Miscellaneous Briefs

Force of Habit

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I spent ten years writing about self-improvement. I wrote more than a thousand essays and a dozen books. And as I wrote, I tried to walk my talk.

What I discovered is this: It is very difficult to change one’s behavior.

Most people don’t admit (even to themselves) that they need to change. These people are usually very good at pointing out why other people should.

Some people know they should change but never even try. The best of them have a sense of humor about it.

Others know they should change and try mightily to do so but fail. I haven’t figured out whether these people should be admired or ridiculed.

A very small number of people decide to change and then do. Or perhaps I should say that they identify one thing about themselves that needs changing and make that change. Whenever I encounter someone who has changed some fundamental quality or habit I am very impressed.

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Miscellaneous Essays

Stop Selling When You Are Ahead

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“I saw the most amazing movie last night. You’ve got to see it,” Jane says.

“Tell me more,” says Mary.

“Well, Ryan Gosling stars in it. And also Jennifer Lawrence.”

“My favorite actors,” says Mary.

“They have a hot romance going on in the movie…”

“Sounds great…”

“And there’s this scene where Ryan has his shirt off and…”

“Say no more,” says Mary. “I’m going!”

“And he takes his shirt off and all of a sudden this horrible thing pops out of his chest and…”

“What?”

“This creature from another dimension pops out…”

“What kind of movie is this?”

“Sort of science fiction/horror…”

“Ugh. Forget it. I hate horror movies.”

What’s wrong with this conversation?

In an attempt to persuade her friend Mary to see the movie, Jane made a big mistake – a mistake that is very common in the world of business: She continued to sell the product after the customer was already sold.

In their textbook Hospitality Sales: Selling Smarter,
 Judy A. Siguaw and David C. Bojanic said:

If you have made a good presentation and the prospects are satisfied that the benefits offered will improve their situation, and are believable, any further presentation is overselling. Overselling can create, in the mind of the prospects, a feeling of disbelief as to the validity of the owner benefits. It can also result in the loss of favorable attention because excessive repetition of benefits and use of other motivational tools can lead to boredom or confusion, which, in turn, causes an unfavorable emotional reaction.

In other words, “overselling” will kill your sale.

You can prevent this from happening by learning how to recognize the moment your customer is ready to buy. If you continue to sell beyond this point, her enthusiasm for the product is going to wane. Not only that, but you risk saying something – like Jane’s description of the creature bursting from Ryan Gosling’s chest – that will quash her interest in an instant.

In this regard, people who do their selling face to face have an advantage over those who do their selling via direct mail or the Internet. By paying close attention to the effect their words are having on their customers, they can custom tailor each sales presentation. If the customer looks doubtful, they can pile on proof of their claims. If the customer looks confused, they can clarify the point they’re trying to make by restating it – over and over again, if need be.

And when a customer begins giving signals that he is ready to buy, astute salespeople know the time is right to swoop in and close the sale.

These are the clues they look for in the customer:

  • A relaxed position – arms open, facing the salesperson
  • Excitement in the eyes
  • Nodding the head
  • Oral affirmations – saying “yes,” “right,” “uh huh”

When you are writing direct-mail or online sales copy, you don’t have signals like these to guide you. So you have to find another way to keep your sales message on track. To my knowledge, there isn’t any generally accepted way to do this. But I’ve experimented with a few techniques, and have hit upon one that works pretty well.

I’m talking about putting your copy through a peer review.

The process I recommend is the same one that many of my best clients use. Basically, here’s how it works:

You put together a group of five or six people – ideally, experienced marketers and copywriters. You ask them to rate the various parts of your copy – the headline, lead, body, and close – and give specific suggestions for improving them. You also ask your reviewers to indicate any sections that are boring, unbelievable, or confusing. And you ask them to highlight the point in the copy where they feel ready to buy.

That point should be about two-thirds to three-quarters of the way through the copy. If it comes much earlier, you know you have to delete some of the “overselling” you do after that point and move directly to the close. (If it doesn’t happen at all, you know you have to completely revamp the sales copy and make it stronger.)

Don’t make the mistake Jane made and “talk” yourself out of a sale. You’ll be blowing a perfectly good opportunity… and you’ll never know why.

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Miscellaneous Briefs

Unfinished Business

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I have a library of at least a thousand books, a third of which I have never read. I’d like to. I also have twenty years’ worth of memos I’ve written that I’d like to re-read.

I have always fancied that I’d spend the last five or ten years of my life seated comfortably in a chair across from the ocean, catching up on all that reading.

I’m not sure I’ll actually do this since I am habituated to more active intellectual challenges, such as running businesses and writing. But the idea appeals to me.

There could be worse ways to fade out of the picture.

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Miscellaneous Essays

How to Beat the Best

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It’s always good to get a compliment.

When I rewrote the lead for a promotion that “GX”, a successful copywriter, had been paid to write for one of my clients a few years ago, I felt good about my revision. The sales copy GX had sent in was standard, run-of-the-mill professional palaver. My take on it felt fresh and strong. It was better.

But when I sent it back to my client, I was worried that GX might not like the fact that I had changed it so much. Perhaps he would feel slighted and reject it. We couldn’t force him to accept my changes. If he insisted on going with his original submission, my client would be in an awkward position: She could risk offending a potentially good source of future copy… or she could mail what we both believed was weaker copy and suffer the economic consequences.

Luckily, she didn’t have to make that choice. After reading my new lead (along with my suggestions on how to finish out the rest of the package), GX wrote:

I thought: “Why couldn’t I write it like that?”… but then I realized that’s why Mark is so successful. I’m honored that he took the time to do it… I appreciate the effort… my challenge now is to make the rest as strong as Mark’s contribution… make us all proud.

This story has two morals.

The first is about ego and its opposite – i.e., humility. The greatest challenges we face in life are obstacles that reside inside of us. When it comes to learning a complicated skill like writing (copywriting, editorial writing, writing for blogs, e-zines, books, etc.), the one thing that will keep you from learning it quickly is hubris.

Hubris is Aristotle’s term for excessive, blinding pride. It is the fatal flaw that foiled many tragic heroes in literature, from Oedipus to King Lear to Captain Ahab. When writers believe – or desperately want to believe (which is sometimes worse) – that their writing is above reproach, they cannot possibly get better.

And what is true for writers is equally true for musicians, tennis players, salsa dancers, sumo wrestlers, and skateboarders. Those who are willing to say “I can do better” do better. Those who say “I am the greatest” soon take a tumble.

What you want in your career is the confidence that follows accomplishment, not the pride that precedes a fall.

When I saw the note that GX wrote, I was mildly flattered by the compliment. But what really made me happy was his willingness to agree that my copy was better… and challenge himself to write better copy himself.

So that’s the first lesson: No matter how good you are at what you do, there’s someone out there who can teach you something.
Think about your strongest skill – the talent or capability that is most important to the achievement of your main goal. Now ask: “Am I willing to acknowledge that there are people in my universe who are better at this?”

If you can confidently accept the limitations of your strongest skill, there is no limit to how far you can develop it.

And now we come to the second moral of this story: The only good way to improve a skill is to practice it. Reading about it is certainly helpful. Talking about it with people who are experts may work too. But no amount of reading and talking will do nearly as much as regular, focused practice.

And that’s what GX should know about his future as a copywriter. If he continues to practice his craft – while taking advantage of everything he can learn from more experienced and skillful copywriters – the likelihood that he will be great one day is better than 99 percent.

I am certain of that. Why? Because I have seen it happen. I have worked with more than a dozen copywriters over the years who have moved from bad to pretty good (and GX is pretty good)… and then from pretty good to very good… and then from very good to better than the best. All it takes is practice.

With practice and a willingness to keep learning, GX will almost certainly surpass some of the best copywriters in the business.

It is just a matter of time.

Here’s something else to consider:

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Notes From My Journal

Great Poets

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If you read poetry, there are many great American poets to choose from.

I recently read a list that recommended the following: Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, William Cullen Bryant, and Henry David Thoreau.

Among modern and contemporary poets, the list included Maya Angelou, Amiri Baraka, Louise Bogan, Robert Bly, E. E. Cummings, T. S. Eliot, Jane Hirshfield, Langston Hughes, W. S. Merwin, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Mary Oliver, Wallace Stevens, and William Carlos Williams.

I don’t think Maya Angelou, Amiri Baraka, Jane Hirshfield, or Louise Bogan belong on this list. They are successful writers among academics and, in Angelou’s case, among the popular crowd but they are not great writers.

Missing from the list are Ezra Pound, Robert Frost, Robert Penn Warren, John Ashbery, Robert Lowell, and Charles Simic.

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Miscellaneous Essays

The Unpleasant Truth About Asking for Favors

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I recently intercepted a memo from a partner of mine. It appeared to be a nothing-much memo regarding a not-all-that-important request for a favor from a business associate – but I intervened because I thought it could ultimately be damaging.

Mutual back scratching, as I’ve often said, is a big part of good business. All the successful business relationships I know of – at least the ones that last – involve a lot of back and forth. I do such and such for John, and sometime in the future he will reciprocate. If he doesn’t, I cross him off my list. Unless I’ve done him a foolishly big favor in the first place, losing my good will costs him more than he gained from my initial service.

It’s all about give and take.

Smart businesspeople (those who think long-term) don’t demand an immediate quid pro quo. They are happy to let the credits add up by helping out where they can. But unless they are saint-like, they do keep a running tab in their heads. And when the time comes to ask for service in return, they expect it.

That’s the way it should be. And when businesspeople act that way, they prosper. Just as important, the products and services they offer tend to improve because of the exchange of information and technology. And this benefits their customers.
But not every businessperson is that smart. Many fall short when it comes to cooperation in general and favors in particular. If you randomly selected a dozen business owners and lined them up against a wall, you’d find a considerable range of enlightenment as far as cooperation is concerned.

And that’s why you have to be careful when you ask for favors. Because the person from whom you are requesting a service may not think of it the same way as you do. Such was the case with the favor my partner was about to ask in the memo I intercepted.
The favor was for the other company to do some printing and mailing for her – things she would have been happy to do for them. But what I think she failed to understand was the reaction her request was likely to cause. I happen to know the people who run that business. I’ve worked with them for years. And though they are good people, they have a tendency (in my view) to overvalue their work and undervalue that of others.

There was another factor, too, that she failed to take into consideration. My partner’s view of the favor she was asking was somewhat distorted. Because she runs a smaller business, it would have been fairly easy for her to personally manage the printing of a job for them. But since their operation is larger, a similar task would have involved several people … and required checks and double-checks… with no organized way to account for the work done.

Between my partner’s honest misunderstanding of what she was asking and the tendency of those she asked to overvalue their contribution, trouble was brewing. They would have done what she asked, but my partner would have incurred a big “You owe me.” A debt she wouldn’t recognize – which would have made matters worse.

My advice to her?

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Miscellaneous Briefs

Stay the Path

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If you have a good marketing idea, there is no limit to the number of times you can present it to your prospects and/or customers. You may think that they will tire of hearing it just because you are tired of writing it… but you’re wrong.

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Miscellaneous Essays

Are You a Leader or a Team Player?

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As TH began explaining the rules, I felt the clutch of anxiety. His brainstorming technique, said to have originated in the offices of Walt Disney, required a level playing field. There would be no criticism of anyone else’s suggestions. No challenges, questions, or refutations. Everyone’s contribution was to be given equal weight – and, in the end, we’d all vote equally on those we wished to keep.

I’m not wired for that sort of thing. When it comes to group activities, I like an active, competitive game. I like to test my skills against whatever is out there and see how I do – find out where I stack up.

To me, cooperating with a crowd feels like surrendering. If everyone agrees that door one is the right choice, I’m almost certain to knock on numero dos. But I had agreed to come to TH’s creative seminar, and I didn’t want to make an already challenging job more difficult for him. So I batted down my ego and played by the rules.

His game felt childish. It involved group stretching, scribbling phrases on index cards, shouting out suggestions, and pressing paper dots on a montage of sometimes childish ideas. The purpose was to “break out of the box” that our left-sided, overly analytical professional brains had been stuck in. We were trying to get ourselves to a state of mind where “breakthroughs” could evolve.

I didn’t like it, but it did work. In less than three hours, we had accomplished more than we would have in any other brainstorming session of the same length. We had, moreover, come up with some stuff I would have never come to on my own.

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