ton of tele-seminars over the years. I realize there’s a bit of a glut right now, with everyone and his brother asking you to set aside an evening to listen to some “expert” blather on about whatever.

And, truth be told, I’m one of the guys glued to the phone during many of these events. Because I’m a junkie for good info.

Especially the stuff that quickly and easily translates into better marketing.

That’s what I expect these calls to be — a tidal wave of solid, useable information and tactics and secrets you can put to use immediately on your own Website. To bring in more traffic, build your list to obscene proportions, and sell a ton of product.

However, you will be the final judge on all this. Won’t cost you two cents to find out the details… or to get signed up for the first call. No pressure, no hassles, no games.

I’m spilling my bag of tricks open here. Even I’ve been astonished at all the secrets and cool tactics I’ve got in there. Rich is VERY good at pulling the really good stuff out of my head.

It’s a rare opportunity to hear me go into much deeper detail than usual. And, with the “framing” of the model that Rich and Stephen provide, it’s just an amazing opprotunity for any marketer who wants to get, and STAY, ahead of the game.

It’s about the merging of classic salesmanship with cutting-edge technology. No one else I know of is talking about this yet.

Soon, everyone will be talking about it.

Get in early.

Check out the link.

John Carlton
www.marketingrebel.com

Getting A Grip

Yet another copywriter has contacted me today, rattled by the footsteps of burn-out coming up behind him, getting louder.

It’s a constant threat, for everyone who works hard and deep in their business. For decades now, people have had a good laugh at the expense of the guy going through his “mid life crisis”. It’s a standard issue joke. The guy is not to be pitied, but mocked.

Bad form, you know, wandering away from the shackles of work. Even for a brief adventure.

Bad form.

Well, it’s not a joke after you’ve put some miles on the old chasis. I have good friends going through legitimate “What’s it all about?” crises, and the pain is real. After slaving away for The Man all their adult lives, they’re now looking back on things, rather than staying focused on what’s coming up. Not a whole lot left coming up, it sometimes seems.

For most people, much of the hot-and-heavy action is now in the past. And that realization will unsettle you.

This most recent example of near-burn out, however, is still in his early twenties. It’s now officially an epidemic, from where I sit. I’m seeing people from every stage of life going into wicked tail-spins, so it’s a subject worth revisiting. Often.

But a steady drumbeat of “you gotta take off more fun time” advice doesn’t cut through the nonsense clean enough. People hear the message, but it doesn’t sink in.

Too much work to be done, and done today. No time to even think about time off…

So let’s try another angle: I just read a book review on a new release titled “Happiness”, by a guy with pop psychology credentials. I won’t be reading the entire tome, because I “get” what he’s going on about — life, it turns out, isn’t about acquiring things or even meeting goals. Studies prove that more toys and recognition doesn’t make you happier.

Instead, what the “happiness” doctors know is that a Zen-style awareness is the only way to guarantee you’re happier than normal. You gotta groove on the little things in your life — just being with friends, breathing deep, living well, that sort of thing.

Hardly a revelation. Worth a nod, though.

But what struck me in the review was this quote from a 10th century Spanish governor: “I have now reigned about fifty years in victory or peace. Riches and honors, power and pleasure, have waited on my call. I have diligently numbered the days of pure and genuine happiness which have fallen to my lot. They number to fourteen.”

Fourteen days, in half a century of being The Man. No money worries, respect up the yin yang, made up his own rules and forced people to follow them, probably a harem.

And he was only happy for a fortnight.

I feel richer than Bill Gates now. I’ve studied people all my life, and long ago realized that money wasn’t the answer to happiness. Nor new cars or new lovers or new anything else. There’s a “sweet spot” where you have enough dough to make the rent for the forseeable future, and enough romance to keep your hormones on a low boil, and a car that’s fun to drive… but those needs are easily met.

Looking back, I was more ecstatic about the first hundred-dollar check I earned as a freelancer than I was about the small fortune I just cashed for a single job. Decades after the overwhelming chaos of my first super-intense young-love affair, I’m pretty happy I don’t have to go through that kind of sweet pain every day. And I still miss my dinged-up old ’80 Celica rattletrap GT liftback — one of the ugliest cars ever made, but a low-slung spaceship for me. I’ve never sat in a cockpit as snug, comfy and compelling as that used-and-abused Toyota.

I drove it for ten years. When I shut the engine off the last time, it never started again. Exhausted, ready for the yard. But honored, because it made me happy.

I feel rich because I can count many days of happiness in my past. And — more important — I’m eagerly looking forward to many more. I have to plan for them now, of course… where in my wayward youth they were difficult to keep from happening spontaneously.

I’ve never NOT known what juiced my system.

And now — with all these books coming out about happiness, and all these people expressing fear of burn-out — I realize how rare that self-knowledge is.

I am not the happiest guy on the planet. I’m pretty sure of that.

But I wouldn’t WANT to be that guy. Much of the pleasure of a well-lived life is anticipation. Like that first check in my career, it’s often the struggle, and not the arrival, that is the most fun and adventurous and breathtaking. You never get to repeat your first trip to Europe, or your first breakthrough in business, or your first kiss.

Those are special moments.

I always felt irritation at Woody Allen movies (back when they were good) when he just refused to abandon his neuroses to the moment, and had to screw a good thing up because he couldn’t shut off the nonsense. Of course, done right, this is the crux of that kind of comedy.

But a lot of people just nod and commiserate — because they recognize the behavior. That’s just the way I am too, they say. Why are you laughing?

If finding out what the shrinks have discovered about happiness is something you need to pursue, get the book. Let me know if it’s any good. Also try “Learned Optimism”, one I can recommend without hesitation.

But mostly, I just wanted to inject some more street-level reality into the conversation. Even a poor man can experience great joy, if he’s wired into life and living in the moment. And even the richest man can have a poverty of the soul that defies soothing by worldly treasure and pleasure.

The key to finding out what makes you happy… is to begin finding out who you are. That is NOT a default position in most human brains. You have to go in and do a manual set-up in your hard drive.

What I teach are the shortcuts to making it big. I have always focused on the shortcuts because I’m lazy, and I want more time off.

You’re doing it wrong if you use the shortcuts in order to fit in more work.

Think about it.

And stay frosty.

John Carlton
www.marketingrebel.com

Making Time For A Good Time

One of my personal crusades is to get entrepreneurs to lighten up a bit.

Most of the ones I meet are driven, motivated by the idea that they’ve either broken or are about to break the code on making money on their own terms… and they’re high on work.

And that’s great. My own career didn’t start until I made a simple vow: “Business before pleasure.” Until that point, I was confused about what kind of discipline was truly necessary to succeed at anything.

If what you’re doing seems really difficult, and isn’t any fun, then you’re probably going after the wrong goal. When you find out what you’re best suited for, even the sweat-and-blood work is fulfilling.

But you still have to temper your obsession with work… with a little recreation. All work and no play makes Jack a very dull boy indeed.

I have a little mini-talk I sometimes give at seminars, when there’s time, or when it seems especially appropriate. I call it the “29th Auto Supply Store”: After one especially intense seminar down in Miami, I was relaxing with some friends. Somehow, one of the seminar attendees weaseled his way into a seat at the table.

He was the kind of guy you remember: About 100 pounds overweight, wearing ill-fitting clothes, with a wife who despised him and kids who were strangers. (I know this because he talked incessantly.)

He was also filthy rich. He had 28 auto supply stores, all successful.

Yet, as the rest of us sipped cool drinks at a sidewalk table… watching a topical evening settle upon the beach, with a warm wind rustling the tall palm trees, and a parade of gorgeous barely-dressed women strolling by on the boardwalk… all this guy could talk about was opening up his 29th auto supply store.

I just shut him out, but vowed to keep him in mind. As a lesson against the evil of being a workaholic.

My question is: What are you working FOR? Where is your reward in all this?

I teach people how to become freelance writers. I know all the secrets of getting good, getting connected, and getting paid.

But I also know the secrets of long-term survival. I’ve been at the top of the game for most of the last 20 years, and that’s rare. Almost every copywriter I know has burned out at some point in his career.

I’ll repeat that: Almost every copywriter I know has burned out at some point in his career.

The long, late hours and intense brain power needed to write brilliant copy takes a toll. I actually dropped out of the rat race for a couple of years in the early 1990s, and wrote novels and played in rock bands. I still kept a couple of clients, just to stay sharp… but for the most part, I was taking my retirement early. I would go on six month vacations. Take off for Europe on a moment’s notice.

It’s important to remember what life really is all about.

And it’s not work-work-work.

Anyway, even with my career-long interest in things outside of advertising, I occasionally get caught up in the nonsense. I’ve been working like a dog for the past three months, and barely noticed that summer had arrived.

In fact, I had almost forgotten that several of my oldest friends were coming into town this weekend for a little reunion.

I woke up in the middle of the night, panicked that I just did not have the time to do this fun thing. I’d have to weasel my way out of it, somehow. There just wasn’t time for it.

Today, calmer, I just called everyone and made sure they ARE coming. Screw the workload — at the very worst, I’ll have to pull a couple of late nights next week to make up the lost time.

Calmer, I see that the crush of my current projects are waaaaay overstated in my fevered brain. I’m just overly focused on work.

I’ve let my fun side get flabby.

Not good. It’s July, it’s gorgeous outside, and the long lingering evenings are what makes life worthwhile. Especially with friends.

I shudder to think I almost called it off. The workaholic demons are nasty little creatures who demand everything from you.

But they can be controlled.

Just remember why you’re working so hard. It’s for a better life. The money you’re making shouldn’t be a prison, but a conduit for more fun, more travel, more adventures.

And, at least for me, for more time with old friends.

Today, I am relieved to have remembered why I’m in this business.

And here’s my suggestion to you: Enjoy the sensual aspects of tonight’s long sunset. Even if you only spare fifteen minutes. Just stop fussing, relax and let the wonder soak in.

Life is great. And it’s part of your job to enjoy it.

John Carlton
www.marketingrebel.com

How Do You Get A Job Like This?

Stay with me here for a moment.

This is NOT going where you think it is.

Here’s the story: The European’s have more fun than we do. I love America, I really do… but sometimes I feel like we’re trapped in a 1950’s-era loop, forever trying to crawl out of the sensual rut the Puritans kicked us into centuries ago.

No such problem across the pond.

The European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology just held a 4-day “info binge” in Holland. The hit of the show was recent research into what parts of the brain are activated when people have orgasms.

This is paid research, people. This is doctors standing around in lab coats watching volunteers screw.

Anyway, the Reuters spin was all about how women can’t fake out the “orgasm meter” — because science has located the part of their brain that bleeps when they boink.

And it doesn’t go off when they pull a “When Harry Met Sally”.

Listen carefully: Men and women have different parts of their cortex activated during the Big Wow.

But the researchers sort of lost focus on the men, once it became clear they were on to some intriguing “inside” info on the ladies.

Turns out that women, during orgasm, shut down their fear and emotion centers. You don’t slam the doors on those rooms, no fireworks.

Now, the rest of this article was full of astonished quotes from the guys in the lab coats. None of it was very sexy — while the Netherlands may be one long rockin’ party, their scientists are still uber-geeks, clueless about social interaction.

And this is where we take an abrupt left turn.

At the Galletti “Web Tracking and Online Testing” seminar in Vegas last weekend, I had the pleasure of hanging out with a Rogue’s Gallery of top Internet marketers — Jim Edwards, Michel Fortin, Armand Morin, and several others.

During one shop-talk session, we explored the effect that recent psychological discoveries could have on salesmanship. For example, the color of the lights you use during a talk can get the crowd excited (red), distracted (yellow), or lulled into a relaxed, receptive mental state (pink).

Also, many top speakers are experimenting with how different word choices affect response during talks. If this were a small thing, it would be of only passing interest.

But it’s not small.

Some of these discoveries are revolutionizing the way cutting-edge marketers operate. It’s not cheating — it’s just using the available science.

Don’t get paranoid.

Now, the advertising world has always had an unhealthy fascination with psychology… mostly about finding some secret magic way to hypnotize people into becoming customers. There were some truly creepy moments back in the sixties, when ads for alcohol and cigarettes were purposely studded with subliminal messages about death and sex — barely discernible skulls in the ice cubes, vague outlines of genitalia in the tousseled hair of models.

This was also around the time that, during the long scenes in the burning desert in the movie “Lawrence of Arabia”, theater goers were flashed with subliminal photos of glasses filled with Pepsi.

Get it? Desert. Thirst.

Pepsi!

Madison Avenue really thought they were on to something… but the results were spotty, at best.

It was, however the beginning of the end of relying on proven salesmanship. The classic brand of salesmanship, practiced by David Ogilvy and John Caples and Rosser Reeves.

Brave new world, the up-and-coming ad honchos said. Time to get hip to the breakthrough new science of selling.

Okay.

Now, I’m actually pretty excited about some of the revelations coming out of the testing laboratories. I’ve dabbled in NLP, I’ve been fascinated with social psychology for thirty years, and I eagerly read the releases from the weirder frontiers of science and brain study.

But I run all of it through my Bullshit Detector.

During one of my very first jobs as a copywriter, I met a real old-time salesman who sort of took to me… and he delighted in sharing with me all his favorite discoveries. This guy was pushing 70 back then, but could still sell ice to Eskimos.

In fact, he was on his THIRD Miss America finalist wife, forty years his junior. Didn’t win her with diamonds, either. He sold her on a life with him… just as he had Miss A #1 and Miss A #2. (This latest version was a stunner from Brazil.)

He was all about the classic tactics of killer salesmanship. He never tried to trick you, never lied, never even hid the fact that he was selling you on something.

You knew exactly what he was doing… and yet you did his bidding anyway. Glad for the opportunity.

God, he was good.

Anyway, he often related selling back to sex. He was an expert at both. And he told me, once, about how necessary it was for most women to feel safe and anxiety-free in order to climax.

He didn’t need any scientist with a clipboard and bleeping monitors and blood-flow gauges to figure this out.

He knew it because he was awake. He paid attention to people, and he studied them, and he learned from every single experience he had.

He was not dispassionate about people, either. He liked the idiots just as fervidly as he liked the smart-asses like me. Enjoyed lazy people as much as his closest energetic friends. And genuinely thrilled at the company of frumpy women as much as the beauties.

This guy was a true work of art. Not many like him, then or now.

Killer salesman. Could have taught every psychologist in that Dutch Reproduction and Embryology seminar something about human behavior, no matter what the test results were.

And here’s my point: The Web is a rockin’ piece of technology that is changing our lives. It’s damned exciting, and I love everything about it — I feel like I’m living through a real-life science fiction movie.

It’s just so cool. And there’s sooooo much money to be made online.

But there is also a huge temptation to believe that all the old rules need to be thrown out the window. That it’s (again) a brave new world online, and it’s time to get hip to the bells and whistles of truly modern commerce.

And that temptation will murder your bottom line.

There’s a place for science. I’m a fan. I use it.

But there’s also a place for the human “gut” feeling. Especially when that gut feeling is coming from experience and expertise.

That old-time salesman knew intimately of everything the guys in the lab coats had discovered about female sexuality, long before any of the test or studies had been done. He probably couldn’t have identified the exact parts of the cortex that were activated… but he knew, metaphorically, where those parts were in the street-level psycho-emotional scheme of human interaction.

The power of classic salesmanship — with it’s basic psychology and visceral persuasion techniques — is just as critical to good marketing as it’s ever been.

Maybe more so now… with the increasingly compelling stare of the computer monitor lulling us into a deeper and deeper sleep.

Learn your salesmanship chops. Learn them well.

And embrace this brave new world with the most powerful tools you will ever own.

Stay frosty,

John Carlton
www.marketingrebel.com