The Maverick Marketer Blog

It’s been a wild ride since I’ve been back in Austin, but I promised I’d post more pictures and stories from my summer RV trip with Aimee and our three boys.

So, I tonight was awakened just now when Hayden cried out in his sleep, and I can’t seem to get back to my ZZ’s, so I’ve got some extra time today

Besides, I’m not just going to show you pictures… I have a marketing lesson to share, too, that I learned one hot afternoon baking in the sun in Amish country is past July.

Here’s what happened…

On the way back to Texas we didn’t stop too many places for sight seeing. We’d been away in the RV for like 8 weeks and we were a bit home sick. This was our first time in the RV and we decided to go on a 5000 mile uber-trip… so full time RV’ers can laugh now because that probably wasn’t the wisest idea for our maiden voyage (especially because I never drove the rig before we left… talk about learning on the job )

None the less… we survived with flying colors… so it’s all good.

Anyway… back to my story

I’ve got a great friend and business partner who lives in central PA… about an hour from Amish country.

After a long haul through the mountains from New York, we got into Lancaster after 11:30pm… and I’ve rarely been more scared.

Once we got off the Interstate, we headed down some two lane roads that I’m sure are perfect for horse and buggy, but a 40 foot trailer and a pickup (combined weighing 22,000 pounds, reaching nearly 12.5 feet in height) was not my idea of the best choice of vehicle for these roads. It was like we were on some real life roller coaster ride… and I was white knuckled the whole time.

The speedlimits were between 35 and 50mph, which at that hour going around bumpy, twisty roads with about a hundred feet of headlight to guide you, seemed like something only a nut job would attempt.

So, I drove at or 5mph under the speed limit… while a long, long line of traffic followed behind me… with an 18 wheeler right on my tail.

At one point, we came to a place where we had to go under a bridge over the road with 13.5 feet of clearance… and I didn’t have any way to stop… so I just prayed we didn’t lose our roof or air conditioners… my only comfort was that the huge 18 wheeler was still tail gaiting and I figured he’d have more to worry about than I did… but all was fine.

Anyway… word to the wise… don’t drive a 40′ RV down unfamiliar back roads at midnight… especially in Amish country.

Next… in what had to be a Twilight Zone experience, we came up on the scene of what may have been an accident with flares in the road. As we slowed to a crawl and drove by, I saw my first Amish woman and a man inspecting the road…. though I couldn’t see what exactly had happened. It was surreal to say the least, and I was glad I hadn’t been blasting through there at 50mph.

The next day was HOT. It felt like Texas hot… only in PA.

But, we met up with my friend and headed out to take a tour of an Amish town near Lancaster called Intercourse.

(I knew you might not believe that a town in Amish country would be called Intercourse, so I took a picture.)

I may never know why someone would name a town Intercourse, or Virginville, or Blue Ball, or any of the other names I recall seeing… but I doubt a lot of Amish people read this blog… not having electricity and all… so I may never get an answer, lol.

None the less, it was just beautiful there… the farms and houses and stores… all were like a view into another time… mixed with evidence of modern life, such as the cars, electric wires, etc. Everything looked like it could be in a postcard. And the people were friendly as can be.

We promised the kids a buggy ride tour of an Amish farm, so we headed out and found a place next to this Plain and Fancy Farm (where we ate a delicious lunch and bought gifts).

I suspect there are differnt kinds of Amish people… Those that are more conservative and keep to themselves, and those who market to the public’s fascination with their lifestyle who set up tourist attractions like this. The girl on the sign, for example, looks an awful lot like Marsha Brady from the Brady Bunch and her hair and makeup seem to suggest she was more a ‘model’ than a real Amish girl… to my untrained eye, but no worries. I got a kick out of it and snapped a pic.

Either way, I appreciate the Amish for their dedication to what they believe in the face of so much change in the world around them… I know on that day alone I would have given up my Amish suit and installed air conditioning in my house. Personally, I’m all for going with sensible modernization and benefiting from technology as long as they actually improve the true quality of life, for what it’s worth.

And my hat’s off to them for being such clever business folks, too.

When we got to ‘Aaron and Jessica’s Buggy Rides’ we found a wonderful Amish guy in a blue shirt running a very tight ship. The rides were well organized and went off like clockwork. Folks were guided to sit out of the way of the horses and we to approach only when their party was called. He had a great way with the kids and had a charming sense of humor… he looked a LOT like Santa Claus. Maybe he goes to PA in the summer?

 

For some reason I didn’t get a pic of me, my friend and Aimee and the boys on the buggy… but here’s a shot of the buggy we rode in with the previous group. These are old fashioned buggies… no windows, no AC, and they’re black… so it was a lot like riding around in an oven at times… but we didn’t mind. The guide was keeping us entertained and informed.

 

Now, after about 20 minutes of riding around small roads seeing Amish farms, complete with animals and everything… we stopped at an Amish lemonade stand. For a dollar you got a fresh glass and for another buck you got some cookies. My three year old, Hayden and Ethan were sitting up front with me and I gladly handed the endearing Amish girl cash for servings for all of us.

Then, we went around to another farm in the buggy where the tour paused again… here we were offered Amish souveniers and hand made stuff. There were no takers for this one, but the nice older lady there gave the driver/guide a heaping bowl of ice cream and a drink… which I think he inhaled faster than was likely to be healthy. Man, it was HOT.

Marketing lesson…

if you are going to drive tourists around in a mobile oven buggy, it’s not a bad idea to stop to offer them fresh, cool lemonade.

It’s a marketing metaphor to offer a glass to a thirsty crowd (see Mark Joyner’s book, The Great Offer and The Irresistable Offer)… but these guys took it a step further. They created the thirst with the buggy ride and physically brought us to where we could quence our thirst.

Very effective. Proactive, even.

I pondered that as we drove home in our air conditioned car… until we came across an Amish tourist store… complete with a statue of the biggest Amish guy I’ve ever seen.

We had bought Hayden and the rest of the family Amish hats (and a bonnet for Aimee!) for fun… so I sat Hayden on the buggy parked next to the statue to snap a pic.

 

I couldn’t help myself… I asked if Aimee would pose with Hayden, too. Now, I’ve been told I didn’t include pictures of Aimee in my last post about our RV trip… and so I thought I’d include one here with her in a bonnet. I’m fairly sure she’ll kill me when she sees I posted this while she’s sleeping… but I think it’s adorable so it’s worth it

 

 

Now, to be fair, since you can’t see her face in that last shot, I put this one I snapped in the gift shop, too. Hey, not every husband puts pics of his own wife on the Internet… but that’s a great shot and I had to share it.

So… I’m writing this and showing you these pics for a reason, of course.

I want to leave you with this question: is there a way you can apply some of the marketing savvy these Amish folks had to your business?

Is there a way for you to create a situation where your customers get ‘thirsty’ for what you have to offer?

Or, in this case… does one of your products naturally make your customers thirsty for something you can offer them?

Remember, these guys didn’t just ‘find a thirsty crowd’, the had a captive audience and set up ‘offers’ throughout the process that ‘hit the spot’

Now… of course, I’m not suggesting you actively cause people to really suffer in order to sell something. We were willing tourists and mother nature was making it hot… but…

If you’ve got a product that has true value and satisfies an urgent thirst, like ‘delicious fresh lemonaide on a hot summer day’, then people will flock to you if you position your offer to be there when they’re most thirsty.

Give it some thought… your business can’t help but make money when you’re selling people what they desperately want.

Just a thought. It’s 3:40am now and I’m finally tired and going to bed.

Let me know what you think…

- Craig

P.S. Here’s food for thought… how does this PDF of Brad and Andy’s over 40 case studies make a great example of ‘making your crowd thirsty’? Think about it… every Internet Marketer needs traffic and they’re showing sites which generated gobs and gobs of traffic and revenue by people who started with next to nothing and then followed Brad and Andy’s methods. Read it… then tell me how you feel… perhaps a bit ‘thirsty’?

 

Well, the hub bub over Brad Fallon and Andy Jenkin’s videos has not died down one bit.

As you may remember folks were questioning their huge traffic and income figures.

That debate has been put to rest, finally… but now it seems everyone wants to know HOW they did it.

Question now is: Can folks who aren’t ‘Google geeks’ benefit from what Andy and Brad have done?

See for yourself… they released a PDF chock full of case studies.

I especially love the one with a 63 year old grandma who now OUTRANKS eBay!

I’ve posted the pdf for you here:

http://www.maverickmarketer.com/stomp

Let me know what you think…

- Craig

Which would you rather see me dressed up in… all leather, or an Italian suit?

How about both all at once?

I just found some photos from 1994 of me on my motorcycle and I scanned them for you to take a look at.

That’s me in a two piece Italian made Dainese motorcycle leathers, complete with gloves and nifty matching blue boots. This was my ’speed racer’ suit, as my non-rider friends would say.

This bike was one of my early ‘rewards’ to myself back when my first Info business started making serious money.

It’s one of the last toys that I literally dreamed and obsessed about. I’d go stare in the window of the showroom after hours and swear that one day that bike would be mine. As it so happened, I got it about a month later… brand new. It was a Kawasaki ZX9 and it’s main characteristic was the monster ram air assisted motor slapped in it which produced like 140 horsepower… and the faster you went, the more air was forced through the vents just under the headlight… and the more faster you could go.

How fast?

One day I got a little carried away on a deserted straight away and got up to between 160 and 170. I saw ‘about’ because I was going so fast that I dared not look at the speedo too long for fear of hitting a bottle cap or something and becoming a leather bag of spaghetti sauce. But a quick glance did show the needle in the 160+ territory… a feat I only attempted once.

Candidly, I was much more comfortable between 100 and 130mph (lol). Now I’m ‘wild’ if I go 80 in my truck… ah, how things change.

What wasn’t funny is that this bike took some of the fun out of driving the Porsche 911 I bought back then. The bike was SOOO much faster that it made the Porsche feel slow… in fact, I’ve hardly ‘dreamed’ about sports cars since because I know any $10k motorcycle will blow the doors off them. Anyway… I’ve mellowed a bit with age.

As a father of three boys who no longer even owns a motorcyle I can say this photo brings back old, old memories from a previous life.

Back then, I was single, I didn’t drink, and me and my buddies rode the twisty Vermont roads like we were invincible. Luckily, we all lived, though a few had some all too close calls. Oddly enough, I only got ONE speeding ticket in the whole 6 years I rode bikes… and it was for doing 50 in a 25 in a total small town speed trap. Again, I was lucky… though it does show that I chose my time and places to speed carefully, which probably helped me stay alive, too.

These shots were taken by a riding buddy of mine with a crappy camera at an industrial park with a great oval shaped road we used as our private race track on Sundays when all the businesses were closed. I used to go around the corners and try to get my knee as close as possible to dragging on the road like the racers (and some of my friends) did. This bike was a 900 and pretty hefty so I never actually got it over far enough to drag my knee… but I had fun trying.

I rode the heck out of that bike until a close call made me lose my nerve.

The dealer that did my last oil change left the drain plug loose and at the end of one ride it popped off, leaving my back tire with it’s own oil slick. I was going in to a corner on an Interstate exit after a long hard ride and the bike fishtailed back and forth like it was possessed. Luckily, I had enough skill and luck to keep myself upright and was able to recover.

While I was furious at the dealer I was also angry at myself for not checking the drain plug… and ignoring a suspicious drop of oil I’d seen hanging down from it. Mostly, though, I took the close call as a sign from above that the party was over.

At that point, I had become a father and the realization that I was not invincible made me hang up my helmet a few months later.

Here’s the thing…

Though that was 10 years ago now, I still consider myself a ‘motorcyclist’ at heart. Perhaps one day again I’ll ride another one (though I don’t advocate riding that fast on public roads like I did back in the day… save that for the track).

Funny thing is… I still have the leather suit… but I weighed 165 then… and I’m about 210 now, so I’d not even attempt to put it on now. If you saw the cartoon movie ‘The Incredibles’, when the retired superhero dad is trying to get the belt on his suit around his waist… I laughed extra hard. That would be ME if I tried to cram into those leathers today.

There are a few marketing lessons here…

First, I got you curious and that got your attention long enough to check this story out. You may not care a wit about bikes, in fact you may have lost all respect for me in revealing my former high speed ways… but the fact is that personal stories like this get people’s attention. Too many marketers rely on hype… when simple human interest usually works a whole lot better. But… many use stories incorrectly in marketing…

Second, if you’re going to tell stories in your marketing, they better do more than just generate curiosity. They should relate to your message in some way. In this case, I’m tying my motorcycle background into a marketing lesson… I don’t really recommend telling stories unless there is some kind of relevancy.

Third, I loved that motorcycle. It’s all I thought about before I met my wife. When I wasn’t riding it, I was detailing it or thinking about where I’d ride on my next time out. And, I spent a LOT of money on it. The bike itself was almost $10,000 and the goofy suit and helmet was like another $1,200. I also bought a course on riding and spent money on motorcycle magazines and related products. I was a target customer in the motorcycle niche.

As a marketer, I’m sure you’ve heard that you want to pick a niche where folks like me spend silly money on passions and hobbies.

Heck, I agree with that whole heartedly… to a point.

Yes, IF there is a valid, lucrative niche that YOU are passionate about, you should strongly consider having that be your niche.

In this case, I tried to do just that… but I never did come up with an Info product about motorcycles and riding. After a bit of research in the mid 90’s I decided that it wasn’t a good fit for me as a business.

Just because you are passionate about something doesn’t mean it HAS to be your business.

All the elements have to be there for profit and passion.

If through creativity and research you can find a problem in your passionate niche that people are willing to spend money on… then great.

Fact is, a lot of people I see struggling online are ‘married’ to a niche that they don’t belong in. Either the niche is no good, or they don’t have a strong offer for that niche.

There’s no prize in going faster in the wrong direction

What may be holding you back, if you’re stuck, is that you’re not doing what you KNOW you should be doing. This will sap your self confidence because deep down you know you should be doing something else.

Passions can come and go. You may find, as I did, that something you were obsessed with suddenly becomes a fond memory and no longer holds your attention. These days, all I think about is my family… they trumped my former interest in bikes.

Now my business is about helping people gain freedom through Internet Marketing… as fast as possible

So I guess I’m still into speed, but these days it’s not likely to get me a ticket or send me to an early grave.

See, my core passion is FREEDOM… not speed. The bike was an expression of my desire to be free. Today, I’ve become free because I channeled that energy into my business.

So today I’ll leave you with a question: what is YOUR core passion?

What drives you throughout the different areas of your life? What’s ‘always been true’ about you?

Ask yourself that question. Sit in a quiet place for 5 minutes and I bet you’ll have an epiphany. Think back to all the things you’ve loved and hated.

What do they have in common?

What have you been really good at?

What have you truly desired above all else?

‘Know thyself’ is just as relevant in Internet Marketing as it is anywhere else in your life.

Maybe my best advice today is to slow down the pace of life and get to know yourself. As I did, you may discover it’s NOT the answer you thought it would be.

But I bet when you find the answer, you’ll see you knew it all along. It’s probably right in front of you.

Hey, whatever the answer you find… run with it. That’s where you’ll find success and your purpose in business and life.

And the best part is, I bet you’ll find things happen pretty fast for you once you’re headed in the right direction