Month: August 2010

When Ego Gets in the Way

by

I recently heard business mastermind/success coach Dan Pena comment that high performance individuals all have big egos. He asserts that this is a major reason that they are successful.

I partially agree.

Just for fun, let’s take a look at an extemporaneous case study. That is, I’m making this up as we go. We’ll take a look at the once and future infamous villain, Skeletor.

This is inspired by the fact that yesterday I watched the 1980’s movie Masters of the Universe. The acting was corny, the special effects were lame (compared to what we’re used to seeing now), and really, the plot was fairly weak and unrealistic. A lot of unrealized potential, if you ask me.

Still, Skeletor’s character fascinated me, despite the goofy mask. This guy was one of the best examples of megalomania that I’ve ever seen. (I just can’t help liking egotistical characters.)

Check out this excerpt from the movie:

In my youth, I was an athlete. These days, I’m an entrepreneur trying to build my little empire. I have a bit of an ego. Sometimes, and in some ways, that’s a good thing.

However, a few reasons come to mind about times when a big ego can get in the way.

1) When you feel entitled to success, respect, position, etc.
2) When you feel that you no longer need to practice and improve at your craft.
3) When you stop working hard, deciding you can coast.
4) When you start underestimating the competition.
5) When you no longer feel the need to research your market or test the effectiveness of your efforts.

Proverbs 16:18 tells us that pride goes before destruction. We know what ultimately happened to Skeletor, and we see the same results time and again when men and women let their egos get the best of them.

Today, make sure that you keep your pride in check. Get a level-headed perspective of yourself, your product/service, your company, etc.There’s nothing wrong with self-confidence, as long as your perspective is based on reality.

Make the best use of your ego. There’s a fine line you have to walk, but striking the right balance in this area is key to your success.

P.S. John Carlton recently wrote a similarly-themed post on his blog. He took the Texas Hold’em Poker angle. Great stuff. Take a look at “Full Tilt Boogie.”

Money-Getting Is An Art

by

I just added another of my favorite classic works to the website, The Art of Money Getting (alternately known as Golden Rules for Making Money) by the one and only P.T. Barnum.

I won’t babble for too long about how much I love this little booklet. I’d prefer if you read it for yourself. But let me make a few comments.

1) It contains very good, practical advice on being “economical.” You hear complaints about the bad economy. Well, the national and global economy is made up of billions of micro (personal) economies. Do you part!

2) Barnum presents a driving emphasis on focus, perseverance and hard work. “Hard work” is a dirty phrase these days. We’ve evolved, apparently. Work smarter, not harder. Even Scrooge McDuck taught us that lesson.

Tell that to Usain Bolt. If you think hard work and determination are not key elements in his success, you’re lying to yourself.

3) He keeps earning money in its proper perspective.

I’ll be the first person to tell you that money isn’t everything. Barnum puts it more eloquently than I could.

Getting rich is not always equivalent to being successful. “There are many rich poor men, while there are many others, honest and devout men and women, who have never possessed so much money as some rich persons squander in a week, but who are nevertheless really richer and happier than any man can ever be while he is a transgressor of the higher laws of his being.”

4) This stuff is just plain old good fashioned advice from a master businessman. Simple and straightforward, but rarely implemented tactics and strategies to success in life and in money-getting endeavors.

Check it out here. I guarantee you won’t be disappointed, and I guarantee you’ll benefit from reading it. It’s a 25-page PDF. You can read it in one sitting, if you like.

Nothing is Stronger than Habit

by

Have ever started a new project or activity full of excitement, only to find your enthusiasm shrinking over the coming days and weeks?

I think everyone who has lived a few years has probably had this experience. It’s a pretty common occurrence amongst us humans, record-setting track athlete Jim Ryun has some advice for us.

“Motivation gets you started; habit keeps you going.”

Achieving the things you really desire in life will usually take hard work. We don’t always feel inspired to keep at it, though.

Most people you and I know mess up at this point. When the emotional charge that accompanies the early stages of a new venture dies down, we give up. We lack the willpower to push through.

The old proverb that says anything worth having is worth working for is 100% true. If you want to reach your goals in life, you’ll have to put in real effort.

Jim Ryun knows quite a bit about hard work. He set world records, after all!

His recipe involves forming habits to keep moving forward after the motivation wears off.

Roman poet Ovid is quoted as saying “Nothing is stronger than habit.” Even motivation.

What’s all this boil down to? You have some challenging goals to accomplish, right? You know you’ve either already felt that initial excitement or you soon will. Begin immediately to form habits that will continue to propel you toward the finish line when the feelings cool down. Be purposeful about it.

You will find yourself to be more successful than you’ve been at any point in the past when you’ve allowed emotion (or the lack of them) to dictate your actions. And you’ll probably outperform most of your peers that are working on the same goals.

Sounds like a good plan to me.

WIGs and WAGs

by

The other day I listened to an interview with Stephen Covey, author of “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” and “The Eighth Habit.” Lots of profound material was covered, but I want to share one comment that stuck out for me.

This is another acronym, like WAGs (Wild “A” Guesses) from the previous post. In fact, we’ll tie the two concepts together in a minute.

Covey spoke about setting and orienting yourself toward accomplishing WIGs, that is Wildly Important Goals. These are the most important objectives that you want to achieve in the various areas of your life. He teaches that if you don’t set WIGs, you will spend most of your time focusing time and energy doing less important things.

Having clearly defined goals helps direct action. You only have 24 hours in a day; why waste even one minute doing something that may be urgent, but not important. Leave “firefighting” in the past.

Here’s the connection, along with an application.

You will not be successful in reaching your WIGs if you settle for making WAGs.

You need to be knowledgeable (as well as constantly learning). You need to be specific. You need to be discriminating in what you choose to do along the path to the finish line. WAGs will not do the job.

While I’m on the subject of “Rubicon” (can you tell that I’m excited?), let me paraphrase a couple of the powerful one-liners that really made powerful statements during Episode 4 from this Sunday:

“I’d rather face the consequences of my action than my inaction.”

Quite a powerful statement. Are you action oriented, or passive? Are you a cause, or are you subordinate to the effects others produce?

“There’s no special sauce. Only data and decisions”

Reminds me of something I heard Jay Abraham say (again, paraphrased): “I don’t have thoughts. I have tests and results.”

Get out there and work! Analyze your results and adapt accordingly.

By all means, learn from others, model success whenever you can. But realize that there is no “special sauce.” Just don’t tell the gurus you heard that from me.

How about one from Episode 1:

“There’s always a why. You just don’t understand it.”

As marketers, as business people, it is important to figure out the “why” behind transactions and interactions. Why do people buy from you? Why don’t they? Don’t settle for a WAG, either!

Spy Games

by

Have any of you seen the new AMC series “Rubicon?”

Four episodes have aired so far. I’m loving every second.

(I’ve always been into conspiracy theories, espionage and stuff like that. If you have a similar interest, you really need to take a look at this show. You almost never hear me recommend that you sit in front of the television, so you know this is serious.)

There was an acronym that one of the characters used in this Sunday’s episode that I wanted to share. There is, naturally, a practical application to go along.

Forgive me: like the obsessed fan that I am, there is a bit of an introductory synopsis coming up. If you want to get to the point of this post, skip down to where you see THE POINT in red letters.

We follow a team of intelligence analysts working at the American Policy Institute, aka API. They basically tell various government and military agencies what the data they collect from wire taps, satellite images, etc., really means.

In this episode, the team is assigned to make the analyze info and advise the military’s decision on whether or not to drop a bomb on a potential target. Innocent lives are at stake.

Trying to determine the risks involved in the mission, the 3-person team guesses the number of civilians that could be in harm’s way. One of them exclaims that the estimate quoted is a “total WAG.” This is defined as a Wild “A” Guess. Feel free to guess what the “A” stands for.

So here’s THE POINT:

In direct response marketing, you cannot afford to make WAGs. You don’t have the luxury of fooling around with the money you spend to roll out your campaign. Every dollar has to be accounted for. This is especially true if you’re working on a project for a client. You can’t play around with their investment.

The good news is that you don’t have to settle for making guesses in your marketing.

Too many business and ad agencies develop concepts without ever doing research to find out exactly what motivates their target audience. Even more proceed with their ideas without ever testing to see if what they’re doing is producing results.

This is wasteful at best, and potentially suicidal for your business.

Lesson for today: don’t make WAGs when it comes to your business decisions. Strike that: never guess at any of the important decisions in your life, business or personal.

Do the necessary research so that you can move forward prepared for what’s out there. What is your hottest prospect really scared of? What is your wife’s favorite flower?

Then test everything. I’ll go out on a limb and say that everything in life is quantifiable to some degree. Find out what kind of results you’re getting, and work on improving them constantly.

Headline Analyzers? Do These Things Really Work?

by

A discussion in one of the groups I’m a member of on LinkedIn brought an interesting tool to my attention. It’s the Advanced Marketing Institute’s Headline Analyzer. This tool will take a look at the emotional value of the words in your headline and give you a score.

From the site:

This score indicates that your headline has a total of ***% Emotional Marketing Value (EMV) Words. To put that in perspective, the English language contains approximately 20% EMV words.

And for comparison, most professional copywriters’ headlines will have 30%-40% EMV Words in their headlines, while the most gifted copywriters will have 50%-75% EMV words in headlines.

A perfect score would be 100%, but that is rare unless your headline is less than five words.”

Let me post my response to the group on this topic:
——
There’s another pretty cool tool, the Carlin Ad-Speak Calculator, which will tell you if your headlines sound to “salesy” or “hypey.”

Maybe the two could be used in combination

It probably goes without saying, but I’d like to note that it’s impossible for a computer to “know” the emotional power of any given headline. Human psychology can’t be broken down into logorithms.

No one really knows how words will hit home. Headlines will affect different groups of people differently. Current events, whether national or personal, will also determine the impact words will have on an individual. For example, the “foreclosure” is a pretty compelling word for many of us.

To add some perspective, I tried the AMI Headline Analyzer, just to see what happens.

It appears to simply add the “emotional value” of the individual words in the headline.

Example: Having an idea of a couple highly emotive words, my first attempt was “Free Money Now.” Guess it was too short, because that didn’t get a result.

So I tried “Get Free Money Now.” Guess what? 50% EMV. Not bad, eh? My personal analysis would be that there may be some power in that headline, but a lot of skepticism would accompany it. Who could believe it?

Next, I added the most powerful word in any language. “You Get Free Money Now.” The score: 60% regardless of where in the sentence the word “you” is placed. “Get You Free Money” got the same rating.

Finally, for whatever reason, I removed “get” from the headline. “Free You Money Now” scores at a full 75%!

(Incidently, each of those headlines scored low [less than 2%] on the Carlin Ad-Speak Calculator that I promoted myself.)

On the other hand, “Stop Your Foreclosure Now” only produced a 25% emotional value?

Those are the scores you want. But the limited ability of tools such as these is demonstrated.

Your best bet is to bring your writing prowess to the table, coupled with an intimate knowledge of exactly who you are speaking to.

What do you guys think?
—-

I mentioned the Carlin Ad-Speak Calculator on in an earlier post, which you can see here.

Long Copy Versus Short Copy

by

I’d like to touch on the perpetual “long copy versus short copy” battle one more time. Don’t worry, I’ll keep it brief. (Sorry, that was funny to me.)

This week’s inspiration comes from French Enlightenment political thinker  Charles de Montesquieu:

“What orators lack in depth, they make up in length.”

Again, the lesson is pretty plain. Many times, a person who has little to say will take a long time saying it. Their comments seem more substantial (in their minds) because they are more lengthy.

This goes for writers as well. All kinds of writer, from novelists to journalists. And, yes, copywriters, too.

Many times you will read a marketing message that takes 1,000 words to say what could be stated in 500.

Writing is a discipline. A huge part of what makes it a discipline is deciding on the best words and the best way to make a point. Well-chosen words and sentences keep writing tight, and protect your readers from boredom.

In advertising, a writer can’t afford to be too long-winded. Each word has to earn its place on the page. Like poetry. The audience needs to get all that you have to give, but you have to keep them interested in reading.

In the interest of brevity, I won’t drone on. My point, in short is this: GET TO THE POINT! The quicker the better.

That doesn’t mean I favor short copy over long.  I do prefer it when writers don’t waste words. Say everything that needs to be said. Then, not another peep.

Improve Your Marketing by Playing Board Games

by

Maybe I’m crazy, but it seems like you can find marketing lessons everywhere. I’m not talking about learning from the hundreds of sales messages that harass our eyes and ears daily.

You can gain marketing insight in what seems like most unlikely places…

Last night, my lovely wife and I had a great time playing Scrabble. After having the crap beaten out of me for most of the game, I had an epiphany.  Scrabble can help you be a better marketer!

I won’t take up all your time going trough all the details, but observe some of the benefits that you get from playing this classic game:

  • You’re constantly being exposed to new words. And advanced vocabulary (one that you actually put to use) is a key to the game. It will also help you with writing copy and content for your sales letters, website, articles, etc.
  • Scrabble is all about finding connections. Your brain can do a lot of exercise during competitive matches. Marketing is all about connections, too. Gotta find a way to bring your customers and your product or service together.
  • You’ll improve your ability to analyze details. A critical eye can do wonders for your advertising efforts.

The key lesson that I took away from my epiphany is that what’s on the board is more important than the letters on your rack. If you spend all your time looking at your own letters, you’ll get trounced (a word I am now quite familiar with). No matter what you have in your possession, if you can’t get it on the board, it’s worthless. Contrariwise, even if your assortment of letters is really sorry, you might still be able to create a huge word based on what’s already been played.

This is crucial with marketing as well. It is essential to understand your market. Understanding your audience is the most important part of marketing. Probably the most important aspect of running a successful business.

Short version: don’t spend all your time and effort looking at you. Look at your target, find out what they want, and figure out how to use that intimate knowledge to elevate your marketing to a higher plane.

Oh, and I’m selling my Scrabble Marketing Training Manual for $49. Give me a ring if you’re interested.

(Yes, that’s a joke!)

Courtship Copywriting

by

A thought for your consideration (which happens to be a comment that I made on John Carlton’s blog last summer)

Selling is just like a marriage proposal. You can’t just walk up a stranger and ask her to marry you. You have to take the process one step at a time, starting with small, easy-to-make choices (“hey, wanna catch a movie?“). Make the first step for your prospect irresistibly easy to take. Over time, the actions get larger.

Long copy allows the message to start small and move the customer increasingly toward making the purchase. Short copy doesn’t have that ability-there’s no time!

Long copy is can be a “greased slide” to the sale. Short copy is one big step, and grease on a step (stair) is not usually a good idea.

This is what Gary Bencivenga called “throwing the monkey fist.”  Most big tasks can’t be accomplished in one move. Master salespeople (that includes smart marketers) use a sequence  of expanding steps to move the prospect to take the desired action.

Think about it…

More importantly, implement it.

How Would George Carlin Respond to Your Ads?

by

From the Marketing Beyond Advertising blog:

Do your ads sound like ads? Do your ads boast about your superior service, your wide selection, or name the number of years you’ve been in business?

If so, you may be guilty of Ad-Speak.

Introducing the Carlin Ad Speak Calculator!

This cool tool will analyze your advertising copy and tell you if it sounds too salesy, too much like and ad.

I think its rather neato.

Advertising that sounds like advertising is easy for your target audience to ignore. If it does get read, it’s often disregarded.

Your message has to interrupt your readers enough to grab their attention, channel desire, and direct them to you and what you offer.

The Carlin Ad Speak Calculator is just another way to take a critical look at your copy. It will even list the elements that you’ve used that are commonly considered advertising lingo

Have a little fun, a little laugh, and another look at the quality of your message.