Over twenty-five of breakthrough insights and advice to entrepreneurs all over the world
“I’ve been privileged to know Ken McCarthy since the early 1990s. I am a fan of his thinking and writing, and find him to be a great sounding board for ideas. I can always count on Ken to look at a problem from all angles. The over-used phrase, “out of the box thinking,” really does describe how Ken’s mind seems to work, so he’s hard to beat if creativity is what you want.
Ken is strong in nuts and bolts practicality as well. For example, he introduced us to a talented media professional who has turned out to be one of the firm’s most important hires of the last five years. He also gently prodded us into expanding the range of services we offer. What began as one employee experiment has evolved into an entire department to the benefit of both our clients and our bottom line.”
Ed Niehaus
President & CEO,
Niehaus Ryan Wong, Inc.
PR agency of record for Yahoo starting in 1995 and for Steve Jobs comeback at Apple
“I’ve known Ken for more than 10 years as both colleague and friend.
During that time I’ve been lucky enough to watch him spontaneously consult for dozens of clients
on stage, and benefited from his personal advice.
I think the best thing about Ken, though he’s most well-known for his internet marketing expertise,
is his uncanny ability to spot the lowest hanging fruit in your market.
While you’re busy making grand plans and executing expensive, labor intensive strategies, a ten minute conversation with him makes you want to smack yourself in the head with a spatula and say ‘why didn’t I see that! All that money on the table with hardly ANY work!'”
– Glenn Livingston Ph.D.
Author, Market Research adviser to AT&T, American Express, Bausch & Lomb, Citibank, Exxon, J. Walter Thompson, Kraft, MasterCard, Panasonic and others.
Livingston’s unique”Bulls-Eye” approach to market research has been featured in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Sun Times, and numerous trade magazines including American Demographics and Direct Marketing News.
Ken first approached us volunteering his help in December 2006. That day marked a new chapter in our organization’s history.
In less than an hour, Ken laid out a strategy for using the Internet and video that we’ve followed ever since with great success.
Thanks to his ideas we’ve attracted celebrity spokespersons like John Goodman and Harry Shearer, gotten free television air time for our message, and generated over 225,000 views of our videos on the Internet.
Ken has not only offered advice, he’s also rolled up his sleeves and helped and has not stopped helping since that day.
He’s brought in experts to help us with every aspect of our media campaign, helped us shape our communication strategy and wrote and produced “The Katrina Myth” video which has proven to be one of our most effective educational tools.
New Orleans has never had a better friend or more loyal supporter.
– Sandy Rosenthal
Founder and Executive, Director of Levees.org
Reviewing Ken’s historic introduction of the web to San Francisco’s cutting edge multimedia and software industry in San Francisco in 1994:
“This was a great talk for 1994, and it would still be a good talk today. Most people still don’t get the points you made…” – April 27, 2000
Jakob Nielsen, Ph.D.
User Advocate and Principal, Nielsen Norman Group
“Jakob Nielsen knows more about what makes Web sites work than anyone else on the planet.” Chicago Tribune.
“If you want to know how to make money in direct marketing through the Internet, there’s one name you must inscribe on your Rolodex: Ken McCarthy.
Ken and his cohorts know how to extract direct marketing profits from the Internet the way a mining company knows how to pull gold from the earth. They live by the same credo as all smart direct marketers, i.e., that advertising is salesmanship multiplied, and it’s not creative unless it rings the cash register.”
Gary Bencivenga
Accountable Advertising, Inc.
According to the October 2000 issue of Target Marketing, Gary Bencivenga is the world’s highest paid direct mail copywriter weighing it at $25,000 per letter advance against royalties.
“Netscape has had several opportunities to work with Ken McCarthy, including having Marc Andreessen as a keynote speaker at one of the first conferences focused on the Web as a viable business tool. We have enjoyed our relationship with Ken thoroughly.”
Rosanne Siino
Vice President, Corporate Communications
Netscape Communications Corporation
“…Hotwired’s been credited with popularizing many of today’s commonly accepted Web advertising practices – “banner ads” and “click through rates” for example – to the business world.
I credit Ken McCarthy with introducing me to the whole notion that the Web could be a viable place for advertising. I attended a talk of his in the early summer of 1994 where he not only predicted the evolution of the Web with uncanny accuracy, but also put the Web in a larger historical context in a most unique and fascinating way.”
Rick Boyce
Vice President, Director of Sales
Hotwired
“Ken’s been a regular speaker at my marketing conferences since 1993 and Amacord’s been managing our web site since 1995.
As people who know me well can tell you, I’m not easy on vendors and I don’t recommend experts, service providers, and speakers lightly. Many are called, few make the cut. Fewer still are invited back again and again.
I’ve been so impressed with Ken’s mastery of marketing that I’ve included examples of his ad writing in my books and courses. His involvement in the Internet business dates back to 1993 and he has consistently given his clients (including me and dozens of my clients who I’ve recommended to him) straight, no nonsense advice in a field that is overrun with hype and false promises.
I know that there is a lot of interest in e-marketing. I have bought materials from, talked with, met with and checked out over 30 different “Internet Marketing Gurus” over the past year or so – and have had very lucrative offers made to me to endorse or partner with them.
I’m sticking with Ken. If you are interested in e-marketing straight talk, he’s the guy you want to talk to.
My highest recommendation.”
Dan Kennedy,
Author, consultant, entrepreneur
“How to Make Millions with Your Ideas,” “The Ultimate Marketing Plan Book,” “The Ultimate Sales Letter Book,” “How to Succeed by Breaking All the Rules,” and “The Ultimate No BS Sales Success Book.”
“I connected with Ken when he was in the process of organizing a conference with Marc Andreessen on what, at the time, seemed a rather “far out” idea: commercial publishing on the World Wide Web. As far as I know, it was the first conference ever devoted exclusively to this topic and it was certainly the first one offered to the Bay Area’s cutting edge digerati community.
In a region with more new media visionaries than any other place on earth, Ken has been one of the very first to grasp and articulate the significance that the World Wide Web would have on all of us.”
Hal Jospehson,
President, MediaSense, Inc.
Executive Director, NewMedia INVISION Awards Festival
1994 President, IICS, International Interactive Communications Society
“I’ve known Ken McCarthy since 1985 when he was offering some very insightful and inspiring courses on educational psychology in New York City. In fact, I was so impressed by his work that I cited him along with Buckminster Fuller, Alvin Toffler, and others as a source for my book “Peak Learning” (Tarcher, 1991)
I therefore wasn’t at all surprised that Ken became involved in the Internet in 1993 and dedicated himself to making it comprehensible for innovative educators and small business people.
I recently had the opportunity to avail myself of his consulting services regarding my web site. As I said to him in a follow up e-mail: “Hail Master!” I can’t remember the last time I received such a flood of immediately useful, on-target advice from any consultant in any field. If you have an opportunity to work with him, don’t hesitate.”
Ronald Gross, Chair, University Seminar on Innovation,
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
The quickest, fastest, least expensive way to enjoy some of the same benefits of working with Ken that these clients and colleagues describe is to check out his book “The System Club Letters.”