One Step Removed… It Works with Embroidery Too!

From MS, who has the unfortunate job of simultaneously translating my speeches into Japanese:

“I am writing to let you know that your business/marketing concept of ‘one-step removed’ works in areas that are totally not related to business. For example: About 18 months ago, I began to learn haute-couture embroidery and I’ve I have been really into it. Last month, I completed a project – a project that had a clear design instruction on what materials (beads, threads, codes, raffias… etc.) to use where, and that is this (all black).

“Now, since there were many new techniques involved and I wanted to redo them on my own just to keep my memory fresh, I decided to use the same techniques and make something else. First, I was thinking of making a new design by myself, change colors… etc. etc. But then I remembered the ‘one-step removed’ philosophy and decided to only change one element – a color. So I decided to keep design the same, size the same, everything the same… but just new colors, so that I should have 50% of success rate.

“My embroidery teacher was so happy to see the new version with new color, and she is more than ever willing to share what she knows. Also, since I kept everything the same except the colors, it was really clear for me to spot when I messed up and how. It really boosted the quality of my learning experience as well.

“What you teach really works!!!!! “

From AS re being old:

“Having spent some time doing physical labor as a young man, I was conscious of the labor of the men who delivered supplies to my restaurant. From their trucks, they would unload 25-pound boxes of liquor and wine bottles, 30-pound packages of ribs, 50- and 60-pound beer kegs, and fully packed cartons of everything else. Some of these men remained on our route for 30 years. I watched them age along with me.

“Memorial Day weekend was always a busy time for the restaurant, and so deliveries would arrive in the days leading up to it all day, back-to-back. One weekend – about 10 years ago – I was, as always, watching the older deliverymen, worried a bit for their safety but mostly in awe of their ability to lift, drag, and pull the loaded handcarts and dollies.

“I asked Lou, who had been delivering to my restaurant for many years, how he did it. ‘Don’t know,’ he said. ‘I’m in constant pain, but I have a wife, and one of my kids is still in college. I have no choice.’

“I wanted to believe that if I had to, like Lou had to, I would find a way to do that kind of work at Lou’s age. But I didn’t know.

“Today, I was at a gas station and I saw a man in his mid-seventies, like me, rolling a handcart stacked more than six feet high with large boxes. I held the door for him and was about to compliment him on his tenacity, when I saw that he was delivering potato chips.”

From JS re my article on the Pareto Principle in the May 17  issue: 

“I was particularly interested in the returns (ROI) on the 10% allocated to ‘outside the box’ strategies – or, as you put it, ideas that are ‘far away from what has traditionally worked.’

“From my own experience managing budgets, I’ve typically used a 95/5 split, with the 5% dedicated to marginal changes. I found that beating the control was challenging, and the most effective gains came from small tweaks that, over time, compounded nicely.

“I generally avoided searching for the proverbial needle in the haystack. In the old Print world, the time required for testing and retesting made those more unconventional approaches too far outside my acceptable range. I suppose I was simply in a hurry… Dammit, I didn’t see 70 coming so quickly.”

My Response: You make a good point. I wonder if the difference was in the nature of our different markets. Your market was very large, but I see it as having been more stable because you were marketing to buyers of mainstream products. (Is that fair?)

I was a BIG believer in incremental improvements when our file was 100,000. I had more theories than a barn dog has ticks. (One day, I’ll tell you some and you will laugh at me!) But when our file size reached a million, all those incremental changes didn’t pan out. I tested and retested them because I wanted to believe them. But on test panels of 100,000 rather than 20,000, they didn’t work.

What made the difference were radical changes… like turning an investment newsletter into an international club of wealth seekers (The Oxford Club), which is still selling over $100 million a year in subscriptions 40 years later!

Laid off? Could be the best thing that ever happened to you… 

From AC: “I turn 32 this year, just got laid off from work, and I feel stuck. Making a new start seems so far out that it’s got me quite depressed. Should I begin by reading your Ready, Fire, Aim, or is there some other book to read?”

My Response: First of all, don’t let “making a new start” bum you out. This could be an opportunity in disguise.

My guess is that you were not what I would call a “superstar” employee. Why? Because superstar employees are never “laid off” unless the business closes. I’m assuming your business didn’t close. Therefore, your being laid off indicates you are not an amazing, super-valuable, super-hardworking, and super-conscientious employee. You are probably “ordinary.” You get to work on time. You leave after eight hours. You do what you are told to do competently. And you think that should be enough. It’s not. You are ordinary. And performing as an “ordinary” employee is a 95% guarantee that you get nowhere.”

So the first thing you must do is to desist from being ordinary. That requires admitting to yourself that you are not extraordinary. The next thing it requires is to create a plan that allows you to become the best employee at your next business. And the third thing you must do is stick to that plan even if it feels like you are not progressing.

You can accomplish all three of the above by purchasing a copy of The Pledge, the book I wrote in 2010, to help people in the very situation you find yourself in now. The Pledge is not a book of big ideas. On the contrary, it is a book of smaller pieces of common sense. But if you commit to it, you will become an extraordinary employee, which is the first step towards becoming a successful wealth builder.

In 52 weeks, you will have changed a good deal from who you are now. You will be smarter. You will be shrewder. And you will be a much better worker.  You should also be making a good deal more than you are making now. And you should have a saving account you can use to start your own business.

If you’ve accomplished all that in a year, then you can decide whether you want to start your own business. And if you decide you want to, then you should not just read Ready, Fire, Aim, you should use it as your business plan.

Re my piece in the May 17  issue on the Pareto Principle

From SJ: “As someone who ran a fitness business for 30 years, I can tell you that you’re right on the money with your version of the Pareto Principle. You wouldn’t think it would apply to my industry, but it does. Once I figured out that 80% of my revenues were coming from 20% of your customers, it didn’t take me long to realize that 25% of those 20% are the people that are giving you a bottom line. Treat them like gold!”

This Has Gotta Be the Best Business Ever!

MP recommended this article to me on the way to Courtomer. It’s another example of two continuing facts about entrepreneurship: 1. If there is a clever new way to make a profit, there’s a good chance it will be an American who figures it out. 2. Life Insurance is the Buddha of financial strategies. It has a thousand reincarnations.

My piece on copywriting in the May 9  issue prompted about a dozen questions from readers who were starting or contemplating copywriting careers. I’ll answer just one of them today. 

From PL: How did your pre-copywriting jobs shape how you approach copy now?

My Response: When I was 18 or 19 (a child really), I spent several weeks trailing a man in his thirties, a seasoned pro who was trying to teach me the basics of door-to-door sales by selling pots and pans in an apartment complex in Brooklyn. Not too long after that, I spent half a summer selling aluminum siding door-to-door on Long Island.

Those experiences, painfully embarrassing as they seemed at the time, taught me more about selling than I realized. For one thing, I discovered the miracle of persistence – seeing how my mentors could take rejection after rejection because they knew that they needed only one sale out of ten to hit their goals. I also learned how important it was to pay close attention to the eyes and body language of the prospect when giving a pitch, so you could change up the approach the moment you saw signs that you were losing them.

You might think that person-to-person selling – and these “secrets” in particular – might not apply to writing advertising copy, but they very much do. The first one allowed me to understand the power of direct marketing – first direct mail marketing and then direct marketing on the internet. And the second one taught me to read my written copy out loud to get a sense for when it might become boring or incredible.

I am not the exception in benefiting from this sort of sales experience. Most of the best and most successful copywriters I know spent some time selling door-to-door.

About my “100-Day Report Card for Donald Trump” in the May 13  issue…

From BJ: “Re your comment on Trump’s popularity and the polls, the WSJ today (May 15) came out with an editorial titled ‘Poll: Trump Has Higher Approval Rating in New Jersey Than Democrat Governor.’ You can read it here.”

Note: This Readers Write “department” has so far consisted mostly of comments and or questions from readers. Lately, though, I’ve been getting a regular stream of articles recommended by my regular readers, including friends and colleagues. I’ve been collecting them and thought I’d pass three along to you today.

A T-Shirt Was Grown, Spun, Knit, and Made Entirely in America. It Took Only 4 Years 

This one was sent in by LC, no doubt stimulated by Trump’s trade policies.

Is This Daily Habit Driving a $4 Trillion Health Crisis?

Dr. Mercola, one of the best-known COVID skeptics and a crusader for healthy living, is sometimes criticized because he supports his newsletter through subscriptions and selling natural health products. “Don’t judge him, for that,” says JS, who has been researching the Health Industrial Complex for years. “Read what he says here, and decide for yourself.”

The Pfizer Papers: Pfizer’s Crimes Against Humanity

Responding to Part Two of my monograph on COVID in the May 6 issue, GM recommended this report on Pfizer.

From SC re Part One of my monograph on COVID in the April 11  issue: 

“You do your otherwise good work in your report on COVID damage by suggesting that the government (Dr. Fauci in particular) was purposefully making false public statements about it rather than reporting on the best available scientific evidence at the time. There’s no proof of that.”

My Response: There is a hill of evidence that’s quickly growing to the size of a mountain. I know it’s not easy to find it if you are looking on Google. Since COVID became controversial in the mid 2020s, I’ve seen a strong pro-government bias in its ranking systems. And let’s not forget that Mark Zuckerberg, in his Congressional testimony, admitted to allowing the Biden Administration influence Google’s “fact checking” in favor of the official narrative.)

In addition to Part Two in today’s issue, I’m going to be publishing more of my monograph on COVID in the coming weeks. Please read all of it, as I’m including dates, times, and figures that I hope will persuade you to take a more critical view of what happened.

I’m convinced that the response to COVID (the response of the governments of the majority of developed countries) was the greatest abridgment of political, legal, and social freedom in my lifetime. And the egregious wrongs that were done to billions of people all over the world were done with the passive cooperation of most of the populations affected – mostly with their naïve and stubbornly ignorant consent.

I know you will reject that accusation out of hand. But just think: What if it is true?

About my “early to bed, early to rise” pledge in the April 7  issue… 

“Try this: Waste your most productive time during the day on TikTok, etc., and then try to be your most productive from 11:00 pm until 2:00 am. I expect it won’t be long before you’re going to bed early.” – JJ

My Response: I appreciate the suggestion… and that is essentially what I’ve been doing. My social media addiction of choice is YouTube, which my limbic/reptilian brain absorbs like a needed nutrient. I haven’t lost faith. So long as I continue getting up at 6:00 or 6:15, there is hope my thinking brain will have its voice heard!

From DG: “An aside to your USAID article in the April 22     issue” 

“Not only is there a question about how efficient USAID was, there have to be questions about where it was going.

“Until it was stopped, I didn’t realise that a recipient was a UK ‘charity’ called Stonewall. Why would a UK charity need funding from the US? It’s not as if Stonewall helps poor/ill people. They are a very militant group that drives a pro-transgender, anti-anything-else ideology, they have managed to get a big foothold in defining how UK government and government-funded organizations run their recruitment, etc. I believe they are really dangerous.

“Not the sort of organisation that can get funding from individual contributions. I had never thought about where they got their money, but Trump has done us a big favour cutting funding to USAID. In the current woke climate, not something many people will say, but it’s true.”

Two comments on the tariffs essay in the April 3  issue…

“I can’t believe you were trying to defend Trump’s tariffs. The guys a maniac. He’s going to destroy the world.” – PG

“Your point about Trump using tariffs for geopolitical reasons is a good one. It’s worked so far. It will be interesting to see if it continues to work – if he can pull it off without causing the inflation his critics are predicting.” – NSP

On my review of A Man for All Seasons in the April 15  issue…

“I was glad to see your review of A Man for All Seasons. It’s always been one of my favorite films, but when I recommend it, people seem uninterested because it is so old.” – SL

My Response: I’m not surprised. But for me, I find myself preferring to watch something that is decades old, even if I’ve seen it before, rather than taking a chance on something new.

Thanks for your piece on Trump’s tariffs

“I knew nothing about tariffs before Trump started imposing them. I read lots about them since, but the more I read, the more confused I got. The Liberal media seems to be against tariffs, and yet I thought they were traditionally in favor of them “to protect American workers.” And the Conservative media seem to be supporting them, even though I thought conservatives and pro-capitalists hated tariffs. Your piece helped me understand that I wasn’t crazy – that this is an issue, like so many today, that is clouded by politics.” – SG

Time to buy? Time to sell? He wants to know what I think:

“What are your current thoughts on the markets? Is it a time to buy the dip and get wealthy?” – JG

My Response: I’ll give you the briefest answer. If your approach to investing is like mine – buy world-dominating companies that have “moats” and hold on to them – you would not be selling.

As for buying, I look at value for that, and the P/E ratio in particular (because it’s simple). Thus, I will buy when the P/E ratios are at historical averages. Like 15 for the Coca Colas and IBMs and so on, and maybe 20 to 25 for the Amazons and Nvidias.

Until prices drop to those levels, I’m not an eager buyer.

“I’m so happy to hear you are OFF statins!”

“Along with the other negatives, I recently read that there is new evidence that long-term use may contribute to neurocognitive diseases. Your followers are curious/interested, even if no one asked!” – KI

My Response: Thanks – but I should make it clear that in recounting my own experiences and decisions, I’m not prescribing anything. Just telling my readers what I did and what I’ve discovered. As we say when we are selling health products, “individual results may vary.” In any case, whether my results are good or disappointing, I will keep you up on this and other little projects I’ve initiated.

A thank-you for copywriting advice she found in one of my books: 

“I recently read Copy Logic, and it’s been such a game-changer for my copy editing – so thank you! I enjoyed it so much that I featured it on the podcast that I cohost about copywriting.” – SH

My Response: Thanks! I’m happy to know that you found it useful and appreciate the mention on your podcast. I’m including the link that you provided here so my readers can check it out.

Question: “How do I protect my idea?” 

“I have a great idea for a new product, and I want to find someone to back me – an angel investor or whatever. I’ve heard about confidentiality agreements, but I’m not sure they can legally protect me. What can I do if the money guy tries to cheat me and take a controlling position in the business?” – JJ

My Response: I get it. You love your idea. You are sure it’s worth a billion dollars, and you worry about being taken advantage of. So you want your potential investors to sign an NDA (non-disclosure agreement) before you will show it to them.

But here’s the thing. It’s highly unlikely that they will sign an NDA. And even if they do, an NDA won’t ensure that you get what you want out of the deal. And the reason is this. (Warning: This may hurt your feelings.) Your product is probably not nearly as great as you think it is. In fact, it’s probably not especially good at all. And if it is good, there are probably another hundred people out there hawking a very similar product to a thousand other potential investors.

Ideas for new businesses (almost all ideas, really) don’t arrive in a vacuum. They are born in an ocean of developing innovations that are in the common consciousness of the market. You believe your great idea sprang from the center of your mind, but it actually came from everything you’ve been reading, watching, and thinking about – along with, as I said, many other smart and observant people.

So that’s why I believe you won’t get anyone serious – anyone that is accustomed to pitches – to sign an NDA.

But let’s say you do get someone to do it. How can you be sure you won’t get screwed? Well, that depends on your expectations. Most of the people that have tried to sell business ideas to me have had no idea what such ideas are worth in the marketplace.

From an investor’s point of view, this is how I think of it: As a rule, I value a general idea as being worth about 5% of the business, depending on how well articulated it is. The development of the product is worth about 20%, the marketing is worth another 25%, and the capital is worth about 50%.

These are rough numbers. They depend on the industry and the timing and whatever else you bring to the table. But they are not far off. If you think your idea is worth 50% of the business, you are living in La La Land.

If you can get 10% for it, grab it.

From SL re GM’s letter in the March 19 issue (“Why are the Dems so upset about DOGE?”) 

“I agree with GM. How can any sane, tax-paying citizen object to reducing the amount of waste, fraud, and inefficiency within the federal government? Just about every president in recent memory has pledged to do the same thing, including both Clintons, both Bushes, Obama, and even, when he was younger, Sleepy Joe himself. They all made these pronouncements and promises when they were running for office – because they knew that most American voters wanted to clean up the swamp. The difference between them and Trump now is that Trump has put someone competent enough in charge of the job and also given him the support he needs to finish it. The Dems reaction? Let’s incinerate the very cars we used to love because they are green!”

Re my review of The Blind Watchmaker in the March 13 issue 

From CD: “Interesting book. However, my favorite is The God Delusion. I have always, since a very young age, thought that religion was just silly. I could never understand why smart people that I looked up to were believers. I always kept quiet about my beliefs, thinking I was on my own. The God Delusion was such a relief! Thanks, Mark, always enjoy your letter…”

My Response: Thanks, CD. I appreciate your suggestion. I’m putting it on my to-read list!

From GT: “Thanks for recommending The Blind Watchmaker. I’m reading it now and, so far, it’s as good as you said it was.”

From PL re the “Just Briefs” issues 

“I’m enjoying the ‘Just Briefs’ issues. I read them when I want to be amused, rather than enlightened. In the last one, I loved the clips of that guy who sings to farm animals. Where do you get these? You must be spending way too much time on YouTube.”

My Response: Thanks, PL. And yes, I am! (See one of my favorites in today’s PS.)

From SH: re Big Pharma 

“Whenever we come into the US, we see Pharma ads for every conceivable illness. Such is not the case here in Germany! Yes, obesity is a huge problem, much of it to do with poor nutrition. It can be seen in every segment of society. But as you know, America is short-term thinking, and many people want everything cheap, including health care. Cheap means low price, but also poor quality.

“What many question here in Europe, is why so much money is spent for elections, on politicians. Why are US presidential elections so long in taking place? Germany elects in less than six weeks!” – SH

“Big Pharma can pay the lawsuits and still make billions!” – BW