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Justifiable Arrogance

In the half-century I’ve been around, I’ve seen arrogance be variously acceptable and unacceptable in mainstream culture.

I grew up in a post-WWII family that prized humility and distrusted showboating. One of the biggest putdowns was to be told you were “too big for your britches” — a metaphor akin to a swelled head. The fifties were as close as America ever got to a kind of quasi-cooperative equality — rich people kept pretty quiet about their wealth (CEOs earned a modest mulitple of the average worker)… brainiacs played their cards close to their vest to avoid suspicion (and girls played dumb so as not to threaten the boys)… and athletes were expected to be uncomplaining models of sporting gentlemen.

My, how things have changed.

Cassius Clay rocked the sports world in the mid-sixties by coming out and brazenly calling himself “The Greatest”. Which he then proved, over and over again. Greed was good by the eighties. And the ladies now outnumber the guys in grad school (and do better).

It gets confusing sometimes. I have to brag, a bit, in order to properly introduce myself at a seminar. It’s not easy for me, because it cuts against my grain. But it must be done. And I have helped several colleagues overcome their reticence to step into the limelight and stake their place there.

When I got good enough on guitar to play solos, I next had to learn to be ballsy about it. Keith Richards of the Stones said: “It’s not that I’m a better guitarist than anyone else… it’s that I have the guts to walk out in front of 50,000 people and do it with a little flair.” I’ve known dozens of guitarists who put me to shame with their skill… but who couldn’t bring themself to step up and assault the crowd with a loud, brash solo.

There’s a difference — a big difference — between raw skill, and risking embarrassment by putting that skill on display.

What I never suspected, after finally learning how to handle the stage as a speaker at marketing seminars… was to be called “arrogant”. I had to do some soul-searching, because it stung. I’m not arrogant.

But sometimes I have to “play” at being arrogant to make my point.

There are several layers to arrogance. Long ago, a good friend admitted that his parents had raised him to be arrogant… but never gave him the chops to back it up. He was off-the-charts smart, but unless you were engaged in a game of trivia, he didn’t actually have any accomplishments to BE arrogant about. So his arrogance (which he got over, after some therapy) was hollow and isolating.

A disturbingly large part of the population uses what I call “simmering arrogance” to get their way. They walk around looking like they’re ready to burst into a dangerous rage, and glower when challenged. It’s a form of bullying, because most people loath confrontation, and automatically try to appease the arrogant beast. (Donald Trump is an excellent example here.)

Then, there is a “protective” kind of arrogance… which I actually teach clients to adopt. I learned this doing seminars, after being hounded during breaks by attendees who wouldn’t let me pee in private. They followed me to the restroom, literally cornered me and interupted my phone calls in the hall, and behaved like papparazzi going after a “money shot”.

Anyone who has known the exhaustion of being “on” for several days during a seminar knows you have to conserve your energy. And even if someone’s private question requires “just a minute or two”, you still have to fire up your brain and pay attention. (And there’s no such thing as a question that takes “a minute or two” — at minimum, you’re talking about a ten minute conversation anytime you broach a marketing question.)

So I tell attendees upfront, at my seminars, that during breaks, I am “invisible”. I’m not being rude, I’m just recharging and taking care of basic needs. I lay it out bluntly, too, because you have to be serious to be taken seriously.

Arrogance? A few have seen it thus. At the last seminar I was at, I got cornered outside the hotel while hailing a cab to the airport. I was late, and needed to focus on grabbing that ride to the airport… and a woman came up and announced “You’re Gary, aren’t you!” “No,” I said, “I’m not Gary.” I think she was confusing me with Halbert (a scary thought). Just had my name wrong. I didn’t elaborate, because I needed to get moving. But she persisted — she’d seen me at the seminar, was certain my name was Gary, and started to get angry when I insisted I was not. If she had approached me with at least the minimum knowledge of my real name, I would have politely shook her hand, and taken the time to explain I was in a hurry. As it was… well, screw her.

I had a plane to catch. It’s not my job to manually adjust other people’s reality when it gets skewed.

I’m sure she tells the story differently, and I’m equally sure I come out in her version as arrogant and mean-spirited. I had been a nice guy a thousand times over during the event, shaking hands like a politician and listening politely even to personal stories that had no point whatsoever. And I helped numerous people get a handle on some very important problems, when I could.

But there’s a limit.

There is a limit.

Finally, there is “The Arrogance Bomb“. I have used it just once in my entire career. After writing my first piece for one of the largest mailers in the world, I encountered stunning opposition to the copy. I was on the phone for hours with high ranking bosses at the corporate office, fighting off their attempts to water down the ad.

It was a battle. And I wasn’t giving in, like they obviously expected. People were getting riled up.

Finally, in desperation, after one marketing honcho challenged yet another sales point I’d written, I just snapped. “How many controls do you have?” I asked her. A slap in her face — she of course had none, because the honchos don’t write. They hire freelancers for that.

But I drove home my point. I had numerous controls for other mailers at that time. I knew what I was frigging doing as a copywriter, and I knew in my gut that giving in to their demands to tone down the copy would KILL the piece. So I fought back.

With The Arrogance Bomb. “You don’t have any controls, do you. In fact, you’ve never written any copy whatsoever. When you have a control… when you have written copy that works… then come back and tell me to tone my sales pitch down. Until then, you do what I tell you to do.” I left out “God damn it”, but it was implied.

Arrogant? You bet. I had to take a shower after that call, because being arrogant feels slimy to me. It’s not a good fit.

But that Bomb needed to be hauled out.

(Actually, I was blacklisted at that joint after my little rant, and it was only by accident that my piece even got mailed. When it beat the current control, the honchos meekly called me back and apologized. When it continuted to mail profitably for the next five years, I had the wicked satisfaction of having a control that outlasted many of the managers who had tried to sink the piece. Still, I never again had the energy to force another piece of copy through like that — and I never used The Bomb again.)

Until today.

Last night, we had the first Tactic 7 call. This was a FREE mini-tele-seminar that included me, Perry Marshall, David Garfinkel, and Harlan Kilstein. We talked for THREE HOURS about the seven fundamental elements we knew to be the keys to taking a business into seven figures (a million plus).

It was the most exhausting… and most energizing call I’d ever been on.

Over 3,000 people were listening in, from every corner of the globe.

It was an event.

And yet… we received a handfull of emails afterward berating us for being “too basic”. I at first found this confusing — what is “basic” about the specific fundamentals behind making the big bucks? Yes, you may have come across these very points in a book, or heard someone talk about them at a seminar… but, to my knowledge, this was the FIRST TIME that proven marketing experts had actually laid out how these secrets actually WORK to create million-dollar “sales funnels”.

If reading a book about a tactic is all you need, then everyone who read Trump’s last “how I got richy-rich” book should be rolling in dough right now.

Of course, that doesn’t happen. Just hearing about something… and actually learning how to put it to USE in your life and business… are two very, very, VERY different things.

And so we asked the complainers a simple question: “If this is so ‘basic’ to you… then you must already be a millionaire. Right?”

“Right?”

And, of course, none were.

Arrogant of us? You bet. A challenge like that is The Bomb at full power.

Needed? I’d say so. The real arrogance was in the complainers… who scoffed at our sincere sharing of proven, tested tactics. Tactics we USE, and KNOW to work like crazy.

Some people want magic. Real voodoo — and it has to be something they’ve never heard about before. They are quick to say “I already know all that” when, in truth, they “know” nothing at all.

They have merely glanced off the concept at some point. It meant nothing to them then, and means nothing to them now.

Their loss.

If you’re not already wealthy… then, really, be quiet and sit still. If you can’t, then leave quietly… and let the people who will soon be your betters absorb the wisdom here.

I hope I never have to drop The Bomb again for the rest of my life. It doesn’t feel good doing it.

But sometimes, it’s just gotta be done.

Stay frosty.

John Carlton
www.marketingrebel.com

P.S. Almost forgot… if you want to hear that amazing 3-hour call, it’s been posted. For free, at least for now. To get to it, go to www.tactic7.com and register. No cost, no strings, no nonense.

Check it out.

And stop being so damned arrogant all the time.

Common Idiocy

A long time ago, I learned a simple rule of life: When the crowd rushes off in a lather to the right… I take a serious look at going left instead.

You don’t have to be a student of history for very long before it becomes blaringly apparent that the “common wisdom” of any culture is usually just deadass wrong. There’s something slithery deep in our nature that makes us gullible whenever “everyone” starts believing something.

After the dust settles, it’s hard to see how anyone could have bought into whatever was thought of as a brilliant idea at the time. Enron was featured on every major finanical publication’s front cover as the “company of the future” just months before it collapsed. People went absolutely berzerk over really stupid (and completely unworkable) Web concepts while the Dot Com bubble stretched toward the inevitable pop.

And yes, while some people made a bundle during the recent real estate land-grab… I’m sure you know more than a few folks who are sitting on muliple mortgages equal to, gosh, more than they earn. On paper, they look like finanical geniuses. If only they can get someone to buy those overpriced spec properties, hopefully before the next mortgage payment arrives…

It’s the same mentality that fuels witch hunts. Something in our lizard brain wants to believe the worst about everything and everyone. For some folks, fear is the only thing that gets them up in the morning. Especially when “everyone” shares the same jitters.

The impending death of the daily newspaper is one example. Everyone — and that includes newspaper owners — believes the Web will kill off the entire concept. Soon. Maybe by September.

And yet, if you examine the actual numbers, nothing of the sort is about to happen. While almost no town has two newpapers anymore, every town still has one. And while the evening edition has pretty much vanished, subscriptions to morning editions have actually increased a bit. (Add online readership, and the numbers start to look staggering.)

More important… the actual business of running a newpaper remains mega-profitable. It’s just not profitable in a way that excites Wall Street. Traders hate slow, plodding, unsexy cash cows.

There’s a great post by James Surowiecki in the New Yorker last week about this. Newspapers will mutate, and probably stop trying to compete with the Web for reporting the latest national and international news… but will continue to be the primary source of LOCAL news. And, of course, still the first-choice for classified ads.

I mention this, because I just got back from yet another seminar, where otherwise smart people in the audience occasionally questioned the wisdom of using direct mail “anymore” to sell anything.

You know… because “no one reads mail” these days.

The fact is… I almost hesitate to show new clients how to use direct mail now. Not because it doesn’t work anymore, though.

Naw. Because it works so WELL.

And it’s kinda nice that the volume of competing junk mail has started to decline. The less number of marketers who get hip to the power of good (not bad) direct mail… the better it is for those of us who know the truth.

I love the Web, and I’ve made a ton of money using it. There’s more to be made, and I’m thoroughly enjoying going deeper and deeper into the wonderful world of nurturing and/or pillaging house lists through email.

But there will always be certain advantages to mail you can open and hold in your hands. No matter how “virtual” your world gets, the “real” world of senses and tangible materials will never go away.

Right now, the crowd is rushing off in crazy directions, like lemmings hunting for a cliff.

And I’m sort of enjoying the relative tranquility of strolling in the opposite direction.

Something to consider as you make your marketing plans for the coming days of turmoil and excitement.

Stay frosty.

John Carlton
www.marketingrebel.com

P.S. I’ll be discussing, in more depth, matters just like this during the Tactic7 teleseminars we’ve got scheduled. If you haven’t yet signed up, you need to. Go to: http://www.tactic7.com and get the skinny. Time is short, because the calls start Wednesday, dude.

Being Told “No”

One of the fun parts of watching The Apprentice is seeing how younger, less experienced people handle business decisions. I’m sure that most of America is clueless about how they, personally, would solve any of the tasks given… but for veteran entrepreneurs and business owners, it’s refreshing to be presented with business puzzles, and match your wit against what the teams do.

Plus, best of all, you get to see conflict and resolution, all in one tidy hour.

The downside of this, of course, is that often the young contestants display such a piss-poor understanding of basic marketing and advertising savvy… that the show becomes a horror movie. Sort of like “Trump: The Slasher Version”.

The basics are all about concepts, pricing, marketing models and crafting a killer pitch aimed at the right target audience. Mostly, I think it’s unfair to expect kids (and yes, these are ALL kids) to cover so much conceptual ground with no mentoring, or time to study up. In real life, for example, you don’t just decide to create the graphics and copy for a product at four o’clock one afternoon, and have it finished by ten that night.

Especially if you’re clueless about how to do it. It’s like that oft-repeated scene in the old “Our Gang” shorts — Spanky and Alfalfa turn to each other and say “Let’s put on our own Broadway show!” (The same theme was repeated over and over for the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland movies, too.) And suddenly, you have these absurd Rube Goldberg machinations for lighting, stage design, curtains, and effects.

In the movies, it works out, somehow.

In real life… not so much.

But that’s the way this game is set up, and that’s the way they must play it.

During these more obtuse tasks — and I mean, really, why would Trump test the mettle of an apprentice by having them flog cheap brochures? — the show focuses more on the soap opera side of things.

Which, if you ever have to deal with people in your business, can be priceless.

Tonight, the tall, arrogant young woman Andrea got the axe. Bit of a surprise, because she seemed invincible in previous weeks — The Donald had taken to her, and she had a success record of being the honcho.

Here’s the lesson I was reminded of: I have had many clients over the years base their products around a “talent” — a person, who they either filmed doing something, or who was the “star” of the book or show. This is a good model, because it gives an otherwise corporate-looking product a little honest soul and personality.

The problem arrives when the “star” isn’t one of the owners. To take just one example, I have famous clients who are actually anonymous… and create products centered around people they find, film, and promote. The “star” of the show doesn’t get to make any decisions about the marketing, the advertising, or anything else. They just show up, do their thang, and collect a check.

Therein lies the rub of the model.

Time after time, my clients have taken someone with a little bit of honest talent (or an unexploited secret) who was living in obscurity… broke and desperate… and made them a household name.

At first, the “star” is flush with gratitude, and cooperative to a fault.

Then, the checks start arriving.

And everything changes.

I call it “The Primadonna Syndrome”. That’s our term for someone who suddenly believes that THEY are the reason the product sells so well.

It’s not the marketing. Not the list. Not the copy.

It’s them.

The transformation can happen slowly or (as is usually the case), almost overnight. It sort of depends who has their ear. I suspect it’s often the spouse… who, late one night after they’ve been celebrating the success of the promotion, leans over and says “Honey, they’re taking advantage of you, you know. You should be getting much, much more of the profit… because you ARE the star.”

And they come back, actually offended that they had been “taken advantage of” by my clients. A month prior, they couldn’t rub two nickels together, and now they’re cashing checks that are bigger than what they made the entire previous year.

Proof, they will tell you, that they’re a true “star”.

My clients made a lot of mistakes in the early days, before I helped them see how the “Primadonna Syndrome” would occur almost every single time. (Actually, it’s EVERY single time, but that’s a more advanced lesson.) For example, in the first few projects, they actually made the “talent” a quasi-partner, by cutting him in for a share of the profits. It seemed like a nice, fair share, too.

In terms of other businesses, it was friggin’ GENEROUS.

But the “star”, lacking experience in business, only saw the piece of pie he was being served, and judged it against what he imaged the other guys were divvying up.

Every single one of those relationships went south.

Do you know what my clients now say, when a “star” clears his throat to begin the “I should get a bigger cut” speech?

They say: “Next.”

Because there is a long, long line of other “stars” right behind Mr. Primadonna, eager to have their shot at being the “talent” in one of these lucrative projects.

It’s not the “talent” that makes the project work.

It’s the marketing. It’s the list. And it’s the copy.

(Actually, after so many years of dealing with ungrateful — but expected — greed, my clients now have a “Primadonna” talk with each new “star”… before the project rolls. They tell the “star” exactly how he is going to feel after receiving his check, and how that greed will transform his thinking. Then… they remind him that he only got his chance, because the guy in front of him actually said and felt those things. Sometimes, this warning alert can slow the progress of “Primadonna Syndrome”. But it never stops it entirely.)

The root of the problem is lack of business experience. A savvy guy understands the game, and understands his place in the game. You can change your place, and you can even sometimes change the game… but not by ignoring reality.

One of the primary lessons of business is networking — and that takes getting along with people. It really does. That’s why I stress the “bonding” process of advanced salesmanship so much. Your market is people, and your associates are people — and while you can still be an asshole and win (as The Donald has proven)… you can’t be a clueless asshole and win.

Tonight, this woman Andrea reminded me of every other person I’ve ever had to deal with… who had never been told “no” in her life. You don’t see this as much in older people, because they’ve had more of an opportunity to get bitch-slapped by life.

Old people can be amazingly arrogant, of course… but it’s often a savvier kind of arrogance. They know they have to back it up.

Younger people — especially attractive, well-schooled ones who have not yet lived through a real recession, let alone any grand disaster — have a more obnoxious kind of arrogance. And a lot of it is simply because they’ve gotten away with this crap their entire life, without ever being told “no”.

Andrea — this tall, imposing, imperious and, yes, arrogant woman — was reduced to tears tonight by getting told “no” by Trump. Her walls crumbled under the mildest of assaults, because life (to this point) had taught her that an arrogant attitude worked. And it will, to an extent. Most people recoil from any kind of confrontation at all, and so there is little initial feedback for the person ramming their way through life with blunt arrogance.

I was arrogant, once. The same kind of empty, unsupportable arrogance this young woman used as protection. But I didn’t become a freelancer until after I’d been fired from numerous jobs, and been told “no” by life a thousand times. I never liked it, but it steeled me against the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune once I did go after success — without that experience of being told “no”, I wouldn’t be where I am today.

In fact, it’s probably the single most important realization you can make when you’re young, and arrogance comes so easily. Owning a little humility doesn’t stunt your abilities to get stuff done.

It just helps you shrug off the small shit.

And it puts a needed damper on your ego when you get too full of yourself.

Something to think about.

Stay frosty.

John Carlton
www.marketingrebel.com

Well, How Serious ARE You?

Quick note before I jet off to Washington, DC:

I’ve teamed up with Perry Marshall, Dr. Harlan Kilstein, and David Garfinkel to put together a whole new series of teleseminars… on a white-hot subject that has gotten almost zero attention from other “guru’s”.

Yet… what we’re gonna talk about is the KEY to putting together all the different parts of rapid, exciting success.

And my question to you is: How serious are you about building a seven-figure business?

To find out what’s going on, go to http://www.tactic7.com

All will be explained.

This is hot. We’re gonna rattle some cages, and create a fuss in both the online and offline business world.

Check it out.

Stay frosty,

John Carltonwww.marketingrebel.com

I’m So Wired In, It’s Scary

In case anyone still doubts just how wired I am into the culture… consider this:

While writing my Rant newsletter last month, I went off about the wonders of “smell-o-vision”… an absurd gimmick used a few times back in the fifties, in a few theaters: While you watched the movie, a little box under your seat would shoot puffs of scents onto your pant leg.

You see a rose on the screen… you smell a rose wafting up from below your seat… and (be still, my heart) you were supposed to just go crazy or something.

The idea was to make the movie-viewing experience a “total sensory extravaganza”.

Didn’t catch on. Too messy, unpredictable… and I hear that people didn’t appreciate smelling like a mulch pile on leaving the theater. (I think John “Pink Flamingos” Waters toyed with smell technology in the 80s, and no, I don’t really want to think about how he may have used it in a theater.)

Nevertheless, I predicted it was time to bring smell-o-vision back… especially since cuttng-edge Web marketers are so hot on making your online experience “multi-sensual”.

I joked, mostly. But not entirely — after all, the fastest way to ignite a memory really is through odors. The right scent can send you off to Reminisce Land faster than any other sense. Specific memories, too. (A whiff of Herbal Essence shampoo, for example, can zoom me right back to a certain damp Tuesday afternoon in my old college co-op hoouse… the one dubbed Ghetto Manor, for reasons I may or may not explain in another post.)

And people have mocked me, a bit, for making such a nutty observation.

Well, looky here: USA Today reports last week that, indeed, a Japanese theater is going to use smell-o-vision for the latest Colin Ferrell movie, “The New World”.

I’m sure it will be a spectacular failure, but give ’em kudos for trying.

And don’t turn your nose up at the possibilities, either — there have been some very successful direct mail campaigns based on smell. It’s tricky, but if you can pull it off, you can put the amazing power of triggering pleasant memories to work for you.

Something to consider, as apparently technology has been aimed at your nose once again.

Stay frosty.

John Carlton
www.marketingrebel.com

P.S. I’m out of the office now until next Tuesday. Going to a marketing summit in Washington DC. Smell the cherry blossoms, be a museum whore for a few off days, get out of Dodge.

My trusty assistant Diane has gone off on vacation, too, so the office is essentially closed until the 24th. Don’t panic, and remember to let the cat in at night.

P.P.S. Plus, don’t forget to sign up for automatic notification of future Big Damn Blog posts. The little sign-in box is up on the top right here — just leave your email.

The Schmuck Vs. The Good Buddy

There’s a lot of discussion these days about frequency — specificially, how often you should email your house list.

There are two schools of thought now in the cyber-marketing community: One, the “Vikings” who treat everyone who opts in as a resource to be pillaged and re-pillaged until it’s burnt to the ground. These guys hit their list often, and without mercy.

It can work. But it has a price — namely, you will burn out the interest of your list in what you offer very quickly. For many marketers, that’s just fine. They know how to find endless veins of traffic, and lure fresh meat into their lair efficiently — where, each newbie will be forced to either act or opt out.

The other school of thought: Treat your list like a precious herd. Nurture it, and go for the long-term relationship.

This can work, too. Especially if you’ve got an inkling of the “lifetime value” of each person on your list. Sometimes a customer will buy several things from you, but not all at once. Maybe they need time to devour each product as they buy it, or maybe they just need to “come into heat” about what you have every few months, and ignore you the rest of the time.

This is called “working the back end”, and if your marketing model has lots of stuff to offer an interested prospect, you want to nurse them along tenderly rather than rape them and leave them for dead.

Like I said — both models can work. You have a choice.

But here’s something most marketers seldom consider: How welcome you are in your prospect’s life.

Neither model will work very well if you’re a pain. Both can work like crazy if you bond well.

So ask yourself: Is your “persona” a schmuck who repels trust, or a good buddy who reeks of credibility?

This doesn’t mean you have to be a Mr. Nice Guy. (Haven’t you had a good buddy before who was pretty much a beast, but still fun to hang around with?)

Most marketers are now aware of the “Rich Jerk” phenomenon — a very crafty marketer who has styled himself after the old Robert Ringer model being a very effective asshole. After you’ve been in business for a while… any business… you start to realize that being a nice person doesn’t win you any points. And yet, being a cold-hearted bastard can postiion you — sometimes — as the guy who gets the most cake.

I don’t recommend this tactic. I play hard-ball, myself… but only as far as getting the job done. I’m more like the hard-ass sarge who kicks your butt in boot camp, because that’s the fastest and most effective way to get you in shape. It’s actually an act of tough-love.

I do this, because that’s what it took to shake me out of my daze as a young, clueless drifter with zero discipline. I would have never had the “a-ha!” experience that started my now-legendary career arc if I’d taken an easier road.

Some guys, however, are mean just because deep down they’re wounded animals, and they aren’t happy unless everyone around them is miserable. They want your self-esteem as gut-shot as their own.

Anyway, that’s a different lesson.

For the email frequency thing, it’s better to think of the people in your life who you want to hear from every day… or every week… or however long you’re considering emailing your list. Really put some thought into this — what kind of personality does it take to make you welcome in your prospect’s life, as often as you’re going to email him?

I urge every marketer to work on their personality — it’s the “X” factor in wild success that most rookies miss entirely. They’re too obsessed with the flotsam and jetsam of just getting any response at all.

This is an advanced tactic, however. Think long and hard about what it would take for someone to be welcome in your life… to make you eager to open their email, every time one appeared in your in-box.

Most marketers blow this, because they ignore the social dynamics of weaseling their way into their prospect’s day. A few master it, however, and they enjoy amazingly high readership and high action.

Something to think about. Be that guy your list loves to hear from.

Stay frosty.

John Carlton
www.marketingrebel.com

P.S. I put my first podcast up at iTunes. It’s under business and marketing, and titled “How To Write A Damn Good Ad… In 9 Minutes.” Check it out. It’s free.

P.P.S. Also, I’ve fired up the RSS feed on this blog, and installed a way to be notified when I post. It’s still a fragile little option, so let me know if you have trouble, and I’ll sic my geek on it post haste.

P.P.P.S. The Apprentice double-feature was kind of lame this week, don’t you think? The basic lesson is good enough — do your detective work and research, and success is a heck of a lot easier. Plus: Making assumptions without adequate input or info is just silly.

Better tasks would create better drama, though. I caught myself yawning and able to predict the outcome.

Or… gosh… maybe we just witnessed a shark-jumping…

The Bane Of Integrity

Just now walked back into my office after… yeah, I know… watching The Apprentice.

I feel odd, too. The wonderful woman I share my life with disagrees whole-hearted with me on this, and we usually agree.

But this time, I actually felt something other than raw amusement at the end of the show. I’ve always known that Trump is just a royal prick, and I have zero respect for him. If you’ve heard him speak, and you have a different opinion, I would be astonished.

He’s very insecure, he’s a bully, and he surrounds himself with oily sycophants whose main job is to kiss his butt and fluff his sour ego. If Trump was an oddity in business, it would merely be entertaining. But he’s just the most visible example of a breed that dominates capitalism.

Emulate him if you must… but know that you will be required to kill off every scrap of integrity in your soul to attain his position in life.

The guy he fired tonight, though a bit of a fool, at least has integrity. He threw himself on the barbed wire, and part of me respects him for that. In that kind of situation — trapped in a game where someone has to be sacrificed, and no one deserves it… the good leader steps up. People make fun of alpha apes in the wild, because they’re lazy and selfish… but when danger approaches, they never hesitate to throw themselves in harm’s way.

I’ve talked with a lot of guys who’ve been in deadly combat. And they all say the same thing: You cannot tell beforehand who will chicken out, and who will step up. The big, strong guy with the beligerent mouth can turn out to be a coward… and guys like Audie Murphy — who was described as looking like a girl scout — are dismissed and ingored and belittled… until they prove themselves, astounding their doubters.

It’s not ego and bragging that grease the skids of success. It’s action. Maybe you believe Trump is a man of action and decisiveness… and maybe you could prove it to me. But I’ve seen a lot of people in power in my time, and I’ve become a fair judge of character. And Trump doesn’t measure up. How do you think he would have acted, put in the situation of the guy he let go?

Tonight’s episode had all the trappings of a Shakespearean tragedy — lots of choices to make, none of them easy or good. The young man who got the boot understood, and protected those he felt responsible for. So far, he’s the ONLY contestant who’s shown a scrap of leadership and integrity.

And it got him fired.

Yeah, he screwed up, a bit. And yeah, it’s a silly game, after all. (The absurdity of asking young people to become experts at jingles in a single evening is like a plot designed in hell — and when you add the fact that veteran admen know jingles are mostly worthless sales tools anyway, the situation becomes farce.)

In my career, I have studied under the best in the biz — legendary salesmen and writers and entrepreneurs who have an uncanny sense of being able to work themselves into a position to be successful, against all odds. And yet, I’ve seen them take the fall, too. Even when they could have taken the easy way out.

Seeing that, in my learning years, kept me in this crazy meta-game of business. Much of what I saw during my time behind the thrones of so many corporations actually sickened me. I have a romantic side that I just couldn’t squelch, and often I felt that quirk would eventually disqualify me from being successful.

Because so many of the truly successful people I encountered were just rotten bastards.

Fortunately, I found heroes scattered among the selfish cowards and bullies. People who didn’t flinch when tough decisions had to be made… and that jived with how I was brought up. To take responsibility, even if it meant getting burned.

Screw Trump. He may have the bucks, but he’s hollow. And like the cowardly blowhards of talk radio, he cannot handle confrontation. (It’s true — look up the story about him and Merv Griffin, a business opponent Trump thought he could demolish easily… until Griffin ate Donald’s lunch, over and over. Then look up the recent lawsuit Trump has brought against a small-time author who said some things he didn’t like. Petty, ego-driven nonsense. Real men don’t “get even” when they’re wrong.)

It’s complex, I know. The kind of romantic “stand up for something” attitude I’m talking about is what got the Light Brigade butchered in the Crimea… they became legends, but they didn’t live to know it.

You gotta make your own decisions in life. Right now, the guys hogging the limelight tend toward the Machiavellian rather than a more pure code of honor. In game theory, that’s what works much of the time.

But winning is about more than just amassing bucks and beating down the other guy. Please trust me on this.

I guess I have “beer” morals in a world dominated by “champagne” entitlement.

I can’t believe this episode riled me up so much.

The only thing I wish had happened… was that the guy who got fired had the sense to stand up and turn his back on Trump before he could deliver his patented “Yer fired!” bombast. In other words, fire Donald, and quit with dignity.

Or, screw dignity. Give The Donald the finger as you leave the boardroom. Get the last word in, and live in infamy.

Okay, I’m done. I feel better, too. Something about this integrity thing just got my blood moving.

Stay frosty.

John Carlton
www.marketingrebel.com

P.S. I had to disable the comments for a while, because some Swedish spammers were sending tsunami’s of spam. Beat them down, and comments are again welcome. Feel free to rain on my parade or support my hair-brained notions, to your heart’s content. Always happy to hear what people have to say…

Just Check It Out, Already

I have been hot and heavy into experimenting with online selling lately.

Good Lord, it’s wicked fun.

Profitable, too.

Wow.

Now, I’ve been screwing around on the Web since the mid-1990s… and actually wrote one of the first Web-based sales letter, waaaaaaaaaay back before there was a Paypal and before Google became a verb. I’ve done damn well, too, and helped a lot of other people get their act together online.

It’s a little different than other direct marketing vehicles… but, then, ALL the ways direct marketing is used are a little different than each other. There are quirks and separate rules you need to master in the mail, in print advertising, in the Yellow Pages, on infomercials, selling door-to-door… and, gosh, even the Web has some weird twists and turns to the “standard” salesmanship model of saying “Here’s what I’ve got — how many do you want?”

I’m as hip as anyone about what works on the Web today. Over time, my instincts have proven correct on vast numbers of issues that people used to argue with me about. For example: Allowing links to interupt your sales message… relying on audio or video as “eye candy” without making the graphics “earn” their place in your pitch… and cramming good (not lame) testimonials into the first “screen page”. (The now-common design element of having a long damn list of testimonials run down the right hand column is all mine, I don’t mind saying. And they laughed at me when I first did it…)

What spurred this latest love-affair with testing and experimenting is simply having a good friend decide to do some joint-ventures with me. I “tricked” Stan into getting excited, by cavalierly inviting him along to a seminar my colleague Harlan Kilstein put on recently in San Francisco… I knew that getting a taste of the potential profit picture available online would put ants in my friend’s pants.

Stan dove into the technical side of getting sales via the Web with a passion that’s contagious… and now I’m all nervous and giddy again, eager to get back after this brave new online world.

Frankly, business had started to drag for me. I’m always tempted to retire, and go write bad novels or start another bar band, whenever I get bored with marketing and advertising.

But the reason it gets boring, is because I get too isolated sometimes. There’s NOTHING boring about great marketing, and making tons of money. I love it.

And mostly, I love the daily grind of doing business. Unless it gets too predictable… or too frustrating.

Being an entrepreneur takes care of the predictability problem — there’s nothing like working without a net on hair-brained projects to get your blood moving.

But over the last year, I’ve just had one bad experience with “technical guys” after another. I searched out the best geeks around, got personal recommendations, paid them a lot of money, even gave them marketing help. Still, each one failed me, miserably. Disappeared for months at a time without finishing projects for me, left nagging details unresolved no matter how often I talked to them about it, and generally behaved like high school kids with spring fever.

My sites languished without name capture pages put up. Simple copy changes never got implemented, resulting in embarrassing mistakes that affected sales. And critical links sent people off into the ether, never to be found again.

I absolutely hate working with jaded, irresponsible people.

I have finally found some technical assistance I can not just rely on… but I can also enjoy being around. Having a pal get involved is refreshing… and seeing the potential of the Web through his blossoming excitement restores my sense of wonder and awe at this amazing marketing machine that has changed our lives so thoroughly and deeply.

(I’ve also found another techie who — amazingly — has a brilliant understanding of how the Web “works”, combined with true old-style professionalism. And I will never reveal her name, because I cannot stand the thought that she might get too busy to remain the reliable veteran she is.)

Anyway, I’ll be sharing what I learn (mostly in my newsletter, the Rant) from this latest bout of experimentation and testing. One of the great things about online marketing is that there’s plenty of opportunity for everyone, and it’s just silly to be selfish with discoveries and information.

Right now, I’ve fooling around with offering some screaming deals via a new website: www.marketing-rebel-edu.com. The “edu” is my attempt at humor, mimicking the “.edu” of educational sites.

Actually, what we’ve got at www.marketing-rebel-edu.com is a market test. My “insider’s list” had first peek through a special email blast several days ago… and now I’m alerting you. Hop over there, and see what the fuss is all about.

Not sure how long the site will be up during this test. We’re experimenting with little details and paying attention to how every design and copy tweak affects results.

As always, things are changing at lightning speed online. I’ve been advising people not to get too stuck on any technical trick or model, no matter how successful it seems to be. Because tricks and models mutate. Right now, there are some amazing marketing models involving Google Adwords (done right, not done poorly), name capture pages (again, done right), and super-clever follow-up to buyers and non-buyers.

Also, I’ve seen a dramatic increase in foreign sales on all my sites — especially in Asia and Europe.

This has me thinking about putting on a European seminar. That’s how much this new excitement has changedmy attitude — from being ready to retire, to getting jiggy with bold plans to conquer the world again.

Check out the market test, will you?

Thanks.

Stay frosty.

John Carlton
www.marketingrebel.com

Empty Bragging, Noxious Excuses

I promise not to obsess on using The Apprentice as my main subject in this blog… but, gosh, it’s just so damn juicy with great story lines.

You don’t have to even watch it to fathom the main lessons, either. Just listen in to the water cooler chat, and you’ll get the gist.

Couple of quick insights to how ego and self-delusion can destroy you: First, last week the obnoxious beefy guy got the axe. Not much of a surprise there — he’d alienated his entire team, and was clearly in the midst of a personality breakdown.

What I found interesting was his “guarantee” of not getting fired. He said, to the camera, “I guarantee I will return from the boardroom.” And he said it so emphatically that spittle rained toward the camera. (“I… WILL… RETURN… etc.”)

Emphatic. Believe me or else.

This effort to twist reality by sheer impotent force of will echoed in the ad created by his team for the cereal product project. Now, these apprentices can be forgiven for not having advanced marketing chops — if they were already drop-dead experts, they wouldn’t be dancing for a spot in Trump’s hierarchy.

So I don’t fault them for being lame. Rather, I want to point out that, as utter advertising rookies, the copy they came up with is dangerously close to efforts I see while critiquing my Insider’s ads: Introducing The Next Generation… Finally, The Cereal For Everyone.

Honest teachers will immediately try to beat the urge to use “introducing” type headlines out of you for good. It’s weak copy, and makes Barnum (the guy who really knew how to introduce something to a gullible public) roll in his grave every time it gets dragged out.

Rookies get confused. They’re told the company is introducing a new product… and after hours of banging their heads against the wall trying to be “creative” and “clever”, they end up trying to bull their target audience over with the force of being emphatic.

The beefy guy’s emphatic promises were hollow, despite his vehemence. And the team’s ad was stupid, despite their delight in pretending to be a circus ring-leader.

As kids, I remember many times betting someone a million dollars that I was right about some minor point or another. It was supposed to carry the power of a double-dog dare, and blow him away — who, after all, could withstand the confidence of a boy willing to bet a million dollars on something?

Didn’t work then. Still doesn’t work in the adult world.

Second interesting point: A couple of shows ago, a team member lost the project by insisting they could cross Manhattan in twenty minutes to reach a crucial meeting in time. The irony was that the guy actually lived in Manhattan, and should have known better. They missed the meeting by forty minutes, and the fed-up executives they were supposed to interview just split.

That guy got fired, as well he should have.

But there’s a deeper lesson there, too. Namely, professionalism.

This is a serious point of contention for me, because I hate having my time wasted, and I took the trouble to discipline myself not to waste anyone else’s time, either.

It ain’t that hard.

My idea of professionalism is simple: You are where you said you’d be, when you said you’d be there, having done what you said you’d do.

In school, you can get out of being graded harshly when you fail if you have a good excuse. That’s a piss-poor fall-back position to bring into the business world, though.

You miss a deadline, and it can cost vast sums of very real money. And ruin your reputation in very real ways.

Some people are chronically late because they relish the power. It’s a passive-aggressive thing… and if you suspect someone is chronically wasting your time for the small thrill of holding you hostage to their sick need for control, leave now.

Other “late people” are just victims of thier own delusion. They remember the one time they got across town in twenty minutes, and ignore the four hundred times it took longer. There’s a reluctance to summon the energy required for the trip, and a reluctance to begin gearing up for whatever new kind of thinking the meeting will drag out of you. So you put it off as long as possible… and often longer.

If you’re chronically late, you need to change your behavior NOW. And you cannot accomplish this by simply being emphatic with yourself about it.

Even you won’t listen to your bullshit promises.

No, you need a plan. It sounds simple, but it escapes a lot of people just the same.

If you must be somewhere at 4 pm, you will be late if you start getting ready to leave at 4 pm. Yet, I know people who do this.

In fact, if it takes forty minutes to get where you’re going, you are late if you’re still in the office at 3:20. The Theory of Relativity does not bend just because you’ve got rotten planning skills.

Here’s the pro rule: If your meeting’s at 4, you are not walking into the room at 4, nor pulling into the parking lot at 4, nor sitting at a traffic light a block away at 4. At 4 pm, you have already been sitting calmly in the place you’re supposed to be for at least five minutes, with your thoughts gathered and your friggin’ shit together.

You do not “lose” the time you spend waiting for a meeting to start. It’s still your time. Meditate, read, work on notes, or just sit and enjoy being alive. But do it where you’re supposed to be… not back in your office or home getting ready, pretending you can navigate forty minutes of traffic in ten minutes this time.

Figure out the worst time it’s taken you to get across town. Then add ten minutes.

This way, you won’t have to watch for cops as you speed, you won’t be a menace trying to blow lights you’ve missed, and you won’t arrive with an adrenaline level through the roof.

Remember: No matter how good your excuse is, the people waiting for you don’t want to hear it.

If you’re late, you’re going to have to rely on your history. If you’re chronically on time, you’ll be forgiven. If you’re a “late person”, all you’ll ever get are eye-rolls as you waste more of their time trying to make your boring tale of wrecks, detours and slow tourists sound believeable.

This kind of simple discipline is not hard to pull off.

It’s just rare.

Stay frosty…

John Carlton
www.marketingrebel.com

‘Nother Glitch

Quick note: If you have emailed me in the last three days, there is a good chance your missive was sent into “Nowhere Land” by ghosts in my machine.

Despite having backup behind backup — fortified by multiple firewall, virus and cookie protection — some sneaky ass little application tunneled into my hard drive and is happily chewing up my productivity. Massive tech help is on the case, and I expect things to return to normal this afternoon… but be advised that any silence on my end probably means your email never arrived.

It’s like the old Silk Road, back during the days when info and goods had to travel by caravan. No matter how smooth the ride would be in a perfect world, it’s a dangerous adventure in the real world. Thieves, con men, viruses and the perverse humor of Nature all conspire to keep anyone from reaching Grandma’s house without incident.

Keeps life interesting.

Stay frosty.

John Carlton
www.marketingrebel.com