"No"

The word “no” has to be one of the crummiest words in the English language. “Would you like to go to dinner sometime?” “Um, no.” “Did you get the job?” “No.” “Is there a cure?” “No.” “Will you marry me?” “No.” Did we win? “No.”

The only good thing about the word “no” is its shocking finality, its absolute clarity. There is no ambiguity about the word no at all. No, wait, scratch that. No isn’t so clear after all.

In the cat and mouse game of boy meets girl, “no” can often mean “no, absolutely not” or, “not right now” or “yes, but I’m not supposed to so, um, no, I think” and so on. For teenage boys and girls “no” is like an inkblot test designed by M.C. Escher – its meaning changes every time it shows up.

So there I was over at my local Safeway/Starbucks the other day getting a mid-afternoon latte and a brownie. (I should have “just said no” to the brownie but I digress.)

Anyway, when it came time to swipe my card, I swiped away. And as I punched in my pin number I was asked a very simple question with two possible answers: “Would you like to make a donation for breast cancer today?”

“Yes” or “No.”

I felt like a teenage girl with a cute, panting boyfriend. “No” in this case was really more like a, “maybe yes, but not right now.” But I wasn’t given that choice. It was “yes” or “no”. Which is really a bummer because I have said yes to a breast cancer donation again and again and again at that very same Safeway. But not being independently wealthy, I can’t indulge my altruistic leanings every time I am prompted. So “no” it was.

The problem is that I felt like a cheapskate. If I choose “yes” I’m a good guy, if I choose “no” well, I walk out feeling tight and a little cheap. How about if instead of “yes” and “no” the good folks who design these campaigns gave us “yes” or “next time”.

That way, if I decline, I’m not made to feel so small about it, and I’ve made a small promise to donate next time.

What do you think? Yes or no?

If YOU would like to make a donation to help in the fight against breast cancer, you can do so here>>

Update: From the great minds think alike department. One day after this post comes this post on the word “no” from Christopher S. Penn. I found it at Chris Brogan’s New Marketing Labs website, but the author is Christopher S. Penn who is author of the blog Awaken Your Superhero. Here’s an excerpt from his piece called The Power of Not Yet:

There’s a little too much no out there.

No, you can’t.
No, you don’t have that.
No, that’s not affordable.
No, you’re not good enough.
No, you don’t know how to do that.
No, you can’t reach those customers.

The problem with no is in the finality of its tone. No cuts off possibility, especially inside your own head. Are you good enough to get this job? If your mind says no, then you move on – but chances are, you don’t come back, and that door of opportunity closes forever in your mind.

Read the whole post here>>

What is it? It isn’t about you.

One day my barista was in a very customer centric mood. His timing was exquisite.

Your marketing efforts are not about you. Your marketing efforts are about how you can empower, make better, or change the lives of the people that need what you have. It’s about THEM.

That is the simplest and most straightforward way to describe what we mean by customer focused copywriting. Think of it this way: anytime you have an opportunity to speak to your customers – via a cappuccino! your website, blog, Facebook, Twitter, corporate brochure, white paper, e-book, whatever – you have two choices. You can talk about yourself – “Stafford Security – We are the number one rated home security company in Elkhart, IN” to which I say,  Who cares?

Read the entire post here>>

The Cover of Robert Frank's The Americans

Once upon a time in a long-forgotten place, I fell in love. This was a life-changing, head-over-heels-kind-of-love, and the subject of my swoon was Robert Frank’s seminal book of black and white photographs, The Americans.

At the time, I was an aspiring photographer, and Frank’s pictures blew the top off my head and showed me what photography could be. The Americans had the same effect on tens of thousands of other photographers at all skill levels, and it reverberated among artists, writers and other observers of the American scene. Such is its power that 50 years later we are still talking about and showing the Americans. There is a huge show “Looking In: Robert Frank’s The Americans, at the Met in New York.

Frank’s pictures were idiosyncratic, brutally honest, dark, foreboding and furtive. Those pictures absolutely killed. Robert Frank’s take on America was almost exactly the opposite of the country’s prevailing vision of itself – more Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac than Eisenhower. It was a beat generation document but a whole lot more. The Americans upset a lot of people of course, given the less than rose colored tint it portrayed. “A sad poem for sick people” was one comment.

In the recent New Yorker write-up on the Frank show at the Met, Anthony Lane remarks on how Frank shot over 760 rolls of film on three trips around the U.S. on a Guggenheim grant. He developed his film, made his contact sheets, and set about printing a group of selected images. He printed one thousand work prints (a work print refers to a quickly made image that a photographer will consider over time and then later print to exacting specifications) of this place called America. That a Swiss born Jew in 1955 would conceive of somehow capturing the soul of these United States in a group of photographs is quite an astonishing proposition, but that’s a discussion for another time.

Here is what’s amazing. Robert Frank shot thousands upon thousands of photographs – 27,000+ in all. It’s not unusual for a documentary, street-shooting, photo-journalist type of photographer to shoot vast amounts of film – it’s the nature of the beast.

What’s incredible is the discipline and vision it took for Robert Frank to cull through his work and edit it down to only 83 (!) pictures. In the shooting, he collected the raw data. But like the filmmaker that he would soon become, it was in the editing room where the miracle occurred.

Through careful (and brutal) editing, and his sequencing, he told his unique story, changed the course of contemporary photography, influenced legions of photographers who followed him, and, reflected back to us an image of ourselves wholly unexpected, uncomfortable, unsettling, true.

So any of us who write for a living, (or do other kinds of creative work) one of the lessons of Frank’s achievement is this: Great work involves culling, murdering your darlings – letting go of all your favorite, nifty little phrases and word choices and give the reader the heart and soul of the story.

Murder your darlings, if you have not yet heard the phrase, is attributed to Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch who taught writing at Oxford.

If you enjoyed this post, please consider sharing it with every person you have ever met. Comments are welcome and commenter persons are automatically entered into a drawing for a super big prize.

Put that coffee down! Coffee is for closers only.

By now, I hope and pray that you have all seen and worship one of the greatest American movies of all time, Glenn Gary Glen Ross. Alec Baldwin’s now famous tongue lashing monologue has been seen a gazillion times for good reason — it’s absolutely brilliant. On the wild chance you haven’t heard, this is the film that made the phrase, “coffee is for closers” famous. At one point in his tirade, Baldwin bellows, “Put the coffee down. Coffee is for closers only.” And later on, “If you want to work here, close!!”

Baldwin’s “always be closing/coffee is for closers” mantra came to mind recently in my own business. I didn’t close. So no coffee for me.

Here’s what happened. I met with this fellow, nice guy, small business owner. He felt trapped in his business. He’d prefer to sell, but no one is buying. He reached out to me because a mutual friend/acquaintance told him I could do a bunch of cool internet marketing stuff for him. Which is true, I could.

So he called and we had coffee and had a great chat. I left that coffee believing I had a new client. Then I sent him a proposal. “Gulp” was a word he used when he saw the numbers. He then asked me if I’d be interested in a trade – he provides a very cool service – so I said “yes” without hesitating. Then he bailed out on me entirely.

I don’t know the full reason why he bailed, but part of the reason is he thought I was nuts he didn’t understand the strikethrough tool and thought I was hanging out my dirty editing process for the world to see. There’s a bit more to the story that prudence leads me to leave out. But I’ve taken the position that I didn’t make clear enough what value I could deliver. Major fail on my part. I had an opportunity to close, and didn’t. So here’s what I say to all prospective clients.

I will help you think more clearly about your business and will help you position yourself with regard to your competition. I will ask you many penetrating questions to get to heart of your core value.

I will research the competitive landscape.

I will help you develop a unique value proposition.

I will interview your customers to hear what they have to say.

I will write clever, benefit laden headlines and great emails.

I will stick with you for months as we work together on a large ebook project – and I will interview people all over the world.

I will stay up all night to help you win that new project.

I love the written word, and live for the clear organization of complex material.

I know and work with good designers – people who can help clarify and communicate your company’s value proposition and your reason for being.

I am easy to work with and comport myself as a professional.

I will help you understand how SEO works and I can help you achieve rankings in Google search queries.

I will work with you until you are happy with what we’ve done.

I will tell you if I’m not the right person for your project.

I won’t surprise you with a fee that you weren’t expecting.

I will have suggestions for you that may surprise you.

I will deliver more than you expected.

Let me repeat: I will help you close.

One of the many hundreds of reasons that I love the Internets is that I get an opportunity to speak with people that I ordinarily wouldn’t have the chance to, you know, conversate with.

Tom Lafauci

For instance, when Barack Obama was speaking in Cairo, I had an extended exchange on Twitter with @tomlafauci, a former speechwriter to Joe Biden, Tom Foley and John Kerry. We had a really nice, brief back and forth for about fifteen minutes. Loved it. He’s clearly got a way with words.

Take a look at a few of Tom’s recent tweets:

@tomlafauci

@tomlafauci

@tomlafauci

James Fallows

I’ve exchanged a few emails with James Fallows, one of my very favorite persons and journalists.

And then I’ve just popped in on people for the joy of it. I wish I could tell you that I’ve done this hundreds of times, but it’s likely just a few dozen.

It generally looks like this. I land on someone’s site, loved it, sent them an email: “I love your site, you appear to be doing great work and I’m impressed and inspired. Thanks for having such a great site. I’m going to redouble my efforts because of you.”

Takes about all of 25 seconds to write an e-mail like that. And the recipient who has no expectation that anything like this is coming, is understandably quite thrilled. And we each go on our way. Me feel good. They feel good. (I’ve been on the receiving end a few times and can attest to the joy one feels.)

Copywriting superstar Bob Bly

Meet Bob Bly – Copywriter & Generous Guy

Way back in December of 2007, I sent Bob an email thanking him for the great generosity he shows to copywriters. Hundreds of us, if not thousands of us have benefited from his work. Bob is the author of numerous books on copywriting and a force of nature in the world of copywriting. I wished him a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. “Thank you. You made my day,” he wrote back. Would I have snailed mail a thank you? Doubtful.

Today I found a directory for freelance copywriters that was different from the norm. This directory was owned and controlled by guess who? Bob Bly. Here’s the thing; he wasn’t letting just anyone into his directory. He made it plain it wasn’t going to be easy to get in. He wanted a track record, he wanted a client list, etc, etc. His name was involved.

Where’s All This Going?

Fast forward to today. I still had his original email, thanks to GMail. So I replied to a two year old email and said that I hoped he was still well and busy. I talked about the directory he’d just launched and how cool it was and that I would be honored to be included. I included my client list and some other information.

Ten minutes later Bob wrote back: “Impressive client list and website. You’ll be listed in the next few days.” Would I have been listed without the thank you? We’ll never know, but it sure didn’t hurt that we had a bit of a relationship to begin with.

There’s a saying that I can’t remember. It has something to do with doing something for someone before you actually need them. Someday I’m going to be able to help Bob Bly. Up till now, most of our exchange has been one way — he keeps helping me. So here I am again saying, “thank you Bob, you’re just a great, generous guy.” And you too, Tom LaFauci and James Fallows.

And you? Thank you for reading this far. Comments are welcome as is sharing. Have a Tom, Bob and James kind of day.