Category Archives for Internet

Just Tell The Friggin’ Truth

It seems to be human nature to not want to admit error or cop to mistakes.

And that probably makes sense, in an evolutionary way. Those ancestors who leaped up to take the blame too eagerly were likely punished in severely unpleasant ways… and could have also been seen as too wimpy for mating with.

Those folks who clammed up tight and denied everything stood a better chance of surviving the wrath of the community. It’s certainly the way politics still works.

And, as I recall from my bachelor days, truth was a scarce resource in the dating world.

But this is no reason to adopt denial and lies as “standard operating procedure” in your business. In fact, it’s probably hurting your bottom line much more than you think.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. We’re doing business with a joint that is very good at talking the talk of “quality control”… and the way they tout their customer service, you’d think they had discovered super-human powers.

But it’s all talk. In our short business relationship, we now have experienced dozens of situations with these guys where quality control was a delusion, and customer service failed utterly and completely.

And they will not accept this as reality. It doesn’t jive with their internal world-view… and thus must be wrong. There are no problems. Everything’s fine. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain…

It’s irritating, far beyond the inconvenience of not getting what you paid for. Denial is stubborness that gives the finger to reality. When people dig in behind a lie, reason is the first casualty.

In life, and in business, you can avoid compounding many problems simply by copping to the truth of the situation. If you screwed up, you screwed up. Lying about it, or trying to cover it up, may work some of the time… but when you get caught doing that, well, pretty soon the fan can’t handle the volume of shit that hits it.

In politics, it’s a well-worn (and well-ignored) cliche that it’s not the crime that does you in… it’s the cover-up. People will tolerate exaggeration and bloviation, but get very, very nasty when lied to.

Couple of examples: We just logged a much-needed five-day vacation over on the Northern California coast. We’ve gone to this one gorgeous old town, on a bluff overlooking the ocean, for years. Mostly, we resign ourselves to not having good cell phone service, and zero high-speed Internet connections.

But this time, we were intrigued by a bed-n-breakfast that advertised both excellent cell phone reception AND DSL as part of the package. Killer views, privacy, pets allowed… it seemed like a great deal. Both Michele and I had small bits of work we had to do, and we wouldn’t have gone to the coast this time if we couldn’t connect to the Web.

I was suspicious, because in multiple previous trips, the town seemed to exist in a high-tech-free bubble.

But the ad featured these new services. We called, and they insisted it was all true.

So we booked the joint.

And while you could use your cell phone in certain parts of the house — standing in specific positions — the DSL hook-up could not be coaxed into working at all.

We complained, they sent out a “technician” who insisted it was all fine, and we were told (in irritating superior tones) that different computers had different requirements for accessing DSL, and we were probably just doing something wrong.

In other words, it was our fault. Not their problem.

Obvious bullshit. We easily discovered a message board on their Website that was filled with complaints from other folks who’d been flummoxed trying to use the DSL. It wasn’t just us — their Internet connection was certifiably screwed up, and had been for some time. (Michele had to hang out at the local coffee shop to get online, using their free wireless.)

When we pointed out that their own Website had proof they were lying to us, they offered a partial refund. Reluctantly. Exasperated at our childish insistence that their version of reality might be wrong.

And we had to put our work plans on hold. We’ll recover, but we feel cheated.

This was just insane. They lied, and pissed us off, and it was all completely avoidable.

Compare this experience to another: Yesterday, I had to book a room in another hotel, in another city. I called one cool place I’d stayed in before, and asked about their high-speed services (because, again, I’ll have to work on the trip). The lady on the phone admitted they really wanted to get their DSL working, but it wasn’t. There was a single, cramped hot spot in the hotel lobby where you could get wireless, but it wasn’t all that reliable.

She was being totally honest with me.

And I didn’t book a room with them. But neither did I cross them off my list of future hotels I might stay at… cuz when they do get DSL in their rooms, I feel fairly confident they won’t lie about the quality of the service. And I still like the hotel — I’ll probably go out of my way to visit their cool house cafe (which overlooks a gorgeous lake) while I’m in town.

So, yeah, they “lost” a sale. But if they had lied or weasel-worded the situation, they would have had a very pissed-off customer on their hands, demanding a refund and telling everyone I know about the fiasco. (Just as I’m doing about the bed-n-breakfast on the coast.)

Way too many businesses believe their own hype. They get caught up in the enthusiasm of an aggressive “mission statement”, gulp their own Kool-Aid, and insist that all evidence to the contrary is either not really a problem, or just a temporary glitch.

I’ve had several experiences lately where — after phoning in to complain — I was hit up with a sales pitch for more services or products from the very company I was mad at. They have a severe myopia about their shortcomings… and, since I’ve worked on the other side of this situation (fielding complaints, back when I worked for The Man), I know that customers who gripe are actually considered the “real” problem.

It’s the CUSTOMER’S fault the gizmo’s screwed up. Somehow. Some way. Sure, it LOOKS like it’s our fault, but who are you gonna believe — our hype, or your own lying eyes?

Just tell the friggin’ truth.

In life, and in biz. Lying about snafu’s just pushes the problem a short way into the future, at best. It will gain size and power as it thrives in the shadows of denial, and can bite you on the butt in ways that far exceed the damages you would have experienced had you just copped to the screw-up in the first place.

The really sad thing is, this isn’t something new that just popped up in business or human nature. It’s always been the case, and always will be the case.

However, this makes it an opportunity to stand out from the pack. Both as an individual, and as a business, being honest with people puts you in a rare category.

You don’t even need to go overboard, and become a Tourette-style truth-teller who can’t shut up, and hurts people’s feelings and reveals company secrets. Respecting truth doesn’t mean it’s suddenly your job to point out everyone else’s faults, or to share inappropriately.

It’s okay to be circumspect, thoughtful, and to keep your secrets.

It is NOT okay to blatantly lie about something in order to get what you want.

It is, in fact, dumb.

So let your competition be dumb. Take the higher road when you have a choice… even if it means losing a sale. Business cycles are relentless, and very cruel to charlatans and crooks. There will be multiple chances to win that sale back later.

Trust me on this. You’ll sleep better when your waking hours aren’t built on a web of lies and deceit.

Stay frosty…

John Carlton
www.marketingrebel.com

Learning To Enjoy The Long, Strange Trip…

I just flew in from Chicago, and boy, are my arms tired.

I’ve also been drowning my immune system with every kind of natural booster I can legally find… because, like a window shopper passively watching a store display mannequin fall over and break into pieces, I’ve been watching my health take hit after hit during the past few weeks of heavy stress and unpleasant surprises.

I’m running as fast as I can, just a few steps ahead of an immune system red-alert crisis.

Good to be home for a break in the action. Where I can sleep in, hide from the world, and regroup. I think I’m gonna be fine.

I just wanted to share an interesting thing that’s been happening — whenever I’m around marketing people (as I was at the Chicago seminar) I get asked about what I “got” from hanging out with Gary Halbert all those years.

Of course, the real answer will be book-length.

But in the interim, I find that each time I answer that question… I answer it differently.

This is a small tribute, all in itself, to the quality of the man. He shared so much with me, and I took away so many good lessons… that I can just rattle on about the first thing that pops into my head, and it’s always a worthwhile topic.

And one I can go on and on about for an hour, if no one shuts me up.

That book I write is gonna be a barn-burner.

Right now, for example, recovering from one trip and getting ready to fly down to LA for Gary’s memorial service, I find all kinds of things in the current news that Gary and I would have spent hours talking about on the phone. We both embraced the essential silliness of trying to life with any kind of real dignity… given the fact that nothing EVER went according to plan.

And we both loved to explore the weird basic nature of people in general. As salesmen, we jumped on every shred of consumer psychology we could find… but we augmented that knowledge with tidbits other marketers usually ignored. (My Google home page on Explorer even includes a “Weird News of the World” add-on, so I’m always hip to the latest whackiness.)

Why care about the strangeness of people? Because — as P.T. Barnum once said — you can never go broke underestimating the greed and foolishness of your fellow humans.

So, in honor of Gary, here is just one recent tidbit that would have had both of us shaking our heads in amused shock: According to the AP wire service (April 30), villagers in Guyana, South America, lynched an old woman they accused of being a vampire.

As a modern guy, you can look back on the stories about witches from Europe (more or less documented in tales by the Brothers Grimm) and the Salem executions of same in America as a quaint example of how ignorant people “used” to be.

However, anyone who studies human nature — and all advertisers and marketers should be doing this, in depth — knows that no evil or stupid tendency EVER goes away in our species.

To truly understand people, you must look at their dark sides. Many “civilized” folks suffer from an insulated existence, where all their friends and colleagues exhibit mostly rational behavior. And so it’s easy to fall into the trap of believing “that can’t happen here”.

Thus, when tragedies like the Virginia Tech shootings occur, the nation recoils in horror and engages in group therapy to find the “cause”. Someone, or some thing, needs to be held accountable.

You know… so we can “stop” it from ever happening again.

Savvy people-watchers know better. It has ever been thus — in spite of all the whiz-bang technology, in spite of science and medical advances and space travel… we are still not that far from the jungle.

Scratch a high-functioning, rich, good-looking and respected CEO… and you’ll find, just under the veneer, a 3rd grader at recess. With all the immaturity, selfishness and social cluelessness that implies.

People operate on mostly-unconscious, emotional, hormone-fueled motivations. We like to pretend we’re rational, super-effective and centered beings… but an honest reality check shows that isn’t the case.

Gary and I never despaired over the constant reminders that our fellow citizens were unpredictable, semi-crazed, half-asleep zombies capable of acting with outrageous greed and ugly aggression.

Instead, we just continued to look at life and other people as realistically as possible… and to incorporate our observations into as rational a world-view as we could manage.

It’s always going to be a long, strange trip. You cannot avoid the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune… but you can learn to enjoy the ride anyway.

It’s easy to say you love people, when you’re in deep denial about how grotesque things can turn out.

It’s a challenge to actually continue to love people as much as you can, when the dark side keeps elbowing out the nice stuff for center stage.

Nevertheless, we both truly loved the human race, and thoroughly enjoyed the often-painful discovery process of facing up to reality every day.

And that’s just one small thing I owe to Gary — because he shared my views on this, and we got to indulge in the horror-filled astonishment of examining the follies of the world. We always tried to find some useful lesson. We always tried to better understand what it was like to walk in the other guy’s shoes.

I will dearly miss those grisly, laugh-at-death discussions for the rest of my days.

And, to the best of my ability, I will carry on, and enjoy the trip anyway.

Stay frosty.

John Carlton
www.marketingrebel.com

Travelin’ Blues

I’m gonna blog on the run here. It’s been a very hectic couple of weeks, full of gut checks and forced reflection and the never-ending flow of “Details That Will Not Be Denied” that come with being in business.

And now I’m trying to prep for 3 straight weeks of intermittent travel. Chicago for a seminar, back to Los Angeles for a memorial, then off to the Northern California coast to see what the ocean’s got to say for itself.

Still, I don’t want to neglect my blogging duties.

And I have a fairly cool observation I want to share that is pretty important for all marketers.

First, though: There is a memorial service planned for Gary Halbert, down in Los Angeles, for May 5th. To get the details, go to Gary’s site, www.thegaryhalbertletter.com, and sign in for the RSVP link. I will be there for sure, to help Gary’s sons with whatever they need help on.

If you knew Gary, and you want to pay your respects, this is the place to do it. Most of us who were close to him have finally slipped into the “acceptance” stage of grief, and this memorial is a way to be proactive about giving Gary his due.

Second: Back to more mundane marketing notions.

There is a great article in the April 16 New Yorker magazine on commuters. The writer put in a few facts — which got my salesman’s mind reeling — and a lot of Studs Terkel-style “man in the street” profiles… which offer a psychological portrait of an increasingly average Americann consumer.

As a marketer, you should always jump on info like this. It’s priceless demographic knowledge, explained in a way that keeps the humans involved at the center of the story.

Here’s the gist: According to the Census Bureau, one of every six Americans now commutes more than 45 minutes each way to work. Over 3.5 million travel 90 minutes or more… each way. (That’s double what it was in 1990, when the last census was taken.)

That’s a LOT of time in the car, sitting on your ass.

My take: They can’t read, can’t watch DVDs, can’t watch TV, and have limited patience for learning while crawling through jams.

Still, a good percentage are going to be YOUR customers. A literally captive audience, potentially.

This used to get radio advertisers all excited… but radio ad revenue is plummeting, after years of cramming so many obnoxious ads into each hour that people just stopped listening to commercial radio. (Radio does this slow-suicide dance every decade or so — recently, the average talk radio station had more ads than talk each hour. They just push it until they lose listeners, and then scramble to become “relevant” again. Dumb. But it’s the way the biz is run.)

People learn to zone out, or jockey around the dial, or escape to commerical-free satellite radio and CDs. (Or NPR, which is hit-and-miss on being interesting.)

Think about it: Frazzled, frustrated people hating thier lives, forced to stay awake during a routine drive that is too unpredictable to lose focus while you’re suffering through it.

These are people with a problem — essentially, wasted hours that cannot be replaced. It’s purgatory. Quiet desperation.

For savvy marketers, this could represent an opportunity to be the most exciting part of your prospect’s day.

Back when I worked for The Man, I had opportunities to sit in “parking lot” traffic jams in Silicon Valley (on the 101 between Palo Alto and Santa Clara), and the 405 nightmare between the SoCal beach cities and the Sunset Blvd offramp (which includes LAX). Two of the most notorious and horrific commutes in the country.

If you have NOT experienced true traffic psychosis, you probably should go sample it.

Just to understand what it is many of your customers are going through.

Why? Because, for most information products (and even many services), you can and should be providing audio options. (There is also a place for audio with retail products… if you do it right. Most physical products — especially high-ticket items — are only purchased after information is digested.)

But there’s a caveat: You need to understand your prospect’s state of mind, in order to create a CD or mp3 that doesn’t create a disconnect in his head.

And this goes for both audio products, and for audio pitches.

Most smart direct marketers know that providing audio versions of their products can increase sales dramatically. Many people simply prefer audio over visual (whether it’s reading or watching video).

Very few entrepreneurs, however, have yet realized the opportunities for putting your pitch into audio format. That is changing, as test results come in.

But I know of few marketers who tailor their audio for commuters. And thinking about how commuters digest audio input will help you in EVERY effort to communicate clearly and effectively, regardless of the format.

Here’s the key: Your presentation must be in short, identifiable chunks — because your listener’s concentration will be constantly interrupted by sudden braking, the need for snap decisions, and occasional outbursts of road rage.

Keeping things in chunks means any rewinding is brief, and there are no long, delicate trains of thought to be shattered.

Most of the audio I’ve heard — both in products, and in the few audio pitches I’ve seen marketers produce (mostly via podcasts, but sometimes through downloaded mp3 or snail-mailed CDs) — make the outrageous assumption that your listener has the luxury to “sit back, relax, take the phone off the hook, and listen to a tale…”

I’ve actually critiqued a LOT of ads over the years that use pretty much that identical language.

So get straight on this: Online and offline, your prospect is never in a place where he can — or wants to — sit back and listen to you ramble.

Both pitches and products should be as long as necessary to deliver what is needed for your prospect or customer to get the desired result. So, yes, I still write very long emails, Web site copy, and print ads… but they never RAMBLE.

And I present very long workshop seminars, teleconferences and Web conferences. And this “never ramble” tactic is the key to making them all work.

It may require some time to make your point… but in all cases, you still need to GET to your point immediately. And stay there, without wandering off on tangents.

Even long-copy ads — when done right — deliver bite-sized chunks of info… tied together in fascinating ways that ensure your reader stays with you. (The “Bucket Brigade” technique of holding interest.)

But you do not want to overwhelm him with stuff. Give him a little bit of info, help him digest it… and smoothly segue to the next bit of info. Navigating your reader through a pitch (or the info in your product) is very much like running along uneven terrain.

Consider how you would run along a mountain trail next to a river. Lots of rocks, gopher holes, tree stumps, puddles… you can’t rush mindlessly headlong toward your destination, or you’ll quickly stumble.

You can still move quickly… but you’ve got to pay attention to each step.

In copy, each chunk of new info is a step. Present your point, make your point, tamp it down in your reader’s brain… and then smoothly transition to the next point.

That’s the key to making long copy work.

So when you create audio — which is just “spoken” copy — that you suspect (or know) is going to be consumed in the car… don’t construct elaborate arguments or points that require long-term memory. (The all-too-common “I’ll get back to that in a minute… but first, I want to tell you about…” tactic is a sure sign you’re dealing with a rookie copywriter.)

When you deliver your material in short, digestible chunks, you can go on for hours and never “lose” your listener. This is how master communicators command attention fro long periods.

The commuting culture — which ain’t going away anytime soon — is a target audience that hasn’t been fully tapped. These are people who are ripe for certain products and services… if only the info can be delivered in a way that doesn’t make their brains bleed.

Commuters listen to books, and sometimes attempt to learn foreign languages. There’s no reason why they can’t consume your info product, too… or listen to your pitch.

Here’s a nice exercise to do in your spare time: Consider all the products that could be put on audio for consumption in the car (or on an iPod during a train ride).

Audio is different than reading… but the tactics for delivering content are the same.

Okay, I gotta go pack.

Stay frosty.

John Carlton
www.marketingrebel.com

Why Clueless Marketers Are Terrified Of The Web

If you’re an entrepreneur or small business owner… and you’ve been earning a few bucks online using any of the tactics you’ve learned from me (or any of the other veteran marketers online)… then pat yourself on the back.

You’re doing something that many “mainstream” businesses haven’t yet figured out how to pull off.

And… if they continue to ignore the basics of direct selling (which you’re taking for granted as necessary for profits)… they won’t be “mainstream” much longer.

They’ll be extinct.

Bye bye.

Here’s what I’m talking about: The Web has “officially” become the Number One source for advertising for many of the culture’s biggest advertisers — a year earlier than predicted. Gazillions of bucks that used to be channeled through “traditional” media (newspapers, magazines, direct mail, television, radio, etc) have now been measurably diverted online.

For the people who keep track of this sort of info, this news is astonishing and troubling (if not unexpected).

The entire foundation of our capitalistic economy is shifting, and most of the former movers and shakers simply are not prepared for the change.

The obvious signs of upheaval are the disappearance of entire market segments. Like most of the music-selling stores (Tower, Wherehouse, your favorite former local hipster CD haunt).

Less obvious is the way the Web has changed profit margins in markets like new cars — buyers are walking onto lots armed with reams of research on price… and they’re totally hip to ALL the old fall-back upsell tactics. (The last time we bought a new car, we had the salesman literally in tears as every one of his price-raising schemes was shot down… and none of the “invisible” tack-ons made it through the sale. Because of their stubborn reliance on scamster-style price boosts, we figuratively stole that car from them.)

Currently in the news — ironically — is the plight of the daily newspaper.

And there’s a lesson here for all of us. A basic lesson in fundamentals.

Harken: Nearly every newspaper in America now has an online presence. They’re working out the kinks of suddenly having the ability to cover stories in real time (which changes the very nature of reporting and writing stories)… with varying degrees of success.

The local paper here in Reno actually has a great site. Many of the national papers — like the New York Times — could pick up a few good tips from www.rgj.com, in fact.

Yet, nearly all newspapers (both locally owned and chain-owned) have the same complaint: They still aren’t able to turn a profit providing an online product.

And, if you have any entrepreneurial chops at all, you gotta be shaking your head in wonder.

The NY Times, for example, gets millions of hits each week. Millions. And then more millions. They are connected to thousands of other sites who link to them — blogs, other news channels, e-zines… it’s a network of feeds to die for.

And they COMPLAIN about not being able to make a profit?

Anyone with a drop of salesman’s blood in their veins has got ot ask: “What’s the friggin’ PROBLEM?”

I work with entrepreneurs and small business who earn fortunes with a flow of traffic that wouldn’t even be a ripple in the NY Times readership. Not even a tiny little splash.

What would YOU do, if you suddenly had access to millions of hits… all spending oodles of time on your site, reading and paying attention?

You’d… um… sell something.

No brainer, right?

Not to the brain-clogged morons running the show at those big sites.

Go take a look at the ads running on any of the big newspaper sites. Pathetic.

I chose one banner ad, at random. Lots of real estate taken up, nestled next to a riveting front page crammed with content… and the advertiser has a nice photo of a shoe, with some tiny, tiny, tiny printing saying “Introducing the Spring 2007 Collection”.

That’s it, my friend. Shoe, five words. No obvious link.

I ran my cursor over the space until I discovered a link… the designer did a great job hiding it… and I was whisked to a site with a bigger photo of some nice wingtips… the words “distinction being noticed without standing out” (sic), a link “View the spring collection”, and the logo: Allen Edmonds.

Pretty much it. Oh, wait. Six-point type links (all delicately lower-case) that look like border designs: “about allen-edmonds”… “”store locator”… “contact us”… and a Search box.

I spent ten minutes navigating this site, seeking out the secret entrances to something even remotely like a page SELLING something.

And hey — if you’re stubborn about it, you can actually find a way to buy a pair of shoes.

But you better have some time on your hands. And really, really, really want those shoes… cuz buying them isn’t easy.

The insanity of all this is clear: The advertisers shelling out for banner space at the newspapers don’t know how to sell online… and the newspapers aren’t clued-in enough to help them.

The blind leading the blind.

Were I running the advertising department of the Times (I shudder at the thought), I would first get hip to what entrepreneurs are doing to actually SELL stuff online… and then I would help educate my advertisers to the same tactics.

Because, if they learn to sell stuff… and keep track, and see the results of putting their ads in front of millions of eyes riveted to the content of the newspaper… they will see the very great advantages of buying up banner ad space there. And become repeat clients, willing to pay lots of money for that banner.

Clueless, they get to continue to ignore the Web. “We tried advertising online. It does’t work.”

Well, yeah. Because your online ads SUCK.

This is horrible news for big-name advertisers. To really succeed, they’ll have to killl everyone in their marketing department, and somehow replace them with new people who are hip to selling online… and good luck to ’em on that quest.

Because they’ll continue to rely on Madison Avenue ad agencies for their ads… not realizing that few folks at Mad Ave have a clue what to do.

This is great news for entrepreneurs and small business owners online, of course. Because you are on equal footing with everyone else online, more or less. You may not have the big fancy store in downtown Manhattan, and you may not have any staff at all (let alone a marketing department)… but online, your ad can outsell the Big Guys by vast margins.

Because you know how to sell.

The Web is getting crowded. But classic salesmanship still rules the roost (as it forever will).

While traditional businesses — used to being bullies and dominating their market by sheer size and access to advertising media — stumble and flail impotently online… you can enjoy all the low-hanging fruit still out there.

The way people buy things is changing, fast.

But people still buy things.

It’s just a great time to be selling online. I do hope the NY Times gets its act together, and doesn’t fold for lack of understanding the nature of commerce on the Web.

But I’m not holding my breath, either.

Keep paying attention to the basics of classic salesmanship. All the noise about “new” ways to sell online is coming (mostly) from marketers engaging in fantasy play. The large ad agencies still can’t sell their way out of a wet paper bag. Don’t listen to ’em.

“Introducing the Spring Collection”, indeed. Those kinds of all-attitude/sales-phobic tactics — beloved by clueless marketers with zero salesmanship chops — will murder a whole bunch of businesses trying to make it online before the traditionalists give it up and start paying more attention to the way entrepreneurs do it right.

But the food chain is pretty thick with cluelessness right now.

We live in interesting times.

Stay frosty…

John Carlton
www.marketingrebel.com

P.S. I got on this kick today because I was just interviewed by Garrett Sutton (one of the Rich Dad/ Poor Dad authors) for his e-radio show on www.wsradio.com… and we were talking about classic salesmanship tactics.

I can go off for hours on every part of a good sales pitch — the hook, the close, the take-away, urgency, credentials, whatever. It’s just second-nature to me, after all these years of crafting killer pitches.

And yet, it’s still amazing news to “sales rookies”. Even the fundamental drop-dead basics are a revelation.

Something to remember, as you keep testing and improving your sites. Don’t be afraid of going after large market niches seemingly dominated by traditional bullies. Check out their sales tactics… and if they suck, maybe you’re the guy to teach them a lesson.

The End Of Civilization As We Know It

When my father was drafted during World War II and dumped in Belgium just in time for the Battle of the Bulge, my mother and his first two kids (I wasn’t a glimmer in his eye yet) waited days for even a hint of news about the war… and waited months for letters from Pop himself.

The news came in painfully slow trickles. First rumors, then snatches of broadcast bulletins on the radio, then a newspaper story that may or not have been accurate… and in none of this was even a prayer for specific news from or about Pop.

That kind of no-news existence is just hard to imagine now. Online, I can watch stories develop just by refreshing my Google homepage — really hot news is updated constantly, within minutes of dramatic fresh input.

Heck, I can see minutes-old footage of events on YouTube, and read real-time blogs from every corner of the English-speaking world.

The delivery, consumption, and digesting of news has done changed in radical ways.

We all knew the Web was gonna morph our reality into something new… but even a year or so ago, most prognosticators believed we had some inkling of what the brave new world might look like.

Forget about it, now. All bets are off, all predictions inoperable.

No one knows what’s in store.

Least of all the news organizations we call “mainstream media”.

The fate of newspapers is interesting to me… both because I grew up loving my daily dose of whatever local rag served the town I was living in… and because the culture of the news junkie was well-defined. (And I have been a news junkie since I was old enough to read.)

We knew what was going on in the world, and we read enough varied takes on events to form an independent opinion.

It’s one thing to embrace the world and enjoy adventures… but it’s another thing to seek to also “know” the world while you plow through the decades.

Like the guys selling horse-drawn buggies 100 years ago, refusing to realize the exploding market share the automobile was gobbling up… mainstream newspapers have been slow to give the Internet credibility for news disperal.

I think local papers will survive in some form (probably mostly online, though)… because communities need a central clearing house for local news.

But it’s gonna be a painful transition. Because newspapers are owned by techno-phobes who regard online existence as some unknowable alien universe… and they just cannot, for the life of them, figure out how to make it profitable.

Please. The shake-out will produce a good alternative to the daily tree-killing newspaper… but not until the old diehard newsmen wander away, and news-dispensing organizations learn how to incorporate what entrepreneurs already know about making money online. (Right now, most newspapers see their online versions as “newspapers without paper”… but the old model of selling classifieds and department store inserts for profit don’t work online. The guy selling his 1998 Honda Accord is now on eBay and Craigslist, and the department stores that are surviving have gotten hip to email blasts and list building. Oops.)

The local paper here in Reno actually has a pretty damn good Website — and I now go there first when I need accurate weather news (important when you live in the bosom of the Sierras in winter), and also whenever I see a fresh plume of smoke wafting up from the valley floor, or hear sirens close by. (Every once in a while, I’ll sip my nightly beer while watching traffic cams around the city — real-time views of mostly routine intersections, with the occasion reward of getting to watch a three-car pile-up as it happens. Voyeur heaven.)

However, no one knows exactly what the newspaper will look like in the very near future.

This matters to marketers, very much. As the affiliate world grows ever more incestuous, and competition for pay-per-click gets nasty (not to mention the gruesome, unpredictable and never-ending rule-changes by the Google Gods), the “old” ways of reaching prospects (by finding out where the eyeballs gather) will start to look attractive again.

Soon, too.

I know of several top marketers who aren’t using PPC at all anymore. They use banner ads on sites that attract the kind of prospect they desire, as well as Hartunian-style PR releases and the cultivation of “go to guy” status in online communities that thrive on — yes — breaking news.

So it’s probably time for savvy entrepreneurs to start paying closer attention to where people-with-money are going for decent-length visits and multiple page-views. (Not ADD surfers bouncing off sites like a pinball.) (You young-uns know what a pinball game is, right? They still have those, down at the arcade? Jeez, I haven’t played a game that wasn’t virtual in years…)

Anyway…

One of the strongest players in the “new” news game was also one of the first on the scene. I don’t think much of Drudge, the man (his radio show is incoherent, and his obsession with Walter Winchell is creepy)… but his newsy “bulletin board” site, www.drudgereport.com, has ruled the roost for years.

With the same college-dorm quickie design format he pioneered in the late 90s. It looks awful. But it gets the hits.

As a news junkie, I visit Drudge everyday… mostly to get the right-wing spin on developing stories. I’m an independent who likes to watch the wingnut fights… I get my left-wing spin from www.huffingtonpost.com, and then check the somewhat middle-of-the-road Wall Street Journal subscription site (one publication that seems to have discovered how to be profitable online), the MSN daily e-mag Slate.com, and then a bunch of newspapers across the world.

But Drudge is always the first stop.

He doesn’t write ANYTHING for the site… except to rehash the headlines of certain stories he’s pitching. He has a staff who combs the world’s media centers for print and broadcast news, and offers up simple links to those sites.

That’s it. He’s a bulletin board.

And yet he has earned frontpage stories in the Washington Post and New York Times, and been called “the future of journalism”. Why? Because, as simple as his site is, he gets something like 15million visits a day. While the Post sells 5 million tree-killing newspapers a day, and pretty much has no clue how many people really read its Website.

So it’s more likely that mainstream media will begin to look more like Drudge, than the other way around.

Never visited the site?

This is why I’m writing about it: I don’t care if you visit it, or if you like it or hate it.

As a marketer, you’ve GOT to pay attention to the way it’s morphing the Zeitgeist of our culture.

You can get links to the top stories there… and when, for example, Hurricane Katrina hit, you could read what local Louisiana media outlets (both print and broadcast) were saying. And compare that with linked stories from the Los Angeles Times and the International Herald-Tribune.

If you went to the Washingtom Post site, all you’d get was their reporter’s version, and maybe another view from the AP wire service.

But Drudge covers “newsy” stories almost reluctantly. Like most of the talking-head cable TV shows, he really got a boost from the OJ Simpson trial, the Monica-all-the-time-Lewinski scandal, and the never-ending trials and tribulations of the current political fiascos.

The site is like 3 completely different people sitting across from you at the family dinner table –your serious-minded friend, earnestly talking about famine, war and economic theory… trying to outtalk the gossipy aunt who has never heard a secret she isn’t eager to share and elaborate on… both vying against the weird cousin who follows all UFO conspiracies as steadfastly as he does the latest box office battles of Hollywood studios.

It’s the New York Times meets the Hollywood Reporter meets the National Enquirer.

And you know what? It’s friggin’ fascinating.

Here’s a sample of the headlines for stories Drudge had up a couple of days ago (while the Washington Post was thick with more serious news on more serious subjects):

“Probation For Man Who Had Sex With Dead Deer.”

“Private Rocket Lost Shortly After Launch.”

“Dating Site Courts Only The Good Looking.”

“McCain Warns Of Spreading Socialism.’

“Judge Pulls Gun In Florida Courtroom.”

“Dog Performs Heimlich Maneuver On Owner.”

“Wolfgang Puck Bans Foie Gras.”

“Mystery Rash Closes Ohio School.”

And yeah, I read ’em all.

Me, a busy, busy, busy professional (and hot prospect for many online marketers) with not much spare time to surf the Net.

And I will wait two minutes for the podunk Florida news site to download the video of the probation hearing of the guy who did the nasty with a dead deer.

We’ve all got to start exploring new ways to find our target audiences online, in situations where they aren’t zipping by in a panic.

Drudge doesn’t take much advertising (not sure why), and I’m not convinced his banner ads are efficient (because they change so frequently).

Still… the ancient desire of humans to want to hear more than rumors on breaking news (and gossip) will never fade.

Just tuck this fact away somewhere as you ponder future marketing moves (and while your email delivery rates continue to slide)…

Dead deer, indeed.

Stay frosty…

John Carlton
www.carltoncoaching.com

The Care And Feeding Of Your Future, Without The Soap Opera Drama And Trauma

Back when I started out in advertising… and even in the first year or so of my freelance career… I had to concentrate to remember exactly what “direct response” meant in the term “direct response advertising”.

Because a lot of the clients and agencies I worked with were oblivious. They understood the concept of advertising — you tried to persuade people to buy your cool new product.

How tough is that to be clear on?

But their heads got all fuzzy and fogged-up when the tactics of direct response came into play.

Ad so many people got it wrong, that… I finally realized… the whole concept is VERY tough to understand.

So I had to keep finding new ways to remind everyone what we were trying to accomplish with the ad copy I was writing.

The foundation of direct response is the “response” part. In most of the ads you see on television and in big magazines, there is no “call to action”. There may be a toll-free phone number thrown up, or a Website URL. But there is no specific reason given to call or link up.

That’s passive advertising. “Here’s my product. Cool, huh? Thanks for listening. Maybe, down the road, if you feel like it, you may sorta want to possibly consider… uh… maybe buying it. Or something. No pressure, dude. Just think about it.”

That’s how 99% of the ads out there approach selling. For rookie marketers, it’s just part of the learning curve — you think you understand advertising because you’ve seen so MUCH of it in your life. It’s about entertainment, right?

As your learning curve progresses — if you’re able to survive the initial financial disasters of bad ads — you realize that, to actually make a profit, you gotta start pushing for sales.

The guys making the Big Bucks back then were wizards at persuading people to buy.

However — and very interestingly — they were MORONS when it came to understanding the advanced meaning of “direct response”.

Allow me to illustrate what I’m talking about: Joe Karbo was one of the modern-day entrepreneur direct marketing heroes. (He wrote the book “The Lazy Man’s Way To Riches”… which was my FIRST purchase as a direct response customer. Me, and a whole bunch of other people.)

He wrote a killer ad (with the book’s title as the headline) that ran in every major newspaper in the country. Long copy, teaser bullets up the yin-yang, a powerful offer that rattled people’s cages and forced them to respond.

He earned millions, because he understood the first part of “direct response” — ask for action. Get the order. Be bold, be persuasive, be a salesman.

But here’s the kicker: Every time someone sent in the order coupon for the book… he cashed their check, mailed their book… and then threw away the customer’s name and address.

Wow.

I know he did this, because he admitted it. It was a joke he told on himself. For all the wealth that ad brought him… he never again mailed a pitch to those customers.

No back end.

No list to nurture and work.

Later on, Joe finally did get hip to this more advanced layer of direct response. He started building up his list, and occasionally wrote to them to ask for another sale on another product.

For most marketers, the REAL money is in the back end. The first sale is great… but it costs something to get it. Online, you gotta figure in your PPC costs, affiliate splits, even your time spent writing banner ads, auto-responders, setting up PR article placement and everything else you use to lure people into your world.

The second sale, however, is almost all gravy. The customer (or lead) is already on your list, and you have the opportunity to develop a relationship, to deepen the bond between you, and to offer more complex (and higher priced) products and services. And he’ll be more inclined to consider what you offer… because he trusts you, and because the initial purchase he made was a pleasant experience and fulfilled his expectations.

Thinking ahead, there should be a third sale in the future, and a fourth, and on and on.

Your list is your future. All savvy direct marketers understand this. Many of the mega-wealthy ones are, in fact, quite willing to lose money on the first sale just to build up their house list for future sales.

Because that’s where all the real money is.

Sadly, I still see many marketers — rookies especially, but also experienced veterans who should know better — ignoring their lists. They focus almost exclusively on the first sale, try to make a killing up front, and generally treat their lists like unwanted guests.

Dumb, dumb, dumb.

First rule of making a fortune: Respect your list. Nurture it. Make it happy, be generous with free stuff, treat it like the love of your life.

And… be wary of thinking you’re the only guy they’re dealing with.

I like to compare business to love and romance. The analogies are just too good to pass up.

So treat your list not like a casual friend, or even like a mistress. Instead… treat it like the most important person in your life — the source of your happiness, your wealth, your inspiration, and your future.

In other words… treat your list like you’re married to it.

And… expect to be treated BACK like the flawed dog you are.

I learned early on that all really was fair in love and war. Any naive notions I had about the nature of romance were cruelly and efficiently stomped to death in my early twenties. I learned that even best friends would conspire to steal your date… and that there were ALWAYS other offers being considered, even by seemingly innocent and happy mates.

For the record: I do believe “true love” exists, and you can live a happy life minus all the drama and trauma of the soap opera so many people suffer through in romance.

But you can’t do it with your eyes closed. People tend to be unknowable, over the long haul, no matter how much they promise fidelity or how much you “feel” they’re on your side.

No one gets through a full life without a little heartache and a few brutal reality checks.

Same with your list.

Every single name on your list is being wooed and seduced and sweetly lied to by other marketers… every day, in most cases.

Your customers may indeed love you and cherish the relationship… but the second a better offer (however they define “better”) arrives, they will be sorely tempted to cheat on you.

This is not cause for despair and hair-pulling, though.

It’s just the way things are. You get hip to reality, and then you deal with it.

I’m a fan of affiliate marketing. It’s a way to maximize the leverage you have on the potential of any list you have. When you’re out of your own products… or when you suspect your list is just tired of you, you, you all the time… doing an affiliate offer allows you to bring in fresh blood and products that complement what you have.

Just be aware of what you’re doing.

I see too many marketers take their lists for granted. One bad example is to be a whore about offering affiliate products. To your list, you quickly become the relative who just signed up to distribute Amway products, while pushing for donations to weird charities and subscribing to new magazines. Oh, and would you also like to buy some Girl Scout cookies from my niece?

Pretty soon, they’ll pull the blinds shut and won’t answer the door when you come a’knocking.

Just as bad, though, is the marketer who assumes your list will be faithful forever, because you’re such a nice guy. You’re generous with free stuff, you don’t ask too much of them, you nurture your mutual appreciation… and you don’t overwhelm them with attention and email.

Yet, you don’t blink when an affiliate deal comes along that innocently requires you to allow the collection of names and emails — for free — by the guy with the deal.

Be careful. This is like leaving a very handsome and confident friend alone with your date at the big party. The vague codes of “honor” we operate by dictate he should remain a gentleman, and your date should not cooperate with naughty behavior.

But get real. Allowing any other marketer to plunder your list for names with a free offer can end up with you wandering the party asking everyone where your date and your friend went off to.

If the other marketer is truly wily, guess what? They’re already on a plane to Acapulco, and you’re just a distant memory.

What’s that great political slogan? “Trust, but verify.”

I don’t care how much you trust your fellow marketer… it’s up to YOU to keep control of your list. Free offers are great, and good affiliate programs make use of them.

But you still need to know who from your list has signed on, and what’s happening to them once in the evil clutches of the other marketer. Seed your list prolifically (by putting in names and emails you can track) and pepper all affiliate deals with these seeds… so you know exactly what happens to trusting folks from your list who’ve signed on to the affiliate deal.

It’s also fair to have all paths to the affiliate deal go through your own channels. You collect the sign-ups, distribute the free offerings, and guide buyers into the deal.

Sometimes, of course, it’s just easier to relax and not be paranoid, and let the other marketer pillage your list. Happens all the time. Perhaps your list was even created using free offers that shanghaied names from another marketer.

Just be alert to what’s happening.

Your list is your future. It will tend to be promiscuous and unfaithful, and you just have to learn to deal with it.

Life is messy. When you’re facing up to the realities, however, it’s still fun and full of good healthy adventure.

It’s only when you put on the blindfold and expect everyone else to take care of you that the trouble starts.

Gullible marketers get digested.

Stay frosty…

John Carlton

P.S. My coaching programs are off to shockingly-good starts. The forums are rocking, and the whole project has pumped fresh motivation and actionable advice into a lot of people’s lives (including mine).

Still time to join up — go to www.carltoncoaching.com and see what the fuss is all about. Next virtual meeting is coming up this week for the “Radio Rant”.

Getting Perspective

I have a lot of glaring faults, and very few advantages in life… but the one advantage that has helped me the most in my career has been my memory.

I’m no savant. I often forget why I came into a room… the names of even close friends often disappear from my mind like smoke in front of a fan… and if I hadn’t mastered the art of making lists, I’d be one lost and startled puppy during the workday.

No — it’s my long-term memory that has served me so well. It’s not like I could tell you what I ate for lunch forty years ago on this date (that kind of specific memory recovery apparently happens to some people as they age, though). But I CAN tell you what it felt like to be, for example, a teenager in the early spring of 1968. Not just the sixties, mind you — 1968 specifically, with all the events and Zeitgeist of that particular year.

And not in an annoying “Boomer rosy glasses” kind of way, either. It wasn’t paradise back then. Things weren’t “better”… just different.

What I recall (besides certain specific adventures and discoveries and humiliations) is the nature of being young. I’ve always been able to bond quickly with people of all ages, from all sorts of different backgrounds… mostly because there’s almost always something in their life experience that I can genuinely identify with.

Because I remember how it felt.

I vividly recall being a small kid, a rebellious teen, an arrogant college bon vivant, a clueless young adult, and on up the ladder. Through a series of lucky and unlucky accidents, I experienced — early, so the lessons burned themselves into my brain — true love and angst-ridden heartbreak, death-cheating misadventures, and an insider’s view of every social revolution that rained down on the western American landscape last century.

This avalanche of experience is not unusual for someone my age.

What IS unusual… is that I remember it all. It’s rare for me to meet a contemporary who has any good stories from those years, even though their eyes light up whenever I remind them of the particular “feel” of those times.

Many people consider looking back to be an unworthy skill. What’s done is done, and all that. Don’t live in the past.

Not for a writer. I’m not ready to pen my autobiography yet, but I think about it. Not because I experienced any kind of high drama that would make Hollywood swoon… but because living a full life means knowing how others have lived theirs.

And I want to be part of that link between the future and the past.

I’m a sucker for biographies. Unless you devour at least a few biographies, you will never know what it was like to live in a different time. Each era is fascinating, from ancient civilizations through the fall of Rome and the Dark Ages, right up until this afternoon in certain parts of the world. You lose something important by ignoring what life was like for a medieval peasant, or a Ming Dynasty monk, or a 17th century Dutch explorer.

And yes… this kind of knowledge actually helps you with marketing and advertising.

Because, at its most basic, marketing crosses paths with behavioral psychology (why people do what they do), anthropology (the study of man’s quest for civilization), and the evolving history of good old street-level “get through the day” survival skills.

Dan Kennedy and I have discussed the nature of the modern entrepreneur. We like the ambition and attitude of the younger guys out there tearing it up online… but, as older marketers with proud scars from a lifetime of economic adventure, we also marvel that many of them have yet to experience a true recession. It’s easy to imagine that many of them would get blown away by a real disaster like so many puppies caught in a hurricane.

The dot-com bust of 2000 was really just a burp in the system, and even the 9/11 downturn was mild compared with past economic upheaval.

Since the late eighties, in fact, the American economy has gone apeshit. A sober look at the climb of the of Dow Industrial Average can ignite a fear of heights.

Nevertheless, there are MANY younger entrepreneurs I know who I would bet on in any crisis. They may not have lived through the full spectrum of business horrors, and may be utterely dependent on the Web for survival… but they all share a curiosity about life and their fellow man that will help them thrive no matter what happens down the road.

And that curiosity leads them to seek knowledge and advice from the rich resource of books and the stories of veterans. Including biographies of people long gone.

I’m not looking forward to writing my own biography in order to enjoy any notoriety or fame it might bring — in fact, if I’m gonna be totally honest, I have to wait until many of my friends are dead before I can share some of the juicier chapters. I wouldn’t dare reveal the truth while it could possibly hurt their careers right now. I’m not that guy.

So it will have to wait a bit longer before being published.

No, there’s another reason why I want to write it. I have a pretty typical American past — which means almost no verifiable past at all. My father’s lineage ends with his father — I have no idea who my paternal great grandparents were. No photos, not even names. And my mother’s history ends with her parents, too. My grandfather ran away from home at 13, met my grandmother when she got off the boat as a fresh immigrant from France, and that was that. There’s a couple of old tintype photos floating around the family, but no identifying notes on who’s who.

One of these ancient photos, though, is of a young man who vaguely looks like me. It startled me when I first saw it. From his clothes and certain other clues, I’m guessing the shot was snapped just before World War One. This relative, whoever he is, would have been long dead before I was born.

And I wonder what his life was like. And I imagine what a genuine thrill it would be to find his diaries or — even better — a real autobiography he’d written. It wouldn’t matter whether he’d lived a grand life, or a mundane existence without drama.

I just wonder what it felt like to be him. Living then.

And so, I want to write my autobiography — and tell the brutal truth, as I experienced it — not for me, or my friends. But for that kid down the line, who might not have a clue what it was like now.

I’ve always had friends of vastly different ages. I often find myself having a thoroughly engrossing conversation with two people who are, respectively, fifteen years older and fifteen years younger than me. When they’re open to each other’s views, it’s a wonder to behold (and a conversation worth having).

And what’s fascinating is that — while we all retain a certain arrogant attitude about our own experiences — at the heart of it, we’re all stunningly similar.

Marketers who understand this are way ahead of the game. You don’t have to struggle to wonder “what the kids want” in new products, and you don’t regard people older than you as grouchy alien beings with unknowable needs.

What I’m telling you is that a good salesman plucked from the Middle Ages — once he got over the shock of the new technology of modern life — would still be able to sell stuff to YOU, today.

Dull marketers share the very wrong notion that there is nothing to be learned from the past. They will forever struggle, because they lack perspective… and future changes (which are happening faster and faster) will throw them, because they don’t have an overview of life that allows for quick adaptation.

I really enjoy modern life. But I liked it just as much before personal computers came along, too. I’m rolling with the punches… armed with the knowledge (earned from reading biographies) that things will ALWAYS change.

And there will always be a way to adapt and thrive.

One of the things I remember about being young is that — as a teenager — more stuff will happen to you in a day, than will happen to an adult in a month.

When you’re still full of piss and vinegar, that’s fun. I liked living through radically-new adventures each week, never knowing where I’d wake up Sunday morning.

But I also like being settled in middle age, and getting into productive routines as a veteran writer and marketer. I can finally take longer views of things, and plan ahead. What a concept.

Still, though, when necessary during a consultation, I can quickly bring up the feeling of living day-to-day at an age where the world is still mostly a mystery. There are good parts to this feeling, and bad parts. It’s complex, like all humans are.

But you can learn to understand where the other guy — or the other prospect — is at in their life… by applying the lessons you’ve learned in yours, and the lessons you’ve gathered from studying people in general.

Your market is one long passing parade, and it can look like a disorganized mob scene if you don’t understand the fundamentals of how people live their lives.

With perspective, it all comes into focus. People are people. Their needs, dreams and fears haven’t changed much since the dawn of time.

My recommendation: Work a few biographies into your reading schedule, and soon. And strive to feel what it was like back then.

What you learn — about yourself, and about your fellow man — will help you become a better communicator and (if pay attention) a killer salesman.

Stay frosty,

John Carlton
www.marketingrebel.com

Goop and Madness

Tuesday, 4:44pm
Reno, NV
“It’s alive, alive!” (Doc Frankenstein, on the first stirrings of his monster)

Howdy…

Man, it’s like deja vu all over again.

There are a ton of marketers making a ton of money, both online and offline right now… selling pure, uncut crap.

Nothing new about this. Back when the first caveman discovered the art of salesmanship while convincing another caveman to buy his old cave for a slab of mastadon meat… the next transaction to happen was probably a scam.

Like maybe trying to sell a fake cave. Or a cave with a bear sleeping in it. “Oh, didn’t I mention that bear? Sorry. And no, you can’t have your slab of meat back.”

The thing is, our capitalistic system allows for rapid financial reward regardless of whether you’re selling quality goods… or crap.

That’s why there’s never really been a truly “free” market. The moment someone with any power got scammed, laws were written and scofflaws were tossed into newly constructed hoosegows.

(Did you know, by the way, that the early European settlers in New England didn’t have anything resembling a jail for over a century? One colony tried digging a pit, but the prisoner escaped. We’ve come a long way, now with more folks per capita behind bars than any other civilized nation on the planet. Just something to chew on…)

Anyway, when you’ve been around business as long as I have — and I’ve been around a loooooong damn time — then you start to notice certain things that keep happening.

Like, for example… the cyclical return of the predatory multi-level marketing monster.

I’m not gonna name the current MLM goop out there, cuz it’s irrelevant. If it wasn’t this particular recipe of selected tangy herbs and zombie-ized crap, they would have found something else.

I’ve lived through three or four of these cycles. Lots and lots of money is made by some folks, and the buzz on the goop gets so hot that eventually stories appear in all the major magazines. (The same stories, pretty much, too. “Is this stuff for real?” the writers ask, all agog at the money and perplexed about the claims. God forbid they do any actual research on the goop…)

During the last go-round — in the late ’80s — the company behind that particular goop even bought a huge skyscraper in Los Angeles, and was drawing up plans for world domination just before the roof caved in on them. (MLM health-goop crashes happen just like the Dot-Com bust seven years ago — suddenly, taking whole groups of people down in financial chaos… and later, when the dust settles, it all seemed so obviously dumb…)

So allow me to set you straight here, in case you’re a little unclear on the concept: When it comes to maximum health, there are just 3 factors.

1. Good genes.

2. Good living.

3. And good information.

I hate to bust your bubble… but there ain’t no magic concoction out there that will cure your ills and make you live forever. At best, you may be coaxed away from your bad lifestyle, and introduced to the fundamental nutrients you’ve been avoiding, which may help a lot. (Amazingly, leading an unhealthy lifestyle actually contributes to ill health!)

At worst, you will be engaging in the power of suggestion and placebo… which also can work wonders for someone who strongly believes in magic.

In the end, however, if what you desire is good health and long life, you need to get hip to your body’s schematic. For every uncle you had who lived to 101 guzzling whiskey and chain smoking, you’ve got to factor in the four other tea-totaller relatives who dropped dead at 40 from heart attacks. That’s infomation.

Good living can be defined however you like… but in the end, it has to translate to being a better animal.

Exercise, eating well, indulging in a full life… we all slack off on the things we intuitively know can make us happier and healthier. So stop it.

Pot-bellied grouches die early. Smart, fit, upbeat people have a better shot at becoming Rip Van Winkle.

Finally, if you need a little magic to make sense of the world, then by all means go for it.

Whatever floats your boat.

But please — don’t fall for the scams.

Right now, the money flowing into that huge multi-level marketing monster roaming the country is just shocking.

So listen carefully: This type of magic elixir comes around like clockwork every generation.

And here’s how it works:

The goop is irrelevant. It could be (and sometimes has been) pureed compost heap. (The term “snake oil” comes from the common mid-18th century potions made from fermented rattlesnake heads and alcohol. Yummy.)

The ingredients do not matter.

What does matter… is the pitch…

…and the choice of marketing organization.

The easiest way to generate a lot of money, fast, is to use the multi-level organization. I swear to you that many of these guys set the organization up first… and THEN go looking for some goop to plausibly fill the minor role of “product”. (They stay with herbs and “natural” ingredients to avoid the wrath of the FDA.)

MLM success is based not on actually selling the product…

…. but on convincing others to sell it for you. So you sit at the top of your own private pyramid, doing nothing but cashing checks, while your minions scurry about below either hawking the goop… or creating their own little pyramids of sub-sellers.

And you get a piece of all the action filtering up through your seat on the pyramid.

Most level-headed people, upon hearing of how the MLM scheme plays out, pause.

The organization seems to defy a basic law of the marketplace — if the goop is really as good as the pitch says it is… then why is the emphasis not on selling it, but rather on getting other people to sell it for you?

To go into the logical curli-ques of the MLM pitch would take many pages.

Because, after the organizational set-up, the next most important part of the scheme is the pitch.

And, when done right, that pitch will exhaust your brain, murder your intuition, and leave you believing that black is white. Reality and fact be damned.

It’s only job is to generate enthusiasm. Enthusiasm for all the money you’ll make, so fast and easy, coupled with your new ability to live forever by guzzling this delicious new goop.

Whatever the goop is.

Doesn’t matter.

MLM is all about the suspension of belief… so, in your fevered excitement, you begin to believe that YOU — yes, YOU, among all the people who have sought it from the dawn of time — have been chosen to be among the blessed few to finally — FINALLY — discover the Fountain of Youth.

And you deserve to made rich for doing so.

You may as well join a cult. Because the brainwashing will never cease, and you are in for a ride that will not end until you are forced to face reality again.

Some people will get rich. That’s a given — it’s the reason the “snake oil” miracle remedy has been part of civilization since cockroaches decided to partner up with us.

We all want that simple, easy answer to our problems.

We all want magic in our lives again.

We really, really, really want it.

And we’ll PAY for it, by golly.

MLM schemes have a half-life of many years. Unless they are careless — and a good organization will avoid saying anything in their pitch exposing them to easy prosecution — they will not be brought down by any legal action. You can’t legislate the yearning for magic.

Mostly, they just peter out. Some hang around in the shadows for generations.

Hell, some even have some half-way decent product to sell.

But if you’re paying someone, who’s paying someone else, who’s paying someone else, etc., for the right to sell your share of this wondrous goop to friends and family… then you’re not the rebel marketer you believe you are.

You’re just part of an MLM organization.

Hey, for some people, it’s a way to dip their toes into the business world, I suppose. Maybe a way to make a few extra bucks. (Though studies confirm that the average MLMer never makes back their initial investment.) (Which they probably paid to a relative, or someone at work.)

The thing is… you gotta get clear on how you define “success”.

If all you care about is making money, then go smuggle drugs. Tons of cash in that line of work.

If you want to have a legitimate biz, then strive to make it a good one. And watch who you’re learning from.

Just know this: There are mobs of marketers out there earning boatloads of money… selling crap. Not just the MLMer’s, either.

If your chosen mentor or teacher bases his pitch to you on the idea that he has made a lot of money, then do a little digging. Especially now, with the globalized reach of the online business world, it’s EASY to make a bundle selling shoddy, screwed up goods and services.

Because, again, the product often doesn’t matter. The pitch hits your hot buttons… and the organization attaches an umbilical cord to your wallet and starts siphoning up money.

Look for quality. Look for honesty, integrity, and a product that does what the pitch promised.

You can admire an organization’s ability to round up a herd of prospects, and a pitch’s masterful way of harnessing cash.

But you don’t have to admire the people behind it all when they’re selling crap.

We live in a world filled with illusion and greed and clever thieves.

Watch your ass. And skip the goop. Go buy a blender and some cheap but good protein powder, eat more fruits and veggies, and get off your butt more and go do stuff that makes you sweat.

No one’s gonna live forever.

And if you truly desire to get rich, you can do it with your head held high, selling quality products and offering damn good services.

I shouldn’t have to keep reminding you of this, you know…

Stay frosty,

John Carlton

3 Inviolate Rules We Routinely Violate

One of the reasons I got into teaching was a special notebook I kept throughout the early years of my freelance career.

In that notebook, I wrote down every non-writing rule I came across in business. These were not the tactics and tricks and secrets I was using to actually write copy. All those notes and insights went into different files.

No, this one special notebook was simply called “Nuggets”. I was hanging around stars, geniuses and wizards who constantly spouted little tidbits of wisdom — the guiding rules of their life — and I was astonished that few people were as knocked out by the power of these nuggets as I was.

I started my career as a freelance copywriter in a state of near-utter cluelessness… and I pounced on every shred of advice and insight I could find. I guarded that notebook like it was gold.

There was more to living a good life than just earning big fees as a writer.

As I began to taste success and enter doors previously closed to me, I saw the wreckage of ruined lives all over the place — guys who had achieved great things in business, but whose personal lives sucked beyond belief.

The first decision, I realized, was simply taking the obvious steps to getting your professional act together.

But the next decision was just as critical — and usually overlooked.

You gotta get your mojo together, too.

You must weld the Yin to the Yang.

I can always tell when a copywriting student is gonna go places in this biz — he pays as much attention to the non-writing advice as he does to the specifics of crafting sales pitches. Most are too full of raw ambition to see that “success” needs to be defined… and it’s different for everyone.

Nobody gets out of this world alive.

In the end, it’s not how much you earned, but how well you lived that matters.

And that’s where these “nuggets” come in. Back in the ’80s, there were oodles of books coming out that purported to tell you how to live. The best-sellers were like Robert Ringer’s works — tough, no-nonsense updates on Machiavelli and Sun Tsu’s “Art of War”. It was good stuff… but a little lopsided on the “kill first, ask questions later” model.

If all you read was the hard-core “greed is good” manuals, you might have succeeded at reaching your goals… but there was a good chance you’d be alone at the end of the day. And miserable.

I was fortunate to discover the other side of the “rules for life” literary trend. Og Mandino, for all his sappiness, still delivered a useable message of hope and empowerment. And the Americanized Zen of David Reynolds (“Constructive Living”), when balanced against Ringer’s “take no prisoners” tactics, offered you a breathtaking menu of life lessons that came close to supplying you with what it took to be a complete person.

Still, I noted that many of the basic rules my mentors were relying on each day weren’t represented in the popular books.

So I kept meticulous notes. And I took the lessons to heart.

I’ll share just three with you here. A sliver of insight, culled from a long career at the edge.

I’ve called them “inviolate” rules… meaning, you shouldn’t violate them, ever, if you want to live a super-disciplined life.

But I noticed that even the most disciplined and ambitious and proactive guys I learned from… violated nearly every rule they had, at one time or another.

And that’s another rule: There are always exceptions.

The difference is all about keeping your eyes open, and acknowledging to yourself that you are consciously going against your own rule.

Sometimes, life is like a horror movie. Yeah, you should never go down into the dark cellar after hearing screams… but if you’re the go-to guy in the group, then that’s what you gotta do. Even if doing so goes against the very fiber of your being.

Here are 3 “inviolate” rules that are routinely violated:

Rule #1. No good deed goes unpunished.

It’s astonishing to me how often this rule proves itself. I’m a generous guy, and I was raised to enjoy doing things for people. It’s a habit. When I’m in a position to help someone else out, I often jump up and go out of my way. It’s just my nature — and I’m not alone.

Americans in general — despite our current spate of bad PR in the world — are generous people.

But you cannot do something for another human being with the expectation that you will be rewarded. First, because that diminishes the act of kindness.

And second… because doing something nice for someone often kickstarts a thought process in the person being helped that doesn’t end until he’s convinced you OWE him even more help. More of what you did for him, and more of everything in general.

The psychological roots of this weird thinking are deep, and if you pay close attention you’ll discover that even you have engaged in it. (I distinctly recall being overwhelmed with gratitude at the better-than-I-expected salary I received from a mentor… and, less than a month later, assuming he should also kick in for a new car. I was horrified to realize I was punishing him for kindness… but at least I caught myself, and nipped that ungrateful demon in my head in the bud.)

And yet… I have never stopped doing good deeds. The idea of going through life refusing to be generous just because many people will consider you their private sugar-daddy is… well, it’s an ugly idea.

I’ll continue to violate this rule… but I’ll be ever vigilant to the possible consequences.

Being generous doesn’t require that you be a sucker, too.

If I do something for someone out of the goodness of my heart, and they shit on it… well, fine. They’ve burned a bridge, and it’s not my problem.

And it’s not gonna sour me on helping others.

Rule #2: All clients suck.

This is an easy one. All clients DO suck… because the very nature of being a client means you want something from the person you’ve hired. And as much as that hired gun is a pro — with good work habits and a dedication to deadlines — he still resents the fact that his skills have been bought with coin.

I try to make my freelance students understand that they are, essentially, whores. You take the cash, and work up a rabid enthusiasm for your client’s business and life. You are his new best friend, and you’re in it with him 110%… until you’ve fulfilled your paid-for duties.

Then, you’re outa there like a kid on the last day of school.

And the client, once he has what he needs from you, can’t wait to see the door hit you in the butt (most of the time).

It’s an adversarial relationship. Each side feels they gave it up too cheap.

What’s funny about this… is that YOU suck when you’re own client. Writing for yourself is one of the hardest jobs you’ll ever take on… and you must assume a schizophrenic duo-personality if you’re gonna be successful. Cuz you gotta kick your own ass, and set your own deadlines.

Still… in the end, the savvy freelancers among us all continue to hire ourselves out to new clients… and the smart business owners among us continue to hire new talent.

With your eyes open, and no illusions that these people really are your new best friends, you can make it work.

Rule #3: Do not go into business with friends.

I’ve seen 30-year friendships burst asunder, long-term marriages collapse, and even brothers never speak to each other again… all after making the decision to go into business together.

The trouble is in believing your closeness will overcome all problems.

You know… the way teenagers believe love will conquer all.

If you truly value any relationship, you will build a wall between it and your business life.

And yet… I have consistently violated this well-established rule time and time again.

What saved me… was the reality check I gave myself and the other people in the drama: If this goes bad, I will kill the association where it stands.

And I’ve done it. Over the years, I have tried a dozen times to bring friends into the world of entrepreneurism, and especially advertising. They had nothing going in their lives, were rudderless and desperately seeking a clue… and I gave them one chance to come aboard.

I had a single simple requirement: They had to get serious.

I would bend over backward helping them the entire way — personally teaching them what they needed to learn, overseeing their efforts, being that “secret weapon” watching their backs at all times. I would take them on as a private project, and pour myself into the job.

But they had to get their game on, and do what I told them to do. When it was about business, we were no longer equals (as we were in regular life) — they had to obey, and follow through, and trust me.

Of the dozen I brought into the field… only ONE ever made it a career. The others just couldn’t get past the idea of their friend getting serious about all this… business crap.

The one who stuck it out? I still act like a drill sergeant around him when the subject is business… and he has prospered. And, we still have the friendship, mostly — it’s changed a bit, but we’ve made it work. It’s like putting on a different costume, playing a different role depending on the circumstances.

It can be done. It’s not easy, though. Most people screw it up… and lose the relationship.

I violate this rule just as I do the others — with my eyes wide open.

I’m even partnered up with one of my closest life-long friends… and while we watch out for the pitfalls, there is always the chance it could turn out badly. Money and success can ruin anything.

But in a full life, you choose your battles and you choose your rules.

And even the hard-core rules were made to be broken — if you pay attention.

Still, it’s good to know the rules in the first place. It’s sorta like having a flashlight as you go down those dank cellar steps.

No, wait — it’s like being able to rewrite the script as you go. Maybe not the entire plot, but a lot of it.

Yeah, we do need the stinkin’ rules.

We just don’t have to always follow them.

Stay frosty…

John Carlton

Bad Thinking Habits

Great article in the January 29th issue of The New Yorker titled “What’s The Trouble?”.

It’s primarily a deep deconstruction of how doctors think and make a fast diagnosis under pressure. Which turns out to be dangerously flawed in many cases… especially if they like you.

But the article also makes an excellent cross-reference to how the same kind of thinking can affect business owners. This isn’t about evil or obtuse agendas… it’s about how a very natural way of looking at vast, changeable, and not always clear data can mess with your head.

The result can be frightening for a patient. And disasterous for a business owner.

I love the New Yorker, by the way. It hosts the best writing in journalism right now, and yet it’s on the stands every week. (I have a subscription.) There’s no telling how long this excellence will last — it’s dependent on enlightened publishers, hard-ass editors (who barely exist anymore in journalism), and ambitious, competitive writers who are at the peak of their game.

Learning to write well has nothing to do with grammar. It’s about communicating. And it’s nearly a lost art in America. Molly Ivins died yesterday, one of the last of the truly-courageous Old School columnists and book writers in politics. (Thank God P.J. O’Rourke is still pounding ’em out.) We won’t see her like again soon… especially since the Corporate Beast discovered how easy it is to use books to coat public discourse with bullshit propoganda and rabble-rousing name-calling nonsense. (Both Al Franken and Ann Coulter fall into this category. These scumballs and their publishers are strangling American political dialogue.)

All this, however, isn’t necessarily bad news for people who care about good writing. And I assume this includes you, since you’re reading this blog.

The need for clear, truthful writing will be filled. If you care to join those of us who work to master the craft (and while it ain’t brain surgery, it does require waking up and facing reality), the rewards are beyond counting.

For business owners, the lack of good writing in your market is an opening you should leap into with guns blazing. Whether it’s honing your sales message, or building up your content and nurturing your list… this is the most important writing you will ever do.

And doing it really, really well allows you to stand out no matter how much better funded, or better situated your competition is. A single good copywriter can go up against Attila The Hun, Inc, and win.

Just remember that when I suggest articles to read.

Sharpening your ability to communicate is like putting money in the bank.

Stay frosty.

John Carlton
www.marketingrebel.com