Name: Dan Kennedy
What Your Business Does: My business is strategic consulting, copywriting and development of marketing systems, and private coaching.
URL: There is no website. People may communicate via fax @ 602-269-3113. I am also the author of over 20 business books, including No B.S. Wealth Attraction for Entrepreneurs. Book information is at www.NoBSBooks.com. Also, GKIC is a business built around me. It is the largest international membership organization of marketing-focused entrepreneurs, providing resources, conferences and coaching. Information at DanKennedy.com.
1. What’s your biggest business accomplishment and what did you learn from it?
Pinpointing one ‘proudest moment’ is a more difficult task than I’ve got time for – at least if working to answer questions for free! Instead, let me say that my entire business life has been about getting to pinnacles of mountains I was never supposed to even get near to in the first place, and by means that violate industry norms, traditional rules, establishment conventions. When I entered the speaking field, just as example, I immediately violated established practices, snubbed bureaus and agents, marketed myself directly.
I was recently at a mystery fiction writers’ conference and listened briefly to a panel of arrogant agents telling the audience the 56 ways they had to kiss agents’ asses and grovel and obey their rules to even have a prayer of ever getting a book deal, and it reminded me of my first visit to a National Speakers Association conference when starting in speaking – and I thought the best thing anyone in the room could do, to get value from the panel’s pontificating, would be: leave. I by-passed it all and am co-author of a mystery set for publication in 2013, with a well-established co-author, and I went direct to him. I have created a very successful author career, for a decade I was one of the top earning speakers including 9 of those years on the #1 seminar tour with audiences from 10,000 to 35,000, I am one of and possibly the highest paid direct-response copywriters.
I have no academic or traditional qualifications for any of this. One of my key principles is: self-appointment and no waiting, certainly no groveling. Another is: the majority is always wrong (which the 1%/99% economic reality evidences). Another is: defiance – norms are for normal folks who want to stay normal. Another: best way to be safe from criticism, even to be liked, is to lose.
What I have learned from my life and business experiences is that others’ opinions about you and what you are doing hardly matter at all in comparison to your opinion of you and what you are doing. Specific to my main area of expertise – direct marketing – all success is in conflict with traditional advertising, and our media, our methods, are frequently the brunt of criticism and jokes, viewed as embarrassing by many, so I and my clients need what Dr. Maltz* termed ‘immunity to criticism’, and absolute prizing of results above all else. (*Maltz created Psycho-Cybernetics.
I co-authored The New Psycho-Cybernetics. All editions combined, over 30-million copies of this work have been sold over a remarkable marketplace life of 52 years.)
2. Favorite Book EVER and Why:
Just as unreasonable question as the first. As a writer and copywriter, I’ve read and read a lot of fiction. I hear from people proud of not reading fiction. Fools. Direct marketing is driven by storytelling. I like mystery series fiction because these authors keep readers engaged over years, even decades, with compelling characters. In that realm, Doyle who wrote Sherlock Holmes, Stout – Nero Wolfe, Parker – Spenser, others.
I’m a 1930’s through 1950’s pulp fiction fan, particularly of The Shadow, and I’m a golden-era and modern comic book hero fan, because I think the mythology of heroes is transferable to business, to personality marketing. Elmore Leonard, by the way, is a terrific writer, and there’s a TV show based on one of his characters, called JUSTIFIED, on the FX Channel, that is one of the very best TV dramas, maybe ever (but you need to catch up, not jump in). In non-fiction success literature, you have to cite Napoleon Hill, of course, but most are unfamiliar with his predecessors. I think reading autobiographies and biographies is fascinating and important.
The big bio on Houdini is mandatory for anybody involved with promoting themselves. Specific to advertising and marketing, I treasure old masters – Ogilvy, Collier, Bernays. One of the great, little-known figures of direct marketing is Lyman Wood, and the book What A Way To Make A Living: The Lyman Wood Story is simply amazing. From a philosophical position, I think everybody has to at least read Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, at least twice. Rand is, I think, the most successful writer ever in promoting a philosophy through fiction, and the fact that this book has sustained bestseller status entirely by word of mouth over decades speaks both to its importance and to her brilliance.
I have a modest, growing collection of rare and first edition books, and I own signed first editions of Rand’s Atlas Shrugged and a collection of her essays as well as of Hill’s Think And Grow Rich. I have a very large library, which I add to constantly. I read about 100 to 125 books a year, down from my peak reading years, but still heavy. Ultimately, though, if you held gun to my temple I’d recommend reading several of my books! I have a little plaque on the shelf where all my books are displayed – Snoopy at a typewriter, saying “I’m a great admirer of my own writing.”
I like two of my most obscure books, Make ‘Em Laugh And Take Their Money, for speakers and marketers about humor, and Making Them Believe, about the marketing of the richest turn of the century ‘doctor’, J.R. Brinkley, who marketed the first erectile dysfunction cure – goat testicles transplants! – and was an ahead of his time innovator in direct-response, using radio, multi-step direct-mail, promotional books, publicity and more. In the No B.S. series, I think No B.S. Guide to Ruthless Management of People and Profits may be the best, but it’s the least popular. Now, was all that self-servingly promotional or narcissistic or both?
3. What’s one thing people online don’t know about you that you’d like to share?
I’ve made a big point of being a very open book, so people who read me, who get my No B.S. Marketing Letter, who hear me speak know just about everything, or at least could. I suppose what would surprise people is that, if I permit myself, I’m lazy, easily distracted, an avoider and procrastinator. Most think of me as a discipline machine. I wish. I’m not. It is for that reason, that I impose rigid structure, work in a very controlled environment, refuse to personally use the internet in any way (although it is used for me for marketing purposes) – my modus operandi is largely disclosed in my No B.S. Time Management book. I even put out an autobiography, Unfinished Business, that tells all.
My “lifers” – readers, subscribers, clients – have been with me through ups and downs, successes and failures, marriage, divorce, marriage. They know of my childhood stuttering, past alcohol abuse, past bankruptcy. Now, I think your wording – “LIKE to share” – is important. Actually, there’s none of this I have liked or like sharing. I’m, by nature and preference, a very private person and hermit-like. But I like being rich a lot. And I discovered that sharing of self, that personal story creates affinity opportunities for people, creates far more interest than products or services, replaces transactions with relationship, and there is power and equity in that.
4. What’s one mistake that you see business builders making online and what should they do instead?
The biggest mistake is intellectual sloth, ignorance of facts, succumbing to peer pressure, thus making poor decisions about what media to use, to prioritize, to invest in; which to ignore. One of the things this leads to is viewing offline as “old” media, online as “new” media – which is stunningly simple-minded. The age of anything is irrelevant. Effectiveness is. Preferences of customers is. And young marketers grossly, grossly, grossly fictionalize that “everybody” is online and “nobody” reads newspapers or uses the Yellow Pages. When pressed for facts, they have none. And a little caution, as side point: by 2017, more than 50% of U.S. adults will be over age 60, and they’ll hold 70% of the discretionary spending capability in their hands.
Oh, and by the way, for the record, there’s no such thing as the business of internet marketing. The internet provides a portfolio of media. No more, no less. Switching from media to message, we see constant default to the five points that have dominated advertising and selling (and sales training) since 1950: product, features, benefits, comparative superiority and price. But consumers are interested in themselves and their lives and in human interest stories of people like them. Consumers are looking for the “go to” provider to trust. Most marketers’ messaging is completely in conflict with consumers’ interests. So, most marketers are just flat-out sloppy. They know and have no interest in history, so they waste time re-inventing wheels (including square ones), they’re poor and impatient students, they operate from untested beliefs and opinions – not facts, they copycat thoughtlessly, they advance messages out of sync with their best prospects’ interests, they waste money being in the wrong places.
I’m sorry to say there’s a lot of stubborn stupidity. My clients range from a $1.6 BILLION a year company to solo entrepreneurs and info-marketers doing a million to a few million a year to small practice and business owners or aggregated groups of them. I’m pleased to say I work with a lot of smart and successful folks, and they are definitely less stubborn than the dumb, poor folks. But still, the temptations that draw people away from What-Really-Works are great.
5. If you started over building your business today, what’s the ONE thing you’d do differently?
I’d do very little differently – but, of course, I would get to today’s modus operandi quicker. Nothing’s more expensive than experience, but no matter how much of other people’s experience you buy or rent, each person still must grope a bit, to get to what works for them. If I were starting over, my groping would be behind me. That means, for example, I’d get to much higher fees, from day one. I would be more balanced in my interest in equity and income. I would be more ruthless wielding The Swift Sword with failing projects, with troublesome clients, with dysfunctional and toxic people. These are things I’m very good at now but could have been two decades ago.
A different question is, how would you start anew, from scratch, if you had to (a chilling thought): that answer is (a) narrow niche or subculture, a target market, (b) focus on the affluent buyer. And I do occasionally build new businesses, and practice these points. 24 months ago, with a client, I started a coaching and marketing services portal business, exclusively for financial advisors earning no less than $500,000.00 a year – no one else welcome. I own four classic cars, and have just invested in, and am assisting with, a luxury car storage facility with concierge services – from detailing, delivery and pick-up, covered transport to car shows, buy/sell brokerage.
Our aim is narrow. Our intent is to franchise or license. A final, important point: my entire entrepreneurial, marketing and selling approach is about attraction, not hunting. That means building something in the first place that will be magnetic to certain people. I also want to circumvent online search, which is, as the CEO of Google said, a cesspool, and serves only to suppress price and create commoditization. I want there to be a specific and particular, directly reachable, passionately interested audience for whatever we market.