By Dan Kennedy

5 UN-Creative Thoughts About

Creativity

Entrepreneurs and marketers are constantly challenged to be creative. But creativity as it is commonly thought of and practiced is sin not virtue, because it is slow and ponderous; because it begins with a blank slate. One of the most profitably creative entrepreneurs of all time, Walt Disney, said “….stop talking and begin doing.”   To be profitable in the real world, creativity must be fast, decisive, practical, implementable and implemented. There’s little room for creativity for creativity’s sake.

I tend to practice “creativity cheating” – and thought I’d give you a few quick “cheats”, from the many I talked about at my one day Creative Thinking For Entrepreneurs Seminar.*

#1: STEAL AND ADAPT WHAT’S ALREADY BUILT

From Tony Baxter, Senior V.P., Creative Development/Imagineering at Disney: “For the climactic scene in the Indiana Jones Adventure at Disneyland, we wanted the ride vehicle to suddenly start backing up as the giant rolling boulder comes thundering toward us. Having a ride vehicle back up in the middle of a ride is SOMETHING THAT’S NEVER BEEN DONE, BECAUSE IT’S NOT POSSIBLE. With eighteen vehicles traveling down the same track at the same time, a vehicle going in reverse would collide with the next vehicle coming behind it along the track. But if you’ve ever ridden in the Indiana Jones attraction, you know your vehicle does suddenly start backing up. At least that’s your perception. Your vehicle has actually stopped. It’s the walls and ceiling that are moving, giving you the undeniable feeling that you’re traveling backward…….so, where did we come up with this solution? A car wash. One of those self-service machines at the gas station where you pull your car in and park while a series of brushes and spray heads mounted above and beside your car travel back and forth.”

There’s more to Tony’s story, but enough here to make the point: whatever you’re trying to do, somebody has already figured out and built — just not in your business or industry or in an application you might ordinarily, easily think of in connection with your business.  You do NOT want to invest umpteen days, weeks, months duplicating all the figuring out and innovation and engineering – you want to find the thing that’s already built.

Oh, and a key question to ask every time you see anything, go anywhere, experience anything: how can I use that?

#2: WORK BACKWARDS

Most people approach creative thinking from the front – the idea. Let’s say you’re going to open up a new restaurant. You’ll probably start with the name, maybe the theme, the menu. But the best place to start is with what will insure a customer keeps coming back. Or his final few minutes in the place. What goes on at the cash register. What will create the highest average ticket.  In short, you start thinking about outcomes and then build backwards. Right now, in the movie business, a ton of very important money comes from stealth advertising and product placement. So very, very, very early in the creative process, in many cases prior to script and definitely prior to picking actors, the list of every possible product/advertiser that can be integrated into the film is thought through.  I am told in one blockbuster movie of 2005, a scene that took place inside a ski resort’s dim-lit bar at night in the book was moved to daytime, outside on the restaurant’s deck because they could get a sunglasses company, a parka company, and a liquor company with its name on patio table umbrellas to pony up money.

#3: BE MARKET / BUYER DRIVEN IN (ALMOST) EVERYTHING YOU DO

I started out, ever so briefly, in the ‘traditional’ advertising business, and have occasionally been involved – such as a few years back when I butted heads with Weight Watchers’ big name Madison Avenue agency. They tend to start their creative process with random ideas. If you watch the advertising-related exercises on ‘The Apprentice’, you’ve seen this same mistake made. So, gather a bunch of ad industry creative types together to talk about advertising for a new perfume, they’ll instantly leap off a dozen creative cliffs: names, colors, package, celebrity, music.  I say: wait a damn minute!  Tell me who the ‘target’ is – don’t even bother telling me about the product. I don’t give a rat’s patootie that it smells like jasmine or ocean breezes or beached whales in the last throes of death or is made from cedar planks or horny minks’ glandular secretions. I want to work backwards from who the intended buyer is. And it matters whether she’s 18, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50, 55, single, married, etc.  I catch clients constantly playing BLIND ARCHERY.  Don’t develop a product or service or offer or Marketing Message unless you are developing it for a particular somebody.  Not only is that the best and surest way to make money and avoid flops, it’s a terrific creativity shortcut because it narrows your range of creative work from the git-go. If you want to manage time better, by now you probably know my best strategy is to give yourself less loose time to manage. If you want to get through the creation process quicker, give yourself a smaller canvass.

#4: SWIPE, SWIPE, SWIPE, SWIPE (LEGALLY & ETHICALLY)

I get real joy out of hearing from GKIC Members as I did the day I wrote this, and hearing one after another telling me how they took an example from the NO B.S. MARKETING LETTER, etc., etc.  Again, you should never start with a blank slate. Too hard, too slow. Gather up some stuff to give you a jump start.

#5: DOODADS AS INSPIRATION

One of my favorite shortcuts is finding the little doodads, promotional items, grabbers that are available, that suggest or furnish the theme for my marketing campaign — especially when doing direct-mail. The copywriting I did for Rory Fatt’s boot camp one year, ‘The Magical Business Life Boot Camp For Restaurant Owners’, was because I first found a bunch of magic stuff in the Oriental Trading catalogs: tricks, cards, top hats, etc.  I picked the theme because these things were available cheap.

If you don’t get these catalogs, you must:

Hands On Fun – Creative Tools
www.handsonfun.com

Oriental Trading/Business               
www.orientaltrading.com

Fun Impressions
www.funimpressions.com

Here are just a few items that beget ideas:

Magnetic Construction Set

“Build a better _____________”

Foam Fall Leaves

“The leaves have started to turn colors – your reminder to __________”

Dinosaurs

“Once upon a time, mighty dinosaurs ruled the earth. They no longer even exist/ Why? Because they didn’t adapt to change. Don’t risk extinction!”

Jumbo Foam Dice

‘If you want to gamble, go to Vegas.

If you want a sure thing: ________________”

Seasonal Themes….a little more obvious. For example, Chinese New Years, St. Patricks Day

So, for example, instead of the Magic theme, next year Rory might use : Build A Better Restaurant Business. There’s the construction set I just talked about, hard hats, toy hammers and tool kits, sales letters printed on architects’ blueprints, building permits, and on and on and on. Who else could use this?  Kitchen remodelers…..fitness center (build a better body)……karate school (build a better kid)….

See, wandering through one of these catalogs is another creativity shortcut.

There’s a business term: “speed to market.”  It’s extremely important.  The entrepreneurs I work with who make the most money are “speed to market” people. They rely on creativity shortcuts. You should too.

DAN S. KENNEDY is a serial, multi-millionaire entrepreneur; highly paid and sought after marketing and business strategist; advisor to countless first-generation, from-scratch multi-millionaire and 7-figure income entrepreneurs and professionals; and, in his personal practice, one of the very highest paid direct-response copywriters in America. As a speaker, he has delivered over 2,000 compensated presentations, appearing repeatedly on programs with the likes of Donald Trump, Gene Simmons (KISS), Debbi Fields (Mrs. Fields Cookies), and many other celebrity-entrepreneurs, for former U.S. Presidents and other world leaders, and other leading business speakers like Zig Ziglar, Brian Tracy and Tom Hopkins, often addressing audiences of 1,000 to 10,000 and up.  His popular books have been favorably recognized by Forbes, Business Week, Inc. and Entrepreneur Magazine. His NO B.S. MARKETING LETTER, one of the business newsletters published for Members of Glazer-Kennedy Insider’s Circle, is the largest paid subscription newsletter in its genre in the world. http://ultimateleadgenerationmachine1.com?w=fgf2&p=sacks

“Leadership depends more upon the man than the rank.”  - Harold Geneen

For good or bad, I consider myself fortunate to have missed the Vietnam experience.  But I’ve talked to enough vets to know that “fragging” was much more common than the public knew; meaning, grunts shooting their leader in the back.  This demonstrates that rank doesn’t necessarily guarantee respect.  The same thing is true in less deadly situations.  Just because you’re the boss no longer means anybody will do as you ask.

Fortunately, this has a very positive flip side.  When I first read this, I was also reading Ringer’s stuff, and I realized that you can take control, assume leadership and be the boss in situations where you have no rank.  This is a very liberating idea.  It frees you from structure, from intimidation and from a whole lot of very limiting past programming.  You can become the leader in a defined marketplace in under a year, even if there are companies competing there with 100 years’ tenure. You can lead a meeting, a group’s thinking or the direction of a project even if you are the newest, smallest puppy in the kennel.  As a consultant, I often find myself leading in situations and environments
where I have no rank.

Where Does The Confidence To Lead Come From?  

I think all leadership confidence is based on a disdain for the other contenders and for the troops. This is a controversial idea, very offensive to many, and I understand that.  Military and political leaders will vehemently deny it.  But the truth is, most leaders gain the confidence it takes to lead by looking around and arriving at the conclusion that everybody else around them is inept, inarticulate, lazy or otherwise woefully unqualified.  This is the best reason of all to enter a new business or a new market, by the way:  the conviction (not just arrogant opinion) that those already there are idiots.  I’ll never forget how my confidence about being in the speaking business soared after attending my first
National Speakers Association event – sure, I saw a number of people there who were better speakers than I was, but I met nobody with their head screwed on straight about the business.  I also saw a group of professionals obsessed with the illusion of “rank” that was meaningful to them out meaningless in the marketplace.  Whenever you spot such conditions, you can count on having found enormous opportunity.

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DAN S. KENNEDY is a serial, multi-millionaire entrepreneur; highly paid and sought after marketing and business strategist; advisor to countless first-generation, from-scratch multi-millionaire and 7-figure income entrepreneurs and professionals; and, in his personal practice, one of the very highest paid direct-response copywriters in America. As a speaker, he has delivered over 2,000 compensated presentations, appearing repeatedly on programs with the likes of Donald Trump, Gene Simmons (KISS), Debbi Fields (Mrs. Fields Cookies), and many other celebrity-entrepreneurs, for former U.S. Presidents and other world leaders, and other leading business speakers like Zig Ziglar, Brian Tracy and Tom Hopkins, often addressing audiences of 1,000 to 10,000 and up.  His popular books have been favorably recognized by Forbes, Business Week, Inc. and Entrepreneur Magazine. His NO B.S. MARKETING LETTER, one of the business newsletters published for Members of Glazer-Kennedy Insider’s Circle, is the largest paid subscription newsletter in its genre in the world. https://gkic.infusionsoft.com/go/newmifge/briansacks

 ”Worriers and spellers can be hired for minimum wage.” – James Tolleson

I won a couple “spelling bees” when I was a kid, and I’m a reasonably bright guy.  But unless you’re going to teach English lit, it turns out that mastery of grammar and spelling is not particularly important to most careers or businesses.
I get letters from time to time offering to edit everything from my books and newsletters to my sales letters, to correct the grammar and syntax or present a more erudite, professional image-but these letters always come from people who have never had a book published or never made any serious money from creating advertising.
You CAN hire these folks for minimum wage all day long.  Most of the highest income earners I know have a few of these people around.  The point, of course, is that “perfection” and “professionalism” as defined and perceived by most people has not one darned thing to do with making a lot of money.
It turns out that book publishers all have editors who can fix what you write – what they need is somebody who can come upwith salable books and then sell them.  Ad agencies can hire people to fix grammar easily; what’s hard to find is the guy who can come up with something like “They All Laughed When I sat Down At The Piano…” that can actually sell something.

See, when you have the ability to cause people to jump up and part with their money, you can hire – or the world will ante up and provide – people to run around behind you and do everything from fix your grammar to get your laundry cleaned to mollifying hotel managers after you’ve trashed the penthouse suite.
This tells you the one and only business skill worth focusing on, worth mastering.  And I can’t tell you how happy I am to have had that revelation early in life.

As an aside, if you really want to do your son or daughter a favor, push them into summer jobs in selling.  Even if they want to become doctors or, God forbid, lawyers later, the most valuable part of their entire education will be the three months spent selling in the store, car dealership or door to door.  (Some years back, I did a survey of 100 chiropractors with practices earning at least $500,000.00 a year; over 80 of them had worked in direct sales, like selling vacuum cleaners, fire alarms, cookware, etc.)

Similarly, you can also hire a bunch of pinheads and bean counters to sit around and worry over every imaginable detail and potential problem for a whole lot less than you can make from the same time selling or causing sales.  In essence, it really doesn’t pay to worry!  Hard to break the worry habit:  most of us are taught this habit by our parents and have it deeply imprinted in our subconscious.
The best antidote or, at least distraction though is positive, productive, proactive action.  I do know one entrepreneur who actually hired a guy to worry for him – he pays him $35,000.00 a year.  Every morning he gives his Vice-President of Worrying a list of stuff to worry about, and then he goes on to focus on selling and causing sales.

This pretty much tells you the only two functions of business worth investing your time and energy in.  And note this:  everybody who takes your time or attention away from those two things is your enemy.

DAN S. KENNEDY is a serial, multi-millionaire entrepreneur; highly paid and sought after marketing and business strategist; advisor to countless first-generation, from-scratch multi-millionaire and 7-figure income entrepreneurs and professionals; and, in his personal practice, one of the very highest paid direct-response copywriters in America. As a speaker, he has delivered over 2,000 compensated presentations, appearing repeatedly on programs with the likes of Donald Trump, Gene Simmons (KISS), Debbi Fields (Mrs. Fields Cookies), and many other celebrity-entrepreneurs, for former U.S. Presidents and other world leaders, and other leading business speakers like Zig Ziglar, Brian Tracy and Tom Hopkins, often addressing audiences of 1,000 to 10,000 and up.  His popular books have been favorably recognized by Forbes, Business Week, Inc. and Entrepreneur Magazine. His NO B.S. MARKETING LETTER, one of the business newsletters published for Members of Glazer-Kennedy Insider’s Circle, is the largest paid subscription newsletter in its genre in the world. http://bit.ly/M5Z8nX

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SEEING WHAT NO ONE ELSE CAN

“Wealth comes to the man who can see the potential for wealth. – Napoleon Hill

Does this seem goofily obvious?  Maybe it is.  But then why are so few people rich in a place and time of virtually unlimited opportunity?  The fact is, most people see things only as they are.

I live in a luxury resort community developed by a guy who made his mark and his fortune
creating such communities in areas of cities no one else saw as a valuable; in low income areas, up the sides of craggy mountains with no flatland to build on.  The great visionary entrepreneurs like Walt Disney and Bugsy Siegel and Sam Walton had few personal characteristics in common, but they all had this prized ability to see what others could not even imagine.

I think the first place you have to be able to see potential for wealth is in the mirror.  Most people look in their mirrors and see someone destined to finish as is.  They do not see a millionaire waiting to hatch.  There is no doubt in my mind that the picture you see of yourself virtually governs what you become.  If wealth is on the agenda, you’d better see a wealthy person, a wealth magnet, a person deserving of wealth in the mirror.
Then comes the ability to identify the opportunity in a given set of circumstances where most others are unable to spot it.

There are “formulas”, by the way, that keep getting applied in slightly different ways, over and over again.  Consider the trend of the past ten years or so, largely led by just a couple of development companies, of going into decrepit downtown industrial areas, converting warehouses and abandoned docks into entertainment areas full of restaurants, night-clubs, offices – like The Flats in Cleveland, Inner Harbor in Baltimore, etc.  I’d call this the “Ugly Duckling Model”, getting rich by turning ugly ducklings into swans.  Conrad Hilton started out by taking on aged dowagers hotels and transforming them.  Al Davis did it successfully during the glory days of the Raiders by taking on “outlaw” players nobody else wanted.  A few years ago, I was walking through an arts-and craft show somewhere and stumbled across a guy doing a pretty brisk business selling planters made out of old, worn out cowboy
boots he’d rehabbed and decorated – as I recall at about $100 a hit.  Look around, you’ll see this Formula at work.

DAN S. KENNEDY is a serial, multi-millionaire entrepreneur; highly paid and sought after marketing and business strategist; advisor to countless first-generation, from-scratch multi-millionaire and 7-figure income entrepreneurs and professionals; and, in his personal practice, one of the very highest paid direct-response copywriters in America. As a speaker, he has delivered over 2,000 compensated presentations, appearing repeatedly on programs with the likes of Donald Trump, Gene Simmons (KISS), Debbi Fields (Mrs. Fields Cookies), and many other celebrity-entrepreneurs, for former U.S. Presidents and other world leaders, and other leading business speakers like Zig Ziglar, Brian Tracy and Tom Hopkins, often addressing audiences of 1,000 to 10,000 and up.  His popular books have been favorably recognized by Forbes, Business Week, Inc. and Entrepreneur Magazine. His NO B.S. MARKETING LETTER, one of the business newsletters published for Members of Glazer-Kennedy Insider’s Circle, is the largest paid subscription newsletter in its genre in the world

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Just the other day, I was listening to a recording of a speech by Joe Sugarman* and Joe said, “One good path to success is to learn all the proven rules and meticulously follow them.  Another path is to occasionally break all the rules, because breakthroughs come only from breaking rules.”  Resonates with me; as you know, I wrote a whole book based on breaking rules.

On one hand, I’m cautious about innovation; pioneers usually come home full of arrow; it’s often costly and time consuming…and I am always much more interested in “what works” than a new idea.  However, as Joe said, OCCASIONALLY, or I might say, <u >at carefully chosen time, you have no alternative but to be the pioneer in order to move forward and in order to stand out from the crowd.  It is, of course, the minority of times that you successfully innovate that you get noticed for, not the majority of times you successfully follow an already plowed path.

(*In case you don’t know, Joe Sugarman is a mail-order pioneer:  first to sell electronic calculators via direct-response ads, first to use 800#’s.  You may know him via his infomercials or QVC appearances for Blu-Blockers.  But his JS&A ads and catalogs preceded The Sharper Image and led in selling various electronic gadgets.)

I think the best times to innovate are when you are absolutely convinced that the conventional wisdom; the already plowed path; the crowd is wrong.  Just as an example, when I was getting started in the speaking business, everybody seemed to operate under the policy of billing clients for fees and expenses after their engagements (anything else was viewed as impolite and unprofessional), and most speakers who sold product from the platform sort of begged the clients for permission, and often sacrificed that opportunity.

Very early on, I determined that being in the banking and collections business did not serve my purposes very well at all – nor did speaking only for wages.  So I insisted on a 50% fee deposit to take a date off the calendar, balance and travel expenses paid on
site at the speech, and I refused dates where I could not also offer my materials.  At the time, peers criticized me; told companies would never accept such terms; and called ‘unethical’ by agents and bureaus.  Today, my payment policies are the norm in the profession.

Another example:  at a time when every vendor in a particular niche was offering only very expensive services requiring long-term contracts, I copied their marketing method but used it to sell a substitute product at a very small price (and quickly took in a couple million dollars) – I was convinced they were idiotically leaving a lot of motived but unsatisfied customers behind by not offering a low price option.

An interesting survey of selected, successful, profitable large corporations turned up 74% that said they’d achieve their first big success with either a unique product or a distinctive way of doing business, although this breakthrough may not have come along until they had been in business for many years.  Note the word:  first.  I also know many companies that are able to subsequently build on that first breakthrough more conservatively, to grow and stabilize their businesses.

The bottom-line, I guess, is that you gotta gamble.  You try to gamble only when you must OR when circumstances look so favorable that it is irresistible, but you got gamble.

DAN S. KENNEDY is a serial, multi-millionaire entrepreneur; highly paid and sought after marketing and business strategist; advisor to countless first-generation, from-scratch multi-millionaire and 7-figure income entrepreneurs and professionals; and, in his personal practice, one of the very highest paid direct-response copywriters in America. As a speaker, he has delivered over 2,000 compensated presentations, appearing repeatedly on programs with the likes of Donald Trump, Gene Simmons (KISS), Debbi Fields (Mrs. Fields Cookies), and many other celebrity-entrepreneurs, for former U.S. Presidents and other world leaders, and other leading business speakers like Zig Ziglar, Brian Tracy and Tom Hopkins, often addressing audiences of 1,000 to 10,000 and up.  His popular books have been favorably recognized by Forbes, Business Week, Inc. and Entrepreneur Magazine. His NO B.S. MARKETING LETTER, one of the business newsletters published for Members of Glazer-Kennedy Insider’s Circle, is the largest paid subscription newsletter in its genre in the world.  https://gkic.infusionsoft.com/go/newmifge/briansacks

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by Dan S. Kennedy

Test And Grow Rich

“Testing” is an ugly topic.  Why?  Because testing variables in advertising direct mail, phone scripts and sales presentations requires discipline, diligence and patience.  To get it right, you can only test one variable at a time.  This means that if you change a headline, you can’t change anything else.  Plus you have to make sure all other variables remain the same, like the mailing day or a war breaking out that has everybody watching CNN day and night or the President getting caught again with his drawers down or a hurricane hitting.

Frankly, most business people will just not go through the “detailitis” required to test – which is why it’s a very good idea to model proven promotions.  And in some cases where you’re only going to use something once or twice or you’re dealing with a very small number, it’s just not worth testing; instead, you take your best shot.  But let’s assume you’re working on something you intend to use over and over and over again in some significant quantity, so that it’s worth real effort to fine-tune it…

I have some tips for you: first of all, there’s non-testing testing – huh?  Well, I describe that in my book ‘The Ultimate Sales Letter

’ (available at http://bit.ly/I9Tdha  ), where I talk about the steps to take with a finished sales letter before you actually mail it.  Second, there’s split testing, which is the fastest way to test and get to a reasonable conclusion.  Let’s assume you have a postcard and you want to leave everything the same but test four different headlines, and you have 4,000 similar addresses to mail to.  You do “nth name testing”; that means Headline #A goes to every 4th name, Headline #B to every 5th name, Headline #C to every 5th name, etc.

So you evenly divide the list without bias among the headlines being tested.  Some media (like Val-Pak or MoneyMailer) will let you split test within a single buy.  Third, there’s testing against a control.  A “control” is a marketing strategy that already works well and you’re using it on a continuing basis – maybe it’s a series of letters you mail every month.  You have been using it long enough you know what it produces.  You have a “known” to measure against.  Now you can start trying to improve that control, ideally one step or variable at a time.

If I’m trying to beat a control, here are the “hot” variables I’ll look at closely, to see if there’s room for improvement:

1.  The offer

2.  The guarantee(s)

3.  The urgency of response

4.  The big idea or big promise

5.  The overcoming of skepticism i.e. credibility and believability

6.  The style or tone of the writing itself

7.  The look of the piece

By the way, little, very testable things DO sometimes make very big differences.  Recently I showed an example in my newsletter of a guy who just added four rubber-stamped words to the outside of his envelope, and beat his control by 300%.  I once brought a TV infomercial back from the dead by raising the price of the product.

Gary Halbert saved the Pearl Cream advertising by adding a particular bonus.  In 1984, after attending my seminar, a dentist in Sacramento changed five words on his Val-Pak coupon and went from getting two or three new patients a month to 15 to 20.  This is the sort of thing that makes direct-response advertising as frustrating as golf. (Did you happen to see John Daly miss a put seven times and scratch himself out of the tournament a few weeks back?  Ugh.)

Obviously, you can’t test if you can’t, won’t or don’t collect accurate data.  You have to code every offer, and track where every ounce of business comes from.  If you have employees who are lax about this, you must educate them about the importance, discipline them if they goof it up, and ultimately can’em if they won’t do it right 100% of the time.  I confess that I fly by the seat of my pants in my business more than I should, but I can’t fire me, God knows there are days I should.  Anyway, I can assure you: the clients I have with the best profits and incomes possess the best information about where their business comes from.

Let me switch gears and talk briefly about another aspect of “testing”.  This is actually how all highly successful entrepreneurs view everything they do…as testing.  They do NOT see things in the context of “success” or “failure” like ordinary people do, and as a result they do not become “de-motivated” like most people do.  See, most people drain all the vitality, courage, optimism and git-up-n-go out of themselves by focusing on all the things they do that don’t work out well, as a compilation of failures.

But successful people understand the powerful impact of that negative reinforcement on their own self-image (somewhat akin to the impact of pouring a gallon of toxic waste into a pint of clear water, drinking the result, and wondering why the stomach backs up into the esophagus).  Instead, they carefully organize the things they do into a series or sequence of experiments, testing options, and focusing on the ones they find that work.  And they fully expect to go through any number of experiments that don’t pan out before walking away from the lab with a winner.  This not only has practical relevance, it has profound psychological ramifications.

Just like a little tweak in thinking can make a big difference in the results of say, an ad or a flyer, a little tweak in thinking can make a giant difference in the life results experienced by an individual.

DAN S. KENNEDY is a serial, multi-millionaire entrepreneur; highly paid and sought after marketing and business strategist; advisor to countless first-generation, from-scratch multi-millionaire and 7-figure income entrepreneurs and professionals; and, in his personal practice, one of the very highest paid direct-response copywriters in America. As a speaker, he has delivered over 2,000 compensated presentations, appearing repeatedly on programs with the likes of Donald Trump, Gene Simmons (KISS), Debbi Fields (Mrs. Fields Cookies), and many other celebrity-entrepreneurs, for former U.S. Presidents and other world leaders, and other leading business speakers like Zig Ziglar, Brian Tracy and Tom Hopkins, often addressing audiences of 1,000 to 10,000 and up.  His popular books have been favorably recognized by Forbes, Business Week, Inc. and Entrepreneur Magazine. His NO B.S. MARKETING LETTER, one of the business newsletters published for Members of Glazer-Kennedy Insider’s Circle, is the largest paid subscription newsletter in its genre in the world.

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One of my featured guest speakers at a past SuperConference was Michael Vance. Michael worked side-by-side with Walt Disney for a number of years.  As I was listening to Mike, I made a mental note to start talking about a Walt Disney quote about marketing that I used to use a lot.

What Walt Disney said about Marketing is:

“Do what you do so well – and so uniquely – that people can’t resist telling others about you.”

In every field, there are “masters”.  People just so darned good at what they do that people are compelled to tell others about them.

Mike Vance is that kind of speaker, and there are darned few in that category.  Actors like Paul Newman, Al Pacino, Robert DeNiro.  The salesman I used to buy my cars from, Bill Glazner, at Sanderson Ford in Phoenix – he puts every other car guy I’ve ever seen to shame.  There are a couple chiropractors I know who put on such a great “report of findings” (their equivalent of the Printing Audit) that they enjoy 100% conversions and can easily sell large dollar “pre-pays.”  There’s a shoe-shine guy at the Atlanta Airport who still rubs wax in by hand, snaps the towel with authority, slaps the leather, makes the brush sing.  And this is important: these people are “master performers.”  They are not just masters at whatever technical thing they do, they are masters at presentation.

So, here’s a very simple, very practical question:  after customer buys from you for the first time, do they – without any prodding from you – rush to the phone, call an associate, and tell them about the amazing buying experience they just had?  Are the first words out of their mouth to the next person they see about you?

If it is, here’s the economic impact:  your need to invest money in acquiring new customers will diminish over time as your business converts to being 100% referral driven.  This means you can take all the money you now spend on advertising, direct mail, telemarketing, etc. and put it into your pocket instead.  This means you will have more people calling and waiting in line for you than you have time, because each client will multiply.

“Mastery” can quite easily be worth an extra $50,000.00 to $200,000.00 or even more to you each year you remain in this business.  (Bank it all at even modest interest and in just five years you can retire a cash millionaire.)

To get that good, you must dedicate yourself to doing so:  I’ve always been impressed with the late Yul Brenner, who performed the “King and I” a record number of times on Broadway – and still rehearsed his lines, gestures and facial expressions everyday, before every performance, right up until his last one.  How many times have you written out your own, complete sales script word for word?  Recorded it and listened to it on tape?  Role-played it with family or mastermind group members?  Practiced in front of a mirror?  Ever?  This month?

Get this:  I can predict your future bank balances if I know what you read, what you listen to, what educational functions you attend, who you hang out with and what you work on (practice) regularly.  Oh, and years ago, Joe Karbo wrote this wonderful ad headline:  are you too busy making a living to make a fortune? Are you?

Discover how you can sneak into the closed door meeting and eavesdrop on the free-wheeling, no holds barred discussions of arguably the most elite and extraordinary group of marketing and moneymaking “masters” ever assembled in one place, at one time.

DAN S. KENNEDY is a serial, multi-millionaire entrepreneur; highly paid and sought after marketing and business strategist; advisor to countless first-generation, from-scratch multi-millionaire and 7-figure income entrepreneurs and professionals; and, in his personal practice, one of the very highest paid direct-response copywriters in America. As a speaker, he has delivered over 2,000 compensated presentations, appearing repeatedly on programs with the likes of Donald Trump, Gene Simmons (KISS), Debbi Fields (Mrs. Fields Cookies), and many other celebrity-entrepreneurs, for former U.S. Presidents and other world leaders, and other leading business speakers like Zig Ziglar, Brian Tracy and Tom Hopkins, often addressing audiences of 1,000 to 10,000 and up.  His popular books have been favorably recognized by Forbes, Business Week, Inc. and Entrepreneur Magazine. His NO B.S. MARKETING LETTER, one of the business newsletters published for Members of Glazer-Kennedy Insider’s Circle, is the largest paid subscription newsletter in its genre in the world

https://gkic.infusionsoft.com/go/newmifge/briansacks

HOPE YOU ENJOYED THIS ARTICLE

Brian Sacks

PS- Leave your comments below

PS #2- This is one of the only Newsletters I actually wait for with pen and notepad in hand..
We have spoken about the importance of making an offer your customers simply can’t refuse…

Check out Dan’s offer by clicking here now  DAN’S OFFER

or copy and paste this now-

https://gkic.infusionsoft.com/go/newmifge/briansacks

Here’s another great article by my own mentor/guru Dan Kennedy. He’s one of those people like the old E.F.Hutton commercials–
When Dan Speaks — You should Listen!

Everytime I have listened to him and Bill Glazer I have made $$$.

Why People Fail

A series of No B.S.  Articles from Dan Kennedy

If You Want More, Make Yourself More Valuable

The mayor of a small town once wrote to Benjamin Franklin asking for a donation so the town could buy a bell for its town square.

Franklin sent money with a note suggesting they forego the bell in favor of buying books for the town library.  It is at the library we might find an answer to why so few succeed and why most fail – at anything, at everything.

Most people do not apply themselves to acquiring know-how nor apply the know-how they acquire. In short, they have the attention span of a gnat, the diligence of an idle, random breeze. They certainly don’t study.

 I have become quite rich and somewhat celebrated, reaching the pinnacle of success in not one but three different fields. At each required skill-set, I once sucked. For me, there has always been a crawl to competence, then a fast rise to superiority. Part of the process is getting through of a lot of information in a hurry but also continuously. For nearly 25 years,  I read a book a day plus newspapers, trade journals, newsletters, visited the public library weekly; took on a needed skill and so thoroughly and intensely studied it as to become a world class expert. When I was teaching myself to be an advertising copywriter, for example, I studied no less than an hour everyday, listened to recorded material on the subject constantly, sought out and got to know the top people in the field, and when one told me to take great direct-response ads and write them out longhand 21 times each, to teach my subconscious the rhythm  of such writing, I did that with 100 ads. I collected over 200 books on the subject and immersed myself in them. I built organized files of samples that fill a room. I traced one master back to his teachers, they to theirs, thus even knowing the genealogy of the field.  When I am asked by fledgling or journeymen copywriters how they, too, might have clients waiting in line to pay them $100,000.00 fees when there are thousands of copywriters advertising their availability for  1/10^th that or less, and I tell them this answer, they reject it.  They seek rewards out of kilter with their value and are unwilling to do what is necessary to build up their value.

The same answer could be given by the top earners in insurance, real estate, retail store ownership, dentistry – name the business or profession. The answer is the same.

I am told by people all the time that they simply do not have time to read and listen to all the material they have purchased or subscribed to. But time is democratic and just. Everyone has the same amount. When I choose to read with my mid-morning coffee break and you choose to blather about trivia with friends; when I choose to study for an hour sitting on my backyard deck at day’s end but you choose to watch a TIVO’d American Idol episode, we reveal much. When someone says he does not have the time to apply himself to acquiring the know-how required to create sufficient value for his stated desires, he is a farmer surrounded by ripe fruit and vegetables, whole grains and a herd of cattle on his own property who dies of starvation, unable to organize his time and discipline himself to eat.

Incidentally, success in every business, including yours, depends on mastery of a handful of critical competencies (one of which is always marketing).  The individual who sets out earnestly and diligently to acquire a wealth of know-how in each winds up with wealth in his bank account.  All others watch with envy and cry in their soup, two activities they do seem to find time for.

The WHY PEOPLE FAIL articles are provided by Dan S. Kennedy, serial entrepreneur, from-scratch multi-millionaire, speaker, consultant, coach, author of 13 books including the No B.S. series (www.NoBSBooks.com), and editor of The No B.S. Marketing Letter. WE HAVE ARRANGED A SPECIAL FREE GIFT FROM DAN FOR YOU including a 2-Month Free Membership in Glazer-Kennedy Insider’s Circle, newsletters, audio CD’s and more: for information and to register, visit

              www.freegiftfrom.com/briansacks

Articles © 2009/Glazer-Kennedy Insider’s Circle LLC. All rights reserved.

Subject:  The ‘Elephant’ in the Room…

What is the ‘elephant’ in the room?

The elephant is…the economy.

And more specifically, the dreaded ‘R’ word – recession.

What’s going on?

Foreclosures are at an all-time high. 

Banks with large portfolios of sub-prime mortgages are failing in record numbers.

Some of the biggest and most well-known brokerages and insurance companies are being either sold, taken over, or bailed out by the US government.

People are losing their jobs and struggling to pay skyrocketing gas and grocery prices.

With all of this confusion, Wall Street is reeling and investor confidence is shaken.  And if that’s not bad enough, many so called ‘experts’ on the economy say the ‘sky is falling’ and it’s only going to get worse.

Is the ‘elephant’ affecting YOU and your business?  Maybe.  Maybe not.

As a matter of fact there is a better way to fight the ‘elephant’ in the room and since you’re one of my online friends, I’m happy to let you in on a ‘secret’. 

DAN KENNEDY, the world’s #1 marketing consultant and best-selling author, has squashed his share of ‘elephants’ in the room over the past 30 years.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The GOOD NEWS is that I’ve convinced Dan to give you $613.91 of his BEST Money-Making and Marketing Information for FREE…but his is NOT an open-ended offer.  Dan can only make this offer to a LIMITED number of people and once that limit is reached, the deal is history. 

         ======> FreeGiftFrom.com/briansacks     <======      

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

But if you think the economy isn’t affecting your business, you might want to consider that your customers and prospects are being bombarded with ‘doom & gloom’ messages about how bad the economy is and the coming recession. 

They’re hearing these messages day after day after day.  And they’re probably having frequent conversations about the ‘elephant’ with their friends, relatives, neighbors, and co-workers too.  The ‘elephant’ is a constant topic of stories on television, on the radio, in newspapers & magazines. 

Surrounded by all this negativity, your prospects and customers can’t help but be affected.  It’s human nature to react with caution and cut back on spending…or at least be more careful about what they spend their money on.

No matter how hard you try, unless you’re hiding under a rock, you can’t escape the ‘elephant’ in the room.  So what do you do about it?

You could bury your head in the sand like an ostrich, ignore it, and hope you’re still standing when the dust settles…but hoping is NEVER a good strategy for success. 

Wouldn’t it be a better idea to be more proactive?  Isn’t there a better way to deal with the ‘elephant’ in the room before it squashes you? 

If you’re not familiar with Dan, let me give you the quick run-down.  As a marketing consultant, he has worked hands-on with clients in 136 different product, service, and business categories.

In the information publishing field, he has literally guided hundreds of start-ups to multi-million dollar annual sales.  And to be honest, studying Dan’s material has been largely responsible for my success.

He routinely commands fees of $19,000.00 per day for private consulting, $45,000.00 to as much as $75,000.00 plus royalties to write an ad campaign, series of sales letters or other marketing materials.  Over 80% of all clients who utilize his services once opting to do so repeatedly.  And he’s got people waiting in line begging to pay those fees because the value he delivers far exceeds the fees.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

So please don’t delay.  I strongly urge you to claim $613.91 of DAN KENNEDY’s best Money-Making & Marketing Information for FREE before it’s too late by visiting: FreeGiftFrom.com/briansacks before it’s too late.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

To Your Sales Success,

Brian Sacks

P.S.  The ‘elephant’ in the room is the economy.  Don’t let the ‘elephant’ squash you or your business.  And even if your business hasn’t been affected by the ‘elephant’ yet, wouldn’t it be wise to be proactive and be prepared BEFORE the situation changes?

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

+   To Claim $613.91 of Dan Kennedy’s BEST Money-   +  +   Making & Marketing Information for FREE, visit       +                 +                                                                                          +

+           ====>      FreeGiftFrom.com/briansacks         <====     +

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

DAN KENNEDY is the word’s #1 marketing strategist and a best-selling author.  Dan has seen (and defeated) his share of ‘elephants’ over the past 30 years.  Dan’s marketing strategies have worked for himself and his clients in some of the most demanding sales environments (like infomercials, insurance industry, and even recessions) with outstanding results…imagine what they’ll do for you!

Dan is giving away $613.91 of his BEST Money-Making & Marketing Information for FREE…but only to a LIMTED NUMBER of people so I urge you to ACT QUICKLY before it’s too late. 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

+         To see what all the excitement is about, visit:         
  FreeGiftFrom.com/briansacks  <====           

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

PPPS– Have you checked out last weeks post — WHAT A MESS? check it out now and leave your feedback on how YOU Deal with it !

A series of No B.S.  Articles from Dan Kennedy

If You Want More, Make Yourself More Valuable

The mayor of a small town once wrote to Benjamin Franklin asking for a donation so the town could buy a bell for its town square. Franklin sent money with a note suggesting they forego the bell in favor of buying books for the town library.  It is at the library we might find an answer to why so few succeed and why most fail – at anything, at everything.

Most people do not apply themselves to acquiring know-how nor apply the know-how they acquire. In short, they have the attention span of a gnat, the diligence of an idle, random breeze. They certainly don’t study.

I have become quite rich and somewhat celebrated, reaching the pinnacle of success in not one but three different fields. At each required skill-set, I once sucked. For me, there has always been a crawl to competence, then a fast rise to superiority. Part of the process is getting through of a lot of information in a hurry but also continuously. For nearly 25 years,  I read a book a day plus newspapers, trade journals, newsletters, visited the public library weekly; took on a needed skill and so thoroughly and intensely studied it as to become a world class expert. When I was teaching myself to be an advertising copywriter, for example, I studied no less than an hour everyday, listened to recorded material on the subject constantly, sought out and got to know the top people in the field, and when one told me to take great direct-response ads and write them out longhand 21 times each, to teach my subconscious the rhythm  of such writing, I did that with 100 ads. I collected over 200 books on the subject and immersed myself in them. I built organized files of samples that fill a room. I traced one master back to his teachers, they to theirs, thus even knowing the genealogy of the field.  When I am asked by fledgling or journeymen copywriters how they, too, might have clients waiting in line to pay them $100,000.00 fees when there are thousands of copywriters advertising their availability for  1/10^th that or less, and I tell them this answer, they reject it.  They seek rewards out of kilter with their value and are unwilling to do what is necessary to build up their value.

The same answer could be given by the top earners in insurance, real estate, retail store ownership, dentistry – name the business or profession. The answer is the same.

I am told by people all the time that they simply do not have time to read and listen to all the material they have purchased or subscribed to. But time is democratic and just. Everyone has the same amount. When I choose to read with my mid-morning coffee break and you choose to blather about trivia with friends; when I choose to study for an hour sitting on my backyard deck at day’s end but you choose to watch a TIVO’d American Idol episode, we reveal much. When someone says he does not have the time to apply himself to acquiring the know-how required to create sufficient value for his stated desires, he is a farmer surrounded by ripe fruit and vegetables, whole grains and a herd of cattle on his own property who dies of starvation, unable to organize his time and discipline himself to eat.

Incidentally, success in every business, including yours, depends on mastery of a handful of critical competencies (one of which is always marketing).  The individual who sets out earnestly and diligently to acquire a wealth of know-how in each winds up with wealth in his bank account.  All others watch with envy and cry in their soup, two activities they do seem to find time for.

The WHY PEOPLE FAIL articles are provided by Dan S. Kennedy, serial entrepreneur, from-scratch multi-millionaire, speaker, consultant, coach, author of 13 books including the No B.S. series (www.NoBSBooks.com), and editor of The No B.S. Marketing Letter. WE HAVE ARRANGED A SPECIAL FREE GIFT FROM DAN FOR YOU including a 2-Month Free Membership in Glazer-Kennedy Insider’s Circle, newsletters, audio CD’s and more: for information and to register, visit: www.freegiftfrom.com/briansacks

Articles © 2008/Glazer-Kennedy Insider’s Circle LLC. All rights reserved.

Hope you enjoyed this article… share it with a friend

Brian Sacks

PS– If you want to learn more about Dan’s systems go to www.whatiused.com

PPS– stay tuned for my next post which will be a wealth creation tip related to my last lesson..