Startup Gold 

I’m not a big fan of using other people’s money (OPM). That’s especially true of starting businesses, which I’ve done a lot of. I prefer to get into businesses that fund their own growth from cash flow.

But entrepreneurs today don’t think that way. They see OPM as a standard part of “scaling” their companies. If I didn’t have enough money to start and grow a business, however, there are better and worse places to get OPM. Among of the best, IMHO, are small business grants. In a recent issue, The Hustle (a blog post I subscribe to) recommended some. Click here.

The Cost of Being Mark Zuckerberg 

Zuckerberg’s company (Meta) spent $27 million last year on security for him and his close relatives. Click here.

A New Alternative Index 

On Mar. 30, Yahoo Finance  launched the Total Collectible Index to track the value of things like trading cards, cars, and comic books. Click here.

If You Want to Develop a Big, Sustainable Business…

You Must Become Knowledgeable in Two Ways 

In business, as, in life, there are two kinds of knowledge: specific and general.

Specific knowledge pertains to the hundreds of particular things you need to understand to run your business – from how to place advertisements to how to process orders to the financial, operational, and management details that must be done to get things done.

General knowledge pertains to things like how to find and groom great employees, how to develop longstanding relationships with vendors, how to come up with new marketing ideas, how to boost company morale, etc.

Growing a business requires both kinds of knowledge. You need industry-specific knowledge to make the dozens of smaller decisions that arise every day. But you also need general knowledge to guide you in the bigger, longer-term decisions.

Young entrepreneurs, because they are young, have only a modicum of general knowledge. But they can – and the successful ones do – have a great deal of specific knowledge. Particularly the specifics about marketing and sales.

But as the business grows and layers of management are added, it becomes impossible for the founder/entrepreneur/CEO to have all the industry-specific knowledge he needs to run it. He must delegate it to people that he trusts.

And that is where general business knowledge comes into play. Delegating is easy. Trusting can be, too. But unless the CEO has a good deal of general knowledge, his trust will be blind. And his ability to lead his key executives will be nil.

Responding to Change 

The information publishing industry, like all industries, has been changing since the internet revolution took hold for real at the turn of the century. It went through a major change from 2000 to 2020, and another one from 2010 to 2020. In the last two years, it’s been changing again, and is affecting the content of the information we provide in fundamental ways.

In an interview I did recently with John Newtson from the Financial Marketing Summit, I explain what I believe are the key changes and how businesses like ours must respond to them.

You can watch the interview here.

Sexy Titles 

Killer Profits Newsletter… The Mega-Millionaire Review…

I cringe when I see such titles appearing on our product list. “Couldn’t you have come up with something a little less cheesy?”  I’ll ask the publisher.

But they like these titles. They think they are exciting. And on point. “This is what our subscribers want,” they tell me.

I don’t agree. I don’t believe people really want killer profits. I believe most people, even those that don’t spend much time thinking about it, are much more complicated than that.

My thoughts on creating titles: Make them distinctive. Make them memorable. Make them simple. But don’t make them silly. There’s no need.

More on the Buyer Brain 

After my Feb. 14 essay on the “Buyer Brain,” several readers wrote to ask me to elaborate and provide examples. To catch you up: In that essay, I pointed out that, with respect to buying decisions, it is useful to understand the human brain in terms of three distinct parts – the reptilian brain, the limbic brain, and the neocortical brain, representing instinct, emotion, and thought.

My thesis was that, to compete in the 22nd-century digital marketplace, CEOS, copywriters, and marketers will have to take a holistic approach to the sales process, including marketing to prospects, onboarding new customers, and serving existing ones. Prior to the internet, general advertising companies could dominate their markets by focusing their marketing on instinct and emotion. Likewise, direct marketing companies could grow huge by focusing on emotion and thinking (i.e., rationalization). Today, every business of every kind must appeal to and satisfy all three parts of the brain.

Below, I answer two questions that account for most of those I received…

From BP, a direct marketer – re my claim that direct marketers need to appeal to instinct (the lizard brain): 

 “I’m thinking that the lizard brain might be the ad, or some image/headline that immediately makes someone stop and pay attention. Some kind of pattern interrupt of sorts, since the lizard brain is basically scanning for something new and different to pay attention to because, in the past, it could be a lion waiting to attack you. Can you give a few examples?”

My answer: Exactly. With the hundreds of micro-messages a typical consumer is exposed to on the internet every day, it’s no longer possible to capture attention with headlines like “How to Lose 20 pounds in 10 Days.” Such a promise could underline the pitch, but to distinguish your ad from so many others, you have to do more than that. Something that stops the casual reader in his tracks – if only for a second. There are several ways to do that. Some are verbal – usually single words that feel somehow wrong or out of place. And some are visual – images, photos, even typefaces that are in some way jarring. Of course, it’s not enough to simply interrupt. The rhetorical device you choose must also appeal to a lizard instinct. For a moment, and only a moment, it must scare him like a snake in the grass or allure him like an irresistible aroma.

From KB, a general advertising executive: 

“You said that people in my line of work understand instinct and emotion. I get that. How does the neocortical brain come into play?”

My answer: In the pre-internet days, goods marketing via general advertising sent people into stores where real live salespeople closed the sale and then sent customers home to experience their purchases. Nowadays, more and more goods are simply delivered directly from the distributor to the customer. This directness means that all sorts of things the salesperson did to convince the customer that she made a good purchase are missing. So, to keep refunds down and repeat buying high, general advertisers will be asked to do much more: to create materials that will help customers rationalize their purchases ex post facto.

A colleague writes:

“I am losing a great employee. And so, I’m in the market for a last-minute replacement…. Do you have any advice on getting a great replacement tout suite?” 

My reply:

Sorry to hear that. Losing good employees is not fun. As for suggestions, I don’t have any magic bullets for you. All the best ideas for recruiting great talent take time.

I can think of three things you can try right now. These have occasionally – though not consistently – worked for me:

1. If feasible, ask your customers. Make it the topic of a blog post. Invite readers to respond.
2. Call your colleagues and competitors. I know it might sound crazy to call a competitor, but I’ve had success with this approach more than once – and established a quid pro quo that worked nicely for years.
3. Ask your employees. Not all of them. Just the superstars. Birds of a feather flock together Smart people hang out with smart people. Creatives hang out with creatives. This has been the single best last-minute trick I’ve ever used. Try it. You may be surprised.

Good luck!