Tag Archives for " John Carlton "

[Quiz] The Life-Changing Secret Behind “Operation Money$uck”

Wednesday, 8:40pm
Reno, NV
“Money, money, money, money, money, money…” (Cabaret)

Howdy…

Hope you enjoyed the last post, where I offered up 3 observations about moolah.

For this current post, I promised to reveal the 4th observation…

… which is so powerful, it can instantly change the way you move and get things done in the world.

However…

… I’ve just had a sudden urge to get all Socratic here, and ask readers to do some critical thinking before I reveal that 4th observation.

It’s too easy to just toss the really hot wisdom in your lap… and the retention level when you don’t have to think about it first is abysmally low.  I do you a grave disservice by not using the most powerful teaching methods available when I’m sharing the good stuff…

… and the Socratic method — which ignites critical thinking skills by asking questions (and never, ever just gives anything away) — is a proven way to juice up the ol’ brain cells, while being able to see what other folks come up with from their perspective.

In fact, let’s make it a real Quiz.

The first person to chime into the comments section here with the answer I’m looking for… Read more…

Money, money, money, money…

Sunday, 4:24pm
Reno, NV
“… keep your hands offa my stash…” (Pink Floyd)

Howdy…

Let’s talk about money.

Do you have enough?

Do you know how much “enough” is, for you?

Most folks are pretty clueless about moolah.  They desire it, they fear it, they respect and hate and love it… and they assign all kinds of magical powers to it.

So here are a couple of observations… from a dude who’s been broke, been rich, and seen the awesome potential as well as the destructive nightmares that money can wield:

Big Damn Observation #1: Money really can’t buy you happiness.

But you know what?  It’s still more fun to find this out for yourself, rather than take someone’s word for it.

For me, it was well worth keeping this nugget of wisdom on a note tacked to my office wall.  Because happiness was definitely on my wish list of life-long goals… but so was success.

So I kept track as I moved up the socio-economic ladder from slacker, to decently-paid freelance writer, to obscenely-paid “A List” professional.

And guess what?Read more…

Congratulations, And Now Stop Being A Wuss

Monday, 7:55pm
Reno, NV
“But it’s all right… in fact it’s a gas…” (The Stones, “Jumpin’ Jack Flash“)

Howdy…

Nobody’s ever asked me to give the commencement speech for a graduating class.

That’s probably a good thing.  I’m pretty pissed off at the education system these days, and I might cause a small riot with the rant I’d surely deliver.

See, I have a university “education”.  A BA in psychology.  (The BA stands for, I believe, “bullshit amassed”.)  I earned it several decades ago…

… and while I had a good time in college (height of the sex revolution, you know, with a soundtrack that is now called “classic rock”), made some lifelong friends, and got a good look at higher learning from the inside…

… that degree provided zilch preparation for the real world.  Didn’t beef me up for any job, didn’t give me insight to how things worked, didn’t do squat for me as an adult.

I waltzed off-campus and straight into the teeth of the worst recession since the Depression (Nixon’s post-Vietnam wage-freeze, record unemployment, gas-lines, near-total economic turmoil)…

… so, hey, I should have a little empathy for today’s grads, right?

Naw.Read more…

Takin' It Too Far…

Thursday, 11:49pm
Reno, NV
“Qu’est-ce que c’est?” (Talking Heads,”Psycho Killer”, ca. 1979)

Howdy.

Quick lesson today, which should help you understand one of the fundamental truths of kick-ass marketing.

That truth: There is almost always a way to fix or solve a marketing problem.

Actually, that truth is also functional in every-day life…

… but that’s a much longer lesson.

Here’s the quickie version, for marketers: I was just delivering this story in one of the Simple Writing System classrooms, and thought I’d share with you here, too.

As any decent marketer knows, the Prime Directive of a sales process is to discover your best possible prospect… and “reach” him with your sales message.

Seems simple enough.  Sometimes, it is.  If you’re selling hamburgers near a starving crowd, you’re set. Just open your doors and tell folks to line up.

For a while (back in the Good Old Days of Internet marketing), all you had to do was:

Step One: Be the first into a hot niche…Read more…

Night Of The Living-Dead Sales Letter…

Thursday, 8:06pm
Reno, NV
“Here come Johnny Yen again…” (Iggy Pop, “Lust For Life”)

Howdy…

Oh, my God!

They killed the sales letter again!

Will this horror never stop?

Actually, you can relax.  Just like Kenny in South Park, the traditional sales letter is on some kind of perverse “Permanent Hit List”…

… where every marketer trying to claim he just invented a new fad stands astride the image of a quaking letter…

… and slays it.

Huzzah! Death to you, vile long-copy sales letter!  Take that… and that…

… and that.

This latest round is clever as hell, too.  The new trend is putting your sales letter in a video, and reading along with it.

The irony:  The dude selling you the “Magic Box” product that kills the sales letter forever…

… uses a sales letter to do the killing.

Hey — don’t get me wrong.  I love video.  Been using it in marketing since… well, since it was actual videotape on reels.  (Yeah, shocking, I know.  We were so backward in the last century.)

In fact, the “Magic Box” product I’m talking about is, I’m guessing, an excellent solution for many marketers who can’t figure out how to make a video sales letter work.

And all’s fair in love, war and advertising.  So all the dudes out there telling you the sales letter is dead, and you can sell without selling, and the Web has changed everything…Read more…

There Are 2 Kinds Of People In The World…

Monday, 3:29pm
Reno, NV
“You’re either on the bus, or off the bus…” (Ken Kesey)

Howdy…

Quick lesson here I thought you’d enjoy.

The phrase “there are two kinds of people” is used by comics, politicians, and just-plain-folks trying to set up a point with an easily-understood little story.

It’s an over-simplification, most of the time, of course.  Life is too nuanced and complex to fit into just two tidy categories.

However, sometimes you can make a damn good argument behind the two-groups thing.

In selling, this is what we’ve called “the dichotomy of futures”…

… meaning, you can make two distinctly clear divisions:

1.) The “in” group, which is your target market…Read more…

An Impassioned Plea To Keep You From Missing The Biggest Opportunity Of Your Life

Monday, 6:26pm
Reno, NV
“Don’t bunt.  Aim out of the ballpark.  Aim for the company of immortals.” (David Ogilvy, “Confessions of an Adman”)

This is important:

This past weekend, I posted something on this blog that hit a freakin’ nerve among the throngs of entrepreneurs, biz owners and rookies who hang out on this site.

Comments started flooding in…

… and, as usual, I interacted with folks.

I’m just been told (by trusted inner-circle colleagues) that one of my replies in the comment threads…

… was perhaps the most vivid and impassioned point I’ve ever made about the raw seething power of honest kick-ass salesmanship to change lives.

So, I want to share that reply, here in a fresh post.

Let me set the scene for you: People were trying to make sense of the massive piles of hype still being disgorged by the Internet marketing community…

… and how all that hype soured good people on good opportunities.

“Hype”, and the dreadful sales pitches filled with it, really confuses people.  To the point where it’s now cool to talk about “selling without selling”.

It’s clear that many people now struggling to make a business successful…Read more…

Buzz And Awe

Friday, 3 a.m.
Reno, NV
“Is there gas in the car? Yeah, there’s gas in the car…” (Steely Dan, “Kid Charlemagne”)

Howdy…

First…

… what are you doing up this early?  Or late?

You need your beauty snooze, don’t you?

I know why I’m up, though.

It’s from excitement.  I just cannot sleep.

Why?

Here’s why: Those of you in the loop know we’re launching the coaching program of the Simple Writing System again.

This is Number 7.  We only offer this hand-holding, personalized, one-on-one mentoring rarely.  The 6th one was all the way back in the Fall of last year.  (They’ve all sold out, too, quick.)

No idea when Number 8 will come around… if it even does.

We take this one program at a time.

It’s extremely interactive.  Perfect for anyone who knows that hands-on mentoring is the best way to learn the simplest possible system (crammed with short-cuts) for creating all the sales messages needed for a profitable business…

… including all your ads, websites, video scripts, emails, AdWords, blogs and other social media broadsides…Read more…

Who’s Watching Your Back?

Thursday, 7:41pm
Reno, NV
“Please allow me to introduce myself…” (Stones, Sympathy For The Devil)

Howdy…

This is one of those lessons that arrived accidentally…

… and I had to stop and ruminate about it for a while before it made sense.

I’m lucky I learned it early, too.

It’s provided me with a home base of sanity when the chaos has reached shuddering crescendos and it was hard to think straight (let alone make snap decisions when crisis loomed).

You may find it obvious.

That’s fine.  Just don’t go thinking it’s obvious to the rest of the mean ol’ world out there… cuz it ain’t.

Here’s the story: One of my first jobs working for Gary Halbert was to fly to Detroit… and interview a guy who’d just lost 750 pounds.

Yeah, you read that right.Read more…

The Pride Of Cucamonga

Saturday, 9:59pm
Reno, NV
“Out on the edge of an empty highway, howling at the blood on the moon… ” (Grateful Dead, “The Pride of Cucamonga”)

Howdy…

Quick post tonight…

… just to let the conspiracy theorists know I’m still rattling around this mortal coil.

But it’s gotta be quick… because I’m heading off to celebrate Pop’s 90th birthday down in Cucamonga.

(Okay, okay… I know it’s now called “Rancho Cucamonga”, but they tacked on the rancho part long after I’d left town… and without my permission, too.  Bastards.)

Anyway, it’s always a treat to head back down to that weird, wonderful, whacked-out dream-scape desert in the spooky foothills of Mount Baldy.

Things are different there, that’s for sure.Read more…