Joe Polish is a legend in the marketing world. He’s a former carpet cleaner turned marketing guru He’s pals with the likes of Richard Branson and Paula Abdul. The running joke about Joe is, he always says “Let me introduce you to my good friend ____” because EVERYBODY is Joe’s good friend.
Social Media Epiphany at a Neal Morse concert
The other night I went to a concert in Chicago, with multi-instrumentalist Neal Morse and his extraordinary percussionist Mike Portnoy. Between Neal’s band and two guest bands, it was five hours of Progressive Rock musical bliss.
I noticed something strange and interesting during the concert:
Flies, Fly Strips & the Frustrations of Band-Aids
A couple of years ago in the fall, we started having this problem with flies in our house. It had gotten cold outside and they all wanted to come in where it was warm.
There’s this certain light in the foyer that for some reason they liked to swarm around.
We tried swatting them but they came back. Every day there would be more and more.
My competitive alpha male lizard brain kicked in. So I got my Shop Vac …
Letter of Desperation
This week I received a desperate letter from a 27 year old guy, a long-time customer who’s “circling the drain,” pleading for help.
I took it to my Roundtable meeting yesterday and read everyone the letter, omitting his personal details.
This triggered a wide-ranging 25 minute conversation among my Roundtable members, spanning…
Roundtable Chronicles for October 4, 2012
Last year Brad came from Australia to Chicago to repair a sagging business. He’d been killin’ it 4-5 years ago, he was king of his niche. But Youtube and competitors and net gnats gnawed away at his business and by 2011 he was not drinkin’ the happy juice.
…but they didn't know YOU
Almost EVERYBODY dreams of someday…. Writing a book Traveling the world Being a star Starting a business and it’s easy to TALK about it. But talk is cheap. As soon as you get any farther than climbing the ladder at a J.O.B., the herd thins real fast. There’s always an excuse. The kids, the college savings, I need to spend … Read More
Ad Sitelinks – a chisel in your copywriting bag o' tricks
Ad Sitelinks are the extra links Google gives you beneath ads in the premium listings. Google just announced that they’re gonna enforce you sending each link to separate pages.
I think the best use of Sitelinks isn’t the links to extra pages per se. It’s the ability to flesh out your USP in the very limited space available. Example –
Does it help your kids when….
“Do you remember your ritual of writing ONE positive thing in a little notebook, every single day?”
“Sure,” I said. I wrote about that several times.
“I’m terribly inconsistent at doing it,” he confessed. But for my daughter’s 9 year old birthday, I gave her a little black notebook. I told her to write down one thing she’s thankful for every single day.
“And you know what? Ever since, she’s been…
The implementation temptation paradox
When I went to my very first internet marketing seminar in April ’02, I came home with a scratch pad jam-packed with notes. It was a firehose of information. I spent the next several months feverishly implementing everything I’d learned.
I’d also spent some serious dinero on honing my writing skills. I’d bought a big box o’ copywriting stuff and I was busily going through that too.
September came along, and with it, another invitation to yet another marketing seminar.
I thought, “How does it make any sense at all to pile on MORE information when I’ve done less than half my notes from just 5 months ago?”
The man who had to take 2 years off
“I got on your list in 2005 and I learned how to build my online business from you. A few years ago my father was diagnosed with cancer. I took off the next two years and took care of him.
“From the day he received the bad news until the day I closed his mouth and eyes and said goodbye to him…