Bad Examples
Yesterday, I met on Zoom with the wise and wonderful David Baer to record an episode for his podcast. I told a bunch of stories… …the one about the executive coach who used storytelling to turn her content from boring to brilliant… …the one about the world’s greatest copywriter who never suffered from writer’s block…
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Some people don’t know how to take “no” for an answer. Take Brecht D. who messaged me six days after we connected on LinkedIn. He said he “collaborates” with businesses like mine to “scale to $100k+ /mo profit through our Neuro-Emotional Persuasion Scaling model.” Brecht asked: “Are you opposed to having a brief conversation around…
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When the Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson heard The Beatles’ “Rubber Soul” in December 1965, he was blown away… …and he was inspired. Legend has it he told his wife, Marilyn, he was going to produce “the greatest rock album ever made.” (Holy Ambition, Batman!) Six months later, on this day (May 16) in 1966, The…
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Earlier this week, I emailed about a spammer named Neel who tried to woo me with a picture of his puppy. It didn’t work. In my email, I wondered whether Neel-the-Spammer might have gotten me to bite on his podcast production services… …if he’d sent me a better attention grabber — such as a dancing goat…
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Last week, I called out a social media influencer who crossed the line. She posted on LinkedIn about the a program she was selling. Below the post she added 10 comments. In each comment, she tagged 30 of her connections. No commentary in the comments. Just tagged connections — 300 in all. Why’d she do…
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May I vent a little? Last week, I got an email from a business coach (let’s call him “Pinocchio”) who pitched Sai Blackbyrn’s free course. Sai is a well-established coach-for-coaches with a complex marketing machine. Pinocchio wrote: “I have something very special for you, I just got off the phone with my friend, Forbes-featured, best-selling…
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A cautionary tale about the wrong way to conduct email marketing… Last July, I met an executive coach and author who impressed me. So I bought his book and joined his email list. That month, he emailed me a pitch to join his mastermind program. A month later, he sent another mastermind pitch. Then silence…
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A cautionary tale about TikTok, other social platforms, and online advertising channels. A marketer posted a cry for help on a public forum last week: “Engagement on TikTok went down significantly … HELP!” He used to get 10,000+ views and “lots of engagement” with each TikTok post. All of a sudden, views and engagement plummeted.…
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My AI copywriting robot is full of feces Before I explain with a story, two things you must know: 1) This is IMPORTANT for anyone who uses ChatGPT or other AI-powered content-generators. Yes, this email is long. But I encourage you to read it top-to-bottom. I don’t use all-caps often. When I say IMPORTANT, I mean…
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I know a business coach who’s great at what she does but struggles to sell it. We’re in a mastermind group together, and during our last meeting she asked how to promote her new program. Ideas flew around the Zoom room — mostly about ways to get new leads. “Try Pinterest,” someone suggested. And then…
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