One of the most compelling elements of your marketing is something you’ll never find in a textbook, in a marketing guru’s course, or taught at a seminar…

It’s your willingness to “Take a Stand Against the Madness”.

Here’s what I mean…

We live in a crazy world.   So no matter what market you’re in, there’s madness: a kind of plague of overly simplistic, consensus driven thought which leaves people feeling desperate and alone, yet frightened to question authority.

Your ability to identify the madness, but more importantly your willingness to stand aside from it will distinguish you as a marketer like nothing else I know, because it’s this and only this which gives you the ability to connect with the consumer on the deepest level… to relieve the deepest desperation and despair they’re feeling as a result of living in an insane world.

Moreover, in every market there’s a general madness which obfuscates the most fundamental truths people really need to know, and then a specific madness which prevents people from learning the features and functions they should really be looking for.

For example, the general madness in OUR market (internet marketing) is the notion of the 4 hour work week, and that one can be making a full time living within just a few months. (The truth is it’s more like going to college to get another degree…you should definitely do better with the degree if you pick the right school, but it usually takes a few years and you don’t get a million dollar job right after you graduate, you get a career path you’re happy with instead)

The specific madness is the idea that (a) you can shout emotional benefits at people and they’ll buy (you’ve gotta link emotional benefits to concrete and specific points of difference–real features and functions which distinguish you from the competitors and make sense in the context of the emotion you’re promising to deliver); (b) you can find points of difference by looking at FAQs (when the truth is that frequently asked questions are also frequently answered).

In the “emotional eating” market (the one I demonstrate entering in the hyper-responsive club from month 3 onwards), the general madness is the notion you lose weight for good in 30 days, while the specific madness is the idea you have to learn “how to handle” your cravings (rather than methodically embracing the life force which is behind them without guilt or stress)

In both these situations, there’s a distinct relief which arises as people come to see you take a stand.  They feel less alone.  They think you’ve “got something special”.

And in fact, you must “have something special”, or your project is unlikely to work as more than a commodity play, squeezed on thin margins in the long run.

Now here’s the kicker…

To have something special, you’ve got to be willing to BE someone special…

Which means you really DO have to be willing to take a stand against the status quo…

To rock the boat…

To be hated by many.

It also means you have to be willing to be changed by your market… to love them so much you’ll give up notions which, going into the project, were critical to the security of your sense of self. (For example, in emotional eating, I thought I was going into the market to help people be more disciplined with their food, and instead I learned that the desire for discipline, in part, was a manifestation of an unhealthy fear of food… this challenged my day to day life in a fundamental way)

Are you willing to take a stand against the madness?

I really don’t think there’s any other way.

Food for thought,

G 🙂

Hyper-responsive club

Here’s a first.

I went for a walk with my wife this week.  Before we left she stroked my head and said “honey, I think you’d better put some sun lotion on your bald spot”  And just the day before, the eye doctor prescribed bifocals!  False teeth can’t be too far behind.

All of which makes me painfully aware life is short.  And even though I still perceive myself as young, healthy, and vibrant,  I’m not going to live forever.

Which means, since building something significant online takes solid research, time, energy, and capital… you really can’t do everything.  There comes a time when you have to narrow your projects, choose your weapons, double down and focus.

Or else you don’t grow old, wise, and content with your adventures (like Odysseus), you just get old.

For me this means accepting the harsh reality that nothing moves forward unless I spend 80% of my time focused on it, and asking myself the serious question “What deserves 80% of my attention this year?”

That’s what “marketing with your bald spot” means to me.

What does it mean to you?

All my best,

Dr. G 🙂

PS – my answer this year is my marketing club and the Emotional Eating business people are watching me build successfully within it.

This was my all-time best user response email message, reprinted here.  Thought you’d like to see it 🙂

==============

IMPORTANT NOTE: There are NO promotional links in this email.  You

can’t buy anything from it, no matter how hard you try.0

I just really want you to understand this message.

Here’s the thing, you are NOT going to want to

read what’s in this email.  It’s probably a mistake for me

to broadcast it, because it’s the polar opposite of what

sells to the IM crowd, and I’ll probably drive my numbers way down

this month by sending it.

Worse yet, a lot of people will unsubscribe, because it’s

not even really such a profound or new point.  But it’s

critically important, especially at this time on the

internet, and I’d rather have a list full of people who

accept this message, and let the rest go.

* MAIN POINT:

If you want to succeed online or off, life is the same

as it’s always been … “You’ve got to spin some plates”

I heard this last month while masterminding with a

pretty powerful crew.  (I’m amazed they invited me)

Every single one of these people knows that entrepreneurs,

… particularly INTERNET entrepreneurs, are caught up

in a fantasy of having computers do all their work for them

while money electronically piles into their account.

While there ARE aspects of internet life which are like this,

the truth is, every successful internet entrepreneur I’ve

ever met (including, and perhaps especially everyone in

that room) was “spinning lots of plates”.

They were doing research, developing products, managing

customer service teams, preparing for seminars, writing

articles, working on business plans, testing markets,

tracking split tests, getting coached, writing autoresponders,

working on salesletters, dealing with merchant accounts,

managing programmers, recruiting employees, running affiliate

programs, managing their PPC accounts, driving traffic

with SEO, social media, blogs, and videos, sourcing

products, recording audios, writing their books, doing

press releases, building a compensation plan for their

company, meeting with vendors, negotiating, getting joint

ventures, dealing with partners, attending to legal issues,

managing telesales teams, teaching live chat operators how

to do their jobs, running coaching groups, developing next

year’s goals, studying spreadsheets, optimizing their

landing pages, learning how to write better copy, and on

and on and on.

Now, it sounds overwhelming, but I have to tell you I found

it incredibly relieving, because up until that point I think

I felt like there was something wrong with me.

Sure, I’ve had a great deal of success.  And while yes, good money

does really flow into my account separate and apart from the

direct hours I work, and I CAN take off anytime I want to for

a day or even a few weeks and come back with more money in

my account, … I’m definitely NOT hanging out in Fiji

getting paid to eat Cheese Doodles, and won’t be any time

soon.

And I’ll bet, unless you’re already making EIGHT figures,

you’re not either.

And you see, there’s nothing wrong with that … unless you

THINK there’s something wrong with it and start panicking,

and continually question and change your focus.

I really don’t mind spinning a lot of plates.

They’re MY plates.

No one assigns them to me.

No one tells me how long I have to spin them for, or which

ones to spin at which time.

No one makes me do an unproductive dance while I spin them.

No one pretends to know what they’re doing and stands

over me taking pot shots while I do all the work.

They’re MINE, and I LOVE them.

So if you find yourself spinning a lot of plates just take

a deep breath and relax.  That’s the way it’s supposed to

be.  The question isn’t why you have so many plates to spin …

the only real question is whether they’re the RIGHT plates.

And here are two things to keep in mind in that regards.

First (I got this from Perry), … to make an internet

business humm you only need ONE way of driving traffic

and ONE way of converting it.  (Mine are PPC + Research).

Once you’ve got a great system in place, you can just

pay other people commissions to do all the rest.

Second, … the internet is a CATALYST to help supercharge

the value you deliver to the market.  The internet is not

your business.  (Got this one from Bryan).

Listen, when we’re 95 years old, maybe we’ll meet in Fiji for

a Cheese Doodle eating fundraiser.  Until then,

I’ll be the guy with the plates in the air.

All my best,

Glenn 🙂

I had a VERY strange weekend which proved to me there’s no such thing as certainty in an uncertain world, despite all our spreadsheets, predictive models, and planning   Sometimes you can do all the research and preparation in the world, and then a tiny, unexpected wave comes along masquerading as a Tsunami and knocks you off course.

Here’s the story …

I worked VERY hard last week preparing my presentation for the AdWords seminar in Maui, and was feeling rather proud of it on Saturday morning as I was about to board the plane.

About 15 minutes before boarding time, I decided it would be good to drink some mineral water before the long flight because I like to be well hydrated on a plane (not because I like to pee).  So I took out my headphones and stopped listening to my outsourcing MP3s just long enough to talk to the cashier when I heard this announcement from the TV:

“Urgent evacuation  required to save lives.  Massive Tsunami is headed for Hawaiin islands after one of the 10 largest earthquakes on record!”

Coincidentally, about 1/3rd of New Hampshire lost power on Friday due to a wicked windstorm.

AND it was my anniversary coming up.

So I said to myself “Am I really going to leave my wife alone in the dark on our anniversary weekend while I travel half way around the world INTO a disaster area”

I called Perry to get his take on things, and we decided I should just try to change my plane and wait until there was more news about how bad the Tidal Wave actually was going to be.

Seemed sensible, so that’s what I did.

And later that day, when I found out there was only about a 1 foot rise in sea level which did virtually NO damage to the area I was to visit (and the route to get there), I went to get another plane.

Well, it turns out that either I wasn’t the only one who had that idea, or else this is really the season for Hawaiin vacations, because the next available seat was on Tuesday evening, which would put me at the seminar just a few hours before it ended.

That’s how  a 1 foot Tsunami kicked my ass.

Live and learn.

G 🙂