Here’s what I’m up to…

11:51am
Saint Paul

The holidays are here!

Yesterday we hosted my wife’s family—21 people!—in our small 1950s rambler home.

We didn’t know how everyone would fit, and hoped the kids would find their way to the basement.

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12:50pm
Back in Saint Paul

When it was all over, I shook the A/V guy’s hand.

“Thanks for coming today,” I said.

“Your microphone?”

I unclipped my mic and placed it in his waiting hand.

“Oh. Of course.”

Last week, I stood on stage in front of perhaps 40 marketers at B2B Forum in Boston, sharing my ideas on building relationships with email marketing.

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8:34am
Saint Paul

Someone asked,

“What are some effective ways to persuade someone who has lost interest in something?”

Persuasion means you’re showing a person (or a group) reasons to move forward with an action or belief.

So if they’re not interested, you must get them interested before they can possibly be persuaded.

There are a number of ways to spark interest.

Here are ten that marketers (and Hollywood, and the Media, and others) use all the time:

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10:59am
Saint Paul

“They’re all pretty much the same,” says Andi Schmied about some of the most expensive condos in Manhattan.

Andi booked tours with realtors who thought she was a billionaire, just so she could get in to photograph these high-end homes.

“The engineering–these towers being so tall and thin–means there’s little room for play or experimentation. They’re so boring; and the architects who accept the jobs are boring, too.”

That’s a problem for some people. But not everyone.

Not everyone wants a creatively designed home. They want an expensive home.

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1:18pm
Saint Paul

Some writers are worried about AI stealing their jobs.

Other people worry that robotics—and tech in general—will steal everyone’s job.

And they might be right.

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7:56am
Saint Paul

“That might work in your business…

“But my customers are unique. My business is different.”

Says almost everyone.

But they’re wrong.

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12:12pm
Saint Paul

The cold war wasn’t just fought with stockpiles of weapons.

There was also nation-building happening on both sides.

America supported our allies, most notable West Germany. Russia supported theirs, including East Germany and Bulgaria.

And capitalism—through NATO and free trade—supported America’s aims… with a much softer message of prosperity and peace, not war and weapons.

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8:34am
Saint Paul

When you think of high-end Italian cars, Lamborghini is on the short list.

If you know anything about Italian cars—and I know very little—you may know they have a reputation for breaking down.

Fiat, for example, was joked as being an acronym for “Fix It Again Tony.”

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12:56pm
Saint Paul

I spent the weekend in Northern Wisconsin hanging with the family, shooting b.b. guns, and admiring at the incredible fall colors.

It’s hard to NOT love being an email copywriter when you have the flexibility to set your own hours in a location like this…

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4:54pm
Saint Paul

One thing the book The Creative Ambush hammers on is,

What dreams have you given up on?
And why?

Last week I met with a university student who is majoring in marketing.

Over coffee, I asked about his marketing and business classes, what he’s learning, what his plan might be after college.

Was he learning to write headlines? Advertisements? Design UX? Understand KPIs?

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