Adam Street's Blog
The spiritual and practical path to freedom to do your art

Don’t hype, fascinate

When I think of ‘hype’, for some reason Flavor Flav comes to mind.

Not the newer more slightly grown up ‘Flavor of Love’ Flavor Flav (if you’ve seen the old VH1 show).  I’m talking about the super obnoxious young Flav.  Like back when he rolled with the group Public Enemy.

When he never shut up like a neurotic chihuahua near a creaky screen door.  

So when you write email subject lines (or any headline), hype can hurt you.  Why?  Cause too many people don’t believe the hype.

Take email subject lines these…

How to make wrinkles miraculously disappear overnight!

Or

You won’t believe what my client did after his first session.

You will get people to click, that’s not the issue.  The issue is they’ll click once.  Maybe twice.  A few times if you’re lucky.  And before you know it, they… Can’t truss it.  

That’s why you should fascinate instead.  

The word “fascinate” comes from the Latin fascinare which means, “to bewitch or hold captive so others are powerless to resist.  

I’m not saying go all full-blown Harry Potter Imperius Curse on them.  

To fascinate you want to be less Flavor Flav and more Scarlett Johansson.  Make your copy tease a bit and be a little tantalizing.

Like this old classic headline:  “Do you make these mistakes in English?”

Doesn’t that just invite you in?  Don’t you just wanna read more?

Or this email subject line from Ben Settle:  “Marketers escaping the U.S. like it’s the Titanic”

If you’re a marketer (or need to hire one), you’re probably going to want to read more.

It’s interesting.  It makes you curious.

Better to consistently do THAT instead of…

DANGER! Why marketers  are escaping the U.S. like it’s the Titanic

To learn how to fascinate and tantalize your list with your emails (without sounding like the National Enquirer) join my free daily email tips at https://adamstreet.net .

Adam

Connecting to your audience like Wi-Fi

Seth Godin said something years ago that I thought was provoking.  He said would they [your audience] miss you if you were gone? 

I’ve done some good art and facilitated some transformations.  Like the Chicago Bulls, I’ve had a pretty good run.    I didn’t think anyone other than maybe my inner circle would miss me if I was gone though.

I mean, by god, I wasn’t the Salvador Dali of comics or the Dan Kennedy of email copywriting.  I’m just some dude from Arizona.  

Last year when politics got bat shit crazy and a murderous virus came to seemingly kill us all, I decided to use my social platforms to bring humor and fun to my followers.  

I posted every day and ignored everything but the replies to my content.  

Once the election was over and things settled down a notch I stopped posting.  And then it happened…

One of my old clients reached out  asked me if anything was wrong because i wasn’t posting anymore.  I was touched beyond words.  

Seth was right.  I was making a difference, even if it was just to a few people.  

It reminded me of something former American Idol judge Randy Jackson said.  He was at a Journey concert and all of the 70,000 people were singing along.  

“It’s the true connection to the human spirt.  This is what it’s all about.  People loved it so much that they learned every word and every melody.”

Everyone communicates.  Not everyone connects though.

Jackson said when he was on American Idol people would come up to him and talk like they knew him.  He said this was because American Idol was on two days a week.  Most shows are on once a week.

So why e-mail every day?  For this.  The connection.

When you stay in your list’s “face” every day, giving them content they want to see, you connect with them.  You become someone they’ll miss if you are gone.

To learn how to connect with your audience with your emails download my free PDF at https://adamstreet.net .

Adam

Flip your freebie

Most of us love free stuff!

When you give your course or service away as a promotion that’s really nice.  I’ve done it before too, but it’s not always buzz-worthy.

It’s like free samples at Costco.  You know they’re there but you rarely talk about how awesome they are.  “Ooow look…chicken”.  

“Look there….chicken on a cracker.”

“OMG crackers!”

To add some Blockbuster or what Disney might call “show” to your promos, sometimes you just gotta flip your freebie.

Bill Veeck is a minor league baseball team owner and author of the book Fun Is Good said…

“To give one can of beer to a thousand people is not nearly as much fun as to give 1,000 cans of beer to one guy. You give a thousand people a can of beer and each of them will drink it…You give 1,000 cans to one guy, and there is always the outside possibility that 50,000 people will talk about it.” 

Think about that.  

Instead of saying you’re going to give “a scholarship” to one person to take your one course for free.  How about you give one person your next three courses for free?  Or free courses for life?  

Instead of a free strategy session how about a promotion where one person can win 12 months of free coaching?

Like baseball, marketing can be a fickle game.  You can do promos the way ‘everybody’ does it or you can give Veeck’s way a try.  A helluva lot more people will talk about it if you do it his way.

Try it.

For more tips like this join my daily e-mail list at: https://adamstreet.net

Adam

Scumdog [wanna-be] Millionaires

Over the years I’ve picked up a variety of skills.  One is the ability to spot a Scumdog [wanna-be] Millionaire.  I met one this week.  Scumdog [wanna-be] Millionaires are narcissistic and almost always men for some reason.  

Their playbook is to charm you with flattery and drone on and on about ALL the famous people they know and how big an opportunity it is to work with them.  And then they make you a ridiculous offer to work on their art project. 

I met a Scumdog [wanna-be] Millionaire this week.  Even though hype and b.s. was oozing from every pore in his body, I decided to do a test sketch for him.  He was in a hurry and I figured it was something I could knockout fast.

In the end, my drawing wasn’t a good fit.  He tried to give me edits but the smell of scope creep started kicking in like fresh cut onions.  I sent an email and bounced off the assignment.  

Like a true Scumdog [wanna-be] Millionaire he never responded.  No thank you.  No nice to meet you.  Nothing.  I even offered a referral (which I now regret).

So what’s to be learned from the Scumdog [wanna-be] Millionaire?  

Too many people say one thing and mean something else. Most aren’t as nefarious as Scumdog but you want evolve how you speak to your prospects.  For example…

When Scumdog [wanna-be] Millionaire said:  Adam you’re so talented and fast…

What he really meant was:  You can do this quickly so you won’t mind me trying to screw you over on price.

Before you may have said:  “My course isn’t expensive, it’s an investment.”

Now you may want to say: “Yes, my course is expensive. I did this to offer the best quality and value so my students get big results.”

Like a smart phone we constantly need to update ourselves.  If not you’ll be a Ford Edsel driving among newer, faster, and better cars.

For daily updates like this one join my email list at:  https://adamstreet.net

Adam

Coaching and the Elephant in the room

I remember when I wanted to start coaching.  I thought…

I’m good with relationships, communication, and helping people solve problems. 

Did I mention I am a fantastic listener?

But sooner or later I had to acknowledge the elephant in the room.  I had no idea how or where to start. 

Do I make a website?  Buy ads?  Annoy my friends with calls and emails like I just started selling Amway?

Years ago I would have done like Hermione Granger from Harry Potter and marched to the library—straight away!  Or to Google.…  But now that I’m older and wiser I’d say go to the “library” AND hire an expert.  

A lot of people talk about how CEOs make on average 200x more than the average American worker.  And this is due partly because they average reading 5 books a month.  This is true.  

You know what CEO’s also do?  They hire experts and consultants.  They network with other CEOs and attend about 8 seminars a year.  

I love books and the great ones are priceless but nothing compares to talking to a human being who understands where you are and can solve your problem in less than an hour.  

That’s the CEO playbook.  Learn from it.

For daily updates like this one join my email list at:  https://adamstreet.net

Adam