Persuasion

How to turn failure into prestige

by

In the year 52 BC, the Roman army, led by Julius Caesar, secretly advanced their massive siege towers towards the Gallic walled city of Avaricum.

The sentries on the walls were hiding from heavy rain.

Caesar took advantage of the situation, and he took the walls without much fight.

The remaining Gallic soldiers grouped themselves in the middle of town. They were set on a desperate fight to the end.

But the Romans just stayed on the walls, watching the Gauls from above.

Gradually, panic took the defenders. They started running out the city for dear life.

They didn’t get far.

The Romans massacred them along with everyone else in the city, women and children included.

Out of 40,000 Gauls inside Avaricum, only 800 survived.

The leader of the Gauls, Vercingetorix, was stationed outside the city with his army. He had been tasked with fighting Caesar in the open and keeping the city of Avaricum safe.

Vercingetorix had failed spectacularly. The fact that he had vocally opposed the idea of making a stand at Avaricum didn’t help, either.

As the few remaining survivors from the city dragged themselves into Vercingetorix’s camp… there was a real chance that the soldiers’ sympathy with the survivors and general anger at Vercingetorix would cause a riot.

But let’s pause for a second with the massacring and rioting.

Take a moment. And ask yourself, what might you do if you were in Vercingetorix’s sandals?

It’s not just an idle hypothetical.

Say you have an online presence today and you hope to position yourself as a leader in your field. There’s a good chance that sooner or later… you will be involved in some kind of scandal, failure, or controversy, whether deserved or not.

When that happens, discontent might bubble up among those who normally follow and support you. It might even break into a riot that lands your metaphorical head on a metaphorical plate.

So what can you do? Let me tell you what Vercingetorix did:

He called a council of war. He spoke to his troops and asked his army to not be disheartened by the loss.

The Romans didn’t beat them through superior courage in a fair fight. Instead, the Romans did it through trickery and their knowledge of siege warfare.

But Vercingetorix would soon repair this setback. He would lead his people to greater successes.

He was well on the way to uniting all the Gaul tribes against the Romans. And when Gaul was united, the whole world could not stand against her. In the meantime, it was time to get to work fortifying the camps.

Maybe it’s not clear from this what Vercingetorix’s real message was. So here’s an explanation, in Caesar’s own words:

“This speech made a good impression on the Gauls. What pleased them most was that, despite a signal disaster, Vercingetorix had not lost heart or concealed himself or shrunk from facing the multitude. And so while a reverse weakens the authority of commanders in general, his prestige, on the contrary, in consequence of the disaster, waxed daily greater.”

So here’s my takeaway for you, if you are a leader or you hope to be one some day:

The crowd mind hasn’t changed any in the past two millennia.

Today as then, when you face a crisis or setback, the crowd will tear you apart — as soon as you back down, apologize, or show weakness or fear.

The good news is, it’s easy to show no weakness or fear when you have a computer screen to protect you. And when your angry army is armed not with sharp swords… but with dull Twitter accounts.

Keep this in mind, and when disaster hits, you will see it’s really an opportunity. Not just to survive. But to get the crowd to love you even more.

Ok, so much for the history and leadership lesson. If you want more like this, you might like my daily email newsletter. You can give it a try here.

Don’t call me insecure

by

“All right, all right, I apologize.”

I want to quickly share with you a scene from my favorite comedy, A Fish Called Wanda. This scene might be instructive if you’re a marketer or copywriter.

In this scene, Kevin Kline, playing an ex-CIA assassin called Otto, forces another man to apologize.

That other man is who we see in the scene, standing stiffly against a brick wall, making the apology.

“You’re really sorry?” asks Otto, somewhere off camera.

“I’m really, really sorry,” says the other man. “I apologize unreservedly. I offer a complete and utter retraction. The imputation was totally without basis in fact, and was in no way fair comment, and was motivated purely by malice.”

As he says this, the camera rotates right side up.

It turns out the other man — a barrister named Archie Leach, played by John Cleese — is not really standing against a wall. Really, he’s being dangled out of a window, held at his ankles by Otto.

And here’s why this might be relevant if you do marketing or if you write copy:

Otto the CIA assassin fancies himself a bit of an intellectual. He reads philosophy books all the time, and he’s fond of quoting Nietzsche.

But he also thinks the central message of Buddhism is “every man for himself.” And he knows for a fact that the London Underground was a political movement.

In other words, Otto is a bit of an idiot, and somewhere deep down, he knows it. That’s why his tagline throughout the movie is, “Don’t call me stupid.”

So when he secretly overhears Archie… right as Archie is about to say that Otto is stupid… well, that’s how we end up with the scene at the window.

The point is, when someone is insecure about a quality, they take any challenge to that quality very seriously.

But you probably know that already. It’s standard playground psychology.

What you might not know is that there’s another possible reaction to being very insecure about some personal quality. And that’s buying direct response offers.

Because if you are insecure about a thing… you have the belief and maybe life experience that this is a part of your life that you cannot get sorted on your own. God knows you’ve tried. That’s why you’re in the market.

Of course, not everybody who buys direct response offers is insecure. Some small fraction of people are successful already or will soon be. They are just looking for a slight edge.

But those people are the tiny minority.

For the vast majority in any direct response market, you can count on a wounded ego… at least in relation to the problem you’re offering to solve or the promise you’re making.

So if you’re smart, you’ll be aware of this self-esteem thing in your marketing and copy.

On the positive side, it can be very valuable if you just soothe and calm that insecurity.

On the negative side, it can be even more valuable if you poke and prod that very spot.

That’s why one of the most successful direct response ads of all time had the headline, “Do you make these mistakes in English?”

And it’s why Gary Bencivenga… the most celebrated copywriter of the past 50 years… used the same “Do you make these mistakes” formula when selling his own book on job interviews.

In fact, If I had anything to sell you right now, I might subtly prod some secret insecurities I know about.

But I won’t do that. I’ve got no direct response offer for you today. Well, nothing for sale. Just the free offer to sign up to my newsletter, in case you’re looking for a slight edge.

Everything is free

by

I know a lot of people in the marketing world worship at the altar of Seth Godin. I myself have had no contact with that religion, until today.

Today, I read an article that Seth wrote earlier this month, with a provocative title:

“Customer service is free”

Seth says that because of word-of-mouth and the value of loyal customers, you should stop looking at customer service as a cost.

That’s a point I’ve heard Ben Settle make before. Ben says that customer service is the #1 sales skill, which will allow you to charge higher prices… give you an advantage over your competitors… and allow you to make up for your shortcomings.

But here’s something that puzzled my mental squirrel:

Ben Settle has been making this point about customer service for years. It never made as much impact on me as the Seth Godin article. Because Seth’s presentation was more powerful.

Perhaps, and this is just a hypothesis based on my own experience today, the power of “FREE” is greater than the power of “profitable” for getting into people’s heads. Sure, once you open up a path into somebody’s brain with the ice pick of FREE, then you can bring in the “profitable” argument. But not before. And that’s what Seth Godin does — FREE in the headline, profitable in the very last sentence of his article.

But whether that’s a universal truth or not, one thing is universally true:

All your offers, whether ideas you are pitching or actual products you are selling, should be FREE. Of course, not free today. But FREE. Here’s what I mean:

The next time you are faced with a prospect who’s holding your offer in his hands, interested but still not sold, then apply the following free idea, and it will pay for itself immediately:

Put your arm around your prospects shoulders and point to the rainbow on the horizon. Then point back to that product of yours, there in your prospect’s lap. And then once again, point to the rainbow.

“Do you see now?” tell your prospect. “In 9 weeks, it will pay for itself. So really, it’s FREE. And after that, it will even start to make you money.”

Speaking of making money:

I have an email newsletter in which I share money-making ideas about marketing and copywriting. You can sign up to my newsletter today at a small up-front cost. But really, don’t think of it as a cost, think of it as an investment. One that will pay off before the end of the day.

The status pirate game

by

Imagine a large and hairy sailor, wearing a striped blue-and-white shirt and a bandana wrapped around his head, looking nervous.

​​The year is 1717, and he is the navigator of an English trading vessel that’s sailing through the Carribean.

A few times, the big navigator makes like he’s going to say something. But he stops himself.

His eyes keep darting forward — out toward the horizon – and then at the captain next to him, who is looking through the telescope.

It’s dusk and there is a ship up ahead. It’s very strange — there is nobody on board.

“It might have been the plague, sir,” the large navigator says. “Sudden plague could have taken them all.”

The captain shakes his head. He’s not at all worried. “Pirates,” he says. “Dusk is their favorite time. Have you readied the cannons?”

The navigator starts shifting his weight from one foot to another. “It would be a very simple matter for us to alter course, sir,” he says.

The captain squints his eyes and looks back through the telescope. “I — never — alter — course,” he says.

That’s the opening scene of a movie that never got made, called Sea Kings.

As you probably guessed, it’s about pirates.

And it’s also about how the human brain determines value.

In this case, start with a large sailor. From his physical size and job title, you would assume him to be a brave man. And he might be, in most situations. But out here, faced with pirates on the open sea, he’s nervous.

Then contrast that to the captain. He’s at another level of coolness and bravery. Unlike the navigator, he’s not afraid of pirates. He’s seen it all before and he won’t flinch.

And because the screenwriter — William Goldman in this case — set it up this way, it makes the next moment all the more dramatic and impressive.

Because in the next moment, a figure appears on the ghost pirate ship. It’s human shaped. But it’s entirely black and it’s enormous. It also appears to be on fire. And then the figure starts to speak. Its deep voice carries across the sea.

“Death or surrender… surrender or die… the Devil bids you choose…”

The big navigator starts screaming and running around. “What is that? WHAT — IS — IT?”

And the captain, who until a moment ago was so determined and tough, suddenly isn’t any more. He’s turned pale. He drops the telescope.

“Run up the white flag,” he whispers to the navigator. “It’s Blackbeard…”

That’s how you make an entrance for your main character.

Not by showing a closeup of him, scowling and looking scary and ugly.

Not by his credentials — the many cruel and daring things he’s done in his career.

Not by an action sequence in which your main character — a hulk of a man — fights a dozen frightened and incompetent soldiers.

No, if you want to make your main character frightening and awe-inspiring, you just put him at the top of a pyramid:

Blackbeard
Normally tough captain
Big and strong sailor who shouldn’t be afraid
The audience, representing the rest of soft and weak humanity

The fact is, the game of status is only ever relative.

You can think of it as a Ponzi scheme, or an MLM. The more people you recruit beneath you… and the more people they recruit beneath them… the better and more valuable your position.

And perhaps you’re wondering how you can specifically use this in marketing and sales copy.

The fact is, there are many ways. I could tell you what they are, but instead I’ll make you an deal:

Get a few people who are interested in direct marketing and form a little study group. With you as the leader. And then get them all to sign up for my newsletter. I’ll share my insights then.

Don’t read this if you can’t stand harsh glaring lights

by

“It is important that you get clear for yourself that your only access to impacting life is action. The world does not care what you intend, how committed you are, how you feel, or what you think, and certainly, it has no interest in what you want and don’t want.”
— Werner Erhard, founder of est

Last week, after I sent out my Copy Koala Millions™ email, a reader named Lester wrote in with this interesting point:

“The one other thing I remember from Carlton is how in almost all business segments, the customers want easy/painless/low effort results. BUT the body building/fitness guys want the opposite. You have to sell how fucking painful and hard it will be with what you are selling.”

It’s true — 99% of sales copy promises quick/easy/foolproof results, preferably accomplished by an external mechanism, which you activate by pressing a large red button that reads “INSTANT RESULTS HERE.”

But like Lester says, not every market is like that. Bodybuilders for one… maybe also small business owners and entrepreneurs.

For example, yesterday I wrote about Dan Kennedy’s “#1 most powerful personal discipline in all the world.”

Dan promises that this one discipline can make you successful beyond your wildest dreams.

But honestly, I didn’t need that promise to buy what Dan was selling. I became hypnotized as soon as I read the words “powerful personal discipline.” At that point, I was 86% sold already.

That’s why I said yesterday that I don’t need to sell this idea to you either. Because if you feel the twitching of this same drive for overcoming inside you… you probably perked up just because I kept stuffing the terms “self discipline” and “personal discipline” a dozen times in what I wrote yesterday.

The fact is, there’s a very real need inside most people for occasional struggle, suffering, and proving their own worth.

Suffering and struggle might not sell in front-end copy going out to a cold list of people who are already suffering and struggling with a problem.

But it definitely does sell, including in sister markets to direct response. Such as the seminar business, for example.

Werner Erhard, the guy I quoted up top, ran est, the biggest personal development product of the 1970s. est consisted of two weekend-long seminars where people would literally piss themselves because they weren’t allowed to go to the bathroom — in a giant hall filled with hundreds of strangers.

On day two, attendees would go through the “danger process.” From the book Odd Gods:

“A row of the audience at a time would go on stage and be confronted by est staff. One person would ‘bullbait’ all of them, saying and doing things in order to get them to react. Other volunteers would be body catchers for those who fell, a common occurrence.”

Like I said, this went on for two weekends in a row. In other words, people would show up one weekend, get humiliated and brutalized, and come back the next weekend for more. When it was all said and done, people found it transformative, and enthusiastically recommended est to their friends and family.

My point is simply a reminder. We are no longer living in the world of one-off sales letters pitching a book of Chinese medicine secrets. Today, there’s plenty of money to be made by being strict, demanding, and harsh. Yes, even in your sales copy.

… well with one caveat. I’ll get to that in my email tomorrow. Read it or fail.

Getting hosed by trolls and haters for the win

by

A quick but slippery story today about dealing with trolls and haters:

Back in 1978, the TV show Taxi went on the air. It had an ensemble cast of past and future stars: Tony Danza (who became one of the biggest TV leading men of the 80s)… Christopher Lloyd (who became Doc in the Back to the Future movies)… Danny DeVito (who became the Penguin, among other things).

Oh, and then there was also Andy Kaufman.

Kaufman was famous already. And he would become more famous still, thanks to his kooky and anti-humor characters on Saturday Night Live and David Letterman.

Anyways, it was a few months in, and the cast of Taxi was gelling. They liked working with each other. They felt they were on to something big — the ratings were good.

But there was a problem:

Tony Danza really didn’t like Andy Kaufman.

“I was a team player,” Danza said. “And this guy is meditating in his car. He’s eating seaweed. He doesn’t come to rehearsal. But when we have a gag reel, he doesn’t make any mistakes. That galls you too.”

Danza decided to do something drastic to provoke Kaufman. He wanted to make it clear to Kaufman that his better-than-you attitude wouldn’t fly.

“I’m not proud of this,” Danza said. “But I took a fire extinguisher. It was a water fire extinguisher, not chemical. And I shot him with it, figuring he would get mad.”

But no.

Andy Kaufman just stood there.

Danza emptied the fire extinguisher.

But Andy Kaufman just kept standing there, blinking and looking harmless as usual, focusing his baby-sphinx gaze on Tony Danza.

“I was so frustrated,” Danza said. “Because he didn’t do anything.”

Frustrated? Sounds like a win for Andy Kaufman. And get this:

Fire extinguisher now spent, Danza apologized. And over the coming hours and days, he decided to take a second look at Kaufman.

At the time, Kaufman was doing a show on Sunset Boulevard. Danza decided to go.

“The show was the craziest show I’ve ever seen,” he said. “I started to think, holy mackerel, this is something really different.”

The two performers went for milk and cookies after the show (no joke). And over time, Danza ended up considering Kaufman a pretty close friend, and an amazing performer.

And in case you’re wondering:

I am not saying that you should allow yourself to get hosed down to win over trolls.

But I am saying that remaining emotionally detached in the face of various haters can be transformative. To you and to them both.

In the short term, once your troll or hater empties out his provocation hose and still finds you unfazed… well, it’s a win for you.

And who knows? In rare cases, maybe the troll will even become converted, and decide to give you a second, less hateful look.

But easier said than done, right? Because, like me, perhaps you find it hard to stay emotionally detached.

In that case, you might want to take a page from the book of Andy Kaufman:

Invent a character and play him in real life.

It doesn’t have to be a completely different character, either. It can be somebody who looks like you… lives your life… shares your experiences… but is still different enough where it counts.

Maybe ​you can’t picture what I mean. So I’ll let Andy Kaufman illustrate.

Below, you can find his most bizarre, moving, and provocative appearance on television. Try to decide where reality ends and the character begins.

But before you go watch that, I want to say something serious. I have an email newsletter. I put so much work into it. But almost nobody is signing up. It breaks my heart. I know this sounds cliche… but would you sign up to it, please?

Excuses for the perfect murder

by

“Come on Bobby, get in the car! We’ll give you a ride!”

“No, Dickie. It’s just a couple blocks. I’ll walk.”

“Get in Bobby! Quit being such a wet blanket! I want to show you my new tennis racket!”

On May 21 1924, two Chicago teenagers, Nathan Leopold and Richard “Dickie” Loeb, rented a car. It was the first step of their plan for the afternoon’s perfect crime.

Leopold, a former child prodigy, was 19. He had just graduated from the University of Chicago and was preparing to enter Harvard Law School.

Loeb was 18. A year earlier, he had graduated from the University of Michigan as the youngest graduate ever.
​
Leopoold and Loeb drove slowly down the street. They spotted their chosen victim. 14-year-old Bobby Franks, Loeb’s second cousin.

It was supposed to be the perfect murder. A demonstration that Leopold and Loeb were supermen. Because Leopold was a big reader of Friedrich Nietzsche. He was fascinated by Nietzsche’s idea of the superman — the rare, unusually gifted man who can rise above common morality.

Besides, Leopold thought, he and Loeb were too smart. They had planned everything. Nobody could ever catch them.

Leopold and Loeb cajoled Bobby into the car. A few moments later, they knocked him out with a chisel, dragged him to the back seat, and strangled him.

​​They then disposed of the body in a pre-planned location, 25 miles south of Chicago. They washed the upholstery of the car and went on with their lives.

“Err… fascinating stuff, Bejako,” I hear you say. “But why are you creeping me out? Where is this story going?

All right, let me get to it.

Yesterday, I talked abut a squeaky-clean guru who seemed to blatantly lie about his backstory to please the audience. I promised to wrap that email up today.

So the first half of what I want to tell you is:

Sell a transfer of responsibility.

Because Leopold and Loeb did not succeed in carrying off the perfect murder. An act of Providence interfered.

Loeb’s horn-rimmed glasses slipped out next to the body of Bobby Franks. The glasses had a custom hinge that could be traced back to only three people in Chicago, Loeb among them.

At the subsequent trial, Leopold and Loeb’s lawyer focused all his efforts on avoiding the death penalty. He gave a 12-hour-long closing statement, which has become a classic of American law. He supposedly brought tears to the judge’s eyes.

The lawyer managed to keep Leopold and Loeb from the gallows. He persuaded the judge to spare them in spite of the gruesome and senseless crime… in spite of the innocence of the victim… and in spite of the public outcry for the two young supermen to be hanged.

So how did the lawyer do it?

First, he admitted that Leopold and Loeb had done the deed.

And then, over those 12 hours, he explained the real blame lay at the feet of Loeb’s domineering governess… of nature and evolution… of bloodthirsty newspapers… of callous university professors who exposed the two teenagers to ideas they were not ready for… of the Macmillan publishing company and its reckless spreading of inflammatory books… and of course, of Friedrich Nietzsche.

In other words, the deed might have been Leopold and Loeb’s. But the fault was everybody else’s. And the judge bought it.

Just imagine:

If an appeal like this can sway an impartial, third-party, external judge… what can it do for a partial, first-party, internal judge?

That’s what I’m talking about. Transfer of responsibility.

That’s why smart marketers find ways to take that internal judge in the prospect’s mind.. and show him how all those bad outcomes in the past are everybody else’s fault. And not only that.

Smart marketers also make the prospect believe any possible bad outcomes in the future won’t be his fault either.

But perhaps you’re worried about the bad future outcome of this email never finishing. So let me really wrap it up.

My conclusion is that a transfer of responsibility is something you want to sell to people…

But it’s not something you want to buy yourself. Or at least I don’t.

Because I’ve learned from direct marketing how powerful this drive to escape responsibility can be. And I’ve since noticed it in myself as well.

I’ve also learned that trustworthiness and authority can be easily bought online.

That’s why I’ve made it a personal policy not to get attached to online personalities. Even the ones I like and feel I can trust.

Of course, I consider their ideas. But I take on the responsibility of deciding whether these ideas are something I should believe in and act upon… or not.

Perhaps that’s a policy that makes sense for you to adopt as well. And you know. Not because I say so.

Last thing:

If you like reading Friedrich Nietsche, you might like my email newsletter. Here’s where you can give it a try.

About those “nice and genuine” gurus…

by

I got the following earnest question a few days ago:

“Among all of the A-List direct response copywriters that you’ve been able to meet, who was the nicest and most genuine? And did he/she share a golden piece of advice that made a difference in your development as a writer/marketer?”

As for the one golden secret whispered to me by an A-list copywriter… there was none. I studied the same stuff that’s available to everyone, much of it for free or in affordable old books.

But as for that nicest and most genuine part… well, let me tell you a story. I’ve told this story before, but it seems to need repeating.

Some time ago, I found myself in a semi-private setting with a successful online guru. I won’t say who he is or what he sells. But I will tell you he is a genuinely nice guy. Warm, cheery, helpful.

And not only that. He’s also very clean-cut. A true family man, very devoted to his faith.

So in this private setting, I listened to this guru tell his origin story.

It was dramatic, inspiring, and really ideal for that setting. I won’t retell it here because I don’t want to identify the guy. But let me compare it to the first time the Joker tells his backstory in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight:

“You wanna know how I got these scars? My father was a drinker and a fiend. And one night…”

A few days later, I heard a recording of a different semi-private event. One I had not attended. It featured the same genuinely nice, clean-cut guru telling his rags-to-riches origin story.

Again, I won’t retell it here. But it’s comparable to the Joker saying a bit later in the movie,

“Do you wanna know how I got these scars? So I had a wife who tells me I worry too much…”

In other words, the story finished in the same place. But all the details, big and small, leading up to that point, were different.

A completely different origin story. Incompatible with the first version I had heard. But again, perfectly fitted to this second environment.

So what’s my point?

Rather than spelling it out, I’d like to invite you to draw your own conclusion today.

But if you really want to know the unsettling lesson I take away from the story above… well, I’ll share that with you in my email tomorrow. You can sign up here if you’d like to read that.

Hidden desires of would-be copywriters

by

Last night, a friend sent me an interesting article that Kevin Rogers of Copy Chief had written. The article is about MMA fighter Conor McGregor and features 14 points — a lot. The one that stood out to me was this:

#2 – Know what your audience REALLY wants.

Do you really know what your audience wants? Most people think they do, but there are often subtle differences in what they want… and what they REALLY want.

In the UFC winning is not enough. Sure, Conor is a professional fighter, and fans like to see wins.

But what the audience and organization REALLY want is a “finish”. They want to see one competitor knocked out cold on the canvas.

Hidden desires. Hidden from the world. Hidden from ourselves.

Maybe you think that the desire to see somebody knocked out isn’t so hidden. Fine.

So here are a few more tricky and subtle examples of what some markets REALLY want. They come from copywriter Chris Haddad:

1. Numerology. Not really about divining the future or understanding the universe. People in this market really just want to feel special.

2. Bizopp. Not really about the millions or even the lambo. People who go for these offers really just want to feel competent… and wipe the smug, dismissive look off their brother-in-law’s face.

Which begs the question… what do people in the “become a copywriter” niche really want?

For many of them, it’s not about making money… or writing as a new career… or the independence that comes with this job.

I know this for a fact. Because there are proven and well-trodden paths to success as a copywriter. But in spite of knowing the path, these people never take the first step. And if they take the first step, they never take the second.

I’ll be honest with you:

I don’t know what these people are really craving. Not on a primal level. Maybe you have some ideas and you can tell me.

Or better yet, maybe you don’t know either… because you yourself really are after the money, the new career, or the flexibility and freedom.

If that’s the case, I can point you down a well-trodden path to success. The path that I’ve personally taken. I’ve written up all the directions inside a little guidebook I’ve titled:

“How To Become A $150/hr, Top-Rated Sales Copywriter On Upwork: A Personal Success Story That Almost Anyone Can Replicate”

This book has my best advice for the early years of being a copywriter, whether you’re on Upwork or not. The how-to info inside is underpriced by a couple of factors of magnitude.

And as I wrote last night, I will be retiring this book permanently in a couple of hours. Depending on when you’re reading this email, the book might already be gone.

One final point about this $5 investment:

The information in this book won’t transform you into a copywriting success. You gotta take those steps yourself.

But if you are willing and able to put one foot in front of the other… then this book will point the way. Plus it will give you valuable tips and shortcuts it took me several years to discover.

​​So if you’ve got $5, and you want this before it disappears, here’s where to go:

https://bejakovic.com/upwork ​​

What do you think? Is this story worth keeping?

by

Would you do me a favor?

I’m writing a book. I’m thinking of including the following story.

Since you may have read some of my blog already, would you read this condensed version of the story?

Tell me whether it’s up to par with my better writing. Or below it?

Of course, you’re free to not share your opinion. But if you do choose to do me this favor, I’ll be grateful to you.

So this story happened some time in the 1970s, before the PC was invented, and it has to do with a computer repair tech named Keith. (Yes, I know that’s a riveting beginning. But bear with me for a second. It gets better.)

One of Keith’s customers was a financial brokerage. They used a number of expensive computer terminals.

Each day at 1:30pm, one of these terminals would lock up. The trader who was using this specific terminal was furious. He would need to wait a bit, then reach around the machine, and restart it for it to work again.

Each day, the trader would call up Keith’s company and yell. The company would send out a tech to investigate. But the tech could never reproduce the problem that the trader was having.

What was happening was this:

Before lunch, the trader would read his newspaper. A phone call would come.

The trader would toss his newspaper on top of the computer terminal, covering the heat vent.

The beast would overheat and lock up. The trader would start cursing… restart the machine… and call Keith’s company and threaten to cancel the support contract because the stupid thing crashed yet again, at the worst possible moment.

And then one day, Keith was at the brokerage dealing with another issue.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the trader tossing the newspaper on the heat vent… the terminal overheating and locking up… the trader getting furious, restarting the computer, and beating it with the newspaper.

Keith could have gone over and said, “Problem solved! It’s because of your newspaper! Don’t ever put it onto the heat vent like that! The machine can’t work when you make it overheat!”

No, Keith was more subtle. He walked over to the trader’s desk and said it was great he could see finally the problem for himself.

As the machine was restarting, Keith surreptitiously put the newspaper over the vent again.

Sure enough, in a couple of moments, the terminal locked up again.

“You see!” the trader said triumphantly. “There it goes again, the piece of…”

Keith shook his head and scratched his chin. He looked at the terminal screen. “It makes no sense,” he said. “You see how it flickered just then? That usually means it’s overheating. But your office is so cool… what could it be?”

Keith started fumbling with the back of the terminal. And he waited.

“Oh no,” the trader said. “Could it maybe be the newspaper?” He picked it up off the vent and a volcanic heat rose from underneath it.

In a few moments, the computer cooled off and started working again.

The trader started apologizing. But Keith would have none of it. He just thanked the trader for finding the root cause of the bug. And the support contract, instead of being canceled, ended up being extended.

So what do you think? Is this an interesting story? I’m thinking to use it to illustrate this golden insight by Robert Collier:

“As to the motives to appeal to when you have won the reader’s attention, by far the strongest, in our experience, is Vanity. Not the vanity that buys a cosmetic or whatnot to look a little better, but that unconscious vanity which makes a man want to feel important in his own eyes and makes him strut mentally. This appeal needs to be subtly used, but when properly used, it is the strongest we know.”

Do you think this illustration is worthwhile? Should I toss it out? Keep it in? Write in and let me know. I appreciate your opinion and advice. And if you ever want to comment directly on anything I write, sign up for my daily email newsletter.