My buddy Dean Jackson pointed out an interesting example to me the other day that really got me thinking. There’s a big lesson here so keep your eyes peeled…

It’s about 2 very successful shows running in Vegas.

Both of them were blockbusters and entertaining sold-out audiences each and every night. Both were family-friendly and both had sterling reputations. And both even had specialized theaters built for them, named after their shows…

But that’s where the similarities end.

You see, one show got shuttered after a tragic accident on stage and the revenue drops to pretty much zilch. The other show is flourishing worldwide and is now a multi-million dollar company.

So which shows am I talking about?

Well, the first one is Siegfried and Roy. They created this amazing long running show of magic and illusion featuring their famous white tigers.  They had a lifetime gig doing their show at The Mirage in Las Vegas, until that fateful day in October of 2003, when Roy was mauled by one of his tigers.  They had made no other contingencies. Now the show closed down and their business was gone…POOF!

And that second show?

It’s the Blue Man Group. Maybe you’ve heard of them, remember the Intel ads that featured them or know them from the television show “Arrested Development”. It’s a group of 3 guys painted electric blue from head to toe, who splash paint, make sounds and splat stuff out of their mouths. It might sound a bit juvenile but audiences love them! And from a business or entrepreneurial case-study point – there are a lot of things to learn here.

The little light bulb moment came for them when Jillete Penn (part of the duo Penn & Teller) saw their show in NYC during the first month. He told them, “Oh, my God! You guys can do what Teller and I can never do! You can clone yourselves!”

They didn’t get it at first because they thought they had to be the talent.

But finally the idea dawned on them that they really could leverage what they were doing by painting other actors (who were trained by them) blue and doing another show. They started in Boston and things didn’t go smoothly because they didn’t have a system to duplicate the show. They literally had to lock themselves up in their apartment with their creative director for 3 days to write and tape record themselves going over every part of the show. The recordings were transcribed creating an operations manual and a way to systematize their performance.

Currently, their live stage shows can be seen in New York, Boston, Chicago, Las Vegas, Orlando, Berlin, and Tokyo plus frequent tours.

When they first started they were using almost $1000 worth of Jell-O per show – their producers decided to lose that part of the show. Luckily, two of the three were working for a catering company who picked up the cost and made the Jell-O for them each week. After being featured in the Intel ads (which were shown during the Grammy Awards, the NBA playoffs and the World Series) they went from 10 shows a week at 50% capacity to 14 shows a week at 100% capacity.

But get this – right now the original 3 members of Blue Man group do not even perform – they’re busy growing their brand. They’ve ventured into all sorts of other venues including film, music, TV, education and even children’s toys. The toy development is a license to create toys based on their musical instruments. Smart! They’ve even opened their own school – the “Blue School” – for kids. Here’s an article about it from Time Magazine.

Frankly, the biggest lesson here is leverage…

Siegfried and Roy never figured out a way to get paid beyond their performance. (Yes, they got paid lavishly but they had golden handcuffs because they could never stop performing day-in and day-out.) But Blue Man group leveraged themselves by duplicating their performances and now by starting to license their creations. That means they have revenue coming in from lots of “open doors”.

Now I certainly don’t know if you’ll create the next blockbuster show in Vegas – but I’ll make you a bet you can still leverage yourself in a slightly different way without painting yourself blue.

If you’ve got any sort of info product, content, software, I.P. or even a business idea – you’ll love this! (Even if you don’t there’s a killer opportunity to stick yourself in the ‘middle’.)

You see, I’m pulling back the curtain on this weird way I’ve “Rented” my existing content to create brand NEW profit streams that require virtually zero work after they’re set-up one-time. (I’ve quietly been doing this for 3+ years now and banking 6-figures a year from it!)

http://www.UndergroundOnlineSeminar.com/licensing/

I truly believe this is going to change the way you think about your business because there are tons of ways of doing it beyond what I’ve done. In fact, I’ve personally sought these experts out because I’m going to step up what I’m doing in this area.

It’s a serious way to exponentially leverage what you’re doing already in your business and let others profit from it and keep paying you month after month.

And if you watch the presentation ’til the end there’s a special bonus linked to my upcoming Underground Online Seminar 6.

Even if you don’t think this applies to you – you can still be the ‘middle man’ or broker and bring 2 parties together. There is a significant untapped opportunity here. In fact, I would seriously pay for someone to be a broker for our content because it’s all found money!

Happy New Year! And welcome to part 4 in this continuing series…

I’m a big believer in having a lot of fun in how you work and how you play.

Maverick Rule #31 says “Make your business AND doing business with you FUN!”

As a self-described “adventure junkie”, I’ve found that my own life-changing experiences (such as Running with the Bulls, Bungee Jumping, Sky diving, Exotic Car Rallies, Baja racing, Zero-Gravity flights, etc.) have not only brought a profound sense of accomplishment but also led to breakthroughs in ideas, focus and business thinking.  Trust me, you don’t have to get as extreme as I do sometimes – but you do need to break out of your typical routine. Fresh thinking and big ideas come from new experiences away from the office! Plus, as you open yourself up to new adventures or experiences it opens up different ways of thinking about issues in your business (and life).

Let’s start…

By and large, most people’s businesses are B-O-R-I-N-G! I’m talking Zzzzzzzzz city! Even the good sales letter sites do not use this technique to breathe life into their site beyond the typical benefit-driven headline, subheads, etc.

I’m talking about giving your site (and yourself) a unique personality in the marketplace. First, let’s talk about giving a site a personality. Here’s one of my favorite examples – www.Demotivation.com and www.Despair.com

The personality of being sarcastic, entertaining and against the grain comes out just about everywhere on the site. Here are a few examples, starting with Demotivation.com.

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From the FAQs about their book “The Art of Demotivation”:

1. Is this book for real?
As sure as the ISBN is 1-892503-40-9, this book is for real. If you don’t believe us, order a copy and watch as our real financial department really charges your real credit card for thirty real dollars.

2. What is the overall message of The Art of Demotivation?
Here’s a message for you: Buy the book! You’re too old for Cliffs Notes, dude.

12. Will there be a paperback version of The Art of Demotivation?
A paperback version? Would you sell a 1997 Louis Roederer Cristal champagne in a Juicy Juice box? We’re about quality. If you want a paperback, go read the newest John Grisham book. I think it might have something to do with lawyers.

26. Is it possible to get Dr. Kersten’s autograph on my copy of the book?
Dr. Kersten autographs each and every Chairman Edition of The Art of Demotivation with a personal message. He can’t be bothered with Manager or Executive Editions. Money talks, yo.

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This book comes in 3 editions – up to the $1,195.00 Executive version. Check out some of the copy from that page –

Now on Despair.com they sell some of my favorite prints which are the opposite of ‘Successories’. I bought some of my friends this year for the holidays. They are hilarious! This is the one I bought my buddy Bill Glazer:

Look at the navigation bar on the site – even the way the buttons are labeled gives you more of the site’s personality. There’s a button for “Spin”, in which people can view and sign up for audio & video podcasts. And then instead of “customer service” or support there is “disservice”.

Check out the “Contact” us link

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Contact Us

As should be quite apparent, Despair takes great efforts to avoid contact with virtually everyone. However, we recognize that, from time to time, it becomes necessary for someone to reach us. (e.g. notifying Dr. Kersten of various nominations, particularly those with cash components)

(PLEASE NOTE: All order and product-related inquiries should be sent via our Troubled Ticket form.)

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And when you click to contact them – they have a picture of their own poster about “Apathy: If we don’t take care of the customer, maybe they’ll stop bugging us”.

Now a true personality for your website has to be carried through in all the little communications with customers and prospects. To see how far they take their personality – here’s the response after you fill out a “troubled ticket”:

They really have this personality plugged into every nook and cranny of their website – I love it!

Now you might be thinking that you’ll repel some customers and people will get a little pissed off after this type of treatment. The answer is absolutely yes! And that’s a good thing because you don’t want to be plain vanilla if you are in heavily competitive marketplaces. Go ahead and polarize your prospects/customers to either love you or hate you. There’s no money to be made in the middle. Look at Howard Stern. There are people who absolutely love him and now pay Sirius radio a monthly subscription just to listen to their “god”. But on the other hand there are lot of people too who will tune in just to see what Howard says so they can hate him more.

Let me show you a few more examples of a site personality…

Here’s one: www.CordaRounds.com. It’s a site that sells horizontal corduroy pants (and shorts) instead of vertical. It sounds kind of stupid but this company has got a lot of mileage out it and their customers are really into it. The founder of CordaRounds, Christopher Lindlands, does a great job of bringing in the quirky, wacky and fun side of their product on the site. Take a look at their “motto”, in which they call themselves, very firmly tongue-in-check, an Evil Multinational Corporation:

What started out as a joke has become a real business. In 2005 they sold 3,000 pairs of courdarounds. The fun, quirky and wacky style comes across just about everywhere on the site. In fact, here’s the “technology” behind these remarkable breakthrough pants:

And once you get into the actual store – the same personality is evident. Check out this product photo:

Here’s another site to check out – www.CDBaby.com – that doesn’t quite go as far but it tells you in no uncertain terms you’re not dealing with a conglomerate. Check out the personality that comes through in their emails about when your CD ships:

Thanks for your order with CD Baby!

Your CD has been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with

sterilized contamination-free gloves and placed onto a satin pillow.

A team of 50 employees inspected your CD and polished it to make sure
it was in the best possible condition before mailing.

Our packing specialist from Japan lit a candle and a hush fell over
the crowd as he put your CD into the finest gold-lined box that money
can buy.

We all had a wonderful celebration afterwards and the whole party
marched down the street to the post office where the entire town of
Portland waved ‘Bon Voyage!’ to your package, on its way to you, in
our private CD Baby jet on this day, Wednesday, August 7th.

I hope you had a wonderful time shopping at CD Baby.  We sure did.
Your picture is on our wall as ‘Customer of the Year’.  We’re all
exhausted but can’t wait for you to come back to CDBABY.COM!!

Thank you once again,

Derek Sivers, president, CD Baby
the little CD store with the best new independent music
phone: 1-800-448-6369  email: cdbaby@cdbaby.com
http://www.cdbaby.com

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Themed Marketing for Mavericks

One of the biggest issues most businesses have is not being BORING!

You want your customers and prospects to be thinking “Wow! What’s this crazy guy (or gal) going to do next?”

It’s no secret that the majority of your customers/prospects live somewhat typical lives. So it’s not enough anymore just to present an offer filled with benefits but it’s also got to entertain them and keep it exciting.

I’m going to let you step behind some of my best-selling campaigns that involved “themes”. Now don’t think you need to create some sort of corny, fake image that’s not really you – you don’t. You want to keep it fun and keep the sales message in the forefront of your prospect’s mind.

Let’s start with my very first one – that was “Yanik’s 30^th Birthday Bash!”

I decided I was going to hold a super blowout party for my 30^th birthday and invite all my best customers/prospects to it.

Over 531 people came to my little birthday party (see the pic above) and it was the biggest Internet Marketing-only seminar at that time.

I brainstormed what a birthday party has and then planned my promotion – and the actual event – around it. People everywhere love to have fun! Entertainment is something people spend their last nickel on because everyone wants to have fun.

So here’s what I did…

First, starting with the promotion. Here’s the first page of the sales letter – notice me in the goofy birthday hat:

A few guys on my hockey team saw this picture and gave me a hell of a time at the next game we had. But the picture really fits perfectly. You may or may not want to be this “goofy”, but don’t throw away the idea of “Birthday Bash” in your honor as a perfect sales event. I know 2 other info marketers who took this concept, and one ended up doing multiple 6-figures from this event. (His was a 40^th Bday Bash!)

I also tied my event into a charity – Make-A-Wish Foundation®. I worked with the Central FL chapter (instead of trying to contact National headquarters) and they were extremely accommodating . Here’s the paragraph describing the charity requirement and a second optional (FUN) gag gift contest:

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There is one simple requirement for getting into the Birthday Bash:

1. There is a $50.00 charitable donation required to attend. The whole $50 will go to Make-a-Wish® of Central and Northern Florida. Your donation will help grant the wishes of children with life-threatening medical conditions. I’ve personally donated thousands and thousands of dollars to the Make-a-Wish Foundation ® and I’m hoping that we’ll able to grant at least 2 or 3 wishes with the amount we raise. The $50.00 donation is paid now and is non-refundable to hold your spot — but there is no fee for the event.

The event is going on at Disney’s Coronado Spring Resorts. We have negotiated a special rate of only $131/night with the hotel for seminar attendees (During prime vacation time this is a real steal). Information for registering will be given to you (only) when you have confirmed seminar registration. Let me assure you, Disney’s Coronado Spring Resorts is a great resort that you’ll really enjoy! It’s close to all the Disney parks and other attractions.

And then there’s also a second OPTIONAL admission requirement that gets you entered into a fabulous contest!
2. (OPTIONAL) A gag gift for me. Show up with some sort of silly or funny gag gift for me and you’ll be entered into a contest for the “best gag gift”. The winner will be decided by an attendee vote. You might want to give this gift a bit of thought because the winner will receive either a half-day consultation with me (that’s s $2,000.00 value) or $500.00 in cash. And the runner-up will get their choice of one of our best-selling products or $200.00 in cash.

* *

It was pretty cool that we were able to raise $25,000.00 for Make-A-Wish® and really make a difference in a lot of kid’s lives.

As far as the gag gift contest – that got pretty out of control during the event. I loved it! We got piles and piles of gifts. Some were definitely a bit off kilter. One guy from the UK thought it was a “stag” party and handed me a ream of porn magazines. Another guy brought over some endangered animal pelt that he smuggled into the country. Someone else gave me a family heirloom passed down through generations.

I mean, you name it – I got it. Fart machines, dancing birthday bears, a giant sack of fake money (I liked that one), a picture of me with Al Gore saying I invented the Internet, a blank book “written” by me called “Everything I know about the Internet”, etc, etc. We even had a beagle come out and bark “Happy Birthday” to me.

I bring all this up because it’s all part of the birthday party theme. If you are going to do a theme go for it all the way! We had confetti on the tables, balloons all over the seminar room, banners, etc. We even brought out cake (yes, very thin slices) for everyone, and Mickey Mouse even came out to lead the crowd in singing happy birthday.

All these little touches made it a lot of fun for everyone attending, even if each speaker was selling something. The whole attitude of most of the people there was that they’d never had such a great time and learned so much.

Underground Theme

Okay let me showcase another theme you should be well versed in…my very own Underground Online Seminar®.

I’ve already shared the thinking behind the Underground and how it was meant to be a complete 180 degree shift from any other Internet event, since every speaker is a “real-world” doer and not someone who sells “How to Get Rich Online” as their main business. So at a brainstorming meeting with my own MasterMind group the theme become a SPY theme.

I really try to play up the theme in every communication and “touch” a prospect has from me relating to the Underground. It’s evolved a bit since the very first event and I’ll share with you some interesting examples along to way to show…

Here’s one of the first direct mail pieces that went out:

Instead of having speakers or presenters, we had “Rogue Agents” with their front and spy-profiles like they were “wanted”. I gave each speaker a distinct agent name. Here are a couple of the first graphics:

I truly tried to tie in everything into a full spy experience. The event was (and still is) held in Washington, DC because that’s the spy capital of the world. And once attendees got to the event they were immersed in the world of the Underground.

We had 2 checkpoints set-up to sign their NDA (called the “Cone of Silence” which nobody picked up on from Get Smart) and then they were handed their spy briefcase.

Now inside the briefcase was the attendee manual, a T-shirt (“Official Underground Agent”) and official Underground sunglasses.

The theming continued throughout the event with the VIP dinner being held at the Spy Museum in Washington, DC. We had a private dinner there and really played it up. To enter there were 2 Russian border patrol guards checking for passwords. And then Boris and Natasha showed up for a little entertainment. And finally, the whole group went on a private tour of the Spy Museum.

For the next year’s Underground® II – I went even further…

This time I used a specific spy theme – “Austin Powers” – instead of a combination of all spy themes. I wanted to keep it different enough that people who attended #1 would still be surprised and excited with #2. Underground® II sold-out even faster than the first one – and we added 100 more seats.

And going with the movie theme, here’s a little preview movie poster I had created before we announced the event:

I really got into ‘character’ for this one. Actually it wasn’t hard, because I love Austin Powers and that was one of my favorite Halloween costumes ever. And we decided to up the ante a lot and bring in professional entertainment for the VIP dinner. I hired an Improv troupe from Canada who were all “Second City” alum. They were awesome! We called it a ‘mystery spy whodunit dinner’ and everyone was roaring in their seats….especially when I was killed off. Somebody started yelling “Search the dead guy for drink tickets!”

I decided to go full tilt and hire a celebrity tied to the theme, so I booked “Mini Me” – AKA Verne Troyer – from the Austin Powers movies. Surprisingly it’s not as much as you’d think to book a celebrity (depending on their status) and it can really add a lot to your events. Here’s a picture of me, Verne and our “Roller Girls” (see, I told you I went all the way with the theme).

Having a celebrity there not only gives you excitement but provides additional reasons to contact your customers.

The next year for Underground® III I kept up the theme but this time it was a “Mission Profitable” theme and I brought in Peter Graves from the original TV series. And when I did the Underground® UK we had a James Bond theme with the prize being an Aston Martin race day experience. This year we’re doing “Get Smarter” so I’m sure there will be something with a shoe phone!

Using Holidays & Events

You don’t need to rack your brain for a theme or something to add fun into your business. Just use a calendar of holidays and events to find your perfect excuse.

A few Halloweens ago I released my “Ultimate At-Home Internet Copywriting Course”.

I planned the launch during Halloween and wanted to create a bit of a stir in the Internet marketing community to try to get some people talking about what I was doing. So my idea was to become “Count Yanik”. You see, the previous Halloween I dressed up as “The Count” from Sesame Street. Missy said I was the most annoying guest at the party because I went around counting everything…

“One, Two, Three beer bottles…..Ahhhhh…..Ahhhh!!!…..”

“One, Two, Three, Four, Five hot dogs…..Ahhhhh…..Ahhhh!!!…..”

Okay, so maybe I was annoying – but I had fun.

Regardless, I had one good photo of me in my purple make-up, monocular and black cape. That became a key part of my campaign. I sent our subscribers to this page with a message from the “Count” – http://www.UltimateCopywritingWorkshop.com/count/

It’s a flash animation file I had created where you see a purple bat fly into the screen and turn into a talking “Count Yanik”. Then I turn back into a bat and fly out of the screen. I paid $150 to have this created at www.Rentacoder.com – super cheap.

Then on the landing page there’s even more Halloween theme. I really got into it with the “bloody” text. Actually Missy told me I had to tone it down so people could read it better. I settled on just the headline in dripping blood.

And there were a couple sections of the letter where I mixed in more fun elements of Halloween:

Bonuses:

Guarantee:

I added a follow-up audio postcard – http://ultimatecopywritingworkshop.com/trickortreat/ (this was my Halloween costume pic from 2 years ago):

* * *

Okay now how about results?

This sold over six-figures of my copywriting course in the first week on the market. Actually more specifically 114 packages for a total of $145,350.00. So this stuff works!

Now there are a couple big points I really want to make sure you get before I go on with a other examples:

#1 – Make your marketing fun and have people wonder, “What is this guy/gal up to next?”

Fact is, most of your prospects and customers probably lead fairly normal and mundane lives. If you can give them something to get excited about or even live a little bit through what you do – you’ll have ‘hooked’ them in.

#2 – This is critical! Don’t make your theme or “fun” idea take away from the sales message. Big advertisers do this all the time and waste all their money. They try to use humor or something clever in their advertising but have no salesmanship. The fun or theme aspect of your promotion cannot stand on its own without the fundamentals of direct response (i.e. compelling offer, deadline, headlines, benefits, etc). Bottom line – don’t confuse this with being cute or clever and not actually selling. There is a big, BIG difference.

#3 – “Reason Why” copy works perfectly for most of the events or themes you create. As you know, most retailers will use some sort of event (i.e. Presidents Day) for a sale. Well that’s a pretty weak reason why, but most people will accept just about any excuse for a special deal. However, when you combine it with real meaningful reason why copy it works even better, even if the reason is a bit contrived. For example, I did a “Save Yanik’s Marriage” sale when I needed to clean out our stockroom because Missy was pissed off at me.

Using this psychological ‘hot button’ can massively increase your Marketing success.

Max Sackheim, famous for the long-running ad “Do You Make These Mistakes In English” and originator of the book-of-the-month concept, says this: “Whenever you make a claim or special offer in your advertising, come up with an honest reason why, and then state it sincerely. You’ll sell many more products this way.”

Adding More Fun to a Regular Business

I’m always interested in what companies do to add more fun to their business. Certainly booking a hotel room usually isn’t the most exciting thing in the world (well – I guess it can be if you’re going to a cool resort), but otherwise a room is pretty much a room. I’m a big fan of the “W” hotels.

Here’s a promo I got from them promoting a “Sleep-a-Way Camp” theme. Smart.

Notice the copy – it ties into this theme, from the s’mores to bug juice. Good stuff and a little inspiration for you to think up something fun for your customers. Personally, I think simply delivering a straight product/service will only get you so far. The companies that will excel are the ones that deliver true experiences and entertainment for their customers. People are bored. People are busy. People are jaded. You need something to break through all of that.

Creating More Fun Away From Business

Okay, now let’s switch gears and talk about your personal life. I know for many entrepreneurs (including me) the default mode is work. There are always too many projects and too many to-do’s left undone. That’s why I firmly believe you need to have something else scheduled and on the calendar.

Think back to when you were a kid and what activities or interests got you really jazzed and excited. Somehow as ‘adults’ many of us have lost that sense of fun and inspiration. What did you like to do? For me, it was playing sports, drawing and making people laugh. That’s why I still play ice hockey and beach volleyball. It’s why I’ve taken art classes and stand-up comedy classes. I make sure to incorporate what gives me enjoyment into my life by actually making it a priority.

How many times have you heard yourself saying, “I’d love to ___ BUT I can’t because I’m too busy.” That’s total bullshit. What you’re really saying is that activity does not have enough priority in my life. Or I feel guilt around having fun.

Don’t just settle for enjoying life when you squeeze it in between your business. Here’s a great quote from Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz, New-York Times Best-Seller “The Power of Full Engagement“:

“…the richer and deeper the source of emotional recovery, the more we refill our reserves and the more resilient we become.”

Put fun activities, rewarding experiences and exceptional adventures on your calendar and protect them like you would any ‘real’ appointment.

I’ve previously written a lot about this, so instead of just copying and pasting I want to link over to the posts. It’s well worth reading them!

Creating your Ultimate BIG Life List

I’ve always been a fan of lists and I know many other successful people share this notion. What better list can you create than a list for your most memorable and exciting life? I call this my “Ultimate BIG Life List”. (Btw – you see many of mine on this blog on the right-hand side.)

Shutting down the 3-most common excuses for not checking off items on your ‘Ultimate BIG Life List’

At this point a little voice inside your head might be whispering (or shouting) about all the reasons you can’t do this kind of fun stuff in your business or in your life. It’s these excuses that will sap the spirit and energy out of your life. As entrepreneurs, we’re naturally inclined to create so let’s smash these final excuses to create what you really want in your life & business.

Creating your own Fun…Or how to stop “I’m Bored Syndrome”

You don’t have to wait for the EPIC over-the-top experiences to add more fun into your life; I’ve done something I call “tweaking the fun” with regular, everyday activities. See what you think.

I think we’re wrapping up with the next part – part 5 talking about ‘Giving More’. See you on the next installment.

** Update**

You can now download this series of blog posts (and the other posts they refer to) here. http://www.surefiremarketing.com/decade/

Authentic Connections:

Everybody has heard the expression, “It’s not what you know – but who you know – that counts.”

That’s partially true and I’d have to say the ability to create high-level connections has been a big factor in my success over the last 10 years but I’ve never really shared exactly how I think about this.

First off, I really don’t like the word “Networking” to describe a connection. That conjures up the image of somebody walking into a ‘mixer’ and slinging their business cards around like some 2-for-1 Red Lobster coupon. Or going to events that have “speed networking” aspects where you glad-hand 3 dozen people and ask them “What-do-you-do? How-can-I-help-you?”

All of this strikes me as being somewhat cheesy!

So what do you do?

Be genuine: I’ve watched some of my friends, like Joe Polish, who I think are incredible at their connections and it comes from a real genuineness. I see Joe tell really silly jokes and just be himself. That’s really refreshing. Personally, I’ve been known to buy a couple dozen shots and start handing them out at the bar during an event. It totally fits my personality plus it gets people to say ‘Hello’ to me who I wouldn’t normally meet.

When I talk to people I’ve just met I look for any connections we have outside of work. In fact, I purposefully do not ask, “What do you do?” unless they ask me first. Of course, I’m interested but I’d rather find out something unusual about them.

Make Intros: The other thing I consciously think about is who in my existing network can I intro them to or foster a connection with. This is a trait some of the best connectors I know do – they are extremely generous with introductions where it makes sense.

Be distinctive: My friend and business coach, Cameron Herold, former COO of 1-800-Got-Junk, told me about how his team would wear blue logoed vests at seminars and events. People would stop them and ask what 1-800-Got-Junk did or what it was and it was a really good way to stand out. With our metal business cards for Maverick Business Adventures – they stand out and get people showing them around to others around them at a meeting.

Get Diverse: Some of my favorite connections have come out of charities I support or hobbies or different interests. There’s a different connection formed with a common interest first, and business second. What’s more, if you have a shared intense experience you’ll have a much deeper connection. I think that’s one of the reasons Maverick members have done so many deals together and are so eager to help each other. It’s a deeper bond than simply meeting a person at a seminar or event.

Become prolific and prominent: This probably isn’t that big of a secret but it’s worth mentioning. If you can get on stage, write a book, become an expert, etc. – you’ll have people seeking you out.

Follow-up: I admit I don’t do this as well as I could but I shoot quick texts, emails or clippings over to people when I know it’s something they’re interested in.

Get up close and personal: Probably every high-level connection I’ve had has been a result of meeting someone in person. The original intro could have started online or via email – but it was only when you sit down with someone that there’s been a deeper bond. Some of the best ‘in-the-flesh’ connections have come at seminars & events. (ahem…Underground) Events and seminars are one level of intimacy but I’ve found that having shared experiences really accelerates the level of friendship. That’s why so many deals get done while off-road racing in Baja or paddling a class V river with Maverick Business Adventures.

Another high-level practice I’ve used to make connections and push my business forward is by harnessing the power of Mastermind groups…

MasterMind Groups

“If you can grasp this principle and apply it you may have, for your efforts, whatever you want on this earth!”

Those are the words of Napoleon Hill, who first coined the term “MasterMind” in his widely-regarded “Think & Grow Rich” and “Law of Success” works.

In case you don’t know the story, Hill was commissioned by Andrew Carnegie to interview 500 other successful men and women looking for the secret to success. One of the key concepts he discovered was the power of a MasterMind group. Every titan of industry from Henry Ford to Thomas Edison to William Wrigley, Jr. all tapped into this, either “by accident or design” as Hill says.

I’ve been part of multiple MasterMind groups and have run several for the last 4 years. I’ll share the different ways they’ve worked and also how to set-up your own.

Personally, I can count at least $2M+ in revenue that came from ideas generated from my own private MasterMind groups that I never would have figured out on my own. What’s more, my first dream car (Mercedes SL55) was bought and paid for just from one single idea conceived at a MasterMind meeting. Another idea has turned into a $45,000.00+ monthly revenue stream with no end in sight.

And yet another idea (really more of a a tiny tweak) was directly responsible for $290,000.00 in sales during 2 weekends. Those are just a few of the ideas that come to mind immediately – I’m sure if pressed I could recount even more big ideas that came as a direct impact of being part of a MasterMind.

On top of the breakthrough ideas – there are many more reasons a MasterMind can help you reach new levels in your business…

1. Speed – Imagine the speed that comes from tapping into the collective brain trust of experience and results here. For instance, if you had 12 people in the group testing 1 new thing in their business each month, that’s 12 x 12 = 144 new breakthroughs. It would take you 144 months on your own to be able to get the same information.
2. Competitiveness – There’s a certain friendly “competitive spirit” among the MasterMind group because nobody wants to show up to a meeting without something to “brag on” or with successes to share. It’s this competitiveness that drives results even further that the group benefits from.
3. Increased Productivity – A MasterMind group empowers you to become more than you are now. At the meetings you are surrounded by other successful entrepreneurs who spark new ideas and fresh energy!
4. Accountability – Each MasterMind member gets even more accomplished because they feel accountable to the group for their actions and progress.
5. Group feeling – When a MasterMind group has been properly selected, each person is cooperating and cheerleading for your best results, efforts and “best-self” to step forward. Quite frankly, it’s pretty lonely being a top performing entrepreneur, so having a group of successful peers who understand you is incredibly important.
6. New resources and contacts – It’s not unusual to walk away from meetings with a notebook full of new contacts and resources. A MasterMind group lets you tap into shared contacts and unique expertise from other like-minded members.
7. New perspectives – Each member brings with them a new perspective, model or frame of reference to an issue or idea. It’s exactly these kind of fresh insights that lead to big breakthroughs instead of looking at a situation through the same filter.

I’ve been part of informal and formal Mastermind groups, and typically it works much better when there is some formality to it because that usually increases commitment. If you’re interested in starting your own group you must make sure there are serious commitments and consequences for missing meetings. I’ve been part of groups that meet 1x/month or 1x/quarter and I’ve found that for extremely busy and successful individuals the 3 or 4 times/year in person is ideal.

When I was getting started some of my friends and I started a local group that met 1x/month and that was too much. We then moved to about every other month and that worked better. Then as we got more successful we moved to a quarterly structure and then we slowly dissolved the group.

It’s not to say that monthly can’t work, but normally at the highest level people’s schedules are so hectic that it becomes extremely tough to make happen. Peer-to-peer groups like YPO and EO work have forums (essentially MasterMind groups) which meet once per month. (Silly side note: I guess entrepreneurs don’t grow up because the forum groups have names like Zero Guilt, Suspects Gone Wild, etc.)

These forum groups run monthly since every member does not get a chance to present in depth what they are doing and get advice each meeting. It’s a round-robin. I prefer having each member get advice and give value each meeting.

I’ve also been part of two different Internet MasterMind groups that don’t have a set meeting schedule and simply run via a list-serv. For asking quick questions, getting resources or trading junior high jokes this is a simple format that has benefits. One is still active and I think it has to do with the fact that we were all friends first before we created it.

Now being part of so many different groups – and seeing which ones worked and which ones didn’t – I’ll give you a few pointers:

1) Confidentiality within the group is imperative.

2) Trust among the group (this grows as the group shares more time together).

3) True peer-to-peer with a qualification process (i.e. start-ups and multiple 7-figure business owners don’t typically have the same issues.)

4) Openness and focus on giving – not just taking value.

5) Commitment to the group.

The 2 MasterMind groups I run have a simple (but powerful) format. Each member gets approximately 50 minutes to present something that is working well in their business that other members can use for their own businesses. Then the second half of their presentation time they present a problem or opportunity for the group to help with.

[Note: MasterMind members consist of business owners with a 7-figure business or within ‘striking distance’ of 7-figures. If you’d like to be considered for a spot for 2010/2011 you can download a confidential application here.]

I’m also working on new pilot program for 2010 to combine the deep connections that happen with unique, shared experiences on Maverick trips and the natural evolution of deeper trust between the same group of people over time. It’s going to be called “Maverick Mastermind”. These groups are true Masterminds of elite entrepreneurs ($1M+ businesses) that get together 3 times a year, live, for adventures and business sessions. Essentially a long weekend within a 2 hours drive of their host city. Part of the time will be participating in cool activities like racing, air combat, etc. to create the intense shared experience plus get you out of the office. And the other part of the weekend retreat will be spent getting specific business feedback & brainstorming for each member. The pilot program will take place in the Mid-Atlantic and on the West Coast in early 2010. What’s more, there will also be a chance for the Maverick Mastermind members to have a local young entrepreneurship mentoring opportunity in their community. Contact our office if you’re interested.

Mentors & Thought Provokers

I always believe it’s the people you meet, books you read and experiences you have that influence your life.

As I mentioned in part 1, I learned from Earl Nightingale early on about books/resources/educational material as a “mentorship”. Personally, I still get through a least one book a week for that type of education. But I’ve also been lucky enough to meet & interview many people I look to for their philosophies around life, business and achievement. Here are the ‘Cliff Notes’ versions of what I’ve taken away from just a few.

My dad, Joseph Zilberbaum – probably my first business hero.

He came to the U.S. with $256 in his pocket for me, my mom and grandmother and built up a small, multiple 7-figure medical equipment company. I learned the immigrant work ethic of starting with nothing and creating. I got marketing/sales experience on the ground that would have taken me 10-15 years somewhere else since I got to succeed or fail based on what I created or produced. I certainly got my entrepreneurial spirit from my father. In fact, one day I’m need to write a post (or book) about the “immigrant success secret” – why American born children are less likely to become millionaires than immigrants.

My mom, Aleksandra Silverbaum – passion, fun and cheerful attitude. My mom passed away 2 days before my very first Underground Online Seminar in 2003. She had battled breast and ovarian cancer for 11 years but she didn’t let the cancer define who she was. She was always up for a party or a good time in between treatments. When my mom got remarried I made a deal with her. I told her I’d pay for her first-class trip to Vegas if she got married off by Elvis. True to form – she said YES without batting an eye. No doubt, I get a lot of my fun side from my Mom. And the other lasting effect she had on me was the unconditional encouragement for any idea or venture even though she didn’t understand half of them. Unfortunately my mom passed away when Missy was 5 months pregnant and never saw Zak, but his middle name, Aleksandr, is a tribute to her.

[Note: If you caught it my parents had different last names because as Russian immigrants my mom thought the translation was incorrect when we came over. Zilberbaum actually means “Silver Tree” and I legally shortened my family’s name to Silver for simplicity awhile back.]

Earl Nightingale – Helped me to be ok with the fact that I was ‘different’ than many of my friends. Not in an elitist way – but simply something inside of me that said I didn’t want to settle for an ordinary life. And his message of “Extraordinary people do the things ordinary people will not do.” really struck a chord. I really wish I had a chance to meet Earl in person but his message lives on through his recordings.

Dan Kennedy
– Dan has certainly been a huge influence in my life. He’s the first person that opened my eyes to the fact you could take information and sell it. Certainly, meeting Dan was one of those big, pivotal turning points in my life. Not only did Dan provide the inspiration, but also the nuts & bolts – a combination rarely found. It’s exciting to see how things come full circle because I’ve spoken at many Dan Kennedy events, I helped them get their affiliate program up & running for Glazer/Kennedy and even had Dan attend the Underground® the first year.

John Harricharan – my friend John is somebody who makes sure I nourish the spiritual side of my being. I remember meeting John in Boulder, CO, at Jonathan Mizel’s seminar back in 2001. I came rollerblading through the lobby and John was having breakfast with my buddy, Rob Olic. John immediately had the feeling that we were going to be friends and I’d have a tremendous impact on the world.  Might sound odd but I’ve come to discover John is a very gifted intuitive reader. Since then I’ve relied on John for his insights and advice. In fact, John’s “Power Pause” book holds a little 3-minute exercise that I still use to this day since discovering it back in ’01. It’s profoundly simple but yet incredibly powerful getting you on track to what you want and opening yourself up to getting it. Frankly – I’m not one of those spiritual ‘walk on hot coals’ type of guys – but his stuff really has had a profound effect on my life

Now in the last few years with Maverick Business Adventures® – it’s been exciting to be able to bring in all sorts of business icons and spend time with them. Here are just a few that shaped my thinking:

Dean Graziosi, Joe Polish and Yanik Silver
came together to help raise over $450,000
for Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Unite

Sir Richard Branson – Certainly my biggest business hero from the way he runs multiple companies to his own sense of adventure. It’s been incredible to spend significant time with Richard on his private island, Necker Island.

Every time I’m with Richard I marvel at how ‘in the moment’ he is. He seems very relaxed and always spends serious one-on-one time with the person he’s speaking to. I also love the way he says “YES” to projects and adventures. While on Necker the second time around, Tellman Knudson, asked him to marry off Jodie and him. The impromptu weeding was set-up with Richard being Tellman’s best man. Or I’ve seen Richard say yes to new business projects pitched his way over a rum punch.

What’s more, I’ve really picked up how Richard’s fingerprints are prominent on so many of his businesses. That culture of being “cheeky” is found throughout. In fact, I had the chance to read a branding manual for Virgin group and that’s exactly what they talk about in there.

Another point I saw in action was his social consciousness. Founding Virgin Unite and using the power of entrepreneurship and innovative thinking to solve societal problems has been inspiring. In fact, the last time we were on Necker I wrote down this quote he said that stuck with me, “If you are going to make a difference you have to work hard at making a difference.”

His latest book, “Business Stripped Bare”, is really worth picking up because it has some real business insights and isn’t quite so fluffy like his other ones.

John Paul DeJoria and Yanik in 80′s gear and pink hair to support breast cancer

John Paul DeJoria – J.P., who holds the rank of #261 on Forbes list of World’s Richest with an estimated $2.5B net worth, came on our “Totally Rad Maverick 80′s Road Rally” and told his story from homeless to billionaire.

One of the things I wrote down that really stood out for me was when he talked about how having no money makes you creative. I firmly believe that.  J.P. talked about how he had a pending deadline to pay his printer for the shampoo bottles they just screened – so he went knocking on doors. And guess what? Even after J.P. was a billionaire and started the Patron tequila company with a friend, he still started small. He didn’t invest millions into the project – they bought 1,000 cases to test it out.

I asked J.P. the question of, “What’s the difference between billionaire thinking and millionaire thinking?” His reply was 3 zeroes. At first, I thought that was a trite response but after reflecting on it – probably not. It’s just like for me today getting to a million is no big deal…I think if you give it a big deal (the billion or million) then it holds dominion over you. But if you reduce it down to just a few more zeros – it’s not that big a deal.

What I really loved about J.P. was this incredible energy about him. It’s almost hard to explain, but the guy truly seemed to so content and happy. Of course, you might think that’s easy as a billionaire – but I don’t think that’s the reason.

Tony Hsieh, keynoting Underground® 5

Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.com – Having Tony keynote our Underground® seminar for the past two years and spending time with him socially – he’s impressed me. (btw – don’t play the 5 questions game with Tony over vodka shots!) I used to believe values were complete B.S. for companies until I spent time listening to Tony. One thing he kept stressing to our audience and in private conversations was to create the core values! Over and over and over again. To Tony, it’s never too soon or too early in a company’s creation to do it. That’s part of how our Maverick DNA was born.

Frank McKinney – Frank is hailed as “the Daredevil Developer and Real Estate Rock Czar”. He’s the somewhat crazy guy who builds 8…even 9-figure oceanfront homes on spec (meaning – no buyer before he starts). I’ve been inspired by Frank’s take on life and his philanthropic attitude. (Definitely grab his book “Make it Big”!)

Frank is definitely not someone that blends into the background with his wild rock star clothing, theatrical house openings and long blonde hair. We were walking back from an event together and I asked him a question about personality and “flair” as he calls it in his book. He said he’s naturally shy but will turn up his authentic personality just a bit to stand out. I found that reassuring. It’s not about becoming someone you’re not, but being a little bit bigger version of yourself to create bigger things.

Moreover, Frank is a real inspiration to me with the work he does with his Caring House Project Foundation, building homes for the desperately poor and homeless in Haiti. He likens himself to a modern day Robin Hood by selling to the ultra rich and then providing much of the profits to his work in Haiti.

Jesse James – Jesse has been with us on 2 Maverick Baja adventures and I have really enjoyed getting to know this motorcycle mogul. From first blush you might write Jesse off with his multiple tattoos and hard-nosed attitude…but the guy is quite business savvy. You might have seen him recently on Celebrity Apprentice – and he really surprised a lot of people.

From Jesse I took away the aspect of saying ‘No’ to opportunities not authentic to your brand. With his popularity came lots and lots of requests to endorse products or license his name or image, and 90% of the time he would decline. Jesse was careful to not simply grow his personal brand for the sake of growing, but made it mean something. Though on the flip side of the coin when the right opportunities come up he’s been very astute to work licensing deals with the right partners. Many people thought it was a mistake to work with Wal-Mart to sell the West Coast Choppers line of t-shirts but from his modest background it was the right move.

Cameron Herold – Cameron has come into my life recently but has already had a really big impact. Cameron helped grow 1-800-Got Junk from a couple million to $100M before leaving as COO. He’s been the impetus for the Painted Picture I created for the Maverick group of companies. And he’s really been someone that has really held me accountable to make sure I’m creating what I say I want to. I big believer in the fact there are no accidents and the way I met Cameron was a funny story because we both appeared in a Canadian newspaper article about entrepreneurship on the same day. And also during that same week 2 people independently mentioned my name to him.

There are probably at least several dozen more people I could mention here. My business buddies are some of the smartest and most giving people around, and I always take something away from simply watching their marketing or during late-night talks in hotel suites. Or the Maverick Business Adventures members who have impressed me with their business savvy, zest for life and giving spirit on each and every trip!

Okay that’s a wrap for Part 3 – please leave a comment and let me know what you think. Also, since this is quite long I’ll bundle everything up into a neat little PDF with a bow when I’m finished. (Be sure to subscribe to our RSS feed or provide your email address in the upper right-hand corner to be notified when each new section is up on the blog.)

Look for Part 4 where we’ll move into the “Have More Fun” aspect in life and business. I’m a big believer in having a lot of fun in how you work and how you play. First, I’ll show you some of the ways of creating incredible bonds with your customers and increasing your revenue at the same time.

Then, I’m going to do my best to coax out the inner kid you in to come forward.

*****

** Update**

You can now download this series of blog posts (and the other posts they refer to) here. http://www.surefiremarketing.com/decade/

So let’s start where we left off, talking about “Making More”…

Maverick Rule #1 says:

It’s got to be a BIG idea that you, your team and your customers can “get” in seconds.

Creating The BIG Idea

Before we get started with the how – let’s talk about the why. Why do we even need to worry about creating some kind of hook, angle or big idea for our product or service? Easy answer is because there is so much frickin competition! There’s just too much noise in the marketplace (in just about every marketplace) that you need some way of sticking out.

If you don’t have a big idea you simply fade into the background like every other ‘me-too’ product or service. Actually it’s not always even about having a proprietary product/service. This is really more about positioning and the immediate reaction a prospect has to your deal the moment they hear it.

That’s on the key elements of the BIG idea – gut reaction. If you want a real interesting insight into this get the book “Blink” by Malcolm Gladwell. You’ll see exactly how much our attitudes and perceptions are based on what he calls “thin slicing”. With our world’s being busier than ever – people usually don’t have all the time in the world to explore absolutely everything about a product or service. We’ve got to use shortcuts for our decision-making. And the clearer and more poignant you can make a distinction for your product or service the better you’ll do in the crowded marketplace.

Let me cover some real-world examples and then you’ll have a little better notion of how to create the same kind of hooks and angles for yourself. I’ll start with a couple products from the consumer world and see if you can pick up on it…

“Uncrustables”

“100 Calorie Packs”

“8 Minute Abs”

“Time Shares”

“101 Nights of Grrreat Sex”

“The Real World”

“Club Med”

“24”

All of these consumer products broke out and created serious financial windfalls for companies involved.

1. Uncrustables are a pretty silly idea but they work. Create a pre-made PB&J sandwich, remove the crust and seal it together so the bread is a little pouch. Then put in your freezer and stick in your kids lunch bag to thaw for lunch.  (Side note: We buy these a lot! Missy absolutely loves uncrustables herself. I’m the one who loves 5-star meals at fancy restaurants with great wine, while she could go for a grilled cheese sandwich any day of the week.)
2. 100 Calorie Packs are from Nabisco and now have grown to a bunch of different varieties. Anything from Ritz crackers to Oreo cookies – but they only have exactly 100 calories per pouch. That’s the big idea – you don’t have to count calories because we’ve done it for you. You know that with each snack pack you can’t eat 18 portions because we’ve put less than 100 calories in there for you.
3. 8 Minute Abs – the name says it all. That’s all you need to hear to know exactly what you get and how long it’ll take. It’s specific and very powerful – enough that on the strength of this concept hundreds of thousands of copies were sold
   
4. Time Shares – it’d be almost impossible for someone today not to know what a time share is – but in the late 60’s and early 70’s this was a breakthrough concept. You could simply purchase a week of a hotel/condo instead of buying the whole thing. The concept first debuted in Europe and quickly spread to the US in Florida and Hawaii.
5. 101 Nights of Grrreat Sex – I absolutely loved this concept when I saw in bookstores. It was so different. This is a paperback (mass market, bookstore) book by Laura Corn that has 50 sealed activities for men and 50 for women. You just rip out a page and away you go. You don’t have to think too much because it’s all there for you. The other point that I absolutely love about this book is the curiosity factor. You simply cannot “browse” the book like you typically would in a bookstore. All the pages are sealed and you only get little tantalizing hints like “Sucking the Mango”, etc. Laura is a fabulous marketer and constant promoter – she smartly has charged a premium price on her of $29.95 (way more than most paperbacks).
6. The Real World is probably the first reality TV show and was a major breakthrough because there were no actors and no script. MTV concocted a recipe to whip up mega drama from a bunch of strangers all living together. Hey, I watched it. I still remember season #1 in NY. This concept is so strong that they are still going years and years later. Of course, reality TV has gone haywire in the past few years and really exploded. TV viewers will watch just about any kind of reality show if Flavor Flav is any indication.
7. Club Med started the all-inclusive concept for vacations in the 50’s. This was a BIG idea since previously you had to pay for meals, drinks, activities, etc. all separate.
8. 24 is the TV show that I haven’t seen copied yet. It’s got a unique format of every episode occurring in an hour of real time. And the entire season occurs over exactly 24 hours. Missy and I were totally hooked on it until about Season 5 or 6. If you watch this show – you know what I mean when I say we can’t believe some of the twists and ridiculous turns the writers put in there – but we go along for the ride.

Okay I’m sure many of you picked up on some of these BIG ideas but I want to make sure nothing is glossed over because this is critical and means the difference between a “base hit” or a “home run” product.

There are 5 major things I think about and keep in mind when coming up with a BIG idea or hook for something I’m doing:

#1: Give Them the FISH!

I can’t over emphasis this idea and I can’t remember how long I’ve been telling this to students. People are downright lazy – cater to it! Everyone knows the saying about if you give the man a fish you feed him for a day but if you teach him to fish you feed him for life. Let me give it to straight here – that’s complete and total B.S.!

People want the fish handed to them on their plate, grilled perfectly and with some seasonal vegetables on the side. Look at Home Depot – the world’s largest “do it yourself” company in the world. Why did they suddenly start buying up companies left and right and provide the service for consumers? And why does their CEO think the “done for you” services will eclipse their current sales? Hmmmm….

I’ve had big success with giving people the “fish” including the first online product that you’re probably sick of hearing by now - Instant Sales Letters. The whole hook behind Instant sales letters is in the headline on the site – “In Only 2 ½ Minutes You Can Quickly and Easily Create A Sales Letter Guaranteed To Sell Your Product Or Service…Without Writing! Looking To Increase Your Business? Just Fill In A Few Blanks And PRESTO… You’ve Just Created A Powerful, Money-Making Sales Letter!”

That hook has been responsible for me generating $1M+ with a little $40 – $50 product.

Another big success story using the “FISH” concept has got to the Public Domain Goldmine package created with my partner, Michael Holland. After the success of my Public Domain Riches product where I covered how to find and profit from public domain works – I realized many people didn’t want to go through the trouble of finding the public domain works and analyzing markets themselves. Here’s the big idea:

I’m going to hand you 35 different public domain works on a silver platter with nearly EVERYTHING done for you and ready to start making you money. We’re talking all the market research, competitive analysis, keyword analysis, locating back-end affiliate revenue sources, finding potential joint venture partners, clearing the copyrights, etc. – All for a TINY fraction of the time and money you would have to spend if you did it all yourself

That hook was enough to make sure all the volumes released so far have instantly sold out. Giving people exactly what they want handed to them in a done-for-them concept is so powerful.

As I look back, I’ve been doing this since I started selling information in ‘98. In fact, one of the very first successful products was a pre-done newsletter for cosmetic surgeons to send to their patients already written for them. Here’s how very simple and straightforward the letter selling this product started:

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“How To Write A Patient Newsletter…Without Writing”

Dear Doctor,

Are you too busy to write your own patient newsletter?

You know you need a newsletter, but if you’re like most doctors, you just can’t find the time to ever get one out. Coming up with interesting articles and compelling stories is hard, hard work, and unless you have lots of extra time on your hands, it’s easy to keep putting off publishing a newsletter until “someday”.

But of course, we all know “someday” usually never comes…

Oh sure, there are a couple companies that will do it all for – but they’ll charge you an arm and a leg. And since they don’t really know the first thing about compelling offers and killer copy it probably won’t get too many patients to actually call you (which is the whole point of putting out a newsletter).

Well, all that can change starting now…

Announcing The Pre-Done, Ready-To-Go, Camera-Ready, Just Plug-In Your Name and Phone Number, Patient Newsletters

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One of my previous students, Lisa Preston, had been struggling with the information marketing business online until she took the “FISH” concept to heart. She launched “Instant Niche Emails”, which provided an easy way to get 52 weeks of follow-up autoresponders for just about any niche. It’s a great concept and she quickly saw her sales explode because of the big idea. And this isn’t just for info products – if you look back over the examples I originally gave you, I would put “Club Med” into the “FISH” category because they provide you everything you need to gave a wonderful vacation for one price. I’d also put “Uncrustables” in the “Fish” category since Moms and Dads just need to chuck one of those sandwiches into the little tykes lunch bag and they’re all set.

I’d possibly put “101 Nights of Grrreat Sex” in this since each torn out page gives you exact specific instructions but they don’t give you all the props, etc.

Okay on to the second way to develop BIG ideas and hooks…

#2: Make Your Promise Specific

Specifics are so important but usually completely overlooked because it’s much easier to make a generic promise. However, a specific promise or a specific target market makes your marketing that much more powerful.

One of my best selling products (since 2001) has been “33 Days to Online Profits” that I co-wrote with Jim Edwards. I firmly believe that “brand” has been kept alive because of the very specific claim or hook. Originally when Jim and I first began discussing the idea behind this ebook it was going to 30 Days to Online Profits – but we decided on “33” because it was specific (and credible). The other unique aspect of this product is that each day you are given a homework assignment so it’s a step-by-step, day-by-day course for 33 days.

I have no doubt in my mind if the title was “30 Days to Online Profits” it wouldn’t be as successful.

Here’s another example from an actual critique I gave to a student when they submitted an idea that they wanted to create an info product for Stay-at-home-moms….

Here’s what I told them in the critique: “Stay at home moms are a great category – you need to get specific on it the moneymaking info. How about something like “233 Ways Stay at Home Moms Can Make an Extra $200 Every Month” Now that’s different, specific and has a nice hook to it.”

You can see from my comments how much more powerful this would make the concept. Specifics also apply to things like “1001” compiled resources. However, I don’t like “typical” numbers so I’d use very specific numbers like “233” or “33” as I mentioned.

Looking at the first group of examples I’d obviously put “8-minute abs”, “100 calorie packs” and probably “101 Nights of Grrreat Sex” into the specifics category. Side Note: Notice “101 Nights” is in both categories and I firmly believe you can create bigger and better hooks by having not just one of these factors in your BIG idea. Stack them on top of one another!

Another good example of specifics selling the big idea is the success of “5 Hour Energy”.  I found this a few years back when I needed an energy boost before my Hockey finals. I went to 7-11 and was sitting there trying to decide which energy supplement/drink/powder/doohickey I should buy. I saw this little bottle called “5 Hour Energy”. I read a tiny bit on the back of the bottle and grabbed it. Yeah it tasted like crap but it worked. Not only did it give me more energy (we won the championship) but it worked from their marketing standpoint.

A point-of-purchase product like that really depends on you being able to make a split second decision whether or not you’ll get it. (Fact is, many decisions are made like this from a quick emotional, gut level but we don’t want to admit it to ourselves.) So using #2 – a specific promise of “5 hours of energy” they were able to get my business. Now just recently I saw them advertising their site – www.5hourenergy.com on TV which to me means the product has become pretty successful in a marketplace filled with competitors (like Red Bull, etc).

#3: Go the Opposite Direction

I love this. However, I don’t suggest being different just for the sake of being different – however – there is a lot to be said for ‘zigging’ when others ‘zag’.

My biggest example of this is the “Underground” concept I developed

Don’t you think there are more than enough Internet seminars going on all over the place? Some good. Some not so good. It’s real tough to create a stir in the Internet space unless you have something different. Which is exactly why I didn’t want to do another ‘same-ole’ Internet seminar. Of course, the easy way (and trust me there is nothing easy about putting on seminars) would have been to just gather up all my buddies and have a seminar – but that would be too similar to other established events.

My big hook (which was true) is every year I bring in a lot of unknown speakers who were really making it in the real world online. It wasn’t the same usual suspects you’d see at other events. I took it all the way with making the promotions ‘spy’ themed to stand out. Sure, some people emailed us and said it was silly. But a lot more people got into it because it was different. It really worked! Each year the event has SOLD-OUT weeks before the event took place (just as a comparison most other events will get the bulk of their registrants 2-3 weeks before the seminar and most will take registrants up until the event.)

[Shameless plug: This year’s Underground® 6 event has an incredible line-up of speakers and we’re just about to announce 2 really big keynote additions. The very best bonuses including the VIP networking dinner and lowest ticket prices expire on January 20, 2010. Click here for details!

For a broader example of going the opposite direction, think about when VW Beetle first came to the U.S. with their “Think Small” campaign in 1960.

It was the era of big cars and automakers were trying to outdo themselves by building bigger and bigger cars for the American public. But the VW Beetle quickly became a blockbuster because it went in the opposite direction and even highlighted the fact it was small. This campaign was so powerful that AdAge magazine named it the #1 in it’s Top 100 Advertising Campaigns list.

#4: Move to a New Application

Many times you can create a great hook by simply taking one successful hook from one industry or place and moving it somewhere else.

A great example of this is the successful Time Shares concept I already mentioned to you and moving it to other industries. The time share concept has been successfully applied to private jets (think NetJets), exotic cars, luxury second homes, yachts, etc.

Or on a smaller level, one of my friends and former Underground® II speaker is a great example of this. John Alanis’ site is www.WomenApproachYou.com and the whole hook behind his info products is to get women to approach you instead of you having to chase them.

Great concept – however it’s not even close to original!

Both John and I would credit Dan Kennedy with being a tremendous influence in our business. And one of Dan’s most successful products is “Magnetic Marketing” – with the big idea of not chasing business but having it come to you.

See any similarities?

#5: Being First

Sometimes the most important thing you can to is simply be the first. From our example list “Time Shares”, “Club Med” and “Real World” qualify since they were the very first in their category.

If you are moving into a crowded marketplace you can actually “slice” off a piece of that market to be first. For instance, Dan Kennedy talks about his foray into helping dentists and chiropractors with their practice marketing. He would say his company was “the single biggest provider of practice building information for the dental & chiropractic profession”. And that’s because nobody else was serving both.

Or how about this one?

Hedonism (owned by SuperClubs) took the concept behind all-inclusive resorts from ClubMed and geared only towards singles or adventurous singles. But that wasn’t the end because another smart company niched the all-inclusive concept again but only for romantic couples with “Sandals” resorts.

If you start thinking about these points for creating the BIG idea or a hook – you’ll action begin to notice ideas everywhere. Plus, you’ll also see how successful products/services are in many ways take-offs on other successful concepts/ideas that came before them.

Or how about this mega moneymaking example – if you have kids you surely have heard of the Wiggles, right?

Zak likes their songs and surprisingly (or maybe not) I now know all the words to the songs on his Wiggles CD. The Wiggles have become a huge hit by following BIG idea method #4 and #5. So huge that according to Business Review Weekly magazine, The Wiggles were Australia’s highest grossing entertainers for the year 2005, earning more than AC/DC and Nicole Kidman combined.

2 of the Wiggles started off in a regular rock bank called “The Cockroaches” and had some modest success. It was only after deciding to move to a new application (#4) and being first (#5) did they have their massive success.

For moving to a new application they took their same popular rock sound and moved to kids music. Most kids music pretty much stunk but the Wiggles aren’t bad. Now moving to a new application they didn’t need to compete against tens of thousands of other hopeful musical acts trying to go big and mainstream. They went for kids and cornered the market. According to Wikipedia one of their hit songs came from reworking a few of the old Cockroaches tunes into children’s songs. For example, “Do the Monkey” was originally a Cockroaches song with different lyrics. Another Cockroaches song, “Get Ready To Wiggle”, inspired the new band’s name.

Then the other portion of the BIG idea used her was (#5) Being First. Now, they were not literally the first children’s entertainers but they took this combination of CDs, live performance, videos, and characters to develop a sticking point in the heads of little rug rats everywhere.

The more you can incorporate a BIG idea or hook into your product – the easier it’ll be to write a kick-ass sales promotion for it. It almost writes itself. The times when I’ve struggled writing copy is because I didn’t have enough of a big idea behind it.

Maverick Rule #3: You must charge a premium price so you have a large margin to provide an extraordinary value & experience.

About 2 years ago I conducted a $10,000/person workshop on “How to Sell Super High-Priced Information Products and Services” and I’ll share a few insights here…

If you boil down my biggest profit windfalls in my business (and the most astute marketers I observe) it has come down to selling premium products and services at premium prices. That’s how my business has leapfrogged from 6-figures to 7-figures and now multiple 7-figures a year!

Personally, I’ve sold everything from $5,000 workshops to $14,500.00 “Apprentice Programs” to $20,000 MasterMind groups and even a $40,000+/yr program for cosmetic surgeons.

First, let’s say you want to make an extra $1M this year – then you’d have to sell 20000 copies of your ‘doohickey’ at $50. Or it could be 2000 copies at $500. Or better still 200 copies at $5000. It’s a lot easier dealing with 200 customers than 20,000. Think of all the customer service and infrastructure, etc.

Once again before we get into the “HOW” let’s discuss the “WHY”…

Reason #1: More Profits

Okay no surprise here. When you sell for higher prices you make more profits. Very few companies have been able to sustain a “low price” position in the marketplace. Sears couldn’t. K-Mart couldn’t. And now it remains to be seen what Wal-Mart does with that position. (Actually if you study Wal-Mart you’ll notice they are bringing in some significantly high-priced, high-margin products.)

Reason #2: Better Customers

Price qualifies your customers more than you might realize. The ones that pay $7 for an ebook are going to be the ones that whine and complain the most! They’ll tax and strain your customer support team. But in comparison the customers who spend significant amounts of money are surprisingly easier to deal with and less demanding.

Think about the last time you gave free advice to someone – what happened? That’s right. Nothing. But if you had made them pay you for consulting – they would have taken it to heart.

Reason #3: Psychology of Price Works In Your Favor

This is a big one! We’ve always been taught “You get what you pay for”. It’s not uncommon for a prospective customer to discount a product or offering because it’s “too cheap”. If the price is not in line with what it should be you’d think there is something wrong.

Reason #4: Can Deliver More Value

Ultimately the value you provide will dictate the profits you receive from your customers. Increase the value and your revenues go up. By high-profit products with high-margins you have lots more wiggle room to deliver sensational value. You can really “WOW” your customers and buyers. Not only can you throw in high-value extras but you can afford to deliver truly unique unadvertised bonuses and follow-ups.

Reason #5: Some Buyers Will NOT Buy Low-Priced Items

It sounds crazy but some customers are only premium buyers. If you gave them a discount it would actually decrease the response. Plus, some customers are only comfortable buying in the high-end range. I was shocked when I discovered with my first high-priced offering. My Apprentice program was $14,500 and at the time this was head and shoulders above any other marketer.

I thought my best prospects for this program would be customers who had already bought from me and were happy. Surprisingly about half of the people in this program had *NEVER* bought anything from me before. Their comfort level was for a premium offer.

Reason #6: You Will OWN The Marketplace

I think this is the biggest reason of all…

This means you can afford to pay more to acquire a customer. This is huge! If I’m in the same marketplace and I’m competing against someone who only has $100.00 product at the end of their funnel and I have a $10,000.00 offering – there’s going to be almost no contest.  I can spend more on Pay-per-click, more on advertising, more on affiliate pay-outs, more on offline follow-up, more on testing unusual advertising places, etc..

And I can make bad results work for me. If I’m direct mailing for a high-priced product I only need a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the response for a low-priced product to make me money.

Fact is, the business owner who can spend the most to acquire a customer will WIN.

Period. End of story.

Most people are undercharging for what they provide. My rule of thumb and one of my values I look at it every morning in my planners says “I get rich by enriching others 10x – 100x what they pay me in return”.

That’s a big deal for me. If you pay me $1000 for a product – I want to make sure it delivers $10,000 in value for my customers. I suggest you consider something similar. If your product isn’t good enough for you to raise your price on it – make it better!

And that’s the first step at the “HOW” to double or triple our prices…start brainstorming the value you provide.

Step #1 – Brainstorming Additional Value

Either find a trusted advisor, work with your team (if you have one) or just grab a blank yellow legal pad and start coming up with answers. It doesn’t matter how crazy they are. Just write them all down. In fact, the rules of brainstorming should be used:

• Rule #1 – No criticism allowed (turn off your left brain)
• Rule #2 – The wilder the better…everything’s possible
• Rule #3 – Quantity
• Rule #4 – Jump off and “Plus” others ideas

You want to start with a blank slate and just “blue sky” questions like these:

• “How can I provide 10x-100x the value to my customers?”
• “What can I do that will absolutely amaze them?”
• “How can I get my customers the end-result they want on a silver platter?”
• “How can I ‘do it for them’?”

Step #2 – Your thinking

Next, setting higher prices begins inside your head. People are usually too slow to raise prices and it’s more about confidence & self-image than the actual value delivered. Get Maxwell Maltz’s book “Psycho Cybernetics” and consider your self-image. We all have self images in every single area of our life and if you are not charging a premium it’s usually more to do with what’s in-between your ears than the actual marketplace. Which brings me to my next point, never allow your competition to set your prices. Just because someone else charges $x dollars – that does not mean you have to charge similar prices. There will be always a very profitable spot for businesses at the premium scale who deliver what’s perceived as exceptional products and value.

Step #3 – Targeting the right marketplace

Another mistake I see a lot is going after markets who cannot afford to pay premium prices. There’s no reason you cannot have another division of your business go after customers who have already shown they will pay premium prices for products/services. For example, I have a giclee of a painting by Thomas Arvid in our dining room at home. I believe we paid about $2500-$3000 for this work. Now in case you are unfamiliar with the term a giclee is really just a fancy print. This one being on canvas. I can most certainly assure you there is a high margin in this piece.

Why would I and many others pay such a premium for it? Well, the artist’s originals go for $25,000 or more now (if you can even get them) and he chose a subject that buyers would pay a premium for – namely high end wines. Also, it’s a limited edition piece (something we’ll discuss in greater detail shortly.) Arvid only specializes in hyper realistic wines paintings. They are absolutely beautiful and the first time I saw his work in Carmel, CA I was blown away. (You can see for yourself at www.ThomasArvid.com) Arvid paints high-end wines like Opus One, Silver Oak, Caymus, etc.

And the people who are passionate about these high-end wines will pay a premium for wonderful art. He stumbled onto this by accident when he started painting and found that a red wine painting was snapped up immediately. Very astutely Arvid learned more about wine and which ones to paint so that customers would open up their wallets.

And the final aspects of creating a high-priced offer are the psychological ones…

We’ve talked about the psychology of scarcity previously in this post. Human beings have been hard-wired to want what is going away. Many more people are motivated by the thought of potential loss than potential gain. You see this used all the time in marketing and it works *IF* there is truth behind or we perceive there to be truth behind it. Here’s one example from a company I buy a lot of wine from that really illustrates this point (combined with ‘reason why’):

If you have trouble reading the text in the email – here’s the main part (underlining is my own):

WINE ALERT: As you probably read in the news, our friends at Silver Oak experienced a terrible fire at their winery earlier this year. At that time, there were rumors that they had lost most of their past and current vintages. Hence, the winery ceased new sales of their prized Silver Oak 2001 Alexander Valley Cabernet – - Robert Parker’s highest rated Silver Oak since renowned 1997 vintage – - to the great disappointment of thirsty collectors across America who have made this wine the #1 selling Collector Cabernet. However, today the big news is our friends at Silver Oak just found 15 more cases of this wine + several BIG bottles including an extremely rare 6L quadruple magnum (details below) safely tucked away in their private cellar and have made an exclusive offer to Porthos Insiders on a “first come, first sell” basis. These are the last cases and only big bottles of this prized vintage that will ever be available for sale so don’t miss this insiders-only offer!

Some of you know I bought the 6L quadruple magnum (that’s equivalent to 8 regular bottles). I really like Silver Oak anyway so I wouldn’t have bought this just because it was so scarce (or at least I tell myself that). I’m planning on popping this bad boy for some big celebration.

With this information the only thing stopping you from raising your price is yourself. But if you want to just try it out – you can always start small by offering a “Deluxe” or “Gold” version of your existing product/service and see what happens. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised by adding some of these elements to your marketing how you can easily double or triple your prices and still provide an incredible value.

Okay that wraps up part 2 – part 3 will cover creating your own MasterMind group and authentic connections, leave a comment and let me know what you think.

* * * *

** Update**

You can now download this series of blog posts (and the other posts they refer to) here. http://www.surefiremarketing.com/decade/

Some big announcements to share on our upcoming Underground® 5 seminar next month…

Announcement #1: Your Early-Bird deadline is being extended!

Yep, I typically NEVER extend deadlines but I’ll explain in #2 why it’s happening. So the good news is that it means you’ve now got until midnight, January 20, 2009 to save a full $1000.00 before the price increase. But more importantly the biggest bonus of all will vanish if you miss this deadline…when you sign up before the early-bird deadline you’ll receive a special red VIP ticket and confidential password. You must have both in order to gain admittance into a private, closed-door dinner and Casino Royale night.

And when you sign-up before January 20, 2009 you’ll also get a seat to the just-added MEGA bonus…Social Media Pre-day
(don’t worry if you’ve already signed up – you’re automatically in.) Keep reading for details on this bonus…

Announcement #2: MEGA Bonus Social Media Pre-Day

The day before the main Underground® event (February 19th) you’ll have a seat for the absolute latest intel and information on using Social marketing to grow your business. The amazing thing about using social marketing is you can literally be a “nobody” one day and with zero outlay grow an incredibly rabid base of followers and friends who are glued to whatever you put out there. All it costs is a little bit
of your time and to understand HOW it works!

Quite frankly the writing is on the wall and if you want to be ahead of the curve you must make sure you attend this special pre-day. And instead of paying $995.00 like other pre-days we’ve offered you’ll get the entire day FREE if you register for the Underground® 5 before Jan 20th, 2009.

You’ll discover the absolute, up-to-the-minute real deal about using Twitter, Facebook, Social bookmarking (like DIGG, Stumble On, etc), Viral videos, Blogging and more! Social marketing is the hottest topic right now and you’ll get the straight scoop from real world people using it each
and every day to grow their business.

Announcement #3: $1B Keynote Speaker #2 – Tony Hsieh CEO of Zappos.com

We just added Tony Hsieh, CEO of the $1 Billion (Yes B with a ‘B’) e-commerce company, Zappos.com. Tony was a huge hit last year and it worked out that his schedule has a last-minute hole we took advantage of.

You’ll be able to get up close and personal with the CEO of one of the leading eCommerce sites in the world. Last year. Tony was incredible accessible and totally approachable. (In fact, being ‘humble’ is one of Zappos core values and he totally lives it!)

And that’s just one of the reasons why there are NO seminars like the Underground® event. The Underground® has quickly become THE most exclusive learning, networking and ‘deal making’ event put on each year. Previous high-profile attendees were Dan Kennedy, Jonathan Mizel, Jim Edwards, Marlon Sanders, “The Rich Jerk”, Jeff Johnson, Jeff Walker, Stephen Pierce, Bill Glazer, Perry Marshall, Rosalind Gardner, Joel Comm, Willie Crawford, Mike Filsaime, Russell Brunson, Michel Fortin, Michael Holland, Phil Wiley, Kevin Wilke, Andrew Fox, and many others who came to learn and not to B.S. in the hallways.

No doubt about it, the real players show up here…and there’s good reason for it…

It’s because the Underground’s premise is absolutely unique of bringing in real-world Internet successes who are definitely NOT the same “Usual Suspects” you see speaking anywhere else…just real-world “DO-ERS”!

You’ve got a few extra days now to register (through Jan. 20th) but I wouldn’t wait because there are just 89 seats
remaining and going fast!  Hopefully – I’ll see you there!

Register now to get the best discounts, VIP access and now the FREE Social Media Pre-day

 

Here’s a picture of my neighbor, Spencer, from a few weeks ago. I think he’s about 10, a cute kid and a good marketing case study for us.

If you notice in the picture – we live in a court. Translation = pretty much no car or foot traffic! While it’s great for letting kids play outside – it’s not so good for a budding lemonade tycoon. After buying 2 cups of lemonade from Spencer, I had to give the kid some ideas. I told him he needs to move the stand where he would get a lot more traffic. He should go on the corner of our street or at least put signs directing people to the court.

Did he do it? Nope. He just went on yelling, “Lemonade for sale!” on deaf ears into the court.

The sad part is so many people do the exact same thing with their sites. They’ve got one of the loneliest lemonade stands on the Internet. Why? Because they aren’t putting themselves in front of a stream of traffic.

It really is that simple.

Find where the traffic already is and plant yourself along the way offering up something these people want. Let’s compare Spencer’s lemonade stand to one I remember a few years back. It wasn’t in front of anyone’s house – but rather it was in front of a steady stream of joggers, walkers and strollers on the Capital Crescent Trail in Bethesda. The budding entrepreneur went out of his comfort zone (beyond their front yard) and went to where the marketplace was already – and simply got in front of them.

Did it matter his lemonade was from concentrate and not made from real lemons? Nope – not one bit.

The late, Gary Halbert, had a famous bit of instruction he did in a seminar talking about going into the food business. He told the audience, “I’ll let you have any advantage you want. Name it.” People would mention “I want the only McDonalds” or “I want the best food”, etc. etc. After everyone had their turn, he’d say, “Okay, the only advantage I want is a hungry crowd.”

Hmmm….

Quite frankly, when you stand in front of a hungry crowd even the ‘roach coach’ gets business during lunch time. Same with your site. What are you doing to get out of your comfort zone (front yard) and place yourself in front of a stream of ‘hungry’ traffic? Here are just a few ideas:

•    Adding your offer to partners Thank You pages and Opt-in pages.
•    Buying ads on highly-trafficked sites.
•    Doing deals with other sites who show up high in search engine rankings for your keywords & phrases.
•    Piggybacking on hot trends? (How many iPod accessories are out there now?)
•    Putting package inserts into outgoing packages.
•    Finding out how to work with big sites in exchange for content and affiliate rev-share deals. Etc…

If you’re not selling enough products (or lemonade) – maybe it’s time to get in front of the right crowd!

* Update: I saw this comic from Jimmy D. Brown and asked him if I could reprint it here. Seems only fitting:

A few weeks ago I was in Aspen for the 3rd Maverick Business Adventures® experience. This time we went whitewater rafting, rock climbing, rappelling, mountain biking and on a 4x4 jeep tour.

Before I give you the low down on the trip highlights – I think the day before I left was extremely interesting from a marketing perspective.

Aspen is filled with great boutiques, restaurants and art galleries. I wasn’t really planning on buying anything but enjoyed looking in the art galleries – and that’s where our story starts. (Note: If you have not read ‘Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion” this is a good example of the techniques at work.)

The first step in the sale…

The first part of any sales process is typically ‘Attention’ – my attention was caught by a piece in the window that was very cool. It was cartoonish but yet sophisticated. So I popped into the gallery. It was by an artist named Todd White and I found out the work was called “My Heaven and Hell”.

It immediately caught my eye so I investigated a little more. The gallery had a bunch of his prints and as I browsed through them I was paying attention to the sales process. I started getting the ‘story’ of Todd White from Johnny. It was about how he worked on Ren & Stimpy and helped created Sponge Bob Square Pants. I’m a big fan of animation so this intrigued me more.

[Story is one of the most underused ways of making deeper connections and setting up the sale. The story is also important because I get to tell it again to people who comment on the piece at my house, etc.]

That was followed a laundry list of celebs who collect his work. [Social Proof]

As I perused the different pieces, Johnny, would throw in a few comments about the work (i.e. like the “My Heaven & Hell” piece explaining it was 6 of White’s ex-girlfriend and 3 were good and 3 were devilish.)

Johnny showed me a brochure with other works mentioned how most were sold out because he did prints in very limited quantities (like 150). [Scarcity]

After showing interest in a few of them he asked me if I wanted to gave him move them into a better light in the backroom. I declined several times because I knew where this was heading -- but finally let him move 2 works in there. The role of this backroom is for the prospect to imagine it in their homes.

[Commitment & Consistency now takes over since I’m making small commitments towards buying. The first commitment is even picking which paintings I like the best.]

As I was picking from a few works that I liked best I was offered a beer, champagne or water. [Reciprocation]

I’d been through this same process before so it was interesting watching it unfold with my psychology hat on. But something they did that I haven’t seen was actually having a DVD playing that highlighting Todd White’s career, his press coverage, his works, his bio and people who were his collectors. [Authority and Social Proof]

As I was considering my favorite piece, Johnny, asked me if I’d take it today for a crazy price? I knew this was another commitment technique so I kept it vague. Then he asked if I’d take 2 of them. After saying I only wanted to discuss the price on one he went back to the owner to discuss. [Reciprocation after a Concession]

When the owner Michael came back he made sure to discuss the frame itself, the multiple layers of the frame and how ornate it was to build up the value. Then mentioning the hand embellished print so it wasn’t simply a print. [Value build] He gave me a reason about the discount as this being the shoulder season and the rent was due. [Reason Why] and we negotiated down to about 50% of the ‘retail’ price. We shook hands and now a few weeks later a huge crate arrived at my house with my “All Lit Up Again” work by Todd White:

It’s a great example of using psychology and influence in the real world. In fact, I loved the process so much I recommended the Cialdini book to Michael and Johnny. Then a funny little side note – Aspen is pretty small – and we bumped into them at one of the hot bars that night.

Highlights from the Maverick Business Adventures® ‘Rocky Mountain High’ Experience:

Now for those of you who want the recap on the Maverick trip – watch the 3 minute highlight reel created by members below and read on…

The first night in Aspen I brought in my friend and true Maverick, Frank McKinney. The Wall Street Journal called “the Real Estate Rock Czar” because he builds spec homes (homes built without a buyer) valued in the tens of millions of dollars, including the creation of the world’s first $100+ million spec home. In addition to his real estate artistry, Mr. McKinney is a two-time international best-selling author, speaker, adventure racer, demolition derby driver!Plus, he’s a true philanthropist with his Caring House Foundation that builds housing for the desperately poor in Haiti. I think people originally saw a flamboyant guy with long blond hair and easily dismissed him until after his presentation. Frank was pretty incredible sharing his 49 secrets for Extreme Success. But even more inspiring was the philanthropy roundtable he was on with founding Maverick members, Jim Spano and Brian McElroy. Both of whom are very heavily involved in charity foundations.

There was a tremendous amount of interest from the members about starting their own foundation and the in’s and out’s of this fascinating and enlightening topic. Right before the charity roundtable discussion Carl Banks showed up. Carl was our other Maverick icon guest – he’s a 2-time Super Bowl champion with the NY Giants and a multi-time entrepreneur. He helped build G-III apparel into a $500,000,000 behemoth and his latest venture is “Famous 58” BBQ line.

Carl and Frank both joined us for dinner at the prestigious Little Nell. Now most of us turned in early because wake-up was at 5:30 AM (ouch!). We boarded a luxury motor coach to head 3 hours out to the Royal Gorge area for our adventures. For the last half hour of the trip I thought it might be a funny idea to play ‘Deliverance’ on the DVD player. In hindsight probably a bad idea. After the banjo scene is got a little graphic with the most famous (and disturbing) clip from the whole movie. If you don’t know which one I’m talking about – it’s better that way.

As soon as we set foot on the ground we’re off to get changed into wetsuits and gear up to hit the rapids. I guess the water level had really gone down because the first part of the day was pretty slow. Though we did get to see Maverick and Elite MasterMind member, Gerald Romine, get spilled out in, what I’d classify as, class 0 rapids.

Yes, that earned him the coveted ‘Up the Creek Without a Paddle’ award later that night.

We took a break for lunch and held our Maverick business session right on the bank of the Arkansas River. Definitely out of classroom. Then after regrouping we hit the water again for some class IV rapids. It was definitely a bit wilder in the bottom section when we hit the Royal Gorge. Our guide, Kendall, had our boat preparing and drilling like we were a Whitewater SWAT team. Not only did we have to practice and know the basic forward and backward strokes but he had us drill on moving everyone from one side to another so we could sneak through some seemingly impossible spots on the river.

If you watched that little highlight footage there is a spot at 2:32 in the video that makes me laugh over and over again. We were getting bored splashing our fellow Maverick boats so our raft decided to up the ante. Watch and you’ll see a yellow and red raft float by from a random group. After a disarming ‘hi’ we open up to splash their raft. Their guide was totally shocked and lobbed his own water spray right back in an instant. I thought it was hilarious. (Oh yeah – we did again at the 3:00 mark to a different raft.)

I also had offered up $50 for anyone in Carl’s boat to make him swim but I guess that wasn’t a big enough reward to try and dump the 6’ 3” All-pro Linebacker into the drink. (About 2:18 in the video)

After drying off we headed back to the lodge for a special BBQ dinner hosted by Carl Banks. It started with Carl sharing his football story and then quickly segued into his business career. Many people might not realize how successful and accomplished he has been in the business world. It started when he was still playing for the Giants and became a licensee for the NFL selling high fashion leather jackets with team logos. And his endeavors have branched out remarkably since then.

Following Carl’s talk – we all piled up our plates with all sorts of BBQ accompanied by Carl’s ‘Famous 58’ sauce. Really, really good stuff and worth picking up online. As a side note – Carl was pretty smart. He essentially created the ‘Instant Sales Letters’ of tailgating BBQ. He sells people a pre-made, pre-cooked kit of everything they need for an awesome tailgate. Smart. That’s one of my ways of coming up with a BIG idea – give people the ‘fish’ – don’t teach them to fish.

After polishing off some ribs and bison – I interviewed Carl one-on-one and then let members get any of their business (and even football) questions answered. Carl stayed late into the night smoking cigars swapping stories with us. Here’s a pic of him having S’mores for the first time with Carrie Wilkerson.

The next day we were at it again this time being split into 2 groups. Half the members tackled rock climbing and rappelling while the other half did some pretty intense mountain biking.

I was in the rock climbing/rappelling group for the morning. I’d never done rappelling but falling off of things appealed more to me than climbing up things so I spent most of my time rappelling.

Our guide neglected to tell me it might be a little more comfortable with gloves. As I dropped 60 feet down the rope completed burned my hands and when I got back to the top of the mountain I asked our outfitter if there were any gloves, he said, “Oh yeah, in the red bag.” Yeah in the red bag how silly of me. My hands were burning the next few times with gloves too so I’m glad I finally found the red bag.

Before breaking for lunch a few of us went to the backside of the mountain to work on some climbing. I’ve never been rock climbing before either and it was pretty hard. I’ve done climbing walls in gyms and those were a piece of cake compared to the real thing. We had a couple members get all the way to the top in under 3 minutes – pretty impressive. My best was ¾ of the way up – about 40 feet.

One of the funniest moments was turned in again by Gerald Romine. He was taught a technique by our climbing guide of shoving your hand into crevices and then using the bone as leverage. Well – he wasn’t so lucky to shove his hand straight into a Wasp’s nest. I think 3 of them stung him. I had to laugh because I was climbing that exact route 2 minutes prior.

After lunch our groups switched and we went mountain biking. The trail was pretty advanced stuff – we told the guide wanted it ‘Maverick’ style and he turned in a good performance. I was certainly lucky that a camera captured prime highlights footage of me hopping down the trail trying to avoid falling over. I did about 8 hops and finally tumbled to the ground in dejection. (For your viewing pleasure -- it’s about 1:49 into the video).

I also had another tumble – going completely over my handlebars and really wiping out hard. Unfortunately for you guys – there was no footage – so it’s like it never happened.

After our all-day adventures it was back to Aspen for a much needed shower and quick rest before we dinner. Once again we headed to the Little Nell but this time it was their ‘wine room’ for a fabulous dinner with a Master of Scotch from Johnny Walker. It was pretty interesting because each of the dishes we had were all made with some Scotch.

The next morning was one of my favorite parts of the week – it was the ‘giving back’ to young and aspiring entrepreneurs session. We brought in about 80 kids to Aspen High School (from several different community groups). It’s an optional activity for members but we still had about 17 of our members come to share their real-world experience about being entrepreneurs. It was great seeing the faces light up and get really engaged when we started asking for their ideas and then preceded to give them a blueprint to follow their dreams.

I was really impressed with one 12-year old, Garrett, who was in the audience. He already had an eBay business where he took items on consignment and then paid the owners 40% once it sold. The kid took reams of notes and he’s got a bright future. In fact, he did an interview with Maverick & Elite MasterMind member, Carrie Wilkerson, and he told her that when he grew up he wanted to be a Maverick. So cool!

Then we got this note back from his mom:

“My son was among the young people who attended and I can tell you he hasn’t been the same since. Since your [presentation], he has begun his own website and has even begun to make money with it using some of the advice he received…I believe that the seminar your group so selflessly presented has altered the course of at least one young entrepreneur. I can’t thank you enough.”

One of my big goals with Maverick is educate young and aspiring entrepreneurs so if you have an organization that can benefit from the 2-hours of education we provided – we will make it available to you. Please contact Tim Warren – tim@maverickbusinessadventures.com

After the young entrepreneurs session we headed out on a 4x4 adventure. We went up some pretty hairy roads with no guardrails (and some major drop offs) to get to the top of the one of Aspen’s best peaks. I think we were about 12,500 feet up – not sure – but the view was amazing except for 4 anonymous members who resembled Barney:

To cap off our successful adventure – we arranged dinner at the Aspen Mountain Club. It’s one of the most exclusive clubs in Aspen with a long waitlist to pay the $125k membership fee. You have to reserve the entire Gondola to the top of the mountain just to get there. Just the sunset from there was really unparalleled and worth the trip.

After dinner some of the members headed back while some of us ventured out to enjoy the Aspen nightlife. For a small town, I have to give Aspen credit. They have a good party scene and we closed out “FLY” there. I loved the décor of the place because it’s made to resemble an airplane with video screens for windows and the waitresses are all dressed as flight attendants.

For those of you who don’t want to miss the next Maverick Business Adventures® experiences – we’ve now got the remaining 2008 and full 2009 calendar on the site. Check it out. (There are some really cool trips coming up!)

Plus October 20, 2008 we’re running a “TASTE OF” Maverick with a 1-day driving formula cars track day along with business sessions.

I also have a ‘secret’ project I’ve been working on with the members from Maverick – that’ll be sharing some details with your soon. It’s for the people who don’t qualify (yet) for membership but love the idea behind making more, having more fun and giving back more!

Before I pack up for the next Maverick trip to Aspen – I wanted to give you guys something you could put to use immediately…

I’m going to share a bit of the information that I first taught at my $3,495.00/per person copywriting workshop. This subject is something I have not seen anyone tackle in full – so if you are interested in making your sales copywriting (or actually any writing) work harder for you – pay attention!

[Side note: I'm doing a more in-depth section on this in the latest Underground Secret Society issue. Next issue is coming off the press shortly and you can grab a free 1-month trial.]

You see, once most people learn about copywriting they can usually crank some pretty decent letters. I mean they get the gist of it right with a few formulas like “problem-agitate-solution” or “AIDA” or whatever.

But where the rubber really meets the road is something most people don’t want to think yet alone do – and that’s the copy editing part. I have a 9-step sequence I use to really hone, polish and sculpt my sales letters (and you’re going to get 8 of them right here). Fact is, most people’s rough drafts are quite similar but it’s in the editing that you see the difference between a blockbuster and ho-hum copy.

Before we get into the phases of editing – you need to have something worth editing. Many writers fail to let their creative brains loose because it’s always being stymied by the critical part. It’s that little voice in your head that says, “That’s dumb”, “Blah!” or “Nobody is going to care about that” etc.

I suggest you write fast and turn off your internal editor. Get it all out as soon as you can and then edit later. There are 2 different parts of your brain. You really cannot edit and write at the same time.

Now when we get to the editing phases – I focus on one particular part for each pass through and edit. You might want to highlight that because right there is one of the biggest secrets. It’s like when you buy a new car and all of a sudden you start seeing your make and model everywhere. The same number of Mini Coopers were on the road before – but now you have selective perception. Our brains are trained to seek out what we are hunting for and most people will do 1 ‘general’ edit. That’s not good enough.

Phase 1 Edit: Opening   

Your opening is one of the most critical parts of your sales copy (after your headline). In readership studies it’s been shown that readership after 500 words will only fall off again at 5,000 words. So the key is getting people into a slippery slope and into those 500 words.

Most writers have a lot of ‘warm up’. Essentially getting ready to say what they want to say – you need to be ruthless and cut out the fluff. Many times when doing critiques I will literally ‘X’ out an entire first page (or 2) or initial paragraphs. This is an easy trick to making your writing more powerful is to see what you can cut from your original opening. Typically your lead-in will be further down the page.

Phase 2 Edit: Moving Pieces and Copy Blocks

The next thing I look at is if the copy blocks fit into a sequential process. Here, I’m looking for a logical and most persuasive order of the parts of my letter. If my audience is especially skeptical then I will move my ‘Authority’ and ‘Proof’ elements near the beginning. If I’m using a copy analogy or a story – is it positioned in the best spot to keep readers engaged?

I will read through the entire with one thought “Does this paragraph/section/copy block make sense where it is?”

Phase 3 Edit: Graphics, Embellishments & Look

The next thing I’m thinking about is the ‘look’ and ‘feel’ of my copy. As online copywriters we have a few items in our toolbox to choose from like

Bolding

yellow highlighter

shaded boxes

bullet points

check boxes

fake handwriting

embellishments

(I also will very sparingly use italics and underline if it’s an online letter.)

When looking for where I am going to put graphics and embellishments in – I am considering a few things. I look at each one as a spice and just like a top chef doesn’t want the spice to overpower the food – we don’t want the graphics and embellishments to overpower the copy. Just a pinch will do it. I use what I call my “Squinty test”.

I will print out each page and then hold it far enough beyond my face that I just squint to see it. I want to see a good amount of white space, different engaging elements (like bullets) and shaded boxes. But also I don’t want to see too much bolding or too much yellow highlighter.

Phase 4 Edit: Double Readership                

I first learned this term and concept from Dan Kennedy and it’s especially useful online. As prospects hit your site – many are only going to skim what is there unless they are fully engaged. Essentially there are skimmers and readers. You want someone to be able to simply skim through the headline, subheads, boldings, yellow highlighter, embellishments, etc and be able to make a buying decision.

If they can do that – you’ve done your job.

Let’s look at one of my first million dollar products – Instant Sales Letters®. I’m going to only write out the headline and subheads here. Nothing else.

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This doesn’t include any bolding or yellow highlighter, etc to draw the eye in. Just from skimming these subheads – somebody could get the main idea and actually buy the product. Look at your copy from a skimmer’s viewpoint and see where you need to add more subheads or graphical embellishments to make the sale.

Phase 5 Edit: Bucket Brigade

This is where you smooth out and “stitch” everything together. Your copy’s readability (next edit) is directly part of the “bucket brigade” copy transitions. They are called bucket brigade because they keep moving the reader forward and through the copy. Use words and phrases like these:

•    And that’s just the beginning…

•    As you read on, I’ll tell you more about how…

•    But before we go into that,…

•    But better still…

•    But don’t take my word for it…

•    But I’m jumping ahead. Let me tell you how this all came about:

•    Here’s more…

•    Fact is,…

•    Here’s the deal:

•    Here’s the scary part:

•    Listen, there’s more. Lots more.

•    My strong hunch is…

•    Needless to say,…

•    What this all boils down to is..

•    What’s more,…

•    What’s the catch?

•    Then it hit me…

•    Wait, there’s more…

Anytime you can use a copy transition – it will help keep the reader sliding down the slippery slope we’re creating that ultimate ends in the sale. (I have compiled 226 I use that are part of my copywriting workshop material)

Phase 6 Edit: General Flow    

I don’t know what it is about reading something aloud versus reading to yourself, but you’ll pick up lots and lots of insight into how good (or bad) your ad really is by reading it aloud. All the bumps and rough spots jump out at you.

Or a variation on this is to have someone else read it you. This is even better. As they’re reading it, you should take out a copy of the ad and make notes on it. One big advantage of this is your reader is completely impartial. He won’t stress certain phrases or words to make the meaning clearer. And if the reader is having trouble you know that’s an area to edit.

Also, at this editing phase I like to see if I can change some of the “I”, “We” or “Me”s to “You’s” and make most of the sentences geared to the readers benefit. i.e.

“We are giving you 6 must-have bonuses” to “You’ll get 6 must-have bonuses”.

Much stronger that way. A simple start of a sentence you cannot over-use is “You get…”

Phase 7 Edit: Sleep On It 

First, you should let your ad sit for at least a day. Then the next day you can come back to it with new eyes and a fresher perspective. You can find errors that weren’t apparent before. Also, your chances of writing a good ad are significantly improved with rewriting. (I will rewrite an ad or letter 3, 4 or 5 times before I’m done.)

If you do not have the luxury of an extra day – even a few hours will help to give you a new perspective on the writing.

Phase 8 Edit: Grammar and Spelling Edit   

This is my final pass through and I will typically have someone else who is much better at grammar and English look at my work. Not I definitely take this with a grain of salt because a copywriter’s grammar is usually not proper English but I don’t want to look like a total dunce when I confuse ‘their’ and ‘there’.

Now I know most people will not go through all 9 8 copy editing phases – but I promise it will dramatically improve the power of your writing!

***

Note: If you really want to get serious about copywriting – our Ultimate At-Home Internet Copywriting Workshop is a must-have resource. Over 1579 pages of swipe files, formulas, etc. Plus an entire manual with actual examples of copy I’ve critiqued and gone through the 9 phases of copy editing. I strongly suggest this resource! (Yes, I left one out in this blog post because it involves my proprietary 68-point copy checklist.)

Okay I think I need to admit I was wrong.

I’ve been telling my friends that Twitter is one of the silliest things in the world – but now I might have to eat my words…

You see, I was thinking about Twitter for my own personal use – i.e. wanted to know exactly what my friends were doing at all times. Who cares? Well – it seems like a lot of people do. In fact, I just started updating my Twitter profile – you can follow me at www.twitter.com/yaniksilver (So in case you wonder what’s going on in my world aside from when I update this blog – you can follow along! Plus, I’ve got a new Amazon Kindle ebook reader that I’m going to give away to someone who follows me. Not sure how yet – but we’ll figure out something fun together. So click here to follow me.)

The reason I’m going to be using it is applying to what I’ve discussed before in a recent Secret Society newsletter – and that is applying personality to your web presence. Twitter is perfect for this. Just a quick recap in case you haven’t seen twitter – it’s a “microblogging” platform. You’ve got 140 characters that you can update via web or text messaging and let your ‘followers’ know what you are doing at this moment.

For companies who want to put out more personality – this is great. Tony Hseih, CEO of Zappos.com, who spoke at Underground® 4 is using Twitter in a big way. He’s got over 9,026 followers (that’s huge). Funny enough, I was buying new flip flops and on the thank you page at Zappos – they had an invitation to follow Tony via Twitter. Check out Tony’s twitter profile at www.twitter.com/zappos

Notice the kinds of ‘tweets’ he puts out. Not too much to do with business but a whole lot to do with the personality of Zappos. It’s about solidifying the fact they truly live their values. Tony is such a big fan he’s even put up a page on Zappos dedicated to Twitter and getting started with it -
http://twitter.zappos.com/start

If you go back and look at the history of Tony’s tweets – they are a tiny amount that are promotional in nature.

I think this is taking blogging to the next level. I love my blog for the interactivity and the ability to transmit my personality across to readers – creating that bond. With Twitter – you can do this 140 characters at a time. Try it and don’t forget to follow me for a chance to win that Amazon Kindle.

What do you think?

*

I have to give credit to John Reese to opening my eyes to the potential here on Twitter. Now as ‘big, bad marketers’ we are always looking at new ways to getting our message across – but Twitter is interesting because only your ‘followers’ will get your messages. So you cannot blatantly bombard your twitter contacts with pitches because they’ll stop following you (just like opting out). If you don’t have anything interesting to say or do (hmmm….like a HALO skydive!) then they’ll drop you. John covers Twitter and a slew of other new ways to get traffic to your site in his new Traffic Secrets 2.0 resource. It goes on sale today at noon.

As some of you know I was just in Necker Island, Sir Richard Branson’s private island. I came as a guest of my friends, Joe Polish and Dean Graziosi.

They had developed a relationship with Richard and set up for us to hold a brainstorming session with Virgin’s charity foundation – VirginUnite. Branson has always been one of my business heroes from the way he lives his life to the fullest to his business success. I’ve been fortunate to have the chance to meet many of my mentors/heroes and most of them left me feeling uninspired. With Branson – it’s the opposite. I’m even more impressed and inspired.

I met Richard for a few moments at SpaceShip Two’s unveiling but this was exponentially different. Being with him and about a dozen other guests created a cool, intimate environment for real conversation and interaction. Here’s a quick pic of us at the first night’s dinner BBQ on the beach:

And here’s my view every morning on Necker:

I’ll be sharing some more pictures, videos, observations and insights shortly. (A little teaser – I’ll tell you about how I got kicked off Necker Island in the next post.)

Getting back to it, I was flying on the way home from Necker and I was so inspired with our time there that I started creating my rules for successful entrepreneurial endeavors. I thought it would be top 10 list but I kept writing and writing in my journal and it came to 34 tenets that I’m calling…

34 Rules for Maverick Entrepreneurs

1. It’s got to be a BIG idea that you, your team and your customers can “get” in seconds.
2. Strive to create 10x – 100x in value for any price you charge. Your rewards are always proportionate to the value you provide.
3. You must charge a premium price so you have a large margin to provide an extraordinary value & experience.
4. Provide a ‘Reason Why’ customers should do business with you and pay you a premium.
5. Get paid before you deliver your product or service. And when possible figure out how to create recurring revenue from transactions.
6. You get to make the rules for your business. Don’t let industry norms dictate how you’ll work or who you’ll work with.
7. Create your business around your life instead of settling for your life around your business.
8. Consistently and constantly force yourself to focus on the ‘critically few’ proactive activities that produce exponential results. Don’t get caught up in minutia & bullshit.
9. Seek to minimize start-up risk but have maximum upside potential.
10. Get your idea out there as fast as possible even if it’s not quite ready by setting must-hit deadlines. Let the market tell you if you have a winner or not. If not – move on and fail forward fast! If it’s got potential – then you can make it better.
11. Find partners and team members who are strong where you are weak and appreciate being paid on results.
12. Your reputation always counts. Honor your obligations and agreements.
13. Never, ever get paid based on hours worked.
14. Leverage your marketing activities exponentially by using direct response methods and testing.
15. Measure and track your marketing so you know what’s working and what’s not.
16. Bootstrap. Having too much capital leads to incredible waste and doing things using conventional means.
17. Your partners and employees actions are their true core – not what they tell you.
18. Keep asking the right questions to come up with innovative solutions. “How?”, “What?”, “Where?”, “Who Else?” & “Why?” open up possibilities.
19. You’ll never have a perfect business and you’ll never be totally “done”. Deal with it.
20. Focus most of your time on your core strengths and less time working in areas you suck at.
21. Make it easier for customers to buy by taking away the risk of the transaction by guaranteeing what you do in a meaningful way.
22. Always have something else to sell (via upsell, cross-sell, follow-up offer, etc) whenever a transaction takes place. The hottest buyer in the world is one who just gave you money.
23. Always go back to your existing customers with exceptional offers and reasons they should give you more money. It’s 5x less expensive to sell to happy customers than go find new ones.
24. However the flip side is – fire your most annoying customers. They’ll be replaced with the right ones.
25. The marketplace and competitors are always trying to beat you down to a commodity. Don’t let that happen.
26. Develop and build your business’s personality that stands out. People want to buy from people.
27. Create your own category so you can be first in the consumer’s mind.
28. Go the opposite direction competitors are headed – you’ll stand out.
29. Mastermind and collaborate with other smart entrepreneurs if they have futures that are even bigger than their present.
30. Celebrate your victories. It’s too easy to simply move on to your next goal without acknowledging and appreciating the ‘win’.
31. Make your business AND doing business with you FUN!
32. Do the unexpected before and after anything goes wrong so customers are compelled to ‘share your story’.
33. Get a life! Business and making money are important but your life is the sum total of your experiences. Go out and create experiences & adventures so you can come back renewed and inspired for your next big thing.
34. Give back! Commit to taking a % of your company’s sales and make a difference. It this becomes a habit like brushing your teeth pretty soon the big checks with lots of zeros won’t be scary to write. If you think you can’t donate a percentage of your sales simply raise your price.

Side note on #34: Now after meeting and brainstorming with the team at VirginUnite – I’d strongly recommend them as a candidate because of the way they are creating entrepreneurial solutions to significant problems and a force for good. As entrepreneurs we know we can foster innovative solutions to business problems – this is the same force being tapped for the greater good. I’m really excited about some of their projects and what us, as entrepreneurs, can do together. You’ll be hearing more about this soon.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on these.

* Update 11/2/08 *

From the incredible feedback of people asking to translate the list, post to their site, send to their list, etc – I decided to turn the 34 rules into a full blown “real” book, expanding each rule into its own section with examples and more insights. Plus, I had best-selling author, Mike Litman, interview me to go even deeper into the 34 rules.

* * And I want to give you a copy of it and a bunch of other goodies! * *