From Coolum, Australia

The World’s Most Dangerous Continent

September 3, 2004

Dear Friend & Subscriber,

Harold Holt was the first modern world leader to be eaten alive by sharks.

I’m not making this up. On November 17, 1967, the Australian Prime Minister went for a swim in the ocean and…well, just vanished. Never seen or heard from again.’Presumed drowned’ say the Aussies. With toothy rin and a casual shrug, I should add.

In the US, if El Presidente mysteriously vanished in the surf, they’d fire the Secret Service director and launch a $100 Million investigation. (You can just imagine the top ten list on Letterman.)

The Aussies named a swimming pool after the poor guy.

They’ve got a strange sense of humor over here.

For example, yesterday I was strolling down the sidewalk, enjoying the clear air and the sunny afternoon and a 7 foot snake goes slithering by:

I said to myself, ‘Self! This is not something you see every day in Chicago. You need to stop and let Mr. Snake pass by unimpeded.’

Then an Aussie says to me, ‘Would you like me to pick him up for you? Actually those are quite friendly.’

I politely declined his gracious offer, hoping that instead of playing with a seven foot snake, perhaps we could have tea and biscuits instead.

It’s not just snakes and sharks that you need to watch out for here in Oz. They have teeny tiny spiders whose venom is so potent, it can kill a Rhinoceros.

But since they don’t have Rhinos here, those spiders kill people instead. Ever heard of killing two birds with one stone? To a spider, 1 Rhino = 10 people. But once again, the Aussies don’t seem to mind. ‘Oh, don’t worry mate, if the spider bites you, it won’t hurt for very long at all.’

Then there’s the Portuguese Man-Of-War Jellyfish. The last time a guy encountered one of those, the man was still screaming long after he was unconscious.

‘Never worry, mate, I’ve lived here 46 years and nothing’s ever happened to me. Hey, would you like a Vegemite Sandwich?’

I tried Vegemite. Hmmm, how shall I describe it? It’s made out of yeast. Tastes like a blend of castor oil and spackling paste.

N o t e s F r o m t h e X 1 0 S e m i n a r

Only a few minutes ago, Alex Mandossian finished his segment on writing copy. He talked about verbs vs. adjectives.

Verbs are good.

Adjectives are bad.

A mediocre copywriter uses lots of adjectives: ‘Casey hit the ball so hard, it went over the fence.’

A good copywriter uses powerful verbs and paints a picture: ‘With bases loaded, Casey slammed the ball out of the park.’

A famous Leo Burnett Agency study revealed that 24.1% of the words that appeared in 62 failing ads were adjectives.

The Ten Commandments, handed down to the prophet Moses by God in 1800 BC, are the most famous lines of persuasive copy in world history. Alex notes that only 10% of the words in the Ten Commandments are adjectives. He concludes, ‘If it’s good enough for God, it’s good enough for me.’

John Carlton has a course called ‘Kickass copywriting secrets of a Marketing Rebel.’ So I think I’m going to write my own course called ‘Kickass copywriting secrets of God.’

I n T h e G o o g l e D e p a r t m e n t

Yesterday I gave installment #1 of ‘Google AdWords: Your Launchpad for World Domination.’ Here’s the pic of me wowing the audience:

Soundbyte from yesterday: Lester Wunderman isn’t a ‘famous guru’, but at age 84, insiders in direct marketing respect him more than almost anyone else. He’s kind of like the Peter Drucker of DM. He invented the book of the month club, the Columbia Record & Tape Club, and he’s the mastermind behind the American Express card.

A few years ago in an obscure trade journal, Wunderman made a brilliant observation: ‘Traditionally, marketers had the list of customer names and were chasing the customers. Now with the web, customers have the list of business names and they’re chasing the marketers. It’s a complete reversal.’

How true this is. Ten years ago, only a handful of visionaries were talking about ‘permission marketing’ but now it’s the rule. Ten years ago you couldn’t enter a world market in 10 minutes but today you can.

P e r r y T h e R o c k S t a r

Remember that Joe Walsh song ‘Life’s Been Good To Me So Far’? It goes ‘It’s hard to handle this fortune and fame – everybody’s so different, I haven’t changed.’

Deep down I’m still a geek, but a trip to a stylish clothing store can make me *appear* to be a hip guy. I can go to Oz and pretend I’m a rock star. Last night I had dinner with six ladies. (They needed help with their Google accounts, and I took pity on them):

It’s a rough life, but somebody’s gotta do it.

Tune in next time for more tales from Oz.

Stay Frosty!

Perry Marshall

Go on to the next installment: Bill Gates, Overture and the Crocodile