A few months ago, a friend turned me on to a new addiction:
BBC Archive.
Sounds… archival, I know, and as exciting as a dusty library.
But the BBC Archive can be a fascinating look into a completely different time and often into places that have now fully disappeared.
For example, today I watched a BBC report from 1979, asking the question, does English football need investment?
Was a time when football (soccer) wasn’t much of a business. Back then, a couple English First Division team owners had audacious ideas such as expanding the number of seats in their stadiums past the 10k mark, or maybe even introducing functioning toilets.
The BBC interviewed a couple of these team owners and execs, including the director of Watford FC, a guy named Elton John.
“Haha,” I thought. “What a coincidence. This football club bro has the same name as the flamboyant, famously homosexual rock and roll star.”
Except, of course, it turned out that the football club bro was actually the flamboyant, famously homosexual rock and roll star.
Elton John has been a diehard supporter of Watford FC since he was a kid.
After he became rich and famous, he bought his way into the club. He acted as their chairman and director between 1976 and 1987, and then again from 1997 to 2002.
It’s only in my limited, stereotyping mind that it’s incongruent for a football club chairman and a flamboyant, famously homosexual rock and roll star to be one and the same person.
Maybe you’re nothing like me.
Or maybe you’re a bit like me.
In that case, let me share something that’s really been working for me to get a fascinating change of perspective from the usual.
Over the past few weeks, I’ve gotten on Zoom calls with a half dozen or so people who have bought my courses.
I wanted to find out a bit about who they are.
Oh, sure, I knew all about them already, everything I needed to know. I knew they were interested in copywriting, marketing, and my charming and funny personality.
What else is there to possibly know?
Turns out, a huge amount, measured in tons. I won’t list everything I learned here. But let me just say much of it has been as surprising and frankly eye-opening as seeing a 1970s Elton John discussing the plight of football fans who don’t have access to clean toilets.
I’ve also gotten lots of ideas for new offers by talking to my customers over the past few weeks.
Not just via ideas that popped up in my mind while I was listening to people talking. No, the people I talked to gave me specific recommendations and said, “Here, this is what I like to buy.”
So if you’re racking your brains about your next offer, might be time to invest in walking around the virtual bleachers, and talking to a few of the people who are sitting there on Friday nights.
I’ll be applying some of these ideas soon. Meanwhile, I just have a few archival offers, including the best thing I sell, a flamboyant program known as Copy Riddles. For more info on that: