11:29am
Saint Paul
Do you know of John Forde? He’s a direct response copywriter and author, including co-author of “Great Leads.”
Today John emailed a ChatGPT prompt to direct the AI tool to rate your copy on the four U’s: Urgency, Uniqueness, Usefulness, and Ultra-specificity.
(I’ve added a 5th U: YOU, the reader—make sure your copy addresses your reader! Anyways…)
Continue reading “ChatGPT: rate my copy! (Update to Death Squeal story…)”3:23pm
Saint Paul
Tonight’s the school carnival.
You’ll find me working at the Can Crush booth along Game Row.
My goal for tonight?
I chose three cards from my Hypnotic Language card deck. Tonight I’ll be using these phrases as often as I can, if only to see how I can squeeze them into the conversation with elementary school kids:
Continue reading “Three hypnotic phrases I’m trying out tonight”3:37pm
Saint Paul
Our ancient Kenmore clothes drier is no longer moaning in agony.
Now it’s got a full-on death squeal.
Continue reading “What works… when words won’t?”Monday 1:06pm
Saint Paul, Minn
Hey *|FNAME|* if you had an additional $150k to spend on your business…
How would you invest it?
Develop new products? Go after a new market segment? Completely shift your offering? Invest in AI and become a software vendor? Train the staff? Buy out a competitor?
That’s the hypothetical question my client’s board of directors is asking themselves right now.
I gave my client a number of ideas for them to bounce around, not all of which are good or feasible.
That’s OK. BAD ideas are often the seeds for GOOD ideas.
And of course—some businesses don’t want to grow.
Those smaller businesses are often chugging along, putting in the work and creating happy clients.
(Even if it means they’re working looong days to do it!)
From my point of view, business growth comes from three levers:
• Great products that solve real problems for real people
• Great customer service to make doing business a pleasure, and
• Great marketing to bring in new money (from new and existing customers)
Of course, to a hammer everything is a nail…
Anyways.
Reply and tell me please: how would YOU invest $150,000 to upgrade your business?
3:17pm Friday
Saint Paul
I’ve spent the better part of today on LinkedIn… and watching business videos from Ben Settle… and generally ignoring the work I had planned for today.
Basically: not writing.
Eew it doesn’t feel good.
Continue reading “A day without deadlines… is a wasted day.”11:51am
Saint Paul
Don’t you hate unproductive meetings?
I’m at my table sipping coffee after a morning run, looking over my notes from a meeting yesterday.
A rather unproductive one.
The guest speaker couldn’t give concrete examples of his ideas. He kept trailing off… changing topics mid-sentence… and never completing a thought.
In short: he couldn’t communicate well. And without examples of his work or ideas… he wasn’t earning my trust.
It was frustrating and even the host didn’t seem to know where to take the directionless conversation.
But not all is lost!
Continue reading “Two essentials to high-ticket sales”“An iced americano with two shots of espresso and one shot of decaf espresso.”
My friend ordered his birthday coffee this morning.
He and I both worked in a coffee shop back in college. Some 20-odd years ago. His beverage sounded reasonable to me.
Then I ordered.
“Another one of those. And also, four shots of espresso.”
The owner of the cafe looked at us.
“You’re f***ing with me right?”
Continue reading “Make happier customers: use their language!”2:29pm
Saint Paul
There were no tigers today.
Habitat closed.
I assume that means the animals themselves went into cold storage, like art stashed in a dark basement.
Either way, the all-school field trip to the Minnesota Zoo today was a lot of fun.
I herded the cats that my son calls friends.
Watched the adults act like children, climbing on fences and dropping trash on the ground.
And worked on my small talk with fellow parents:
Continue reading “What’s that homosapien up to?”12:17pm
Saint Paul
The way I see it, there are only three ways to compete with SEO.
1. Be huge. I mean it. Some companies—I’m looking at HubSpot—were built on SEO. And they now dominate that space. The only way to compete for a single page ranking is to create longer content, add more keywords, get more inbound links. It’s an arms race, and one that the big guys won’t give up on easily.
So, for most companies, this is probably a losing proposal.
Especially in the time of AI. Everyone can use ChatGPT to crank out content. But the companies that focus on creating a connection with their audience, providing a real solution to solve real pains, is going to win.
Not more content. Better content. Somehow, better than what’s already crushing.
But luckily, you have more SEO options.
Continue reading “Three Ways to Compete with SEO”1:49pm
Saint Paul
Ever heard of the Blackstone Grill?
It’s a flat-top griddle, like you would find in a cafe staffed by a short-order cook and an overworked server or two.
When you cook a burger on the Blackstone?
Continue reading “Dig a hole first. Figure it out later.”