“Gentlemen, this is a football.”
— Vince Lombardi
Dear Friend,
I know a little bit about weight training.
Unfortunately I haven’t been able to do much since breaking my L-5 vertebra in my lower back last year and rupturing three disks.
But I do know how to gain muscle and lose fat. (I would hope so. I’ve been working in the musclehead niche for 15 years!)
It’s a weird niche.
The truth is, building muscle and strength isn’t all that complicated.
You need to lift heavy weights and eat a lot of the right foods.
It’s pretty simple.
I didn’t say easy… just simple.
But you can’t sell a bodybuilding system that says “lift heavy weights regularly and eat a lot of food.”
People don’t want to hear that. They want to hear there’s some kind of sexy new secret, shortcut, magic pill, etc.
Releasing my first Doberman Dan product last week has been a learning experience. I really didn’t expect to run into the same mindset as the bodybuilding market… but it’s there.
I discovered that the Internet Marketing, direct response marketing, copywriting, and “how to make money” niches have a lot in common with bodybuilding.
In both markets what REALLY works is tried and true principles. But apparently the market doesn’t want to hear the truth.
That’s why all these Internet Marketing gurus have to INVENT new techniques with sexy names in order to sell more and more products.
Another Gary Halbert Story…
One of Gary Halbert’s other protégés told me this story. (It was either Caleb O’Dowd or Scott Haines… I can’t remember.)
Halbert went to a seminar a couple years back with a bunch of different break out sessions. There was everything from beginning mail order sessions to the ultra-complicated direct mail regression analysis.
Guess which one Halbert went to?
The beginning mail order class.
Now Halbert had been writing copy for almost 40 years at that point. He had penned some of the biggest winners in the entire history of mail order.
Why would he go to a beginners mail order class?
Gary said that if he was forgetting something, there was a 99% chance it was in the basics.
The Great Vince Lombardi
The great football coach Vince Lombardi began every new season with a lecture to both the veterans and the rookies on the basics of football.
He literally held up a football and said, “This is a football.”
He talked about its size and shape, how it can be kicked, carried, or passed.
He would then take the team out onto the field and say, “This is a football field.”
He took them around the field, describing the dimensions, the shape, the rules, and how the game is played.
Apparently he did that every year… even after the Green Bay Packers became NFL champs and won the first two Super Bowls ever played.
Can you imagine how “basic” and boring that must have sounded to his veteran players?
Apparently Lombardi believed that no matter how advanced his veteran players were, they still needed to be coached in the basics.
Maybe that explains why Vince Lombardi was one of the most successful coaches in the history of football.
Do you really KNOW it?
You see, there are a lot of “experts” on the web sharing their “knowledge”.
Their “knowledge” consists of parroting stuff they’ve heard other people say… or stuff they’ve read in a book.
Or worse, parroting what they’ve read online from another person parroting stuff they’ve heard other people say.
Everything I share with you on this site is stuff I’ve LIVED. I’ve got the battle scars to prove it.
Sure, I originally discovered the principles and concepts from books, seminars or other people. But I didn’t start really learning it until I started DOING it.
Whenever I hear somebody say they already know what I’m teaching… that almost always means they may have heard it or read it before… but they’ve never actually DONE it.
And if you haven’t done it… you don’t know it.
A lot of people in this niche think they know the basics so they go off chasing the next latest and greatest “secret”.
And there’s no shortage of people willing to sell them their “marketing fantasy” for big bucks.
Unfortunately these poor souls are off chasing fantasies that are never going to work.
If Gary Halbert spent his career focusing on the basics, what makes you think you don’t have to?
The 3 Ways To Make Money
Like I said in my Master Success Formula, there are really only 3 ways to make money and build your business.
97% of business owners only focus on one out of the three. The few that “get it” and focus equally on all three experience quantum leap increases in income.
But let me be totally transparent with you…
The Master Success Formula is not sexy. It’s not a “magic pill”.
It’s based on decades of tried and true principles that flat out WORK.
The bad news is… it requires work. (Gasp!)
Yup, you gotta implement the Master Success Formula (or any basic marketing principle, for that matter) if you want the results.
If you just read it or study it, then you don’t really know it.
I’ve noticed a lot of the younger guys and newbies in this niche (especially the ones that are IM guru disciples) don’t really know the direct response basics.
They’re always off chasing fantasies looking for the newest “secrets”.
The truth is, there are very, very few new discoveries and secrets in direct response marketing.
In fact, you can learn the basics of direct response in a weekend.
And it will only take you a lifetime to master it.
So stop chasing fantasies and buying into the “magic pill” myth.
Focus on the direct response basics. They’ll take you where you want to go.
If it’s good enough for Gary Halbert, it’s good enough for the rest of us.
All the best,
