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August 4, 2005

Small Business Marketing Is A Game of 'Know-how.'

The more you know, the more you and your bank accout will grow.

So how do you get to know stuff?

Well, you can try the 'School of Hard Knocks' which, frankly, is not a bad school. The lessons tend to be expensive, but they do make a lasting impression or you can ask random folks who may or may not have real experience. I consider many of today's 'overnight gurus' random folks.

They may know what they're talking about, but then again it's amazing how many of them talk through their hats (and charge you an arm and a leg for the dubious privilege of listening.)

The third option is to seek out the real masters. Very often these guys don't advertise. or appear at seminars. They just stay at home and collect big checks for their work. One such master of marketing is Gary Bencivenga.

Along with other top copywriters, I've had the 'unfair advantage' of knowing Gary and his work for many years. In fact, it was the 'Legend of Gary Bencivenga' that first inspired me to master copywriting twenty some years ago.

At that time, Gary was getting $25,000 per letter PLUS 5 cents every time a letter he wrote was mailed. One of his letters - a piece for Rodale - was mailed 100 million times which put 5,000,000 bucks in his bank account.

Just one letter. And over his career, Gary wrote DOZENS of winners. In fact, in one of his newsletters John Carlton graciously acknowledged that he and his friend Gary Halbert built their careers around NEVER going head-to-head in a competition with Gary Bencivenga. Why?

Gary did not lose very often. And in some categories he was absolutely lethal.

For example, he won EVERY SINGLE TIME he wrote a sales letter for Rodale's health publications. When you consider that writing a winning letter for Rodale used to be one of the richest prizes in the direct mail world, that's quite an achievement. So where did Gary get HIS 'know how?'

In an exclusive interview - the only one Gary ever gave in his 40 year career - he told me. The answer is instructive.

Hard work, of course. Plus he had the opportunity to rub elbows with some of the advertising world's greats like John Caples and David Ogilvy. But Gary disclosed that one of his true 'secret weapons' was a small handful of books. Note the word 'handful.'

There are hundreds of books on marketing and advertising and there's probably something good in all of them - but...Who has the time to read them all? I sure don't.

Gary took a very smart approach to this problem. Instead of trying to read everything, he put his energy into finding the really good ones - and then he read them over and over again.

I'm paraphrasing, but here's the gist of what he said:

"It's better to read ten really good books ten times over your career and really get to know them than it is to read one hundred so-so books." Think about the logic behind this.

After all, what would you rather do? Spend an hour each with 100 different people who don't know that much - or real time with a real expert?

One of Gary's favorite books is Frank Bettger's "How I Raised Myself from a Failure to Success in Selling."One of my key 'go to' books is...You guessed it.

But whatever books you choose to bring into your life and guide you in your career, I hope the lesson is clear. The difference beween the really good ones and the rest of the pile is night and day. Pick some good ones and dig in. The return on your investment will change your life.

Ken McCarthy

Posted by David at 5:40 PM | Comments (0)