Category Archives for Internet
Next Stop: Panic & Chaos… Or Maybe It’ll Be Fun…
Sunday, 12:04 am
Do you like gruesome, everybody-dies horror stories set in the near future?
Good.
Cuz we all may be living through a real one in about… oh, less than two years.
Maybe sooner.
This happy news comes out of a wire service story launched by PC World publications yesterday afternoon.
Consider: A fresh study just released by an organization called the Nemertes Research Group — a self-described “independent analysis firm” — says the sky could very well be falling on our heads very soon now.
The virtual sky, that is. Specifically: The World Wide Web is about to blow its circuits as the new wave of video content overloads capacity.
They’re calling it an “exaflood”, because video really is the main culprit. (An exabyte is 1.1 billion gigabytes, higher than I can count. And apparently we’re flirting with disaster because of the dramatic increase in the size of data being shared, viewed, created, and stolen.)
I can see the final straw now, announced in banner headlines on the last of the real paper newspapers (because Web brown-outs have left everybody with blank screens across the land): “Ten-Millionth Viewing of Dancing Blonde Yeti Being Run Over By Speeding School Bus Video Shuts Down Web!” (Okay, I made that up.) (But you just know that — if a cyber-armeggedon does happen — it will be from some silly, non-essential piece of streaming video that goes apeshit viral.) (Though, I’d watch a dancing Yeti get run over any day…)
The key to avoiding such an ignoble fate: About $137-billion in infrastructure upgrades.
Or approximately what Bill Gates normally carries in his wallet.
And, man, I sincerely hope Bill and his buds (including Jobs, The Other People Who Own Silicon Valley, and the evil Google trolls) do pop for the upgrades, so I can continue my dreamy cyber existence without burps or other inconvenience.
But here’s why I’m just a tad suspicious of this news: First, I’ve been hearing about the imminent collapse of the Web for years now.
And for excellent reasons, too. (Excellent reasons.) The billions-deep parade of new-to-the-Web Chinese logging on every hour (with their cheap communist computers)… the crumbling 30-year-old analog gateways of the original Internet, still supporting the entire slap-dash network like an exhausted Atlas, sagging dangerously under the weight… pissed-off anarchist hackers from Eastern Europe eager to bring the entire world to its knees… and on and on.
Yet, we keep passing up the deadlines for disaster without, um, any disaster.
Second: There’s a very interesting tidbit of info in this new study… which admits that the current fiber and routing resources actually support “virtually any conceivable user demand…”
However, the authors warn, all this new-fangled video, music file-sharing, and other “content” crap we’re flooding the joint with is gonna blow the circuits. Very soon now!
You’ll see!
Not the Chinese hordes logging on. Not the absinthe-swilling nihilist hackers. Not the inherent weaknesses of the system.
Nope.
It’s all this damned content.
Now, don’t get me wrong.
I’m all for the end of civilization and all that, as long as it’s like a good George Romero movie.
But I kinda resent being jacked around by Servants of The Man whose real agenda for scaring people like this… is their desire to control what we watch, what we read, and what we share.
The one guy quoted in this article is a dude named Bruce Mehlman from something called the Internet Innovation Alliance… who claims to have been warning of this imminent melt-down for ages.
Name sounded familiar… so I did a little digging.
Yup.
Bruce is not a geek, as we understand technology lovers.
Rather, he’s a wonk-type-geekoid… a political animal who gave in to the Dark Side long, long ago.
In 2001, after trying to tell Cisco how to run its biz, Bruce oozed over to the Bush Administration… where he became assistant secretary for technology policy.
Now, I don’t care what your politics are. I believe that, in order for this nation to survive, we need both set of wingnuts doing their thang, so neither side takes over completely. (It’s a balanced view, in the way that allowing your nutso mother-in-law to move in with you balances out the unbridled fun you used to have as a couple. You can still have fun, but now you gotta be clever about it, like civilized adults.)
Anyway, I have far right friends, far left friends, and every other stripe of political beast represented in my address book of colleagues, buddies and resources. They are all sane in some ways, insane in other ways, and I learned long ago that nothing I say or do will sway them in the least, politically. So we peacefully co-exist.
But here is something I believe with all my heart: You simply cannot let agenda-driven political hacks be in charge of technology.
I’m sorry. You want a non-political group of dudes, ideally. Or at least someone who wasn’t in an administration that actively distrusts the Web. (I’m serious. Tom Delay, the former majority whip for the GOP House, has never let up on his insistence that people who do research on the “Internets” — as W. has famously called the Web many times — have committed some obvious weird blunder.) (Hey — google it, if you don’t believe me.)
Look. Vote how you like. I’m not writing a political blog here.
But seriously. Melman’s ultimate comment — after jumping on this uncertain study as proof of impending disaster — is that we first need to stop taxing Big Telecom. You know, so they can invest in infrastructure instead. (Major GOP talking point.)
I’ll let that point slide. Maybe there’s something to it, maybe not.
It’s the unspoken next point that is the kicker: We also need to immediately stop all this uncivilized file-sharing… or we’ll all die!
Especially video. And music sharing. And other should-be-illegal stuff those darn kids are doing.
I don’t yet know if this news release has gained traction in the “if it bleeds, it leads” mainstream press. I found it on the Washington Post’s website… so at the very least, it’s leaking into Beltway brains this very evening.
The doomsday scenario presented by the study seems to be fragrant with fairly easy, painless solutions… like pumping some money back into the infrastructure. And I kinda doubt that Big Web (I just made that up, to represent all the large corporations finally dragging their asses online in a big way) will sit by while this wonderful new way to reach customers shrivels and flickers because of Youtube enthusiasm. (I mean, Big Web just bought Youtube for a gazillion bucks.)
I’m just warning you.
If the story does gain traction, don’t swallow it whole.
There are people out there who are deeply frightened by the uncensored freedom of the Internets. Many of them are in powerful positions… and the entrepreneurial Wild West environment of the Web gives them ulcers.
They need to be watched carefully… cuz they would dearly love to clip the Web’s wings, so the big corporations could settle into their rightful place online, controlling and dominating everything. Without having to worry about all these “little guys” making waves.
Their dire tales of wolves gathering nearby need to be filtered through your Bullshit Detector. That’s all I’m saying.
Now, I’m gonna go enjoy some viral video…
Stay frosty,
John Carlton
www.marketingrebel.com
P.S. Did you see this story anywhere else? Was it buried, or is it spreading? Heard references to it on any of the prez debates?
Lemme know what you’ve heard… and what you think.
And if you have inside info on this “collapse of the Web” thing — because you work in a secret dungeon in Silicon Valley or something — let me know THAT, too.
Thanks.
Slippery Truth
Howdy…
Let me share with you an important re-discovery I was just bludgeoned with about the nature of what is “true”, and what is manufactured bullshit.
It’s a version of “truth” I believe is critical for all marketers and seekers of success (both in life and in biz)… and yet remains shockingly elusive and hard to nail down.
Why? Because some very dedicated people do not want you to get hip about it.
Here’s the story: Technically, I just got to share a stage with Richard Branson of Virgin Airlines/Virgin Records this past weekend.
Maybe “virtually” is the better word, though. I was in Phoenix, at Joe Polish’s stunning Super Conference, and I pulled a shift onstage chatting with Joe and then putting the audience of 700+ though their paces writing some headlines.
Branson was “on” the following day, via satellite. Very cool technology — totally live (well, almost, with a 3-second delay bouncing the images and sound off the orbiting junkpile up there) — and amazingly intriguing for a live audience. I had no idea a real audience could be held captive so effectively by someone’s huge head on a screen, broadcasting from half a world away.
But it works.
And I gotta tell you: I was prepared to NOT like Branson, and was ready to bolt the room the second he bored me.
Why? I’ll get to that in a moment. But by the third or fourth minute of his talk, I found myself really liking this guy… and thoroughly enjoying both what he had to say, and how he said it.
By the time he finished his “speech” and generously began to answer questions from the audience, I felt bad that he and I would never have the opportunity to hang out together. I felt that simpatico with him.
Later on, I thought about my prior feelings about him… and how they had been formed.
Bottom line: I was duped.
By the media, and probably also by corporate monsters who hate his message of independence and responsibility for taking care of the world.
The Man (the icon of the beasts who control this world) loathes rich people who attain success by alternative means, and then insult the Power Structure by challenging the “pillage and rape” methods they use to acquire and hold dominion over markets, populations and the “reality” most of us experience through media. (The beasts really, really, really want us sedated and mollified by the value-less aspects of such things as Youtube and Facebook, which act as opiates to keep the bulk of society from questioning anything The Man is doing.) (There IS some value to Youtube and Facebook, of course… but they’re not exactly sterling examples of enlightenment.)
Branson’s main ventures have all been centered on his experiences in modern life… and how he found them lacking and in dire need of updating or complete revolutions. Air travel has sucked for several generations, and so he created Virgin Airlines, which apparently rocks. (I’ve never had the pleasure, but my partner Stan gives it 10 out of 10 stars.) He created his record label to fill the huge gap of taste and relevance that the Big Ugly Record Companies left open… and they have despised him for it ever since.
Now, of course, he’s doing amazing things to try and make the world better… and The Man is apoplectic with rage for the effort. (Branson had Nelson Mandella and Kofi Anan of the UN ready to go to Iraq and convince Saddam to step down and go live in exile in Liberia — which would have been a bloodless, peaceful coup that accomplished everything the Bush administration said it wanted — but the day they were ready to leave for Iraq, the war started and it was too late. I remember this getting scant media attention — at least here in the US — and being completely squelched soon after. The Man hates being second-guessed.)
All this has reminded me, yet again, of the unpleasant responsibility of enjoying the privileges of a free society: We can NEVER take the word of those in power as gospel… and we are saddled forever with the need to stay vigilant and challenge authority on every major point.
The media has not been totally unkind to Branson… but the general attitude about him (if you never actually listened to his side of the story) was skeptical and sneering. Rich do-gooder guy, who was a self-admitted “party animal”, trying to ignore the rules the rest of us have to live by. Deserves to be taken down a notch or two, the little bastard.
Which, of course, is an ABSURD notion for a guy like me to have in his head at all. Heck… I never play by the rules, and I distrust authority with the best of them.
In fact, my entire teaching style is centered on “waking up”… ditching the zombie lifestyle The Man prefers you to stumble though life with… and claiming your place at the Feast.
So what I’ve come away with — from this little exercise in awareness — is the POWER of the media in this regard. I hadn’t bothered to go deep, and get the story myself. To be fair, I’m a tad busy to be doing my own research on everybody in the news… but in this case, we have a guy who is knocking himself out trying to do the right thing in many, many ways that require courage, vision and piles of his own money… and I allowed the snarling media to gobble up his basic message and keep the BEST part of it away from me.
Entirely my fault. I dozed, and got snookered.
The truth will always be slippery, hard to nail down, and subject to misinformation and propaganda.
Still, it’s worth remembering who’s in charge of most of the “news” you are spoon-fed. Rich people who have a stake in you NOT becoming rich, too. They got theirs, and aren’t too happy about you getting yours.
It’s a good thing to spend just a little more energy to get a better view of any story by uncovering alternative news outlets.
And it’s also a good thing to remember how nasty The Man can get when riled. I have zero interest in any kind of “real” fame specifically because of this. I’m fine with the very minor celebrity status I enjoy on the seminar circuit, and among my subscribers and clients and customers. It’s like having a big, raucous, fun and interesting extended family to hang out with.
But the kind of fame that would regularly get you on the front page? Forget it. You instantly become canon fodder for a heartless media that doesn’t care a whit about truth or serving the Greater Good.
Me? I’m gonna get Branson’s book and read it right away.
The dude has me intrigued… and I feel I owe it to him.
Stay frosty,
John Carlton
www.carltoncoaching.com
Misfits In Charge
News flash: If you are neither on, nor in need of, attention-deficit medication… you’re probably at a serious disadvantage marketing your business online.
I’m not judging anyone here — I’m just making an observation.
A few weeks ago, I was sitting at a big sloppy banquet hosted by one of the top online entrepreneurs. Very nice restaurant, and we had a back room all to ourselves.
Seated around me were a dozen other rich, respected online entrepreneurs — mostly men in their thirties, and one or two women in the same age group. Everywhere you turned, there was another fun and invigorating conversation going on.
I really like my colleagues in the online marketing world. And I appreciate the fact that, while I’m much older (and I’ve been around the block about a thousand more times), we all have so much in common that we treat each other like equals.
Which mostly means we engage freely in totally uncensored conversations that are hilarious, revealing, and often amazingly profitable.
At this particular dinner, however, I had a sudden realization… and was able to field-test it immediately with the people sitting around me.
That realization was this: While we have much in common as marketers and advertisers and just being cutting-edge creative types… we ALSO share another trait that I almost NEVER used to see in the pre-Web days of direct response advertising.
Once I tell you what this trait is, it will seem obvious.
But few of us have ever put a finger on it before.
Wanna guess what this trait is that so many online entrepreneurs share?
It’s…
… being a misfit.
And not just a run-of-the-mill misfit, either.
I started asking my table-mates, point blank, if they had ever been diagnosed with ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder), OCD (obsessive/compulsive disorder), or any of the other less common “social outsider” categories that doctors seem to love using to catalog people.
Everyone started sharing their private histories… and it was eye-opening.
I’m not gonna name names here. (Insiders will probably be able to guess who I’m talking about… but then, they probably also share the same diagnosis.)
I just think this is an important insight to online marketing success.
There were brilliant people at this table… and at least one honest genius, IQ-wise. There were technical wizards, stunningly talented thinkers, writers with breathtaking talent, and lots of super-savvy guys who had learned to “game” the online system so massive quantities of moolah flowed in their direction.
Often with little extra work.
And yet, in the offline world, nearly all of them would be STRUGGLING to hold down a regular job… or, in some cases, possibly forced out of “polite” socieity altogether.
These people were misfits. Literally, they didn’t FIT in the mainstream world very well at all.
Some of the brightest ones had common memories of being forced into “special needs” classes in school. Many were dropouts, because their intelligence was overlooked and understimulated.
For the ones who were most successful… the birth of the Web presented SALVATION.
Many started online as gamers — staying up late (or for days at a time) dodging dragons and shooting aliens, sharing the new fantasy worlds with an ever-growing community of other misfits. They got to know each other, started exploring the capitalist possibilities of the Web, and traded in games for marketing.
While the Web frightened and confused traditional businesses, these younger guys were fearless about code, software, building sites and everything else in the new virtual world-wide city center.
I got into freelance copywriting because I was a notoriously bad fit in the corporate world. I can’t stand wearing ties (they literally chafe my neck), and I’m a flagrant night owl — which, I have now discovered, is something else I share with many of the best online entrepreneurs out there.
As far as I know, I do not have any attention deficit problems… yet, I can enjoy long and chaotic conversations with the worst of them, and I even enjoy the non-linear thinking.
So, I dunno, maybe I’m ADHD, too. Can you have a mild case of it?
Actually, I kinda doubt it really exists. Getting to know these brilliant, wacky online entrepreneurs leads me to believe that — in the bad old pre-Web days — there simply wasn’t a place for them.
“Normal” society hates misfits, cuz we make uptight people uncomfortable. (I’ve been fired from almost every “real” job I’ve ever had.) (With good reason, too — I refused to play by stupid rules, and I still consider the REAL insane people to be the ones who surrender their individuality to The Man for a paycheck.)
The Web has nurtured a fabulous explosion of entrepreneurial opportunity… and now smart misfits can work their own hours, dressed however they like, from chaotic home offices, doing whatever funky project they dream up.
You can make your own rules, and change them daily. You can obsess to your heart’s content, or be as lazy and distracted as you like (once you’ve set your systems in place) and still rake it in.
The entire playing field has changed, drastically. In traditional corporate environments, the people who rise to positions of authority and power (and high salaries) are often the jerks who know how to play “the game” at work. Kiss ass, take credit for other people’s efforts, avoid responsibility for failure, stab co-workers in the back, etc.
The biz-as-usual soap opera.
Online, however, you’re essentially naked except for your brain. There’s no corporate game to play… and none of the skills that normally shoot a person up the ladder are relevant.
Online, being good looking, or suave, or a good worker, or even likeable won’t win you any victories.
Online, the misfits have the advantage. They can create their own attention paradigms, set their own standards, and take their biz directly to people who want what they offer… with nary an intervening newspaper, magazine, television standards and practices attorney, politician, store shelf position, billboard or sweet talking salesman to harsh anyone’s mellow.
I don’t know if anyone else has fully understood the implications here. Maybe I’m slow getting on the band wagon… but the other entrepreneurs I’ve talked to have all agreed that no one’s really noticed how many true misfits there are at the top of the online world.
There’s room for everybody, of course.
But I think I now see why so many wannabe entrepreneurs I counsel are having trouble getting traction onine — they need to get in touch with their Inner Misfit.
It’s a brave new world… and I, for one, welcome it.
Misfits of the world, unite!
And stay frosty,
John Carlton
www.marketingreble.com
Pulling The Plug
We live in a nice joint, in a nice neighborhood.
The house is big, comfy, secluded (somewhat), wired… and full of technological whoop-de-do’s that break down with alarming regularity.
Last week, it was the dishwasher.
Now, for most of my life I was old-school about cleaning up. I have an old R. Crumb cartoon of Mr. Natural doing the dishes — it’s hilarious to a certain demo from my generation, but somewhat obscure to everyone else. He just rolls up his sleeves and does the dishes, in frame after frame of a page-long cartoon. The last panel has him walking away drying his hands and saying “Another job well done.”
That’s old school.
However, I quickly fell into the trance of having a dishwashing machine once we moved in. Load ‘er up, punch a button, go do something else.
So it was discombobulating when the little bastard broke down. We had to run off to Target to get a dishrack, and I was re-aquainted with the old Zen mindset of washing by hand.
After a few days of that, though, we made the modern decision to replace the automatic beast under the counter.
It’s a beauty, too. Brand new ’08 model, bristling with gadgetry and options, yet efficient and quiet (like a little troll that sneaks into the kitchen at night to tidy up).
It’s also another electricity-eating robot… and after the first couple of cycles, it just went HAL on us. (HAL being the evil narcissistic computer in the movie “2001”, of course.) Then it appeared to burn out completely.
Mocked by unresponsive blinking lights, we called the repairman, who said he might make it by the house at some point, while insisting we not “try anything” to fix the machine ourselves. And no, he said, there is no “reset” button. We needed to wait for him, Mr. Expert.
Screw that. I immediately did two things: (1) I tried every tactic I could think of to trick the damn thing into working again… and (2) I asked my assistant Diane for advice.
Diane has been with me for years, and understands the “real” world in ways that only a smart, fearless single mother can.
“Did you unplug it?” she asked, without hesitation.
Uh, no, I hadn’t. I didn’t even know where to find the plug.
Under the sink, it turns out. Obvious.
Diane learned this trick of unplugging, waiting a few beats, and re-plugging electrical monsters long ago. It works with computers, printers, phone answering machines, televisions, cable boxes… and dishwashers.
Works like a charm, too. We’re washing a big damn load of dishes right now. Told Mr. Expert to forget stopping by.
This “unplug and reset” thing reminded me of a critical lesson from Eben Pagan’s killer “Altitude” seminar from a few weeks ago: One of his guest speakers was a sports shrink (as well as a biz consultant)… and he emphasized the need for “recovery” in everything humans do.
Top athletes know how to relax during every pause in the action of their sport. Rookies stay tensed up, and often collapse in exhaustion, while the pro’s dance in elation after the most grueling contest.
Bodybuilders certainly know the necessity of recovery — you can’t build muscle without lots and lots of rest between workouts. In fact (important point here), you will DESTROY muscle if you overwork your body.
In business, I long ago learned the lessons of burn-out: I did it exactly once, frying my brain with workaholism, lack of sleep and a refusal to take vacations around 15 years ago.
It sucked, and I became a relaxation junkie. Part of what I teach freelancers, in fact, is the glory and necessity of weekly massages and monthly mini-vacations. Plus a routine of frequent “Miller Time” breaks to end your day. (Doesn’t have to include booze, but very much DOES have to feature real relaxation and complete brain shut-down.)
Miller Time means: Work, done for today.
Not another conscious thought about the office is allowed until morning.
I can’t count the number of up-and-coming copywriting stars I’ve counselled over the years who ignored my advice and just piled on the jobs until they literally collapsed. A young man should not suffer a physical or mental breakdown. An older dude should know how to avoid it, too.
Sadly, most don’t. The American mindset is suspicious of anything that smacks of slacking off… and that’s just a dumb way to live. (Most of the successful entrepreneurs I know are shockingly lazy, though capable of intense bursts of short focus and disciplined work.)
Burn-out is not your inevitable fate. It is, in fact, a CHOICE people make. They mostly do it unconsciously, denying they’re pushing themselves too hard… but it’s a choice nonetheless.
You can choose to install GOOD habits, instead.
Like unplugging from the grid on a regular basis.
Find ways to turn your mind off. It needs the recovery period, and needs it every day.
Washing the dishes by hand reminded me of the Zen “no thought” mode I’m able to slip into, when I give myself the opportunity. It took years to develop, and I forget about this skill often. (I tend to rely on weekly massage to take me there, which makes me lazy about doing it myself.)
So it’s VERY worthwhile to be reminded, regularly, about the need and the joy of unplugging. Find ways to do it without technology — no Playstation, no websurfing, no staring at the tube.
Find an old school way to do it. My buddy Frank Kern surfs for real in the ocean. My buddy Stan gorges on the live music in his town. Last night, I just stood in my yard staring at the full moon cruise across the sparkling autumn sky for a while… not lost in thought, but alive with no-thought.
Unplugged.
Even a moment or two of it can reset your system.
You can play at being a cyborg with video games, but in real life you’re in dire need of very human recovery periods.
Take the advice of a dude who experienced burn-out and figured out the alternatives. You don’t ever have to experience it yourself to learn the lesson.
The number one rule of living well has always been “First, be a good animal.”
Words to live well by.
Stay frosty,
John Carlton
www.carltoncoaching.com
Test, Test, Test, Test, Test, etc.
Bulletin from the powerful Altitude event in Los Angeles last week: Testing equals Big Bucks.
This shouldn’t be news, but it is for an alarming number of even veteran marketers. (I’ll certainly cop to being guilty of not testing anywhere near enough.)
The bottom line is that, at some point, you’ve got to step away from what you “believe” to be true about your market, your advertising, and your sales funnel… and test the critical parts of your pitch. Price, headline, bullets, voice, attitude, layout, guarantee, name capture, email follow-up, freebies, all of it.
The rewards of dedicated, focused and obsessive testing have never been made more obvious to me… than when, smack in the middle of the seminar, Eben asked the room how many people tested “regularly” on their Websites.
Bunch of folks raised their hands.
Then he asked how many tested EVERY DAY.
About half a dozen kept their hands up.
Then… and this is where it gets good… he asked each of the “every day testers” how much they were grossing.
Wow.
The low end take of that small group was over $12million/year. The mean average was over twenty million.
Moral: Testing rocks.
You will, of course, continue to do what you want to do. It’s your biz, after all.
However, you’ll never know how much moolah you’re leaving on the table until you test. And test often. And learn from your results.
Just a small tidbit from the vast mountain of stuff I learned (and re-learned) at the Altitude seminar. Eben really threw himself, and his entire organization, into making that event a shocking success… and you know you’ve done well when grizzled, cynical, “seen it all before” veterans like me give you an enthusiastic thumbs up.
Everyone I talked to — and the room was packed with movers and shakers — was ecstatic over the material presented and the opporunities offered.
Well done, Eben.
I’ll be synthisizing my notes over the next weeks, and sharing more soon.
My head is still buzzing from the overload of input…
Stay frosty,
John Carlton
www.marketingrebel.com
Life Under A Cloud Of Tobacco Smoke…
I hate it when I discover a show on TV that forces me to watch it compulsively.
See, my private vision of myself is of a suave, worldly guy who nurses a beer in an overstuffed leather chair while reading good literature and expanding my mind with Big Thoughts.
In reality, I keep finding my ass welded to the couch instead, riveted to mindless visual crap on the tube. (I love “Whacked Out Sports”. So sue me.)
I’m so ashamed.
But, heck, I gotta stay involved in the culture (or so I keep telling myself).
So, every late summer, I check out the new offerings. Besides, HD is so bitchin’ to watch, it’s like television has been reinvented all over again.
The new show that’s got me obsessed is “Mad Men”, a rare series on AMC (the cable channel that usually shows old movies, mostly from the MGM catalog). It’s not on HD — big minus — but it IS the brain-child of a former Soprano’s producer. (How HBO lost the bid on this show, I’ll never figure out. It’s getting shockingly-good press, and the water-cooler buzz is amazing.)
The “mad” part refers to Madison Avenue — circa 1960. Easily the most classic year of the most classic period of advertising seen by our civilization. It’s a period piece, and they’ve paid excruciatlng attention to detail: Everyone chain smokes, the guys wear thick glasses, globs of Brylcreem, and fedoras (the hat disappeared from fashion right after John Kennedy got elected prez in the autumn of 1960 — part of his “youth appeal” was his habit of not wearing a hat)… and racism, sexism and religious bigotry is so ingrained, there is zero self-consciousness about behavior that — today — would be considered at best offensive, and at worst criminal.
You keep finding yourself stunned by passing comments, by the treatment of women (who are called girls and regarded as intellectually inferior), by the casual alpha male refusal to take ulcers, sobriety or fidelity seriously on any level. (Trust me — the drug and sex fueled immorality of the 1980s have got NOTHING on 1960.)
I love period stuff. I was just a kid back then… but this was the golden age of the super-agency, when John Caples was still around, Rosser Reeves was just getting reved up, and David Ogilvy was writing his most famous copy. Most of the ad and copywriting books on my shelf are from this period.
Sure, the ads are all about slogans, with lots of graphics (mostly paintings by damn good illustrators, since photography didn’t print so hot yet)… but salesmen were still in charge.
It was a different world back then… bad in many obvious ways, oblivious of psychological and physical health concerns (doctors smoked in the exam room), and you gotta wonder how anything ever got done when nearly every guy in the agency started drinking — heavily — at noon every day. In fact, you were regarded with suspicion if you weren’t a lush. (No promotion for you, Mr. Teatotaler.)
You can draw a straight line from the online advertising of today, clean through those late-fifties/early-sixties days, on back to the “official” beginnings of direct response in the heydays of the late 1800s.
You can laugh at how naive they seemed back then… but these are your ancestors, working away at the new-fangled IBM Selectrics after the exact same goals you’re after with your plasma monitors and laptops. (And really, we aren’t all that smart today… and a good case can be made that we’re going backwards intellectually, Devo-style, in spite of technological spurts.)
People often ask me for “extra” secrets to getting really good at marketing and copywriting and advertising in general. What they usually expect to hear is some overlooked secret about technique or some hidden tactic I’ve been keeping from everyone.
But you wanna know one of the really juicy, extra-advanced secrets to getting really good?
It’s becoming a student of history. Not just advertising history, but the history of our culture, of language and art and war and technology. We do very much live in exciting times, and the online adventure is as much a sci-fi story as anything else humans have ever experienced before.
But nothing has happened in a vacuum.
There are precendents to every detail of modern life. We tend to take things for granted… but that’s thinking inside the box, and that kind of stunted non-imagination is for losers.
History is the easiest way to expand your consciousness (without drugs, even), and to get the Big View of life (where all the truly mind-blowing revelations like to gestate).
Most folks fear history because they can’t see how it’s relevant to modern life. (Plus, it seems to be centered on lots and lots of reading, and that scares Americans.)
Just get over it. History is where genius finds inspiration, and where the most creative among us can put their ideas to the test.
Just catch a couple of “Mad Men” shows. It’s got a good series of plots going — ala the Soprano’s — and it’s a joy to watch. Well written, tightly edited, just a blast to veg out and absorb. I was years away from being a teenager back then, but I sort of remember the Zeitgeist of the period. So I’m mostly watching it as a stranger to the era, too. Don’t think it’s not for you just because you weren’t even a glimmer in your daddy’s eye in 1960.
Expand your horizons. Get a well-studied, documented taste of what life was like for your immediate ancestors in advertising.
The show comes with my highest recommendation.
Stay frosty…
John Carlton
www.marketingrebel.com
R.I.P. Elvis Sightings and Exploding Preachers
Dateline: Miami, FL — The one-time juggernaut Amercian Media, Inc, announced that they will cease to publish the Weekly World News tabloid in August, after 28 years of faithfully delivering the most delightfully outrageous crap imagineable.
I, for one, will shed a tear and lift a toast.
When I began my career, one of my copywriting-skill-strengthening rituals included frequent jaunts to the local newsstand… where I would pick up a stack of headline-heaven magazines like Cosmo, Reader’s Digest, Playboy… and of course the Weekly World News, the National Enquirer, and any other tabloid rag that threatened to rattle my cage with weird, beautiful, titillating cover copy.
All the top copywriters I knew were devoted to these beastly publications. We never had to read further than the headlines on the front page, either, to get what we wanted — truly wicked phrases and Power Words artfully arranged to amuse, intrigue, delight and enrage.
In other words: Hooks.
Anyone who has heard me lecture knows that I urge everyone with advertising dreams to adopt the same reading rituals. If nothing else, you’ll learn about the power of finding a good angle.
When the tabloids strike a nerve with a killer headline, the publications fly off the shelf.
Boring heads, however, mean slow death from being ignored.
It was — and always will be — a fundamental lesson that even the most cocksure writer needs to keep being reminded of, over and over and over again.
The staff writers at WWN were “money scribes”… meaning, they were deadly serious about goosing the American unconscious with their “Vegan Vampire Attacks Trees”, “Man Bothered By Martian Telemarketers”, “Abe Lincoln Was A Woman” (and killed by a jealous Booth), etc., headlines. Because there was cash on the line.
They knew where the soft spots in people’s defenses were, and they knew how to skewer them.
Fabulous stuff.
For copywriters, there was no better lesson in delivering a verbal sucker punch that will not be ignored.
My favorites: “Boy Eats Own Head”, and “Preacher Explodes On Pulpit”. Super tight writing, almost minimalist haiku that tells a story you just gotta find out about.
I’ve been aiming at the very high bar set by those crazy headlines ever since I wrote my first ad with a real hook.
It’s an insight that can create fortunes: A great hook isn’t always pretty… but if it inflames curiosity and desire, then you’ve done your job.
With a great hook, the rest of your sales pitch is just mop-up duty.
Oh, you really didn’t want to buy that tabloid. It was just too embarrassing to be seen even picking one up. You couldn’t hide it in your cart, and even the most jaded check-out clerk would glance up to see what kind of person you were, buying this crap. (Or, just as often, they’d stop the register cold so they could finish reading the entire front cover. I always knew there was a writing lesson waiting when that happened.)
Standing in line at the grocery, I know you’ve snuck peeks at it, maybe picked an issue up if no one was watching… but buy a copy?
Did anyone actually plunk down cash for the Weekly World News?
Yep. In its glory days, hundreds of thousands of people paid good money for the ol’ WWN every week (and its sister publication the National Enquirer had weekly sales in the millions). Millions more ogled it while in line, or stole friend’s copies.
More than a few famous writers have copies framed on their office walls.
Ah, but all printed publications are having a rough time of it, now that the Web has won the attention-deficit wars.
And so, we bid adieu to probably the best-written trash in publishing history.
We hardly knew ya, kid.
You shall be missed.
I’m sure there will soon be sightings of Elvis reading a classic issue, perhaps while strolling through crop circles in the shape of Bat Boy…
John Carlton
www.carltoncoaching.com
P.S. Small bit of good news — apparently, the WWN will contine to exist in some form online. I hope that’s true… but trips to the grocery store will never be the same…
P.P.S. Got a favorite headline? Leave it in the comments section, will ya?
Part Deux: The Continuing Saga of the Sales Challenged Geek
And the firestorm continues to rage.
There are a number of issues that have reared their ugly head since I posted the first “Sales Challenged Geek” piece here. I’ve got a lot to say, so let’s just take ’em on one at a time:
1. The skills behind world-class salesmanship are aggressively misunderstood by most people. This is exemplified by the polls taken by news organizations after the annual blitz of Super Bowl ads: They ask which ad was the “best”… and millions of people toss in their two cents.
This is marvelous theater… but a piss-poor way to judge the effectiveness of advertising.
People believe they understand the function of advertising, because they’ve seen so much of it over their lifetime.
And yet, almost universally, they are dead wrong about what makes an ad “good”.
There is just one way for a biz to judge the quality of any ad they run: Does it work?
Not, does it entertain? Not, is it inoffensive in every conceivable way, so no one gets riled up? And certainly not, does your spouse “like” it?
If you are a rookie in business, please take this one piece of advice from a grizzled veteran: Be VERY careful who you take advice from.
You can gather two dozen of your closest, most trusted friends, and ask them for advice on how to market your biz. Their hearts will be in the right place, they will be sincere, and many will honestly believe they understand the function of advertising enough to confidently tell you exactly what to do and what to avoid.
And, if none of your friends has any actual experience in marketing… you can bet all that wonderful advice will be somewhere around 100% wrong.
World-class salesmanship may not be rocket science… but it is a very non-intuitive set of learned skills on par with, say, learning to play a musical instrument. It’s not normally part of the original equipment issued when you come into this world.
And, fortunately, your business can probably get by with less than world-class salesmanship… but you do need to at least need to learn the basics. The equivalent of learning to play a simple song on the piano all the way through, to follow the analogy. (And keep in mind, most people screw up “Chopsticks”… and can’t even clap in time to a simple beat.)
These analogies are important, because the default belief out there about advertising and marketing is aggressively wrong. You can see this in some of the comments left on my last post — people are so sure that what they believe about long copy is the Truth (with a capital “T”), that they will not hesitate to argue with people who make their living at it.
This is not surprising to hardened advertising veterans, by the way. We know from experience that belief always trumps logic (and even science).
You will never change someone’s mind just because you have facts and results on your side. People will stubbornly cling to a welded-in belief even when it clearly is hurting them. (Before I learned to parse out the most oblivious clients as a freelancer, I was frequently faced with biz owners who would interfere with a winning ad… because their spouse “had a better idea”… and refuse to admit they’d made a mistake even as their profits plummeted.)
The illogical nature of the human mind is precisely why high-end salesmanship causes such outrage among the clueless — it’s often counter-intuitive, and, yes, psychologically manipulative.
2. The stunning power behind this psychological manipulation is exactly why I urge people to study salesmanship — especially how it’s used in advertising copy — even if they aren’t going to be writing their own ads.
If you are so clueless that a stark “take away” tactic in a pitch is gonna make you swoon with uncontrolled desire for something you don’t really want… then you’re not going to live a very good life.
You are, in fact, an A-1 sucker.
And I don’t want ANYONE to go around being suckered, or conned, or manipulated. If I could re-design the world, I’d make the art of persuasion part of our basic equipment.
But that’s not the way the world works.
In my course “Kick Ass Copywriting Secrets of a Marketing Rebel”, I am emphatic (in the opening chapter) about hoping that anyone using these proven salesmanship tactics for unethical reasons… will go straight to Hell.
And I’m serious. Good direct marketing techniques probably deserve the black eye they have in the public’s mind. The entire advertising industry has a long history of touting rotten products, and scamsters make full use of every tactic in the book.
But that doesn’t make the tactics “bad”.
Listen carefully: Scamsters use the selling models they use… because those models work. Duh. Most cons know they only have ONE chance at a sale (cuz they probably need to either leave town fast, or take down their Website before being traced). So they don’t dick around with techniques that don’t get results.
None of us like this situation. In a perfect world, all scam artists would spontaneously burst into flames the moment they entered illegal territory.
But that’s not what happens.
The Web has opened the floodgates of scams that used to operate at the fringe of socieity. Back in the pre-wired days, most scams were conducted face-to-face, individually. Direct mail was too expensive, and newspapers wouldn’t accept print ads from identifiable con men.
Now, though, even the most pit-bull spam filter can’t begin to catch all the illicit and criminal crap hitting your inbox every hour of every day. Cheap email has made it profitable for crooks to spam.
But none of this discredits the effectiveness of good salesmanship.
3. Why not?
Because successful marketers understand the inherently hostile relationship between seller and buyer. The marketing graveyard is crammed to bursting with fabulous products that failed… because the marketing sucked.
And you’re using products right now, every hour of every day, that are overpriced, under-performing, and right on schedule to be obsolete long before you’ve gotten full value. (How’s that nifty new iPhone working out for ya?)
Sellers want to get the best price they can, while delivering what they believe is decent value.
Buyers want to get the most bang for thier buck, scoring the biggest bargain possible.
And that’s just on the surface.
Further down, in the murky depths where all psychological battles are fought, it starts to get really interesting.
Even the simplest transaction is fraught with peril for both seller and buyer. Say you need some nails, cuz your hammer’s lonely. Unless you’re a carpenter, you’re gonna find yourself in Home Depot staring slack-jawed at a bewildering array of pointy-tipped products. Row after row of them, too.
A rookie might consider this the easiest kind of sale possible. Guy wants nails, you got nails… what’s the problem?
Information is the problem. Somewhere in that armada of sharp metal is the perfect nail for the job you have at home. But you don’t know where that nail is. Or how much you should pay for it.
Or even what quality of that type of nail you should get.
Enter advertising. First, probably, in the guise of the helpful employee, who tries to steer you to the right shelf. He’ll ask you questions, narrow down your search… and present you with a choice.
In most retail situations, it’s the old “good, better, best” choice. Sears started it — if price is your main consideration, we got these cheap-shit nails in a plain plastic bag. They’re good enough. If you want something better — and don’t mind paying a bit more — we got these other nails over here… better quality material, more trustworthy, probably some form of guarantee.
Or, if you want the best… we have the snooty brand name nails, in the sturdy box, with the rebate coupon, the free hammer, the endorsement of The Tool Guy, and yadda, yadda, yadda.
Sure, they cost more. But doesn’t your hammer deserve the best?
This is all very advanced salesmanship, rife with psychological manipulation. The SAME mind game stuff used by scamsters, in fact. A little bit of take-away, a lot of credentializing, a whole bunch of risk-reversal.
And a complete rout of your objections.
You go to Home Depot for nails, you’re coming home with nails, dude.
Why is so much salesmanship needed for such a basic transaction?
Because of the perversity of the human mind. The guy who thought he knew what he needed is faced with a bewildering array of choices. His first thought is to flee. He’s thinking “I don’t want to make the wrong choice. My buddies would think I’m an idiot. Maybe I should ask my uncle about this first…” and so on.
The objections pile up fast and furious. Because the desire to buy, and the need to sell, are part of an inherently hostile interaction.
Yes, even when it seems to be in everyone’s best interest to have the deal go down.
And this is just for nails.
In the Information Age… with information and knowledge the stuff being sold and sought… the objections multiply quickly. With retail products, like nails, you can do cost comparisons right there in the store. You may even have a sense of what is too much, and what truly is a great bargain.
But how do you price information? Prospects come into your world with vague, unformed desires… and a straight checklist of features won’t do the job of selling them.
So here’s the bottom line: If you honsetly have a product of quality and worth… that your prospect truly needs and can make good use of… then it’s your JOB to do what you need to do to make the sale happen.
Shame on you if you let your prospect go away unhappy and unfulfilled and empty handed.
You gotta answer all his obvious questions… and counter the unconscious objections he isn’t even aware of yet. He needs rational reasons to buy, as well as irrational reasons to soothe his un-named fears.
So you explain the benefits. You establish yourself as a go-to guy. You help him understand why the price is what it is… and help him “fit” that price into his head. So he can confidentally explain to the doubters in his life why he just bought.
You remove his fear of being suckered. You let him know he got the better end of the bargain. You take away all risk, so he feels safe in buying right away.
But even deeper: You know (because you’re an uber-salesman) that he still won’t pull out his wallet if there is an easy way “out”. You know that even though he’ll kick himself later for not buying right then and there, and even though he wants it desperately… if he feels a lack of urgency, he will act against his own self-interest, and decline to close the deal.
Thus: You use limitations, deadlines, one-time offers, bonuses and whatever else you have in your arsenal to light a fire under his butt.
Because, as an experienced salesman, you know that once he leaves without buying, the odds of him returning later are very, very, very low. He walks, and you’ve lost the sale, most of the time.
Is this starting to make sense now?
4. The geeks who rail against the perceived scam-i-ness of long copy ads are engaging in another common human foible that all veteran salesmen recognize: The need to protect yourself against Voodoo.
People who do not understand advertising — but believe they do — are so terrified of being “taken”, that they set up a psychological “electric fence” around their brain. They become convinced they are so savvy about the wiles and tricks of marketing, that they are now immune.
One of the most dangerous aspects of unchecked belief systems is the false confidence they offer the believer. You can believe — with all your heart and soul — that you’re the baddest ass in the bar… the prettiest girl getting off the bus in Miami Beach… or the savviest hustler on the street.
And it’s always ugly when belief runs up against reality. Always.
You know what a world-class salesman wants to see in a prospect?
A tight wall of reasons why he’s NOT gonna buy.
You know why? Because even the most rock-solid psychological “electric fence” of resistance… is just a rickety pile of simple objections. You give a good salesman an objection, and he will reduce it to ashes.
All day long.
And when he’s done, you’ll be standing there thinking “He’s right. I do want that thing.”
Believe otherwise if you like. It’s your privilege to believe anything you want.
But old time door-to-door salesmen knew that the easiest marks on any block were the ones with the “No Solicitation” signs on the porch post.
5. This is why I want to teach salesmanship to everyone.
People who understand salesmanship lead better lives. Not because they’re better people… but because they are unencumbered with the burden of stupid beliefs.
And, they understand the process of selling that is going on in every store, on every Website, in every magazine, on every TV station… and between every set of humans alive — spouses, friends, neighbors, colleagues, enemies, and even strangers.
6. I’ll bet I get brow-beaten over this post in the comment section.
You challenge people’s beliefs at your own peril.
7. In fact, one comment kinda rankled me last time. Some yo-yo wrote “I don’t like what you’re pushing here”.
Pushing?
Dude, I am not pushing anything. This blog is free. And, if you’re honest about it, I’m delivering a ton of great info here.
For free.
I never push anyone into anything. You like what I’ve got to teach, and you want to go deeper with it, I’ve got courses and coaching programs. No, they’re not free. Neither is Harvard or Yale.
Is my advice worth the hefty price tag? Absolutely not, if you believe there is nothing I could teach you. Rock on, dude. I am not, and have never claimed to be, everyone’s cup of tea.
I earned my reputation as one of the highest-paid freelancers alive by getting results for over 25 years… often in the toughest markets out there. I’ve taught massive numbers of people the deep, dark arts of world-class copywriting and salesmanship for almost as long (and that would be why www.marketingrebel.com, my main site, is so crammed with excited testimonials).
So, disagree with me, if you must.
But don’t distort the argument. I never mentioned “get rich quick” schemes in my prior post. If you’re a geek who has made the sticky connection between long copy and scams in your head, that’s fine. Make a case for another path, by showing me results, though — not boring rants about your beliefs.
You know who uses long copy… with all the advanced salesmanship tactics available?
You’re not gonna like hearing this…
Reader’s Digest (they even use “grabbers” like pennies glued to their long-copy direct mail letters)…
Prevention Magazine point-of-purchase (published by the folks behind the mega-successful “South Beach Diet”)…
Men’s Health magazine…
Sharper Image catalogs…
Sky Mall catalogs (in the seat-pocket in front of you)…
The Wall Street Journal (owners of one of the most famous long-copy direct mail letters in history)…
Time-Life — their hour-long informericals for music CDs are legendary…
The ACLU… both political parties (and most third-party candidates)… and every charity out there: the Red Cross, the Salvation Army, Veterans of Foreign Wars, American Cancer Society…
and on, and on, and on.
You think people bought iPods because of a few bitchin’ commercials featuring the Vines?
Please.
Apple orchestrated a tsumani of planned articles for a year in advance. Very much the equivalent of a stretched-out long copy ad… using every salesmanship trick in the book.
You think Ford and Toyota and the other car makers sell just from their splashy television spots? Get real. The big sales and rebates (great examples of desire-inflaming take-aways, by the way) are just to get you in the door. Once there, you are in for a spoken “long copy” sales pitch.
You wanna talk about scams?
How about the bullshit shoveled out by Big Pharma every night during prime time? Happy, healthy people dancing along tropical shores or sleeping like untroubled babies… while the list of admitted side effects are glossed over matter-of-factly (and the truly nasty side effects only make an appearance as headlines when people start dying).
Is Coke a “reputable” company? Nice, graphic-heavy ads. Nothing hard-sell, or offensive to be found.
Right. It’s sugar water. Not just with zero health benefits… but with negative health implications from the corn syrup, the fizz, the “secret ingredients”, even the caffeine.
In blind taste tests, I seem to recall, Pepsi even wins against Coke head-to-head… though Pepsi remains number two world-wide.
So, is it the nice, friendly ads doing all the selling?
Nope. It’s all about shelf position in the store, and monopoly status in restaurants and vending machines. Hard core, cutthroat, street-level salesmanship. They’re good at it, and have been for a century.
It costs them pennies to make the goop and bottle it. You pay a vast multiple of their cost for the privilege of dousing your guts with nutritionless sugar water. And the proceeds keep them fat, rich, and with an advertising budget bigger than the GDP of most nations.
And you’re pissed about the Nigerian bank scams, just because they offend your sense of “dignified advertising models”?
Well, okay, I’m outraged at the scamsters, too. They have sullied the skills of legitimate, world-class salesmanship, and given teachers like me an uphill battle when helping clueless newbies get their business chops together.
But really. Stop equating graphics-heavy, clever, entertaining ads with “reputable”. It’s bullshit.
And unless you take the trouble to at least learn the honest basics of real salesmanship, then you’re ripe for being a sucker over and over again for the rest of your days. In every human interaction you engage in, from buying crap to keeping the romance alive in your main relationships.
Get hip, stop fussing with belief systems, and get over your fear of Voodoo.
You can make your ads look nice. No rule against that.
But you cannot get world-class results without salesmanship. If you’re happy with your results, and content to be clueless, great. Carry on. Be well and happy.
But if you’re NOT happy with your results, then… just maybe… learning a few honest selling techniques can turn your life around.
Whew.
I got on a friggin’ roll there…
Stay frosty,
John Carlton
www.carltoncoaching.com
The Squares Are Coming! The Squares Are Coming!
Every once in a while, I try to take my own advice.
And lately, I’ve become a little jaded about online marketing… and isolated from the rest of the world.
You see, my closest buddies and favorite phone pals are all very hip to the online world… and most are thriving. We’re all old-hands at discussing the latest and greatest Web technological burps and breakthroughs, like SEO, Adwords, affiliate programs, RSS feeds, whatever.
Ancient news, all of it.
After a few months of hanging around this very successful echo chamber, though, I’m no longer fit company for anyone outside the group.
I forget that most people in the world — including most people in America — are absolutely clueless aboutRead more…
How Do You Like The New Digs?
Howdy…
We’ve just finished sprucing up The Big Damn Blog, and added a bunch of cool new accessories. After several years, it was time for a face-lift and upgrade.
Lots of new features — photos (in the bio section), archives, tons of free stuff… plus a blog-only secret bargain that will be available for a limited time, and changed frequently. (I’ll be adding more rare, jaw-dropping photos soon…)
Thousands of people read this blog each day, and I encourage you to leave comments. I read them all. Sometimes I Read more…