Zombies, Pole Dancers, and Videotape
NOTE: This is a guest post by Elizabeth Potts-Weinstein. I know, I know… I don’t really accept guest posts. But this is Elizabeth we’re talking about here. She’s like the female me. So I figure it’s essentially like me writing the post, except that I get to play Rock Band while “I” am writing. Now that’s leverage!
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“Go ahead and come up with a topic” sounds like this really cool and awesome thing when you’re guest posting.
Until you’re cuddled up in bed with your laptop. Thighs sweating from the heat of the battery radiating into your lap. Your 5 year old whining from being forced (?!) to watch SpongeBob on Netflix streaming, yet again. The deadline is 87 minutes away.
And your eyes are watering from squinting at the blazingly white, blank, TextEdit screen.
Yep. That’s me. A few seconds ago.
Right before I asked myself various lingo-filled classic marketing questions: “Okay EPW (yes I call myself that when I’m alone. Yes, I understand this is weird.), what is the Johnny B. Truant brand?”
What topic would resonate with his audience? What’s his target market? What are the JBT unique selling points?
And one word came to mind.
Zombies.
Not brilliant yet witty tag lines full of internet marketing profoundity. Not wordpress sites, not questioning the rules, not jam sessions, not zero to business. No.
Just. Zombies.
And that, my dears, is the entire freaking point.
To find your tribe, to evangelize your brand, to engage your readers, to build a sustainable business …
you must share the glorious zombiefication that is you.
Now of course, yours might not be actual zombiefication.
Yours might be a dozen slightly creepy yet soft & cuddly housecats. Yours might be a smoke-filled RV driving down that one-lane “rental car contracts invalidated” highway on the south side of Maui. Yours might be a nerdy NSFW tattooed pole dancer in a snarky tshirt, hiding her iPhone sexts from her 5 year old “thank god she can’t read yet” daughter. (Yes, that last one is me. Oy.)
But sharing your glorious zombiefication is not the big secret of today’s blog post. No.
The big secret is that you must find the particular flavor of the sexy zombie pole dancer that’s living inside of you.
And as much as I wish I could sell you a “magical fairies growing you money trees in your backyard” solution to this problem … yeah. Sorry about that. There are no freaking magical fairies who can see into your soul. (Well, if there are, I think they’re busy. I mean, if you were a magical fairy, you’d be spying on sexy naked people instead of looking into the murk of people’s souls? Am I right?)
The only way to find your zombiefication is to stop talking about whatever you’re talking about now, and start talking about your zombieficiation.
But oy, it’s not that easy to switch. Oh yes, I know.
You see, if you could read my blog posts from 18 months ago (you can’t, those babies have been obliterated from the internets. I hope.), they would completely freak you out.
Because those posts were written by a lawyer.
(Yes, I was the lawyer. Just wanted to make sure that anyone who’s reading this while drinking or after being up all night with a newborn was on the same page with the rest of us. Are we all caught up? Right. Carry on.)
Those post were boring fancifications, dense with complexities. Never offending. Never taking a side. They were pantyhose and ties (and not in a kinky way).
Those posts were vanilla.
After reading my blog, people would meet me in person. They’d say, “wow, you’re cool / funny / interesting / relaxed / casual / nice and look more young / fun / cute / approachable / warm than I thought you would be!” in this happy yet surprised voice. Oy.
But I couldn’t figure out how to write any other way.
So I had to stop writing.
For six months.
But in the meanwhile, I had to do something!! I had to keep giving away “valuable content” and keep doing all that new age “relationship marketing” stuff!
So instead of writing, I made video blogs.
About how to seduce me. About how goals suck, focus sucks, info products suck, the marketing funnel sucks. About my divorce. About walking on the moon. About my kid. About my life.
And after shutting up for six months, after making dozens of videos blogs, I found myself.
When I went back to writing, the comment section on my blog exploded. (Not actually exploded, that would be scary and rackspace would probably cancel my hosting contract. I just mean I got lots of comments.)
For the first time, I met, even exceeded my goals for selling my programs. I found my tribe. Was able to speak the truth that everyone thought & no one was speaking.
Claimed my weird. Had fun. Went on adventures. Found my ecstasy.
All because I shut up the how of how I had been speaking, and found myself another how to speak.
So here’s is my simple-yet-scary invitation to you.
If you can’t find your truth by writing a blog post, if one how is not working for you, shut that how up and speak somehow else.
Make video blogs or stupid comedy sketches or short-length documentaries. Zing 140 character one liners on twitter. Take snarky photos and post them to your Flickr account. Draw cartoons. Make apple butter. Proclaim your insanities from the top of a banker’s box at the corner of 3rd and Market.
Bottom line … shut the hell up.
And, maybe for the first time, you’ll finally start to speak.
And find your sexy zombie fluffy cat smoke filled RV pole dancer.
I can’t wait to meet her. (I bet she’s hot!! Make sure you get her on video.)
#thatisall
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Elizabeth Potts-Weinstein (or “EPW,” as she calls herself even in private) can teach you how to get your sexy zombie fluffy cat smoke filled RV pole dancer thing going, whatever that ends up meaning, whether you think you’re good on camera or not. You really should check out her Live Your Truth on Video course (it’s up now and will close soon… check it pronto) so that you can get in on her live Q&A session where she’ll do critiques and shit. Seriously. This is fun stuff, kiddies.
5 Tips for Disruptive Thinking (Or, How to Get a Pompous Classist Like Johnny B. Truant to Feature You on His Blog)
What Sam Rosen says in the intro to his guest post below is true… I’m really not so into accepting guest posts because this isn’t so much a “business blog” as it’s “that one asshole’s blog.” When that one asshole isn’t the person writing, it feels strange. (Drew Kime holds some incriminating info on me, which is why I ran his post recently. But hopefully those hearings will be over soon and the statute of limitations will expire.)
So the reasons I’m running today’s guest post by Sam Rosen are twofold:
1. Sam is doing this really interesting thing that I’ve never seen before — 60 speakers in 60 minutes giving their best tips on online influence — and you all will like it. (I’m planning to like it myself, actually.) It’s totally and completely free, so there’s no reason not to do it. I also don’t stand to benefit from it at all, which both irks me and makes me feel like Mother Theresa.
2. I needed a post, and it made sense to talk about Sam’s thing (because naturally, I’m in it… since I’m a whore). However, I had the choice of doing the hard work myself or saying, “Yeah, Sam, why don’t you write it because I’m going on vacation in a bit and don’t want to write it myself? Have it on my desk by 9am tomorrow. And by ‘my desk,’ I mean to tie it around a rock and throw it through my window. And by ‘window,’ I mean my email account. And by ‘rock,’ I mean virus.”
So what follows is Sam working and doing my job for me. Enjoy.
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Recently, Johnny wrote that he rarely accepts guest posts. That’s not because he’s a cold-hearted, zombie-obsessed misanthrope who prefers hilarious chickens over fellow humans. It’s because he’s a pompous classist who only associates with Ivy League professors and captains of industry.
Okay, maybe not. If I added that biographical hue to Johnny’s non-existent Wikipedia page, I’d probably have at least 42 Truantians attempt to sue me for slander, including his biggest fan, Ann Coulter.
So why did he let me do a blog post?
It’s not because he has a penchant for Jewish entrepreneurs (JOHNNY’S NOTE: It’s not JUST because I have a penchant for Jewish entrepreneurs). I think it’s because my company, ThoughtLead, is doing something slightly unusual:
We’re putting on the shortest marketing conference ever. 60 of the web’s leading thinkers and doers (including Mr. Truant himself) will speak for 60 seconds each about how to increase your digital influence. On July 6th, at 6pm ET. It’s called the Influencer Project, and it’s sponsored by big companies (like HubSpot, Rackspace, and MarketingProfs).
How’d we think of the idea…and get so many people to join in on the fun?
We Questioned the Rules (Hmm… I like the sound of that. Maybe I’ll create an online course of the same title soon. Damn you, Truant! You win this time.)
You see, not too long ago, we launched another speaker series, called The Purposeful Product (which Johnny, Dave Navarro, and Chris Brogan are actually all speaking on this week). It got rave reviews. But it fell short of the buzz we had hoped for.
That’s because it wasn’t a disruptive idea. Despite the awesome speakers and content, the overall messaging was pretty standard. And, not surprisingly, it didn’t fly like we wanted it to (kind of like Truant’s chickens).
The Influencer Project, on the other hand, is different. It’s already spreading on Twitter, and people we don’t even know are blogging about it.
“A-listers” like Brian Clark, our Third Tribe fave, as well as Guy Kawasaki, Robert Scoble, Gary Vaynerchuk, Brian Solis, and John Jantsch are all speaking.
Frankly, we’re all a bit stunned, and that’s not just because Truant mailed us one of his chickens last night with the mysterious note, “She’s yours. Good luck.”
How to Think Disruptively
Truth is, we were tired of all the “me too” product launches, conferences, e-books, and blogs, and we wanted to do something radically different, something that created a lot of hoopla in a hurry.
So we questioned the rules, just like Johnny told us to (as well as getting a JBT apple-eating tattoo on our left ankles, which our parents weren’t too psyched about).
After recovering from the trauma of “inking” our ankles with Johnny’s admittedly dashing image, we endeavored to isolate five attributes of disruptive thinking. Here they are:
1. Think in terms of memes. “Question the Rules”; “Third Tribe”; and “Shortest Marketing Conference Ever” are all “repeatable” ideas that upend convention. They take schemas (rules, tribes, conferences) in the cultural zeitgeist and give them a twist. Think about Apple’s 1984 Superbowl commercial. It was 1984. The book 1984 represented all of the suits, the corporate meanies, the stodgy, uncreative bastards. They took that and turned it on its head.
So ask yourself: “Is this meme-worthy? Is this something that could spread?” If the answer’s “no,” you might be in trouble. If it’s “yes,” then keep going.
2. Create a collective ethos. If it’s just “your thing,” who cares? But if it’s about the community, if it’s an idea driven by people coming together and rallying around a cause, then you release a different kind of energy. We’re not lone warriors. We’re intersubjectively inclined human beings who, no matter how “big” we are, want to accomplish incredible things with others.
So ask yourself: are you facilitating a collective platform, or just worried about your own product, service, or idea?
3. Get other disruptors on board. The “influencers,” the people who are already in the public eye, are usually disruptors by nature. They think in different ways. They have styles that set them apart from others. They create memes. By making it easy for them to say “yes” (read: 60-second interview, plus a collective ethos, plus a meme), you not only begin to adopt their thinking—you become their partner in crime. (JOHNNY’S NOTE: I’ve had to decline a lot of interviews lately. “60 seconds” is EXACTLY what made me do this one — they made it easy to say yes.)
So ask yourself: are you making it easy and attractive for other disruptors to join you in the cause of innovation, and maybe even the creation of a new internet shoe empire?
4. Use language—creatively and memorably. When we were inviting A-listers, we used the sentence: “60 of the web’s leading thinkers speak for 60 seconds each about how to increase your digital influence for good and profit in the next 60 days, on July 6th at 6pm ET.” That grabs attention. We intentionally created a sense of rhythm, repetition, and repeatability (you might notice that I’m kind of into alliteration; like Johnny’s zombies, it’s an unhealthy obsession) so that it would “stick” in people’s minds.
So ask yourself: is your language memorable? Do you sound like a white heterosexual middle class religiously unremarkable man living in America, or does your idea have stickiness, repeatability, “memetic” mojo?
5. Create a pattern interrupt. For a long time, everyone selling information products online was using long-form sales letters. Then, one day, Frank Kern did one big video with a huge “Add to Cart” button underneath. Many others followed suit, but he was the disruptor. For a long time, everyone was blogging, and then Twitter made you turn your “logs” (ahem) into 140 characters each. Now there are “corporate micro-blogging platforms,” but Twitter was the disruptor. What do these examples have in common? They took a pattern we were familiar with, and interrupted it.
So ask yourself: are you just following the same pattern, or are you interrupting—disrupting—it, like Tony Robbins does at his seminars when he bucks the “cheerleader” image and starts swearing?
Okay, so by now, you’re probably starting to get an idea of the “disruptive thinking” mindset. And if you’re not, it’s probably hopeless. (Just kidding. I heard that it took Johnny like 10 years to have his first good idea.)
So here’s a question I’d like you to answer in the comments: How can you be more disruptive in your own thinking, without stealing my idea (I know a lawyer, Truant)? What examples of disruptive marketing have inspired you lately?
(JOHNNY’S NOTE: And also sign up to listen to the Influencer Project. It’s free, and it’s the only project of it’s kind. Fo real, yo.)
Nepotism For the Win!
NOTE:This is a guest post from Drew Kime of Cook Like Your Grandmother. I’ve largely decided that guest posts feel odd to me on this site and almost never accept them (though I do appreciate the thought), but I’m making an exception because:
1. Drew’s other guest post got a pretty good response, and
2. I think it’s hilarious to have a guest post on business and networking coming from a cooking blog. Perhaps I should accept one from a cattle rancher next.
Anyway:
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The lonesome stranger.
The lone gunman.
The Lone Ranger.
Lone wolf.
Lone survivor.
We’ve got this fascination with the heroic solitary hero. It’s a romantic ideal, the guy who makes it on his own … against all odds … without help or comfort from any quarter.
And it’s bullshit. Which isn’t surprising when you think about what “romantic ideal” generally means. It’s a mythic story that has power specifically because it doesn’t work that way in the real world.
Ewww, favoritism
Going it alone is a myth we like so much that we even demonize the converse. Quick quiz: What’s your first reaction to the word “nepotism”? Without being too specific I’m betting it wasn’t a really positive response. The idea that someone gets ahead based on family connections rather than innate talent offends our sense of fairness. It just seems wrong.
We don’t just hate the people using family connections, though. Use your friends and it’s the “good old boys network”. You might even be qualified, but if you got the job because of “connections” suddenly your whole background becomes suspect. Maybe you only got into college because you were a legacy. Maybe your father plays golf with the dean and he helped with your grades.
Even the people with connections know better than to admit it. Tori Spelling says that when she auditioned for Beverly Hills: 90210 she didn’t use her real name, so that she wouldn’t get the job just because her father was producing it. And I am so sure there wasn’t anybody working on the show who recognized her. [wink]
So if everyone with connections is using them (but denying it), and everyone without connections distrusts anyone with connections, what’s really going on here?
The dirty little (not so) secret
Here’s the deal. What if it’s your company, and your son looking for a job. Don’t you put him on the management track? Don’t you groom him to take over the company some day? Haven’t you worked all those years specifically so that you could provide for your kids?
Of course people with connections use them. We all like helping our friends and family when we can. It’s human nature. It’s also human nature to resent the “in group” when you’re the outsider.
Wait … “outsider”. That sounds cool. I’m an “outsider”. I’ll bet there are lots of other outsiders just like me. Maybe we can be a group! I’ll focus-group that, have my media team do some commercials calling my opponent a “Beltway Insider”, and make it sound like a bad thing.
Oops, a political reference. Why did I do that? Because it makes the point that the most connected, most “inside” people know enough to position themselves as outsiders … “Just like you.” To build affinity. They deny they’re using connections while trying to connect with you. Ooh, irony.
Besides, interviewing sucks
There’s no way someone can fairly evaluate you in an hour. But guess what? The hiring manager hates it as much as you do. So if he knows someone, or a colleague knows someone, who is at least minimally capable of doing the job, guess who’s going to get it?
But don’t go thinking you should aim for “minimally capable”. I hear of openings all the time, and I know people who are looking. And if there’s a match of course I’ll recommend them. But I’m not going to recommend someone who I think is going to fall on their face.
Lizard brain vs. human brain
If you’re looking for a reason to be angry, to feel left out and mistreated, to complain about the unfairness of it all, go ahead and listen to the lizard brain. The part of you that hates any group you’re not a part of.
Or you can use that big lump of gray matter wrapped around the brain stem — you know, the rest of your brain — and realize that you really want to join that group. You want to be a member of the group of “successful people”.
Maybe you can hold both ideas in your head at once: “I don’t like them” and “I want to be like them”. I can’t. [WARNING: Obscure reference alert!] I’m not Walt Whitman.
So instead of looking at people who have what I want and criticizing the connections they use to get it, I look at what I have that they might want. How can I convince them to let me into that circle. Why would they want to partner with me.
Everyone has connections. Everyone has an in. Everyone has opportunities, or can create them. Everyone can find the right people to help them.
Sometimes getting into the club isn’t the hard part. The hard part is deciding that it’s okay to want to be in the club.
Drew Kime writes about food at How To Cook Like Your Grandmother, and blames his wife for watching the “Inside Hollywood” episode where he got that Tori Spelling anecdote.
You don’t want to make money online
This is a guest post by Drew Kime of Cook Like Your Grandmother. It’s probably time I had a post from Drew because not only does he constantly snipe dry wit at me, but I also keep mentioning him various places as an example of someone who isn’t simply selling into the self-perpetuating internet marketing arena. I’ll be like, “Well, what if you wanted to be an affiliate for… um… not internet marketing information but… um… I don’t know… cookware?” And then I’ll remember that I actually know a guy who that would work for, which reduces the amount that I look like a bullshiter. Slightly.
Anyway, enjoy this post. It’s a good one.
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The third-grade teacher asks the class, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” She gets the standard answers: cowboy, princess, firefighter, doctor. But Billy says, “I want to be rich.” Everyone laughs, then the teacher asks, “But what do you want to do?” Billy answers, “I want to make lots of money.”
Fast-forward about twenty years. Who from that class do you think has the highest net worth?
Gut check
Right now, you’re either thinking, “Yeah, that sounds like me,” or “Sure he’s rich, but I’ll bet he’s a shallow, self-important prick.” But aren’t you reading online marketing blogs because you want to be rich now? Why is it wrong for a 9-year-old to want to be rich, but okay for an adult? When did money as a primary goal become acceptable?
Those aren’t abstract philosophical questions. You really need to answer them for yourself to understand what you’re willing to do. Because unless you really, deep down, believe in putting the money first, you must be putting something else first.
Do you know what that “something else” is?
Online marketing … of what?
Look at all the courses that teach you how to do AdWords campaigns. How to identify niche markets and exploit them. How to optimize your landing pages to convert the long-tail keywords. PPC arbitrage … Affiliate marketing … ClickBank … Yeah, I speak marketing. I also know what all that stuff means and how to do it. But I don’t want to. It’s soul-crushing boredom.
I might discover there’s an untapped market for wombat grooming. Do some research and write an ebook. Start an AdWords campaign and start selling like crazy. Woo-hoo! But I really don’t give a shit about wombats, no matter how many rich people there are looking for a book on cleaning them.
If I want to spend all day doing work that I don’t care about, I’ll just stick with a job. You know, let someone else figure out the business plan, do what I’m told for eight to nine hours a day, and do what I want nights and weekends.
Money makes anything interesting, right?
Lots of jobs pay well not because they’re hard, but because they’re distasteful. Ask Mike Rowe, the Dirty Jobs guy. Or check this list of 10 High Paying Dirty Jobs. Number 1 on the list? Crime scene cleaner: “With a little experience under your belt and flexibility with your work hours, you can easily make about $75,000 a year with this job.”
So there are jobs out there that you could apply for today and start making a decent living. But you won’t apply for them, because you aren’t interested in the work. So why do you think pay-per-click arbitrage is going to do it for you? The money? Look at that list of dirty jobs again. Still think it’s all about the money?
Self-employed, but still just a job
The mythical salesman who can sell ice cubes to Eskimos, do you think that’s because he likes ice cubes? Or is it because he likes closing the sale? It’s the rush and the money. And if you’re doing it online instead of face-to-face, you don’t even get the rush.
What you get is research, analysis, number crunching and, if you do it all really really well: money. Are you okay with that, or does that sound like a “job”?
Follow most online marketing advice and you know to follow the data. It’s easier to find the desire than to create the desire, so it’s more profitable to sell to an under-served market than to create a whole new market. It’s not about what you want to sell, it’s about what they want to buy. To make big money online, you can’t focus on what interests you.
That’s the forumula for success I keep seeing. Ignore my own interests. Sell what other people want. Build the sites other people want. Discuss the products other people want. Study hard, work harder, and after about a year you, too could make $111.
Screw that
If you have interests other than money, there are plenty of free resources to show you how to effectively sell what you’ve got. And you’ll care about it because you’re learning how to more effectively talk about what interests you.
Unless … well … are you the exception? Are you the one who, back at the start of this article, thought, “Yeah, I was just like little Billy”? Then you probably could sell the wombat grooming book, and smile all the way to the bank. If that’s you, I’ve got a couple of cook books that could use some good affiliates.
Drew Kime teaches people how to cook like Grandma at How To Cook Like Your Grandmother. He has published the book of the same name, and Starting From Scratch: The Owner’s Manual for Your Kitchen.
