Here’s what I mean by copywriting made simple…

A copywriting seminar in just 129 characters (as posted to Twitter):

“Only 3 things matter in copywriting: The reader starts reading, he keeps reading, he takes the action you want him to. That’s it.”

When I posted this last month, I challenged my copywriting colleagues to come up with a more concise set of instructions for writing great copy.

Maybe, they’re holding back because so far no one’s even tried to beat it.

The difference between a pro and and amateur

When it comes to writing ad copy (or any kind of writing really), the difference between an amateur and a pro is this:

A pro understands how vitally import Steps One and Two are in this Three Step process and never takes them for granted.

It’s the mark of an amateur to obsess over Step Three (getting the action you want) exclusively.

Dealers in half-baked copywriting advice count on this.

They load beginners down with masses of “gee-whiz” tricks and techniques (for an unreasonable fee) and then leave them to flounder in the swill. Their hope being you’ll give up and hire them – for yet another unreasonable fee.

Don’t give in – If you focus on the right things, you too can write great ad copy

Getting down to the business of asking for the order (Step Three) is important, but without getting the first two things right, you’ve got nothing.

Beginners don’t get this.

Beginners believe – and they are encouraged to believe this by bogus “gurus” – that copywriting is a matter of learning a long list of manipulative “tricks.”

They’re further misled to believe that copywriting is about being clever and creative and smart (and sometimes even devious.)

Here’ what it really takes

To be a successful copywriter (or to write good ads for your own business), you need to be as creative as a plumber.

No more, no less.

You need to know how to diagnose problems (sales problems), what tools to use and when, and how to link all the pipes (sales processes) together so that the water (prospect attention and action) flows in the direction you want it to flow.

Until you master the art of catching and holding attention – and then guiding action – nothing else will make a difference in your sales.

Simple?

Yes it is simple, but to hit the right target someone has to point you in the right direction from the start.

Does it really matter?

I don’t know how important copywriting is to your business, but I can tell you this:

The difference between understanding the process of creating great ad copy and being lost in a maze of bewildering advice is the difference between struggling and making real money – sometimes incredible money.

(In my case, I doubt I’d have 1% of the money I have today if I hadn’t learned how to write ad copy. It can be that important.)

If copywriting is important to you and you’re frustrated with the copywriting services and trainings you’ve encountered so far, I created a course especially for my System grads which covers this topic.

As far as I know, there’s nothing else like it.

Details here:

http://www.kenscopyclinic.com/

- Ken McCarthy

P.S. If you’ve read this far, think of all the things that had to happen to get you to this point.

1. You had to see the subject line in the original e-mail and be motivated to open it.

2. You had to actually read the e-mail and continue reading it to the point where you saw the link.

3. You had to be motivated enough by what you read to click on the link and start reading this article.

4. Then what you read there had to be interesting enough to keep you reading to this point.

5. In order to get you to this point, I had to: a) catch your attention (get you started reading) and b) hold you attention (keep you reading) all the way to this point.

THAT’S 90% of copywriting and once you learn how to do that, the selling part becomes much, much, much easier.

Details on how you can learn to do this consistently – in any industry, selling any product, and under any market conditions here:

http://www.kenscopyclinic.com/

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So many Jim Rohn quotes to choose from but here are a few I find myself going back to again and again.

These quotes might be particularly useful to Internet marketers and marketers of all kinds. I’ve added commentary to each one to help

Be original

“Don’t borrow someone else’s plan. Develop your own plan and it will lead you to unique places.”

My comment: This is why I don’t sell or promote so-called “businesses in a box.” Even if they work, and they rarely do, they practically guarantee mediocrity.

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Why is it so hard to get practical advice on using Internet promotional tools?

Everything in Internet marketing seems to come wrapped in a ton of hype and BS and few appear able or willing to strip things down to their basics. And believe me, it’s no easier for me.

Finding a straight, concise answer about anything in Internet marketing is ridiculously hard whether you’ve been at it for 16 years or 16 minutes.

Twitter is a perfect example of this.

First, the news media made it look ridiculous.

Then, the Internet “gurus” piled on with claims that it’s really the most powerful marketing tool that’s ever been created – but only if you know the “right” way (their way) to use it…which they’ll be glad to teach you for an unreasonable fee.

Everything a serious-minded person needs to know about Twitter

1. Twitter’s popular and it’s been adopted by every major media outlet. A percentage of your customers use it. These facts alone signal that anyone who has anything to promote needs to use it.

2. Twitter is dead easy to use, both for publishers and consumers of information.

3. Twitter’s just another channel with its strengths and weaknesses. It contains no inherent magic. If there is “magic” in it, it comes from using it intelligently.

4. Twitter is not something to build a business on. Yes, it’s easy to “game” the system to generate large numbers of “followers” but, like 99% of the things taught by the Internet marketing fad pimps, this approach is a total waste of time.

5. Twitter is a truly great research tool and a great keeping-in-touch-with-those-who-want-to-hear-from-you-tool.

How to think about Twitter

1. Twitter is a web publishing platform. It’s a free way for people to set up their own easy-to-use web sites. It’s a stripped down version of a blog. (Some people accurately call Twitter a micro-blog.)

2. Twitter limits posts (”tweets”) to 140 characters – about the length of a headline or classified ad. You can say and do a lot in 140 characters. Ask any poet or copywriter. Get over it. Being limited to 140 characters is not an issue.

3. One of the key Twitter skills is to learn how to shrink a long address into a short one so you have more room to get your message across. Here’s the tool I use for that:
http://twtr.us/twtr.html

How to use Twitter

1. As a publisher, the most important thing to keep in mind about Twitter is to have a clear purpose and consistent public face for each of your Twitter channels (assuming you need more than one.)

For example, if your topic is investing in gold or ski resorts in the Alps, stick to the point. Don’t start ranting about completely unrelated issues, personal or global.

A little “personality” from time to time is fine, but too many off-point posts and too many fragmentary (and incomprehensible) posts of half a conversation are going to confuse and put off busy, serious-minded people (the kind of people who buy and get things done.)

2. A lot of people use Twitter for “personality” marketing. In other words, their posts are chock full of off-topic reports and obscure shout outs to god-only-knows-who.

If you think you’re a fabulously fascinating person and the world can’t get enough of the minutia of your everyday life, have at it, but I don’t recommend it.

3. What I do recommend is making sure that every post (or “tweet”) counts.

Somehow the mistaken idea has spread that Twitter is supposed to be a stream-of-consciousness medium, that whatever is on your mind at any given moment is fair game for a Twitter post. This is not communicating, this is a form of verbal diarrhea.

4. Craft your Twitter posts. Think about them.

Ask yourself: “Is what I’m about to post useful, interesting, on-topic, and in character?”

In other words, run your “tweets” through a filter, the same way you connect your mouth to your brain when you’re speaking.

I’m not saying that each and every post has to be a home run or that you have to agonize over every one, but unless someone is wildly in love with you, be aware random, off-topic, minutia gets old really fast.

How to get readers

The purpose of writing is to have readers.

There are two ways to get readers (called “followers” in Twitter):

1) tell everyone you know about your channel and send them to it (do this consistently) and

2) reach out on Twitter.

If you already have a large circle (you’re a celebrity, you have a big mailing list and/or you have a lot of traffic to your web site), it’s easy to build a big Twitter following fast. Just let people know about it (repeatedly) and don’t publish crap.

If you don’t have any of these things, you’ve got to do it the old fashioned way by reaching out to relevant folks.

Note the word “relevant.” One of the scams currently taught by the Internet marketing “gurus” is to randomly follow thousands of Twitter users. The idea being that some of them will reflexively follow you back and thus you will develop a large “following” and appear to be popular. Not a good idea.

Here’s a better idea: Follow people and info sources that you’re genuinely interested in.

How to reach out on Twitter – and how not to

It’s easy to find Twitter users who might like to be readers of your Twitter channel.

Click on the “find people” link on Twitter and enter keywords that are likely to turn up people and organizations that are in sync with what your Twitter channel is about.

For example, as a hobby (which also makes money), I run a jazz video web site.

After I let my list and site visitors know I have a Twitter channel, I went to the “find people” page and entered logical keywords for my niche: jazz, jazz club, jazz fest, jazz fan etc.

Then whenever I have some spare time, I “follow” another 100 channels in this category. Some will follow me, some won’t. I really don’t care. I only follow channels I’m genuinely interested in or people I’m very certain would find what I’m doing interesting.

One point: I don’t suddenly follow 1,000 or 10,000 channels overnight.

Why?

Two reasons: 1) because that’s not how normal people use Twitter and 2) Twitter doesn’t like it.

You may say – as many Internet marketing “gurus” do – who cares what Twitter likes? Well, there are two reasons:

First, you’re a guest on their service. Why not be a good guest instead of a greedy slob?

Second, you’re a guest on their service which means they can throw you off any time they want for violating their terms of service agreement.

Given how much totally bogus crap has been written about Twitter “how to” – much of which has become “common knowledge” – I recommend reading Twitter’s short, clear and very reasonable Terms of Service agreement.

You can read Twitter’s Terms of Service Agreement here

Summing up

Twitter is, in spite of all the hype and misinformation, definitely worth your time and attention.

It’s a great way to keep up with news on a wide variety of topics, to see what people are thinking and talking about, and to serve your readers.

The key is that writing for Twitter is like writing for any other medium.

Is what you are writing about interesting, useful, and/or entertaining? If it is, you can carve it on a rock and it will work. If it’s not, then neither Twitter nor anything else is going to help you.

Is your Twitter channel focused and consistent so people know what they’re going to get when they sign up for it and then get what they expect when they do?

It’s not rocket science and it’s not a get-rich-quick scheme. It’s just Twitter and my hats off to the creators for stumbling on this thing and making it available to the world. It’s a net contribution.

- Ken McCarthy

P.S. This year’s System Seminar will be in Chicago, April 9, 10 and 11.

For more info: The System Seminar

P.P.S. If you want to follow me on Twitter, you can do that here: Follow Ken on Twitter

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The fights were fun…the mastermind went great….the seminar was super…and the poetry tour was a big hit.

The poetry tour?!

Yes, the poetry tour.

When I travel on business, I like to pack as much production as I can into a trip.

So not only did we go to the UFC fights at Manchester Arena…

…And organize a private mastermind of some of the world’s top Internet marketers…

…And put on a fantastic seminar on blogging for business…

…We also arranged for New Orleans jazz poet Chuck Perkins to perform at Manchester’s top jazz club, Matt and Phred’s, in the city’s Northern Quarter (it looks like Soho in NYC.)

All this took place in just five whirlwind days.

Poetry for Internet marketers

Poetry doesn’t pay well. There’s no way around that. Going into poetry for the money is not a good idea, but…

Marketers can learn a lot from poets.

Poetry can be a great promotional tool and it’s something worth paying attention to by all serious marketers.

For example, what do you think an advertising slogan is? It’s a phrase that packs a lot of power and meaning into a short, memorable phrase. Poets are experts at that kind of thing.

It’s no coincidence that Drayton Bird, to my mind the most accomplished living direct marketer, is a big poetry fan and sometimes draws on poetry to make a point in his trainings.

Poets can pack a punch too

Among their other skills, poets also excel in dramatizing situations and making them larger than life. Another skill every marketer can profit from.

The great boxer Muhammad Ali used poetry to promote his fights which contributed mightily to the huge audiences his fight drew – and the huge purses he won.

“Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.”

It doesn’t get much better than that.

Manchester is a big poetry town

Folks in Manchester are huge poetry fans.

When I was Googling to find potential places for Chuck to perform and people for him to meet, I came across scores of pages devoted to local poetry groups, performance spaces and individual poets.

The other reason I decided to bring Chuck to Manchester is the city’s historical links – the back story – to New Orleans.

The New Orleans-Manchester connection

At one time, Manchester was the textile capital of the world.

Making clothes from cotton may not seem very sexy, but it was and still is a huge industry and back in the 19th century, Manchester had a lock on it worldwide.

Walking around town and looking at some of the old buildings, it’s easy to see that it was once a very, very rich city. Right up there with New York, London, and New Orleans.

New Orleans?

Yes, New Orleans. For a while in the mid 1800s century, New Orleans was as rich as New York City.

Why?

Cotton.

It was the cotton that left the Port of New Orleans that fueled the mills in Manchester.

Reviving an old link to help New Orleans

As you may already know, I spend every winter In New Orleans.

I advise levees.org, the organization that’s fighting to make sure the levees are rebuilt correctly. I also work with individuals – mainly musicians and other artists – and non-profits on their positioning and marketing. It’s my contribution to helping rebuild the city.

One of the most important ways to help any cause is to keep it in the public eye. You can’t get action without attention – and you can’t count on attention, you have to create it.

New Orleans is a tourist town. Tourism is the city’s second largest industry after shipping. A lot of folks pay their rent and put their kids in school uniforms with the money they make working for hotels and restaurants.

However, in spite of the city’s many charms – its great winter weather (spring starts in February), its incomparable food, and its unequaled live music scene – not many people from the UK visit.

It’s not because they don’t like to travel. English people love to travel and spend a lot of their free time and money seeking warm, sunny places.

My thought is that if just a small fraction of the masses of people in the UK who visit Florida and the Caribbean each year were to visit New Orleans, it would make a noticeable impact on the city’s economy.

Greasing the wheels

To help this along, I’m working with musicians and poets in the two cities to help bring New Orleans music and culture to Manchester.

The Manchester people love the idea because, wonderful as it is, Manchester is a dark and drizzly place in the winter and even just talking about warmer, brighter weather gets instant appreciation.

That’s why we brought Chuck Perkins over and he’s been a hit. Just in Mancheser for a few days and he’s already won a flock of fans, especially among the city’s musicians.

Artists are trend setters and thought leaders

Earlier I mentioned that Manchester’s Norther Quarter looks a lot like New York City’s Soho neighborhood.

Well, when I was a teenager, Soho was just a bunch of empty industrial lofts. It was the artists who pioneered it and turned it into what it is today.

Now, if you want to live in Soho, bring your millions, because even a modest place is going to set you back a million bucks. Getting what people in most part of the country would consider just a basic apartment starts at around $2 million.

I have no doubt that with a little support and encouragement, a thriving New Orleans-Manchester cultural connection can be formed and that it will turn into a bump up for the city’s tourist revenues.

In fact, it’s already started.

I’ve spoken with several Manchester musicians who, as a result of Chuck’s visit, have started saving their pennies (or pence) to visit the legendary city and see it for themselves.

Where the artists and musicians go, the rest of the world is sure to follow.

So what’s the point?

Marketing is not just for making money.

It’s also a tool to make things happen.

I’ve found that doing a little bit of both is a great way to keep your skills sharp.

You see the truth is, after you’ve applied yourself to it for a while – with the right kind of training – selling things is not all that hard. It’s work, to be sure, but it’s not rocket science.

Therefore, I make this suggestion at every System Seminar and it’s worth repeating.

Every person – every normal person that is – has a cause that means something to them beyond their own personal profit. It might be your church, or your children’s school, so some social condition that needs reform.

If you’re a marketer, don’t just sit on the sidelines writing checks, helpful as that is, it’s only a fraction of what you have to offer. Consider rolling up your sleeves and contributing your skills and experience.

Yes, it will suck up huge amounts of time and energy and at times you may wonder why you’re adding further aggravation to an already busy schedule, but it can be great fun and you might find that the ultimate satisfaction you’ll get from marketing doesn’t come from “stacking it.” it comes from helping positive things happen.

For folks interested in poetry, jazz, New Orleans, and how all those things come together in a single person, here’s the first ambassador of New Orleans culture we brought to Manchester as part of our New Orleans-Manchester Connection project.

Click here for Chuck Perkins poetry and music.

- Ken McCarthy

P.S. This year’s System Seminar will be in Chicago, April 9, 10 and 11.

For more info: The System Seminar

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I realize that Twitter is a great personal communication tool, but let’s face it: no one ever made money publicly e-mailing back and forth to their friends.

I also know Twitter is good for research and a handy way to see who’s active in a given niche and what they’re up to. But these are support functions, not put money-in-the-bank functions.

So then, how can Twitter become a cash producer?

The Secret

The same way every medium does it: by producing things that people find interesting, useful, entertaining or inspirational.

But, realistically, can you you really say anything worthwhile in just 140 characters?

I didn’t think so until I tried my hand at it.

Here’s what inspired me

At least once a week, I encounter someone who wants to learn or get better at copywriting.

Very often, they’re at the very beginning of their careers and all I can do is recommend a stack of real copywriting books by the giants (Hopkins, Caples, Schwab, Schwartz, Bird etc.) and urge them to read one or more of them.

But I realize that doesn’t help the person right now which is when most people, including me, want when they’re seeking help.

Help is on its way

I’ve thought about this a lot and decided the world needs a copywriting seminar that tells you everything you need to know about copywriting in 140 characters or less.

Much to surprise I was able to create one.

I’m deadly serious.

If you keep these 140 characters in mind you will always know exactly what to focus on when you sit down to write an ad or sales letter. You’ll also never waste another minute on gimmicks or BS advice that doesn’t work.

Sounds impossible, doesn’t it?

I tested this 140 character seminar on two very experienced copywriters and both gave it a double thumbs up.

It’s one of those things that might not seem like much to a beginner, but the more copywriting experience you have, the more you’re realize that the three-step process I lay out is the Holy Grail.

For myself, I’ve been writing ad copy for over 20 years and I’ve found these 140 characters valuable enough to put on an index card and post by my computer.

It may even be as powerful as my “traffic + conversion = profits” formula which has clarified Internet marketing for so many now-successful entrepreneurs, but only time will tell on that one.

So where is this seminar in a tweet?

On Twitter, of course.

Something you can use…in 140 characters or less:

http://twitter.com/kenmccarthy/status/5624862016

Ken

P.S. If you’re not a Twitter user, it’s a snap to register.

You need an e-mail address, a user name and a password and you’re on.

Posting is just like posting to a blog – only 100 times easier.

The interesting part is it allows you to easily follow writers you admire with the single push of button.

And that’s it. 90% of what you need to know about Twitter.

http://twitter.com/kenmccarthy/status/5624862016

- Ken McCarthy

P.S. This year’s System Seminar will be in Chicago, April 9, 10 and 11.

For more info: The System Seminar

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Follow me on Twitter: http://www.Twitter.com/kenmccarthy

As soon as people see numbers, a few things happen to their brains.

1. They marvel at people with REALLY BIG NUMBERS
2. They look at their own puny numbers and despair
3. They look for ways to get more numbers

Ask me how I know this is true?

How people get really big numbers on Twitter…the secret “they” don’t want you to know

I’ve done an exhaustive study on the subject. (OK. I went to twitterholic.com and looked at the Top 1000.)

It seems like there are a few tried and true ways to get big numbers on Twitter.

1. Be on TV (or be an already fantastically well known brand.)
2. Have a big list from some other source and relentlessly ask your list members to follow you
3. Be a Twitter, social media and/or tech expert who spends a big chunk of his or her time in front of audiences that have super high densities of Twitter users flashing their Twitter address and relentlessly ask your list members to follow you.

There may be some exceptions to this rule, but I don’t see them in the to upper listings.

Follow me on Twitter: http://www.Twitter.com/kenmccarthy

Why people follow

People seem to follow for five reasons:

1. They’re collectors (a nice word for “pack rats”) and if it’s free, they want a lot of them
2. They’re followers and like having icons of their favorite celebrities on their profile page
3. They’re status seekers and want to be seen following “cool” people
4. They’ve been guilt tripped into following a friend or acquaintance (usually by their own minds)
5. They’d like to guilt-trip someone else into following them (to increase their own number of followers.)

It’s these last two that I find really interesting: “Please follow me.” “Thanks for following me.”

We’ve left the land of the rational and gone deep into the social brain on this one (i.e. back to high school.)

There’s a bit of the old MLM mentality in play too:

“You follow me and I’ll follow you and we’ll both have one more follower and that will make us more attractive so we’ll both be more likely to get more followers who will do the same…and somehow this will all end up with all of us making money.”

Am I being overly cynical, skeptical, and critical here? Or am I nailing this right on the head?

Follow me on Twitter: http://www.Twitter.com/kenmccarthy

What are lots of follower good for anyway?

I wonder.

Do the 3,711,359 people who “follow” Britney Spears on Twitter really follow her? Do they actually go to Britney’s profile page and see what Britney had to say today?

I’m sure that some do, but I doubt it’s 3,711,359 or anywhere near close to that number. And this is probably the same for every Twitter Big Shot.

So what does it really mean when someone is “following” you on Twitter?

It means that at one point:

1. They were on your profile page
2. They felt an impulse to “follow” – so they pushed one button ONE TIME
3. They haven’t yet felt the need to push the “unfollow” button yet.

If we were thinking accurately about this whole thing, we would call Twitter followers, Twitter “one-time button pushers.”

Jesus had followers guys. We have people who pushed a button – once – and may or may not ever to anything related to us again.

Let’s get real – and while you’re at it…

Follow me on Twitter: http://www.Twitter.com/kenmccarthy

The real game – as I see it

The real game in text – and that’s what Twitter is, isn’t it? – is to get people to read what you’ve written.

(I know there’s a two-way communications aspect to Twitter, but realistically, how many people can you interact with, even in a superficial way at a time?)

It’s not how big your list is…

It’s how many people go to your profile and read your twee… God I hate the word…let’s just call them posts?

Yeah, I know that posts can go viral (blah, blah, blah), but how often does that happen in the real world?

And when you go to most people’s profile pages, how much do you see that you actually want to read, much less re-tweet? (See, I’m down with the lingo.)

Do I really want to read four score and twenty absolutely incomprehensible personal communications? Do you?

Clearly I’m dissing the foundations of Twitter civilization here, but I’m doing it for a good reason. To re-focus us all on what really matters.

Follow me on Twitter: http://www.Twitter.com/kenmccarthy

How to get read

It’s not about number of “followers” (unless number of followers is something you want to use a bragging right, a “credential.” Fair enough I guess.)

But the real prize I have to think is about having quality people want to read what you have to say.

By quality people, I mean people who someday may have a reason to become a customer, a colleague, a collaborator. Someone you can do something with – off of bloody Twitter.

As I described earlier, lots of people will still jump on board and become your “follower” – the collectors, the followers, the status seekers, the “Twitterticians” (those who trade favors for mutual advantage, a word I just made up) – and bulk your numbers up for you.

But if you don’t have a core of people who actually seek you out and want to read what you have to say, I’m not sure I understand what the point all of this is.

But even if there is no point to it, why not go ahead and…

Follow me on Twitter: http://www.Twitter.com/kenmccarthy

How to create readers

The surest way to be read is to…(drum roll please)…have something interesting to say at least one in five posts (though, here’s a novel idea. Why not shoot for 100%?)

Why?

Because realistically, who on earth loves you enough to go to your profile and wade through a ton of crap to find something, anything, worthwhile – and do it more than once?

Not everything has to be profound or useful or entertaining, but how about comprehensible? That would be a good place to start, wouldn’t it?

For example, slices of life are fine, but ten bits of odd personal trivia in a row? Do you really want to attract the kind of people who would be attracted by that? In the old days, we used to call those people “stalkers” and we tried not to encourage them.

Maybe I’m too critical (don’t all agree at once), but who has the time for this? In the long run?

Conversely, we’ll always have time for something that makes us chuckle, or makes us think, or uplifts, or inspires or shares news or tells you something you didn’t know.

Quality guys and gals, quality. It will help make sure you’re still standing when the fad aspects of this fade.

Follow me on Twitter: http://www.Twitter.com/kenmccarthy .

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Note: This started as a “tweet” but I couldn’t fit it all into 140 characters

But I recommend you test my channel and see if you like it anyway: http://www.Twitter.com/kenmccarthy

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Out from the jungle

Right through the 1980s, every now and then a Japanese soldier would be discovered in some remote part of Asia (usually Indonesia or Papua New Guinea) “holding down the fort.”

These guys were told to hold their positions until the bitter end, and they did – for forty years after the war was over!

I’ve been kind of that way with Twitter.

Today, I wandered out of the jungle into the bright lights of Twitter Land.

My tipping point

Recently, I heard the term “micro-blogging.”

I know, I know. People have been using it for years already.

But, I didn’t really HEAR it until now.

I “get” blogging (which is really just writing a column and publishing it online yourself.)

And I get “micro.” I mean who has time to read long stuff anymore (unless it’s one of my e-mails).

Short and punchy is good and you can say a lot in 140 characters. (That took 75 characters)

See?

I just did – and I had 65 characters to spare.

Another thing that lured me from my vine-covered cave was talking to one of my System Eagles who has a serious marketing problem:

He created a product without asking the market if it wanted it – and it doesn’t. Actually, it doesn’t know it wants it and it doesn’t have time to do the homework to find out that it does.

When you find yourself in a situation like this…

You have two choices

1. Throw in the towel, or

2. Establish yourself as a celebrity expert in the niche in the minds of people who are candidates for your product and then use that position to get a hearing.

(There’s a million dollars in marketing advice in that last sentence. Someone could create a $5,000 a seat seminar around it – but not me. I just gave it to you.)

Being an expert is a matter of studying a subject to the point that you actually have something interesting, useful and maybe even entertaining to say about it.

It’s a very straightforward process

You can become a “talking” expert in ANYTHING in six months or less, six weeks if you’re good, and six days if you’re really good. But regardless of the time frame, it’s doable.

But what about the celebrity part?

How the heck do you do that?

And really, what sane person would actually want to become a celebrity?

I mean…Paris Hilton. WTF is that all about?

The not-so-secret secret

Master copywriter and educator Ben Settle recently reminded me of why being a celebrity is a good thing while I was reading his excellent new book, “Crackerjack Selling Secrets.”

Here’s the punch line: You want to become a celebrity because becoming a celebrity is valuable.

And here’s why

People are exponentially more interested in what a celebrity has to say than what anyone else has to say, even an expert.

To prove this to yourself, do this simple mental experiment:

Imagine two people on stage. The first knows a ton, but no one has ever heard of him. The other is someone they’ve seen and heard from over and over again -so much so that the audience feels they “know” him and like him.

Assuming both speakers have about the same skill in presenting, who is going to be listened to with more attention? The guy who knows a lot or the guy everyone has been trained to listen to?

This, strangely enough, is “celebrity”

It’s the result of training, or conditioning, to use a term from the psychology lab.

Celebrity also means attention and attention means M-O-N-E-Y.

Consult the old AIDA formula if you’re confused about this.

Selling starts – and ends – with attention

There is no selling without attention. Period. End of story.

Once you “get” this definition of celebrity, you’ll know what you need to do. You need to become one – in the eyes of your prospects and customers.

That’s right. In the eyes of your prospects and customers.

You don’t have to worry about taking on Paris Hilton in the super celebrity sweepstakes. You just have to become a “celebrity” to the people you want to listen to your pitch.

Why?

Because people listen to celebrities. Strange but true.

So how do you become a celebrity, someone people listen to and talk about?

Seems hard, right? It must involve some kind of magical powers -some kind of inborn charisma.

Well, charm doesn’t hurt. And everyone can become more charming. But charm and charisma are not the issue.

What’s the “secret” then?

Exposure.

Are people seeing you? Are they hearing you? Is this happening over and over again?

That, my friends, is what builds celebrity. At the end of the day, there really isn’t that much more to it than that.

So if repeated exposures are the building blocks to celebrity, how do you get them?

Here are the three methods people use – one works

Method #1: Wait for it to happen “naturally.” You know, be discovered. People will see how great you are and then devote their lives to making you famous.

Actually this can happen.

The problem is the odds. How about 500 million to 1? That’s how likely it is that you’ll be “discovered.”

Method #2: Beg people and institutions that have celebrity to let you have some of theirs by writing about you, interviewing you, and inviting you to present at their events.

Begging can work, but it too has a very low probability of success. Besides, you need lots and lots of exposures to become a celebrity and begging just doesn’t produce opportunity fast enough.

Method #3: Create your own celebrity

Elsom Eldridge, marketing wizard and author of “The Obvious Expert” has a great saying about this:

“Build your structure to build your stature.’

In other words, your “celebrity” – call it stature, call it profile, call it visibility – is entirely in your hands.

You CREATE it

No one can give it to you.

How do you create it?

By talking and writing and appearing. In short by being visible and making sure that every appearance you make (in text, in audio, in video, in person) produces a worthwhile experience for your readers, listeners, viewers and audience.

Dollars and common sense

Whatever business you’re in, if you want maximum results, you have to also be in the celebrity business and to be in the celebrity business you have to be in the media business.

Pre-Internet, it used to be bloody hard to be in the celebrity building media business.

Printing was expensive, postage was expensive, audio and video production was expensive and outlets were very limited.

For example, when I was a little kid, if you wanted to appear on the TV set in someone’s home, you had three options: ABC, CBS, and NBC – and that was it.

Then cable appeared and that was an improvement. You could actually buy 30 minute slots fairly cheap late at night. But that didn’t last too long.

Then the VCR came along.

Fantastic!

Now, if you could just produce a video cassette, convince someone to buy or ask for it, and then actually sit down and watch it, you too could appear on someone’s television set.

Great, but look at all the things you had to do – and all the money you had to spend – to make that blessed event occur.

The reason our time is the “age of marketing miracles” – and it is – is that you can now put text, audio and video in front of your prospects faces for nada. Nothing. Zilch.

Once you produce your message, all the old world costs of duplication, packaging, and shipping are gone.

But there’s always a catch and I did leave something out of this equation.

You need something for all this to work

You need a list

You need a list of people who want to hear from you, who want to know what you have to say and who want to know what you’re up to on a regular basis.

In the old days, it was a direct mail mailing list (still a very good thing to have, by the way).

Then along came e-mail. Magical, marvelous, magnificent e-mail. People can sign up for your list without leaving their keyboard and you can mail to them over and over and over again for nothing.

I LOVE e-mail.

In the past seven days, I did a little promotion that brought me a very nice chunk of change (more than I used to make in a whole year) all thanks entirely to the magic of e-mail. My risk? ZERO. My investment: my time and ingenuity.

What made it work is that I had a list…which is why I spend a lot of my time thinking about how to build my lists and make the people on my lists happy – and working my tail off to make those things happen.

Out of my cave

As I said at the very beginning of this article, I am a traditionalist. I’m conservative. I like new things, but I generally don’t like things that make me work or think too hard.

Twitter (and Facebook, which I’m only just starting to see the light on) seemed like work to me. And worse than that, they seemed like work without a pay off.

I mean who wants to spend all day typing away little Tweets to people on the off chance that someone might actually find what you have to say, read it and do something about it.

Just give me a mailing list and I’ll write a proper sales letter, thank you very much.

Then it dawned on me…

The folks who follow you on Twitter ARE a mailing list.

What’s more, they’re people who, for whatever odd reason, want to hear from you a lot, as in several times a day, as long as…

…as long as you have something interesting, entertaining, useful, and/or helpful to say.

Hey! I can do that.

And I can write worthwhile stuff in bursts of 140 characters or less.

(At first, I didn’t think I could, but then I just jumped in and tried. Lo and behold, it’s not hard at all…if you can write.)

Also – and this is very important – there’s a lot of stuff that will not work in an e-mail that works great in Twitter and will make a positive impression on your prospects and customers….which at the end of the day is what it’s all about.

To recap

If celebrity is money because celebrity generates attention and attention generates sales…

And celebrity is built by exposure and exposure is built by media…

And it’s YOUR job as the entrepreneur to use media to raise your profile, increase your visibility, build your stature and create your celebrity…

If all this is true, then you and I need to go where ever the people are and communicate with them using the channels that they want to communicate with.

And Twitter, this new-fangled thing with the silly name is how a lot people like to consume media these days…and, amazingly enough, now that I’ve crawled out of the cave, I’m now one of them.

The truth about Twitter

If Twitter is new to you – or if you’ve been taught how to abuse Twitter by one of the slime ball Internet gurus who strive mightily to poison everything in their path – let me explain what Twitter is and how to be entertained and informed by it.

Step #1. Open an account at Twitter.com It’s free and truly easy. Took me about 60 seconds once I got down to it.

Step #2. Pick a user name you’re going to be happy living with a long, long time. If your own name is available, grab it. God bless the person who did this for me a year or more ago. If your name is taken, come up with a relevant handle.

Step #3. Fill out your profile. Again, simple and easy. 60 seconds maybe, even for me.

OK, now you have an account and a profile.

It’s time to play…

Here’s how you play Twitter

1. Go to “Find People” and search for friends, colleagues, “celebrities,” news outlets, media, businesses and institutions who are Twitter publishers that you may want to hear from on a regular basis

2. When you see someone you want to hear from, just push the “Follow” button.

When you open your Twitter page, you’ll see SHORT messages from these folks, sometimes self-contained, sometimes pointing to other web resources (articles, videos, interviews) for you to check out.

3. Choosing friends and colleagues to follow is easy. I have friends who I LOVE and don’t get to see anywhere near much as I’d like. What could be better than hearing from them more often? On any subject really.

Celebrities are pretty easy too. You know who you like. You want to hear from Shaquille O’Neil? He’ll drop you a line or two or more every day. Paris Hilton? Ditto. (Though please tell me there’s no one reading this who actually wants to hear from Paris Hilton.)

News outlets?

Personally, I “follow” the Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and the BBC. All stuff that I follow every day anyway.

I also follow entertainment publications like the Village Voice, Offbeat Magazine (from New Orleans), and the Onion (humor.)

Now instead of going TO this stuff, it comes to me.

“Hmmm…that looks interesting.” Click.

You know what Twitter really is?

It’s an RSS reader that you actually want to use.

(If you don’t know what an RSS reader is, don’t worry. Just use Twitter. For everyone else, I’ve always said that RSS readers were the greatest idea in the world with the worst name ever invented. The Twitter folks, god bless, didn’t make the same mistake.)

OK, now you’re getting all this great entertainment – news items, jokes, notes from your buddies, pointers to interesting articles, now what?

“Now what?” is you start publishing which on Twitter is called “tweeting.”

Tweeting is a stupid name and it’s 90% of the reason I wrongly assumed Twitter was ridiculous

But Twitter is not ridiculous.

It’s a tool for sending good stuff – in short bursts – to people who want to hear from you.

What to say?

Now that you’re ready to start writing, the million dollar question is “what do you write?”

This is the tricky part which is why I suggest that you become a Twitter reader first, before you start writing (or tweeting) anything.

The best way to get good at anything is to find people whose style you like, “follow” them and take the parts of what they do that you like and mash them together into a style you’re comfortable with.

As I write this, I’ve been a Twitter user for less than 12 hours and I can already see what I like and don’t like.

What NOT to do

The thing that I loathe – and it’s a fatal turn off – is people who tell me about their latest product all breathless-like with exclamation points.

Even more offensive is people who recommend something they’re obviously earning an affiliate commission on.

I don’t begrudge anyone earning a commission, but don’t clutter up my Twitter channel with spam so you can play the law of large numbers and grind out a few bucks.

I know there’s already a flock of thieves charging people a fortune to “learn” how to do this. Don’t you be one of them.

On Twitter you’re a publisher – that’s what you are, a micro-publisher, but a publisher nonetheless. Your job is to inform, educate, entertain and amuse and point people to resources that do the same.

If you do this people will read you and they will tell others about you.

This is better than the alternative which is they click “unfollow” and make you disappear forever.

If you’ve got a business, let your prospects and customers know you have a Twitter channel and what your address is. (My personal Twitter channel is: http://www.Twitter.com/kenmccarthy

The question is if you tweet will anyone even care?

Here’s the answer:

It’s the old SW4 rule.

Some will, some won’t, so what? Someone’s waiting.

There’s no accounting for taste and some folks are just plain going to like you. Take the ball when they give it to you and run with it.

If anything I’ve said has struck your fancy, give Twitter a whirl – as a normal user, not as some super slick “social marketer.”

Personally, I already see Twitter as invaluable.

I’m a reader. I’m a news follower. Nothing is more attractive to me than having a steady stream of interesting new stuff cross my desk all day long. Especially since I can read as much of it or as little of it as I want.

As you actually use Twitter (as opposed to cooking up schemes to exploit it), watch and see who is doing it right. Doing it right to YOUR standards. Using the medium in a way YOU enjoy – and then use it the same way.

Guaranteed, you can make millions without ever opening a Twitter account…

But you might LIKE what Twitter does and if you like it, you might figure how to become a contributor to it and if you’re a contributor to it, this will contribute to you raising your profile, increasing your visibility, and adding to the celebrity structure you’re creating. A virtuous cycle.

Bottom line

Twitter is a medium.

It’s a medium some people like – just as some people like newspapers, while others like radio, and still others like TV.

It’s a medium some folks pay close attention to throughout their day.

It costs nothing.

If you personally like the medium and use it – and use it the way you would like it used on you – then odds are you’ll have a good experience with it.

It will never replace sales letters and “old fashioned” offers. No way.

And don’t even dream of starting a business without the “back end” of having things to sell and sales systems to sell them with.

But Twitter will ultimately help you create more readers for your sales letters and deliver them to you in a state of mind in which they’re receptive to what you have to say.

Start by enjoying it.

If you enjoy it you’ll figure out what you need to know to make it work for you.

Ken

P.S. If you can get yourself to Manchester, UK on November 16 (it’s a Monday), a bunch of the smartest Internet folks I know will be meeting for a seminar.

It will feature a talk by Ben Hunt, the web designer, and a lot of “peanut gallery” comments from people like yours truly, Lloyd Irvin, Greg Davis, and Ben Moskel. We’re going to talk about blogs and Twitter and Facebook and YouTube and how they can be used to create and leverage celebrity for any business.

If you can’t make it, we share all sorts of useful stuff with you for free here:

http://www.systemintensive.com/mark

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There’s always one day that stands out from all the rest. I think this Sunday was the day.

If you wonder why I live in Tivoli, NY in the summer and fall, this picture is my answer.

How did you spend your summer vacation?

What I thought was going to be “kick back and relax” summer turned into a travel and study marathon:

Vancouver, New York City, Maryland, London, Manchester…over 10,000 miles traveled and at long last…home.

Who benefits?

You do.

Here’s some freebies to get your fall season off to a strong start:

1. Free Google AdWords course

Three-time System faculty member Timoth Seward is giving away a complete basic training in Google AdWords.

http://www.smartbeginners.com/adwords/

2. Remembering Ken Giddens

Ken Giddens passed away four years ago this month and he is still sorely missed.

He was one of the bona fide pioneers of our industry and an inspired and generous teacher. For those who knew him, and those who didn’t…

Lessons and recollections from his friends and colleagues: http://thesystemseminar.com/kengiddens/audio.html

This was Ken’s first seminar talk. It was at the System Seminar in 2004.

Videos from System Seminar TV.com

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Is it really possible for one year be cooler than all others?

Yes it is.

I define cool as: 1) deep. 2) lasting influence, and 3) setting the standard that all others follow.

On the science front, 1959 was the first year primates went into space. It was the year of the announcement of the first microchip.

But that’s just scratching the surface.

If you’ve ever tapped your foot to music, odds are 1959 was involved.

If the only thing that happened musically in 1959 was the creation of the coolest of rock guitars, the Les Paul 1959 sunburst that would be pretty significant.

But there’s more.

One day in 1959, jazz giant Miles Davis met some of the best jazz musicians of all time in a studio in New York City. Instead of handing them fixed scripts, he gave them “sketches” of the sound he wanted.

No preparation. No rehearsal. Just the magic that takes place when people who know what they’re doing get together under the leadership of a master.

The resulting album “Kind of Blue” is, to this day, the best selling jazz album of all time.

Here’s what it sounds like:

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Ken McCarthy, Greg Davis and Lloyd Irvin at Lloyd’s private gym

If you stick with anything long enough, life takes all kinds of fascinating twists and turns.

I was planning on a “kick back”, hang loose summer, but when you’re in the Internet marketing world you have to be prepared for pleasant surprises.

A couple of months ago Lloyd Irvin sent me a long text.

Lloyd is twice world champion in Brazilian Jujitsu and twice US champion in Judo and Russian Sambo. He’s also a heck of an entrepreneur and has interests in a number of areas including publishing, Internet marketing, and real estate. With a small, highly effective team he’s built a very successful business.

I’m proud to say that the System helped get Lloyd off on the right foot on the Internet, a fact he graciously shares with everyone who asks. In turn, he’s been an inspiration to me – and when Lloyd talks, I listen.

So when Lloyd sent me a long text raving about the breakthrough work of his colleague Greg Davis, I decided to waste no time, get on a plane and get myself to Maryland to see first hand what had gotten him so excited.

Long story, short version

Greg’s one of those guys who’s been working diligently for years on cracking the Internet marketing code. You know the routine…endless experiments. Some of them bomb. Some work, but not well enough to get excited about. Two steps forward and sometimes three steps back.

But he stuck with it and along the way he accumulated experience and KNOWLEDGE.

Greg was one of the early pioneers who bought clicks from GoTo when you could get keywords for a penny because no one else was smart enough to recognize their value.

Bit by bit, things started to click for him (pardon the double pun) and he watched his income grow until he got to the point that keeping his 9 to 5 job was not only no longer necessary, it was absurd.

Then through a combination of his own deep study and a few critical insights from Perry Marshall, Glenn Livingston, and Gauher Chaudhry plus mentoring from Lloyd (not-so-coincidentally all these guys have been System faculty members), Greg made a truly big breakthrough.

How big?

Wealth beyond your wildest dreams

Greg’s numbers are so big that I hesitate to say because a lot of people are going to have trouble wrapping their minds around them.

Let’s just say Greg nets in a week what a lot of people would be very happy to make in a good year – and he does it with bare bones overhead. And most importantly, it’s based on a formula that works over and over again. As long as there’s an Internet and people are spending money on it, this system will work.

Though you may be aware of some of the elements (PPC, CPA, affiliate marketing, tracking and testing conversion), I guarantee you’ve never seen this system before.

To help me keep up with all the info that Greg was willing to share with me, I brought System grad Ben Moskel who does over $1,000,000 a year in affiliate sales generated by pay-per-click.  The whole weekend we visited with Greg and Lloyd, Ben never put his pen down.  I swear at times I thought it was going to start smoking he was writing so long and hard.

The Internet marketing brain trust: Where killer Internet marketing ideas are born. If past is prologue, months, even years from now, the hot air “gurus” will be trying to peddle the leftover scraps from this weekend for thousands of dollars a pop.  If you were part of the System, you’d be getting it whole while it’s still fresh.  Left to right: Lloyd Irvin, Ken McCarthy, Greg Davis, Chris Chico, Ben Moskel

Chris Chico, another very savvy Internet marketer, was also invited to sit on in this very private two day session. Here’s a picture of the five of us together at the end of the weekend. We were visiting Lloyd’s training facility in Camp Springs, Maryland  just around the corner from Andrews Air Force base, right outside of Washington DC.

When he’s not running his chain of martial arts schools, publishing, training entrepreneurs, dealing in real estate, starting and growing Internet businesses, Lloyd trains UFC fighters.  It’s been a mystery to me how this one guy gets so much done. Then I met his team.  Sharp, smart and tight. If Lloyd ever gives a seminar on how to build and manage a world class team, all I can say is “Go!” I’ll be sitting in the front row.

OK, how does Greg make all this money?

I know what you’re thinking…”Glad you had a great time in Maryland Ken, but get to the money. The money.”

There are three levels to what Greg does:

Level One: Good, solid, old school affiliate marketing, the kind that can get anyone who applies themselves to the $500 to $5,000 a month level.

Level Two: Greg is a master of the tools, strategies, tricks and techniques of affiliate marketing.  No one knows everything – and Greg was wide open to learn from everyone at our private meeting – but when it comes to high level, deep KNOWLEDGE of how to shake the affiliate money tree, he’s got it – and that’s what got him to $500 to $5,000 a day.

Level Three: This is where Greg is at now. Again, for the reason I gave earlier, I’m not going to even talk about his current numbers, other than to say they make Level Two look sad and forlorn.

His years of effort, study and testing paid off and gave Greg a profound insight that “flipped” regular affiliate marketing upside down and turned it on its head.

Bottom line: A whole lot of what you’ve heard about the “right” way to do affiliate marketing is backwards. Yeah, it will work and it will make pretty good money, but if you want rock star money, crazy money that makes even Internet gurus gasp, you’ve got to enter into what I can only call Planet Greg, an alternate – and very profitable – universe.

And I’ll tell you straight up, most people are not ready for it.

They don’t have the necessary foundation of experience and knowledge to be able to execute what Greg is doing, let alone understand it.

Besides that, after looking at Greg’s system for two solid days, my advice to him was to put a padlock on it. No amount of money he could ever make teaching would ever compensate him for letting the cat out of the bag.

He asked me for my honest advice and that’s what I told him.

But the door is not closed…

Greg can definitely help you if you’re at the beginning of your affiliate marketing path (seeking to make $500 to $5,000 a month) or if you’re a pro who wants to leverage your current know-how into a lot more revenue ($500 to $5,000 a day.)

I can tell you from working with him for two days, he’s a masterful and generous teacher. It would be great to have someone like him inside the System circle teaching.

So, I took a shot and asked him if he’d like to come to London and present at our upcoming UK Intensive.

Think about how significant this is. I created the UK Intensive specifically to highlight UK Internet marketing wizards, but Greg is so extraordinary I decided to throw out my playbook out and ask him, a Yank, to teach.

After thinking about it a bit, he said “sure” so I’m happy to report that the first live public training given by Greg Davis in advanced affiliate marketing (traffic + conversion) will in London this September at the System UK Intensive. Will there be another? Who knows? I know the fact that this event is in London was a big hook for Greg and his wife.

The last I checked registrations are already a hair over 2/3 sold out and as you know, I’ve barely even advertised the thing. As the date gets closer and I get on the job, we’re be closing the doors on this one pretty quick.

I don’t care where you live. If you’re in Internet marketing and you’ve got a chance to spend some time with this guy: take it.

This development has been so sudden, we haven’t had time to include Greg in the description of the course, but here’s how to get all the info about the rest of the program.

http://www.systemintensive.com/uk

Best,

Ken

Ken McCarthy and Lloyd Irvin

P.S. The thing I’ve always admired about martial arts (real martial arts) is that it’s the ultimate No BS discipline. You can’t fake your way into it. You can’t rip off someone else’s work and present it as your own. You’ve got to personally stand and deliver and you can’t coast on last year’s or even last week’s accomplishments.

Lloyd just turned 40 this year. I’m going to be 50 in September, but I can still take him (in my dreams!) LOL

But seriously, the greatest satisfaction from teaching Internet marketing (real teaching, not “guru” prancing and posturing) is all the System grads who go out and do amazing stuff with what they learn and the many like Lloyd, who are gracious enough to turn around and give back.

That’s why there’s 1001 “dog and pony” Internet seminars and a million and one “flash in the pan” gurus, but only one System Seminar.

You see, we actually TRAIN our students to accomplish great things and many do and with this formula our circle and knowledge base just gets bigger and bigger, year after year.

You know the difference

If you’ve been to a System Seminar, you know what I mean. If you haven’t been and you’re in Internet marketing for real, you’ve really been depriving yourself.

The UK Intensive in London, England this September 26 & 27th is a great opportunity for you to get involved with real world,  high level Internet marketing, the kind that;s only dreamed about by most Internet marketers.  We’re limiting the group to just 79 attendees to keep it manageable and well more the half of the seats have already been claimed.

Participants at the UK Intensive will not only get the live training, they’ll also get the complete recordings of last year’s UK Intensive featuring direct marketing legend Drayton Bird (we’re still working to digest all the wisdom he shared with us last year) Plus they’ll also get the complete DVDs of System 2009 in Chicago (which alone sell for over $1,495.00 US.)

I want smart people at this event. If you’re smart, join us. We’d love to have you add to the power of our Master Mind.

Details:

http://www.systemintensive.com/uk

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