I’m signed up for the Federal Trade Commission newsletter, because I like to get news of marketing scams, pyramid schemes, and other skulduggery that can be useful for business. So a few days ago, I got a press release with the unlikely but highly satisfying headline:
“FTC Asks Federal Court to Hold ‘Pharma Bro’ Martin Shkreli in Contempt”
You probably know Shkreli. He’s a young guy who caused mass outrage a few years back. He bought a pharma company that sold a lifesaving drug, and then raised the price of that drug 55x, from $13.50 to $750 per pill.
Shkreli then schemed to suppress competition, to make sure desperate patients were forced to pay the new 55x price for his drug.
When this became international news, Shkreli smirked at cameras, and said the one mistake he made was that he didn’t raise the price even higher.
“Why are people coming after you?” asked one interviewer.
“It might have something to do with me being very handsome,” Shkreli answered with a smile.
People were fuming.
“Martini Shkreli,” said one irritated TV announcer, doing what he does best: looking like a real slappable prick.”
So the FTC headline is very clever and very fitting. The new news, by the way, is not that Shkreli is now officially contemptible — which is what the headline makes you think, and which is what most people feel — but that he disobeyed court orders, and is therefore himself “in contempt of court.”
Whatever. Point is:
Maybe Shkreli is a natural-born “slappable prick.” Or maybe it’s an act he’s putting on for reasons of his own.
Either way, I think Shkreli’s behavior is worth studying — and even emulating.
“Whoa whoa hold on there,” I hear you saying. “John, you don’t want to go down that road! There are many better ways to get attention than to become contemptible. It’s not worth it!”
No doubt. And I’m not actually planning on getting into the pharma business, or doing anything to taunt the FTC, or playing around with people’s lives.
But that doesn’t change the fact that specific strategies Shkreli is using — whether instinctively or consciously — can be very valuable if you run a completely above-board, highly moral, or even noble business.
That’s something I will write more about in a future book on positioning, which I’m working on now.
But to twist the advice of James Altucher:
“The best way to promote your next book? Get people to read your current book.”
And so let me remind you of my 10 Commandments of A-List Copywriters.
Get it now if you want, because tomorrow I will be raising the price of this baby to $200 for the ebook and $250 for the paperback — the highest prices Amazon will me allow me to charge. You can watch the price increase at the page below: