Joey Chestnut, Michael Jordan, and You?

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 Island by swallowing 66 hotdogs in just 10 minutes. He’s won the contest 18 times in 19 years…

…which prompted this take from some blowhard on a local sports-talk radio station: “Joey Chestnut is the greatest athlete of the 21st century.”

Good golly, that got the radio blowhards blowing. The debate was fierce.

The naysayers said hot dog eating is NOT a sport.

Team-Joey argued he trains like a world-class athlete. Weighted head lifts to build the jaw, air-gulping crunches to condition his throat. And a notebook logging every practice meal so he can adjust and improve.

He enters each contest with a strategy, a detailed game plan that he revises on the fly. He studies his competitors and learns from what they do well. He does whatever it takes to win.

Reminds me of Michael Jordan…

…and world-class marketers.

I don’t think Joey Chestnut and top marketers are “world-class athletes.”

But I know marketers improve their odds of success — dramatically! — when they behave like world-class athletes.

Carefully crafted strategies. Detailed playbooks. Studying the competition. Practicing. Adjusting. Never just winging it.

I’ve written a playbook that contains everything I know about how to create content –without writer’s block — that attracts leads and leads clients.

It costs less than a chili dog, fries, and a coke at Nathan’s Hotdogs on Coney Island.

You can get it here.