• Spying On John Carlton
  • Full Tilt Boogie
    Sunday, 9:08pm Reno, NV “Hit me.  Hit me again.  Again.  Arrrgh…” (Blackjack dude going down…) Howdy. One of the truly fun parts of being in business are the Life Lessons you get to learn. Or, rather, you’re forced to learn (if you don’t want to spend your career blundering down the same blind alleys time after time). Early on, I took […]
  • Vampires, Werewolves, Zombies, & Choosing The Right Weapon
    Monday, 11:34pm Visalia, CA “I never drink… wine.“  (Bela Lugosi, “Dracula”) Howdy. Special treat today.  I’ve asked an old friend (and killer copywriter) to guest post on the blog here. Jim Curley and I go way back (to, gasp, Before The Birth Of The Internets As A Marketing Force)… … and he’s one of those Web-hip veteran copywriters who brings a […]
  • Confessions Of A Story Junkie, Part One
    Sunday, 10:19pm Reno, NV “There are eight million stories in the naked city…” (Jules Dassin film noir classic) Howdy. Here’s a nice little piece of insight for writers. And by “writers”, I’m referring to those ink-stained wretches (of whom I share a proud bond) who really care about the craft of writing.  For whom the act of stringing words together […]
  • The Quiz, Resolved. And Prize Awarded…
    Tuesday, 4:06pm San Francisco, CA “I left my heart…” (Tony Bennett) Howdy. By the time you read this, I’ll be back home in Reno… a better man for having spent a week in San Francisco. Even though it was all business, I still get invigorated just from hanging out in that city by the bay.  It’s one of the few […]
  • Quiz Time. With a prize!
    Wednesday, 8:40pm Reno, NV “Money, money, money, money, money, money…” (Cabaret) Howdy… Hope you enjoyed the last post, where I offered up 3 observations about moolah. For this current post, I promised to reveal the 4th observation… … which is so powerful, it can instantly change the way you move and get things done in the world. However… … I’ve just had a [ […]
  • Money, money, money, money…
    Sunday, 4:24pm Reno, NV “… keep your hands offa my stash…” (Pink Floyd) Howdy… Let’s talk about money. Do you have enough? Do you know how much “enough” is, for you? Most folks are pretty clueless about moolah.  They desire it, they fear it, they respect and hate and love it… and they assign all kinds of magical powers to it. So here […]
  • Congratulations, And Now Stop Being A Wuss
    Monday, 7:55pm Reno, NV “But it’s all right… in fact it’s a gas…” (The Stones, “Jumpin’ Jack Flash“) Howdy… Nobody’s ever asked me to give the commencement speech for a graduating class. That’s probably a good thing.  I’m pretty pissed off at the education system these days, and I might cause a small riot with the rant I’d surely deliver. See, […]
  • Takin’ It Too Far…
    Thursday, 11:49pm Reno, NV “Qu’est-ce que c’est?” (Talking Heads,”Psycho Killer”, ca. 1979) Howdy. Quick lesson today, which should help you understand one of the fundamental truths of kick-ass marketing. That truth: There is almost always a way to fix or solve a marketing problem. Actually, that truth is also functional in every-day life… … but that’s a muc […]
  • Night Of The Living-Dead Sales Letter…
    Thursday, 8:06pm Reno, NV “Here come Johnny Yen again…” (Iggy Pop, “Lust For Life”) Howdy… Oh, my God! They killed the sales letter again! Will this horror never stop? Actually, you can relax.  Just like Kenny in South Park, the traditional sales letter is on some kind of perverse “Permanent Hit List”… … where every marketer trying to claim he just invented […]
  • There Are 2 Kinds Of People In The World…
    Monday, 3:29pm Reno, NV “You’re either on the bus, or off the bus…” (Ken Kesey) Howdy… Quick lesson here I thought you’d enjoy. The phrase “there are two kinds of people” is used by comics, politicians, and just-plain-folks trying to set up a point with an easily-understood little story. It’s an over-simplification, most of the time, of course.  Life is too […]

Below you find some WIRED headlines. To me, the WIRED headlines aren’t that strong, but the magazine is going strong – maybe that’s because they’re a pretty good magazine, rather than the headlines? Overall my headline rating for WIRED would be like: 7/10 – but they surely know better than I do what their target audience likes.

The Future of Food
How Science Will Solve the Next Global Crisis

A couple of good points in this headline. First, “Future of Food” sounds good. Then, it talks about the NEXT crisis, when we are now obviously in the middle of a CURRENT global crisis. So that’s curiosity. And then, there also is a very under-the-radar provocative thing hidden inside: because it talks about food science, and most people think about GMO foods, and there is A LOT of controversy around this. So readers will ask themselves: well, are they saying all this GMO food is good? Or are there other ways? Is it safe? What’s up with that?

Search Secrets
How to Google Better

Everybody uses Google every day, and if there’s a way to do it better, then that’s great. And “search SECRETS” is in and of itself great already of course.

DIY Rockets Conquer Space

That’s a great curiosity headline. DIY rockets in space? Now, wait a second… are there really people shooting DIY rockets up to space? DIY is usually something that we associate with: I can do that too. So…. could I shoot my own rocket up in space?

People Powers:
The Facebook Underground

Now, if there is such a thing as a facebook “underground”, wouldn’t you want to know about it? Be part of it? It’s like being one of the cool kids in high-school. This works on the desire to belong to. And curiosity too… szenes from “Fight Club” come up in the back of my mind.

Escape from Iran: Inside a CIA Covert Op

Now, this one is pure curiosity. I don’t know why they put this up in the WIRED magazine… maybe because the readers are interested in “secret”, “conspiracy”, “insider knowledge” kind of stuff?

World’s Dumbest Inventions

“Hey, what are these? Let’s see what whacky stuff people came up with!” (So I get a good laugh – and see how stupid some people are [and thus feel smarter])

Memoirs of Human Guinea Pig

Now this headline makes you wonder: human guinea pig? Was this someone who “sold” his body for scientific experiments and now he’s talking about the secret experiments the CIA did with him? (As you can see, sometimes it’s better to just TRIGGER the crazy fantasy of the readers, rather than being outragous in your headline).

Two AI Pioneers. Two Bizarre Suicides. What Really Happened?

(Btw. AI stands for Artificial Intelligence). Obviously, this one again hits on the “want to know the REAL truth” button and caters to the conspiracy-minded people. Is there something nasty going, was there a scientific breakthrough that the government (or another powerful institution) wanted to keep a secret?

The Life Cycle of a Blog Post, From Servers to Spiders to Suits – to You

As WIRED readers are obviously a little more technophile than you and me, I guess this is really interesting to them – to REALLY understand how blogging works, the technical aspects of it.

Soul-Baring Quotes from Bill Gates, George Lucas, and More

Guess we’re always interested in that kind of stuff.

Advertisers Paid Me to Blog About Them. Is That So Wrong?

This is a passionately discussed topic in the blogger world. Some people say “never mind, we’re blogging to make money anyway”, others say we have a responsibility to stay true to the reader. so, a statement like that (and notice that it’s made in “confession mode”) can definitely trigger attention.

Three Smart Things You Should Know About Leap Years

Well, we all like to be smart, and we all have an interest in this interesting pieces of information that we can slide into everyday conversations (that make US more interesting [hopefully...]).

• Spying On Clayton Makepeace
  • Lovable Scoundrels - Part Two
    Confessions of a veteran white-haired artist: The Anatomy of a direct-mail WINNER! Subject of the autopsy: Digest-size bookalog; 48-pages, full-color Client category: Vitamins and Health Supplements Writer: Carline Anglade-Cole Designer: Larry Owen “The Shocking Truth About Chlorella” (download the bookalog here) I chose this direct-mail Bookalog to examine […]
  • The Triad of Entrepreneurial Truth
    Fellow Business-Builder, It is an honor to be writing this one as the Total Package celebrates its 1,000th post this week. I feel even more privileged to have you here reading my posts, and (hopefully) seeing enough value to post your comments below. Some weeks I bomb and don’t seem to connect, other weeks, like last, I struck […]
  • The Amazing Influence Secret of a Desperate Philosopher …
    Dear Web Business-Builder, In 388 B.C., Plato urged the ruling politicians of Athens to banish all storytellers beyond the city walls, claiming they were a danger to society … “They deal in invisible ideas,” he argued, “concealed within the emotion of art, thus influencing people without their knowing.” Indeed, every effective story sends an emotionally char […]
  • 5 MORE reasons to read The Total Package
    Dear Business-Builder, Well, here it is – our 1,000th issue. So today, we’re going to celebrate this milestone by giving you a quintuple shot of TTP. See, we generally publish five kinds of issues here: First, we deliver precisely what we’ve promised you since Day One: Our stock-in-trade is and will always be proven direct response strategies and […]
  • 999 Reasons to be a Total Package Reader (and still counting!)
    Dear Business-Builder, If, in the summer of 2005, you’d told me that some day, I would one day publish the 1,000th issue of what was then my brand-new semi-monthly e-zine, I’d have figured you for some kind of nutbag. After all; even a high-school dropout like me knows that, at two issues per month, it […]
  • Lovable Scoundrels Part One
    My Secret Weapon: The “unfair advantage” that has helped me beat the competition into submission since 1995: How you can have it, too … Dear Business-Builder, They say the ultimate in “chutzpah” is killing your parents, then asking the judge for mercy […]
  • Is there such a thing as a magic success pill?
    Fellow Business-Builder, Last summer I was in Vancouver speaking at the Canada Marketing Summit. They had a great lineup of speakers … covering everything from lead generation, copywriting, teleseminars, information publishing, right through to motivational content.  The audience MORE than got their money’s worth.  … If they implemented what they learned. Ho […]
  • The Story of My Wife, and Red Fife …
    Dear Web Business-Builder, For normal people, writing and speaking are a means of expressing their point of view. For you and me – on planet copywriting – we have an entirely different objective. We write to create an effect in people that compels them to want to purchase a product or service when we ask them to […]
  • The Ninja Turtle Marketing Strategy
    Dear Business-Builder, About 15 years ago, traveling to California with K and Number Three Son, I met one of the originators of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. He was sitting next to my son. We got to talking. My son was a big fan of the turtles back then. This guy, I forget his name, drew a […]
  • How to Create Grand-Slam Winners for the World Wide Web
    In this special interview issue, Clayton Makepeace and Daniel Levis reveal the differences between writing for the web and direct mail, the #1 secret for creating maximum readership in web promotions, and how to make your first web promotion a winner. Plus, how to avoid the three costliest web marketing blunders... […]
• Spying on Michel Fortin
  • A Disturbing Trend in Internet Marketing
    A recent blog post has stirred quite a lot of controversy. It specifically made some stark accusations about a certain number of marketers who appear to be colluding. Some call it unethical. Others call it smart business. And a few go as far as calling it an illegal cartel that should be charged with breaking […]
  • Five Ways to Turn No into Yes
    No is a very powerful word. It’s one too easily spoken, as any parent of a small four-year-old will tell you. It’s also detrimental to effective copywriting and sales, because it’s an absolute brick wall of resistance. The minute a potential customer says no, you’ve either lost the sale, or you have to pull out […]
  • Declaring My Independence From Smoke
    After 30 years, yesterday, which was Independence Day, I declared my own independence… from cigarette smoke. If you’re a non-smoker, this may not be a big issue. But for me, it’s huge. And it’s all because of one ingenious little tool I would have never thought I’d like. Until now. You see, during those 30 […]
  • Why People Are Addicted to Info-Products
    Have you ever wondered why people buy dozens of info-products… and yet never seem to get around to consuming them, much less using them? I have. And for a long time I just blamed it on people being lazy. In my own case, I blamed it on being too busy with client work to get […]
  • 12 Awesome Resources For Design and Copy
    One of the things I do is spend about 30 minutes a day reading my RSS feed reader — which is Google Reader. And I have it set so that, when I share a feed I like, FriendFeed picks it up and reshares it on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and many others. I also click “like” […]
  • The Need For Long Copy and Other Stupid Myths
    Recently, Terry Dean wrote an awesome article, entitled “Copy is King and Other Common Lies.” The article boils down to the fact that the market and the offer come first. Copy is still important. Design plays an important role, too. But copy is not king. The market is. And I wholeheartedly agree. In fact, after […]
  • Earn While You Learn... With Us!
    Wow! After several weeks of delivering high-impact webinars, we just finished our first live business build. It was amazing! Our first business is now live and making money for our students. The interaction was phenomenal, and our students are raving about this new training model. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, let me […]
  • Are Product Launches Peddling For Profits?
    After participating in a recent product launch (something I very rarely do), our Platinum Group was discussing the issue and I wanted to share those insights with you. Considering the recent hysteria behind the massive Apple iPad launch, it got me thinking about how most Internet marketers conduct their product launches. Most of them work […]
  • Get in Touch With The Future
    An interesting thing is happening lately, and it’s giving me a lot of fodder. I wanted to share a few opinions with you. First off, as you know I love predictions and making some of my own. For example, I wrote a controversial white paper several years ago, called “The Death of The Salesletter.” In […]
  • How to Become a Recognized Authority
    Next month (in mid-April), I’ll be speaking at Armand Morin’s Authority Event in Charlotte, North Carolina, which is part of the Brave The Wave series of specialized events. (And yes, that website was designed and the copy written by yours truly. And yes, those are my affiliate links.) Of course, Armand will be speaking mostly, […]