Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

If you go online (Wait a minute, if you’re reading this, you are online, right?)… O.K., let’s start this again. If you Google the name “James C. Humes,” you’ll find loads of really cool quotes attributed to him. That’s because Humes was a ghostwriter who wrote speeches for five different U.S. Presidents: Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford,…

Lots of interesting comments on the blog from yesterday’s post. I also laid into a few people, so if you want to check it out, go to http://blog.kingofcopy.com/2008/08/seductive-or-sleazy-whats-your-take.html Today let’s talk about some more ways of leveraging or “massaging” your prospects behavior and actions. Again, here’s a story that’ll show you what I mean. You’ve…

Ever heard this one?: Know who the easiest person to sell is? A salesman, supposedly. But I’m not so sure that’s right. I guess it depends on what the salesman is buying, right? I know when I sold life insurance I bought a hell of a lot of insurance. And when I was a financial…

Every wonder why soap operas do so well? How about reality TV, which is the evolution of the daytime soap opera. Ever wonder why it’s so popular? And what about publications like the National Enquirer or The Globe. Why do you think they sell like hotcakes? The answer is “drama.” Each of these media’s let…

Today’s tip is called “Beginnings.” I’m going to separate this tip into five separate little “vignettes” (I don’t think I’ve ever used that word before.). Why don’t you see how sharp you are, and whether you can figure out what’s going on before you get to the end. O.K.? Alrighty, here goes: On November 4,…

Today’s one of my busiest days of the month — I have three coaching calls to run. At 2pm I have a Seductive Selling Coaching call, which is a structured topical marketing call — this month we’re going to discuss how I recently launched a new business and brought in $90,000 before even opening the…

Outside of a 1-hour swim I took with my daughter in the lake last night, I’d spent probably 30 of the last 48 hours, holed up in my office working on a massive project. In fact, for the five days previous to that, I was probably working close to 12 plus hours every day on…

Hey, it’s Friday and I just got back from a few days of relaxing and vacationing out at St. Pete beach. It was my last chance to spend some time with my daughter before she starts school next week. Plus, the rest of this month is a big crunch month for me, work-wise. Here’s a…

Let me get right to the point: If you are a loan officer or a mortgage broker and you’re interested in earning more cash, then listen, and listen good. I recently posted some timely information you probably wantto get your hands on, and in addition, the information itself is a great example of the kinds…

Last week we talked about the subject line of today’s e-mail, which was a headline written by Bruce Barton, that ran for 7 years straight. The ad was for the Alexander Hamilton Institute, a 2-year correspondence course in business, and the question I asked was, “Why do you think this headline was so effective?” A…

Bruce Barton said that, not me. In case you don’t know who Barton is, he was the founder and second “B” in BBDO — Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborn — one of the world’s oldest and largest advertising agencies. Barton also mentored John Caples, author of Tested Advertising Methods, and the lesser-known but equally good…

There are two schools of thought about strengths and weaknesses. One says, if you work on your weaknesses, you’ll be so complete, you’ll be unstoppable. The other says, work on your strengths and have someone else do the things you either don’t particularly enjoy or the things you’re simply not that good at. I will…

Last week, Anne was at the grocery store and she sent me a one-word text: “rambutan.” I sent her back a question mark because I had no clue what she meant. It sounded like some sort of a command in a foreign language. “Look it up.” Turns out, a rambutan is a tropical fruit. You…

No doubt, next to your headline, your offer determines almost 100% of the success of any promotion you are making — assuming you’re making the offer to the right people, that is. Nothing beats a sweet offer, period. The sweeter the offer, the harder it is to resist, and the more reasons you give your…

In my earlier e-mail, I forgot to mention about this month’s Audio Success CD interview, which you get with your Seductive Selling Newsletter. This month, I interview one of the members of my Mastermind group — an entrepreneur and owner of a very successful software company in Australia. A few years ago, this fellow was…

Today is the last day to get your hands on this month’s issue of Seductive Selling. Last month was a record month for us — we added more new subscribers than in any other month since we started publishing, almost 2 and a half years ago, and we now have readers in 12 different countries.…

I have the patience of a gnat. On a good day. On a bad day (and fortunately, there aren’t too many of them), I’m as patient as a starving grizzly bear. So being decisive comes very naturally to me, simply because the pain of waiting around is far greater than the pain of trying to…

When I was a kid, my family took one or two long trips to Florida — by car. We drove from The Bronx to Florida, and I loved it. It was my first time getting far out of the city, and it was interesting meeting people from new places. Funny but one of the first…

Almost every morning I get up somewhere between 6 and 7 o’clock. No matter how much I’d like to sleep in, for whatever reason, most of the time I’m upstairs in my office with a fresh cup of coffee at my desk just when the sun’s coming up. I live on a lake, literally. My…

One of the issues that’s constantly coming up in many of my coaching groups, is “money.” Not as in “making it” or “spending it,” but as in “deserving” it. After all, most people have been programmed or are somehow predisposed to think, “enough’s enough” when it comes to money — after all, why should you…