One of my favorite clients is Bill Scheft and I think one of the reasons I like Bill is because he constantly makes me laugh. It’s nice to have a client that really understands that life is life and books are just one aspect of life. It’s also pretty darn hilarious when you’re a publicist and you book an interview for your client and the interviewer makes you the butt of a joke during the show.

Oy vey. A publicist’s life. You can’t win. You’ll have to listen to the full interview with Bill and Mr. Media which features some new stories about Larry David and Bill’s career as a writer. If you’ve not read “Everything Hurts” yet, you should.

I also love that Bill, no matter who is interviewing him, ever so patiently finds something funny about folks trying to make him laugh.  And I was doubly impressed by Mr. Media because one could tell that he really worked hard to research Bill’s work and he read Bill’s book. That is not always the case!

Bill is also incredibly patient with me, who is more than often tempted to send  his PR updates in Top Ten list style. (Just to see if he thinks it’s funny.)

If I did send them it would be something like this:

Top Five Bloggers Who Said No To Book Pitch and Why:

1. IloveSarahPalin.com – only reviewing books with “Rogue” in the title

2. Mamma’s Knitting Again.com – “if it doesn’t have knitting needles as a main plot line, we won’t review it.”

3. Republicanswhoright.com – “No thanks. We don’t think humorous novels are funny.”

4. Sportsguyswhoread.com – “Too busy reading “The Cheetah Who Played Golf”

5. ComedyHurts.com – “No, the book doesn’t sound painful enough.”

See, I just did it then, and I couldn’t even think of ten. So it’s good I’m not a comedy writer.

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• The TV Squad Podcast: Bill Scheft of The Late Show, Cake Boss, Mad Men and more (tvsquad.com)
• Larry David And Joy Behar Crack Jokes, Talk About Doing Standup (VIDEO) (huffingtonpost.com)

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Here is a wonderful interview that he did with the Guardian this week on fatwas, free speech and book tours. And my favorite quote from the article, “I have always thought,” he says, “the secret purpose of the book tour is to make the writer hate the book he’s written. And, as a result, drive him to write another book.”

Below is my Mom’s favorite picture of Salman:

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Read it and be prepared! Marsha is tops in her field!

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So if you’re inclined go check it out.

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On Growing Your Business:

Nettie:  Hi John, tell us about your new book, "Duct Tape Marketing: the World’s Most Practical Small Business Marketing Guide."

John: It came out in January what it is meant to be is a condensed version of the all the things I’ve learned in the last 20 years of working with small businesses. I’ve been helping them with their marketing for at least that long and this book is a very systematic, almost curriculum based marketing approach to doing this.

It is a template and road map with steps to take to grow a small business. If the small business owner follows this system marketing will come a lot easier.

Nettie: Why do you love small businesses?

John: (laughs) There’s something in equal parts about it being both gratifying and terrifying and for the challenges that you have to meet for the companies.

It’s s a whole different feeling in terms of the results that you want to get for these businesses. With small businesses, you’re really working for the person that signs the check, directly with them in order to help their business grow.

Early on I did work for a large corporation and I got a check for 156,000 dollars and it was an error and the thing it was just an accounting error, but I remember that day thinking I could cash this check and no one would ever know. But it also served as a really good example of what happens in larger corporations where there is no accountability and no real drive to get anyone results. 

So for me the challenge in working with small businesses is that you really have an opportunity to prove yourself and they really have an opportunity to see the results.

Nettie: It keeps you inspired?

John: Absolutely. It’s like I’m growing with these companies. I look at it very seriously as a bit of a mission. I go out and talk to small business owners every day and I’ve been fortunate enough to find a way to help them grow their businesses. One of the ways I’ve been able to do this is to write a book and I am now hiring other coaches to use my system. This book is a way to get it out to greater numbers which really meets my goal of helping small businesses succeed.

I’ve been able to condense through this book, a way for them to do that and I see this as a way to help them reach their goals even if they don’t have a consultant.

Vision, Differentiation and Marketing

Nettie: What are some key things small businesses need to understand? 

John: They underestimate the advantage they have in their small business niche. One of the things I work hard is helping people narrow their focus. They don’t have to dominate the larger world; they need to be the niche or expert that people turn to in their arena.

Another thing I really think they have to do is come up with a strategy to differentiate themselves from every one else in their market. I will actually copy the About us paragraph they have on their sites and go to their competitors and copy those and then I show them without the names how everyone is the saying they’re the same.

So I try to encourage them to step outside what their competitors might say. They need to understand that their trade group or competitors are not their prospective customers.

Nettie: So they can rub shoulders with their peers, but their challenge is to really step outside and market themselves as different as all the others?

John: Yes, absolutely and you have to be good at the marketing. You can’t own a business and not be good in marketing. A lot of people are hesitant not to toot their own horn and so a lot of times people have to get over that fear of what other people are going to say or think.

Nettie: Talk about that more.

John: I really think at the end of the day if you’ve got something that can make the world a better place, or a widget or tool that makes it easier for people to do something, then it’s really important for you to get it out there and market it for the world to have it.

Nettie: What are some other ways to market that strategy?

John: Once you develop a strategy and really get the strategy and that includes interviewing your clients and seeing what they think is different  than what others offer. Sometimes we all know too much and we think of all the things people should like about us or our companies, instead of really asking the client what they LIKE.

I had a remodeling customer for instance that the clients all said, "yes, they do great work and we expected that, but what we didn’t expect is that every single day they cleaned up after themselves." You always need to look for what added benefit or process you’re doing differently than your competitors.

On Lead Generation and Extending the Conversation:

Nettie: Three takeaways from the book?

John: People want the lead generation to just be magic. Lead generation needs to come from many avenues and a consistent and repetitive approach. It should always come from three things working together: advertising, marketing and referrals. Build the foundation and keep adding pillars to it – you’re building your momentum.

Nettie: And you’ll reach the tipping point?

John: Absolutely, it’s when you start being seen everywhere.

Nettie: So the company becomes a brand sub-consciously even if the folks aren’t turning to them right away.

John: Absolutely.

Nettie: How many examples do you feature in the book?

John: There are many success stories I feature in the book with a lot of my clients. It’s really about narrowing your business focus and standing out as the best offering. Consistently refocusing your message and building it online and offline. More and more upscale shoppers are going to the web too so that’s really important. With the remodeler for instance we dramatically increased their profits by focusing on the upscale restorative process.

Nettie: What else on the marketing side?

John: You have to have a plan. What this book is really trying to teach is a plan. It may not be the world’s greatest plan ever created, but it at least is a plan. Too many people don’t spend enough time on putting a plan into focus and then getting the results.

Nettie: What about expectations in sales/marketing?

John: We really try to always ask our clients "Are you in business for thirty days or in business for thirty years?" You have to really understand that all of these things work together for the greater good and that takes patience. People need to look past getting instant gratification or thinking things just happen overnight.

Nettie: It’s like PR too – a marathon not a sprint?

John: Right and you have to understand the online side too because people rely on that as well. The biggest thing to understand is people don’t like to be sold to but they love to shop. People like to go to the internet and shop and compare. The way small businesses need to use the Internet is as an educational vehicle. To extend the conversation with a prospective buyer and to project their expertise from a lead generation standpoint. You can also use it to help further serve your customers by using your site as a How-to site where people can find resources for their problems or issues so they turn to your site for answers.

Nettie: You can almost set up a school to teach your customers whether they use this or not?

John: Exactly. Small businesses are in the education and community building business and the degree to which you can do that around your product are really important.

Nettie: What are big businesses missing that small businesses aren’t?

John: Big companies that choose to still remain small are better off. What that means is the healthiest cultures in business are really built around a vision and that’s whether you’re big or small. You need that vision to guide you. It’s just housed in a way in your company that it runs throughout the company and everyone has it in the company. The customers are attracted to it and your employees feel empowered by it.

Nettie: The vision is key and it’s often something that is missing?

John: It can be because in a lot of cases that is what gets zapped out. SMBs really fail to provide what they could as far as vision and have that life and joy balance as well. There are too many folks out there who are working 80 hours a week and still aren’t achieving what they want from their own business. On the other hand, if you have the vision and you really know what you enjoy and how you can best help people, the rest comes easy.

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"Don’t write like copywriters write!"

What are the best ways you can truly become a Master copywriter and what do those have in common with Latin dancing and the Karate Kid?

More than you think.

And no matter what type of writing you do, or if you a business who is in search of a good copy, then this interview will be will shed some secrets on the craft of creating copy.

It Starts with a Blank Screen:

Nettie: Can you talk about the art of copywriting? The top three things that are most important in copywriting?

Michael: It’s different for each level. There are different levels of competencies if you’re involved in a skill. At first when you start to learn something you’re incompetent. Everyone is incompetent and if you work hard and you get through that level, then you’re on to the next level.

Nettie: And at each level you are gaining competence?

Michael: Yes, for instance I’m taking Latin Dancing lessons, so I’m at the starting level. The turning is easy, the tough part is moving your hips the way Latin people move their hips. Gringos move their hips exactly the opposite way, so I’ve been trying to learn this and it’s awkward and I’m really at an awkward stage of incompetence but I know if I get through this I’ll get to the competent level. This is same with copywriting or anything you’re really trying to master.

The most common mistake that early copywriters make is they try to write like copywriters write. They imitate it. To them it sounds like good copywriting, because they’re imitating ad speak and it doesn’t work at all.

Nettie: But as you keep working at it, you will find your own voice?

Michael: The most important things to learn in anything you do in life are invisible for you when you’re a beginner. The most important advice I would give is not to worry about not being good. It takes about a thousand hours of practice to be competent in any skill. So just keep writing and put the time in. Keep writing.

To write a lot and to read a lot are the two things you can do to get to the highest level. When you read copy a lot you will internalize good things and when you spend a thousand hours copywriting you will get better. In the beginning you will imitate but as you do it over and over again, your writing will continue to get better and better.  After several years your copy will be much better than sometimes even a very gifted person’s might be because you’ve put that hard work in.

"Rub on, Rub Off", as Pat Morita said in The Karate Kid. Just practice the movements. If I kept worrying about my hips going in the wrong way it will lead to a lot of frustration, if I just keep doing it, eventually it will become second nature to move them in the right way.

Good Copy and Speed:

Nettie: What about writers who are inpatient with the time it takes to write and really master the craft?

Michael: It’s better to write slowly and do it more or less right than to do it quickly. When you’re writing copy in the beginning it’s much better to take jobs that are small and short so you can devote extra time to them and get them right. My rule is read one promotion a day, and if you can write for an hour a day then you will become in three years the level of competency to compete with at least 80% of the copywriters out there. To get to the next level of mastery it would take about 5000 hours.

Nettie: What are some mistakes beginning copywriters make?

Michael:  They usually begin at what they think is the beginning, they start at the logical beginning of the argument but what they have to remember is that a sales pitch is not a logical sequence or logical experience, it’s an emotional experience. What I would say to beginning copywriters is "Write the beginning" but also realize you’re not writing your copy yet. Get that stuff done so you can get it out of the way. Always start in the middle of the sales pitch. All good entertainment starts in the middle, you plunk them right down in an emotional situation. So if you’re trying to sell people pens that have ink that lasts longer, then start your copy with a pen running out of ink.

The other mistake that beginners make is they try to write too much like other copywriters. They try to use too many copywriting terms, they use a lot of adjectives: sensational, amazing, outstanding…those are almost always mistakes. It’s much better to get rid of almost all your adjectives when you’re writing good copy.

Nettie: Why? Because they’re superfluous?

Michael: If you’re writing strong copy and you’re putting someone in a scene, you don’t need those extra adjectives junking things up. The reader automatically notices an adjective where you’re telling him how to feel about something. If you’re writing financial copy and you’re talking about a spectacular profit, you don’t have to say it’s spectacular. If you could tell the story about how the guy invested 10 thousand dollars and three days later it turned into 245,000 dollars, you don’t have to call it spectacular.

The other is the mistake of telling the reader what to do, what to think, what to feel instead of showing. We all know the rule “Show…Don’t Tell” this applies to all writing, fiction, non-fiction, copy, white papers. Instead of making a statement, you show them the benefit.

Nettie: So is copywriting really to always tell the story?

Michael: Absolutely and start in the middle for the reader. Show the story and give details. Make them see the story. Imagine that you’re writing a movie rather than a letter. Let them see the details and don’t junk it up with intrusive adjectives. Intrusive adjectives have the same kind of effect that telling does. What you want is the reader to feel like he is making his own decisions and that he is coming to his own conclusions.

Experts Making Shortcuts:

Nettie: What mistakes do expert writers start making?

Michael: When you become a master writer at whatever area you’re writing in, then one of the bigger mistakes that can happen is assuming that your reader is at the same level as you are.

A lot of writers won’t want to hear me say this. But it’s true. The writers sometimes tend to shortcut the explanations of things, use the inside jargon too much and you begin to write to the advanced readers. It’s difficult to balance.

What you have to remember is that all the great successes in publishing really come from writing to the beginners. Shakespeare always wrote to the beginners. The bigger mistake the advanced writers tend to make is they forget to go back and talk to the beginner in their writing. You want to make sure you encompass your whole audience. Remember, the most profound truths in any area are the simplest.

The challenge for a master copywriter is to make sure that you get in plenty of deep and exciting stuff for your advanced readers, while not alienating your beginning readers.

Nettie: So the goal no matter what level of writer you are is to write for the beginner and then make certain that you bring in those other people that may have seen the product twenty times too?

Michael: Exactly. The secret to really good writing is that you have to love your audience and one of the most common mistakes that master marketers make is that they despise their audience.

Nettie: Why do they despise their audience?

Michael: Sometimes writers get cynical about what they’re doing. They think what they’re doing is not right, that they’re selling people things and they somehow feel that’s not right and so they get mad at their audience in a way for buying the promotions they’re writing and they start to dislike them for that.

I’ve come into plenty of businesses where all the marketers talk about their people as though they’re morons. They talk about them despairingly and that’s the first thing I always put a stop to. You can never be great at writing if you don’t love your audience.

Nettie: Can you talk more about how that works?

Michael: There’s a thing called negative capability by T.S. Eliot and I think he was writing it about Shakespeare and he said one of Shakespeare’s greatest strengths is that he had the capacity for negative capability. What he meant by that was Shakespeare had the capacity to create characters he himself did not like morally but he allowed them to come to their full expression of their own personalities in the most positive way they could. In other words, he had villains that were full villains.

That’s what a great writer does and what I’m saying is you have to love your audience too and the people in the pit.

You have to care about them and in copywriting I’ve overseen more than a billion dollars worth of successful copywriting and I can tell you that copywriters are a little bit like rock stars and the greatest copywriters tend to be the youngest ones.

Nettie: Why?

Michael: Because they still love their audience, they love the ignorance of their audience because they are still ignorant themselves. They’re discovering the secrets themselves and they’re enthused about them and they’re explaining them simply because they’re just starting to learn them too. But if you don’t keep yourself open and work hard to love your audience and your products, then what happens is your copy by incremental degradation gets a little bit more and more removed.

Most of the highest paid copywriters are not good, it’s the young guys just on the curve that are hungry and moving and working very hard. It’s hard not to get dried up.

Nettie: How do you keep yourself inspired after doing this so long?

Michael: I actually will myself into loving the audience and loving the product. I just won’t start talking about copy with somebody unless I can get in that mood. I try to imagine where they are and what they are caring about and I start getting humble and I start saying, “Why am I such a big shot? When did I really need this information?” Some people are just open loving and humble their whole lives and other people just have to remember it.

Nettie: So even expert copywriters can be humble and still good?

Michael: Absolutely. Somehow the Rolling Stones can go back and do performances that are still really great. There are some expensive copywriters that know how to do that and they’re great too.

About Michael Masterson: Michael Masterson is a prolific writer, Michael Masterson has developed a loyal following through his writings in Early to Rise (www.earlytorise.com), an e-newsletter published by Agora that mentors more than 400,000 success-oriented individuals to help them achieve their financial goals.

Michael Masterson has been making money for himself or others for almost four decades. In that time, he’s only taken two breaks—each time for two years. The first was after a stint with the Peace Corps in which he came to appreciate relative values and the joy of teaching. The second came at age 39, when Masterson retired from the $100 million-plus business that he and his partner built.

In his latest book, Seven Years to Seven Figures: The Fast-Track Plan to Becoming a Millionaire, Michael Masterson provides readers with a detailed program to turn their average — or below average — income into a seven figure fortune in seven years or less.

Michael is also the founder of AWAI and the creator of the highly esteemed Michael Masterson’s Accelerated Program for Six-Figure Copywriting.

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Mr. Pressfield is also the author of "The Legend of Bagger Vance" and several astounding fiction books including his latest "The Afghan Campaign" which is garnering rave reviews .

Nettie: Can you talk about your path? It’s interesting all the stuff you did leading up to the point where you got to type "the end." What stands out for you?

Steven: I did tons of stuff. I picked fruit, tended bar, worked on oil rigs. I did all those things people do when they’re running away something. I happened to be running away from writing.

Nettie: Did you know you were running away from writing?

Steven: Yes, in fact I was happily married, right out of college and I tried to write this book and I was 99% through and I was seized with panic. And I had all those resistance issues, "what if I succeed, what if I fail" etc. So I blew up the marriage and after that the bottom dropped out of my world. I fell out of the middle class.

Nettie: And you were creating your own drama to keep from writing this book?

Steven: Yes, even though it was an odyssey I was going through. I was doing all these jobs and I was driving across the country in my Chevy van and I met this couple and the guy was this cowboy. And he said, "Come on with me and be a cowboy." And I thought, "Well, that’s cool. I could be a cowboy." And then I thought again, "No, that’s enough. I went home and I started writing."

Nettie: Your book is deeply inspiring. It was given to me by an amazing musician, Casey McPherson , and it is the most inspiring book I’ve read in years on truly breaking free to do what you’re destined to do.

The first section of your book covers resistance. Can you define resistance for us?

Steven: Sure, resistance is that mysterious force of self-sabotage that seems to exist in everybody’s brain, in particularly independent artists, entrepreneurs and so forth. It takes the form of, in my experience of it, procrastination, coming up with excuses for why you’re not going to do the thing you know you have to do. It can even be, for instance, spending time sharpening pencils, folding the laundry, all those things people do to avoid facing doing the work they really need to be doing.

In my case, I was sort of a slave to this like eight or ten years before I finally figured out what it was and learned I better overcome this if I’m going to ever get anything done.

Nettie: In your book you list different ways resistance presents itself, and can you talk about those?

Steven: The first and most common form that resistance takes is procrastination, where we tell ourselves; it’s not that we aren’t going to write our symphony; it’s just that we’re going to write it tomorrow.

Another big one is self-dramatization or soap operas. Creating soap opera in our lives. We blow up every small incident to distract ourselves. Another silly one is errands and the minutiae of daily life. People can kill an entire day like nothing with minutiae.

Resistance usually takes the form of a very seductive voice that you hear in your head,
"Ooh, shouldn’t we be doing this?" – And it’s always something that’s not writing, that’s not starting your business, that’s not doing what you should be doing.

Two huge ones are fear of failure and fear of success. They’re very common. Someone will have a book they want to write, but suddenly they start thinking about Tolstoy’s "War and Peace" or Homer’s "The lliad’ and they think, "I’m never going to be good as them so why should I do it at all" and they talk themselves out of it.

Nettie: Is there more with fear of success?

Steven: People are afraid to succeed. If you do well, you’re exposed, your out front and you have to live up to your success and that tends to make people afraid.

Nettie: And how does that work with the compulsion to self-destruct or self-sabotage?

Steven: What used to kill me is I would get 99% there and then I would just choke. I would explode my entire life, I would get divorced or do something that would keep me from finishing it.

Nettie: Was it sub-conscious?

Steven: Absolutely and that’s the real insidious nature of resistance. Until you become really aware of it when you do self-sabotage you don’t realize that it’s this resistance demon inside of you and you just believe whatever your fevered brain is telling you.

Another form I didn’t write about in the book is over-perfectionism where people feel like "I can’t write my country music album, unless it’s up to the level of the red-headed stranger."

Another thing is the concept of getting healed or getting well, or getting your act totally together – like saying, "Well, I’ll get my stuff completely together and then I’ll start my new business, I’ll start my new novel once it’s all together. And of course there’s not really ever a time when you get "it all together."

Nettie: That’s like when you have a child and there’s never a really perfect time to have a child? Or a perfect time to start a business?

Steven: Exactly. It’s always going to be a birthing process and it will be messy and bloody and you won’t know the outcome but you have to go ahead and still do it.

Nettie: Now do you ever feel resistance?

Steven: Oh yes, it never goes away but what has changed is that I now recognize it as resistance and it doesn’t fool me anymore. If the book teaches anything, the one thing to come away with is to be aware that there is this voice. And you recognize it as that siren trying to lure you away, you just say, "I’m not going to listen to it."

They say in combat everyone is scared to death, but it’s the brave people that act in spite of their fear. And I think it’s like that in the creative world or the entrepreneurial world, you just have to do it. You do it despite that voice and what the resistance is telling you.

Nettie: The professional faces the fear?

Steven: All the time. You just sit down and go to work and the fear goes away. People say like stage fright, you might be an actor waiting in the wings, you might be petrified but you get on stage and you’re ok.

Nettie: What do you think is the biggest challenge in this day and age when there is a multitude of things that seem really important in this age of connectivity?

Steven: You have to have a tunnel vision, you have to know what it is that you want to do. You need to focus wholeheartedly on that. Block everything else out. It really takes a single minded focus.

Nettie: You believe beyond that, people should not cheat the world of their contribution right?

Steven: Yes. Exactly. I do believe we all have a destiny or calling and it usually isn’t so small. It’s not just a selfish act. It’s really a gift. Somebody that writes music, a book or opens a great restaurant, that’s purposeful. We’re all in this together. We get something out of what we’re all doing. Who knows what else it will inspire? We’re all helping each other on this little spinning planet together.

Nettie: Brilliant and here’s to more spinning! Thank you.

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