Why Yogi’s “Nonsense” Can Help you Grow your Business

I’ve got Yogi on my mind.

Yogi Berra, that is. 

He’s the baseball hall-of-famer who grew up three miles, due south, from where I currently sit in St. Louis, MO. 

Yogi’s in the news because of a new documentary about him that opened this week. 

It’s called “It Ain’t Over…” 

…as in, “It ain’t over ’til it’s over.” 

Yogi said that.  It might be the most famous of all his quotes. 

He also allegedly said…

“I never said most of the things I said.” 

“The future ain’t what it used to be.”

“You can observe a lot by just watching.”

“When you come to a fork in the road…. take it.”

“You’ve got to be very careful if you don’t know where you are going, because you might not get there.”

“If the world was perfect, it wouldn’t be.”

“Ninety percent of the game is half mental.”

People who like big words roll their eyes and laugh at Yogi’s “malapropisms.”

(Google “Yogi’s malapropisms.” You’ll see.) 

They cast Yogi as a clown. 

I read these Yogi-isms and see wisdom — deep as Yoda’s. 

Take this Yogi-ism: 

“If people don’t want to come to the ballpark, how are you gonna stop them?”

Wise words, Yogi!

Some marketers start with their product and services, chirp about how great they are, and strive to convince and cajole people to buy — as if they can impart desire in people who don’t have it. 

Here’s the problem: 

Whether you’re selling baseball or business services…

…you can’t create desire in the marketplace. You only can tap it. 

Hall-of-Fame copywriter Eugene Schwartz put it this way, in the first lines of his book Breakthrough Advertising:

Let’s get right down to the heart of the matter. The power, the force, the overwhelming urge to own that makes advertising work, comes from the market itself, and not from the copy. Copy cannot create desire for a product. It can only take the hopes, dreams, fears and desires that already exist in the hearts of millions of people, and focus those already-existing desires onto a particular product. This is the copy writer’s task: not to create this mass desire — but to channel and direct it.” 

That ain’t no malaprop! 

If you want to create great, client-attracting content, you have to begin by discovering the hopes, dreams, fears, and desires that already exist in the market. 

Don’t start with the product and aim to convince and convert. 

Start by discovering the prospect’s stories and aim to reveal how your products and services enable the journeys they wish to take. 

That’s why my upcoming do-it-with-you mastermind, Content Marketing Masters, will focus first on Story Discovery — how to discover the mass desire in your market so you can tap into it with client-attracting content. 

Want to learn more about Content Marketing Masters? Reply to this email, and I’ll circle back with details.