Tom Ruwitch

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Joey Chestnut, Michael Jordan, and You?

By Tom Ruwitch

Greetings from the wild blue yonder, 35,000 feet above flyover country, en route from St. Louis to Boston. I’m sitting in seat 2C pondering these riddles: Is hotdog-eating a sport? Is Joey Chestnut an athlete? In case you missed the headlines this weekend, Joey “Jaws” Chestnut won another July 4th hotdog eating contest on Coney…

Why Scammers Purposely Write Terrible Emails

By Tom Ruwitch

A few years back, an email landed in my inbox from a “friend.” “Hope you are doing well? It takes me great pain to write this email to you and I feel so devastated. My family and I had a trip visiting Manila,(Philippines) unannounced some days back for a short vacation, unfortunately we were robbed…

Avoid This Personalization Mistake

By Tom Ruwitch

I got an email this morning from a guy pitching website development that opened like this: “Hi [First Name]” Not “Hi Tom.” Not “Hi.” The email actually said “Hi [First Name]” That, boys and girls, is personalization gone wrong. It’s a total turn-off. Here’s a simple fix to keep your emails from turning off prospects:…

RecomMONDAYtions ~ 2026.07.06

By Tom Ruwitch

Recommended Reading “Operator Error” by Seth Godin If people keep making the same “dumb” mistake with your product, that’s not on them. It’s on you. This post will change how you see every support ticket, complaint, and “user error” your business gets. Seth Godin breaks down three ways products set people up to fail: letting…

Independence Day

By Tom Ruwitch

My daughter, Maddie, lives in Philadelphia, walking distance from Independence Hall. That’s the place where Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, John Hancock and other members of The Second Continental Congress gathered to debate, adopt, and eventually sign The Declaration of Independence. They gathered there 250 years ago. You can still visit the room where…

More Clients. Less Lifting.

By Tom Ruwitch

Yesterday, I shared a couple of stories about marketing experts who use social media to build their lists and emails to drive sales. I promised I would share ways to implement this strategy without working your tail off. Here’s one way: Get someone to implement the strategy for you. What if you had a trusted…

Facebook Fainted & She Still Cashed In. How?

By Tom Ruwitch

Remember that time when Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp all went down for six hours on the same day? It was October 4, 2021. And the world — at least many of the 3.5 billion account holders who lost their precious social media access — went bananas. But not Amy Porterfield. Soon after that dark…

A Strange Thing About Mark Zuckerberg

By Tom Ruwitch

Check out the trailer for Aaron Sorkin’s new movie, “The Social Reckoning” (watch it here). My takeaway after watching it: Mark Zuckerberg has a very stiff neck. “Stiff” as in immobile. Stiff as in Tin Man (get that guy an oil can!) We see the guy throughout the 2:29 trailer, and he doesn’t twist his…

RecomMONDAYtions ~ 2026.06.29

By Tom Ruwitch

Recommended Video Inside the Mind of a Procrastinator Why do you cram? Why do you scroll? Why is the most important project on your list also the one you can’t seem to start? Tim Urban answers all of it in this TED talk — with three characters living in your head: The Rational Decision-Maker (the…

I Think You’ll Enjoy This…

By Tom Ruwitch

In honor of National Take Your Dog to Work Day, I thought you’d like this email I wrote a while back about my crazy-doodle, Moose. It’s the story of how Moose’s hopeless squirrel-hunting strategy is the same strategy killing many businesses’ marketing… …and what wolves figured out 10,000 years ago that you can do today…