I had that naked dream last night. You know the one. It’s the dream where you’re at a business meeting or giving a speech or going to meet your sweetheart’s parents and suddenly, out of nowhere you realize that you’re completely and utterly nude.
Naked. Exposed. Vulnerable. (And, depending on your climate and the time of year, maybe a little bit cold.)
Now, everyone I know has had this dream or at least a variation of it. (Personally, I’ve had it a bunch of times. For me it’s right up there with the “It’s finals week in college and I suddenly realize that I forgot to go to my advanced theoretical mathematics class all semester and–oh, dear god–it’s taught by Mr. Tite who taught math at my highschool, lived with his mother and had an amazing hairpiece and–sweet jebus–I’m so ashamed at myself and there’s no way I’m getting out of this without failing. Gah!” dream. What, you haven’t had that one?)
But I’ve always found the terror and shame the naked dream brings up to be pretty fascinating. What is it about being honestly and truly who you are that sends us all into red-faced fits? And why does the concept of naked, brutal honesty make most business owners look like they want to hold their breath until they turn dead?
This month’s issue of Wired is all about exposure. The cover features that cute (But not too cute. This girl’s cuteness exists in the realm of relative reality, as opposed to most Hollywood women types who are sort of scary and look like they could be used as flotation devices) girl from The Office smiling coyly. She’s got her hip kicked out to the side and is wearing a sharp suit. Except the suit is just a cover, literally. Turn the page and you see that our cute girl from the office is, *gasp* exposed in a completely PG way.
Anyway, the article is a good read. The basic gist? Be honest to your customers, expose your flaws, start a conversation and you’ll have folks lining up for your services like zombies at a brain buffet.
Give it a read.
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So I was talking to my Mom today and mentioned my most recent newsletter. While I was on the phone I figured I do a little fact checking.
Here’s what I found out:
* I was 5 when my cousin lost her finger, not 10.
* It was summer, not winter.
* My Aunt Shirley and her kids were there too, visiting from Florida.
* Michelle and I were standing on a sand bucket, not a chair.
* Michelle cut her finger on a big pane of glass that we had that was supposed to fit the table in the basement, not a rotary saw blade. When I told my mom I thought it was a rotary saw blade, she guffawed and said “why the heck would your father have a rotary saw blade?”
* Michelle lost the tip of her pinky finger, not her index.
* Nobody knew she’d lost a fingertip, they just thought she’d cut herself. My Dad just stumbled onto the fingertip. He ran upstairs with it and said “Oh my god! I have a fingertip.” Luckily our neighbor the nurse had come over when she heard the screams. She put the tip on ice and sent my dad packing to the hospital.
So, yea, I missed a few bits. But I got the *essence!* =-)
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Hey folks,
Welcome back to the Hardworking Words Newsletter, a monthly
publication form Direct Response Copywriter and Marketing Wonk
Chris Haddad. To find out more about Chris, his never-ending battle
against jargon and the perturbing power of his marketing prose,
visit http://www.haddadink.com
In today’s big issue you’ll learn:
* The dangers of blindly diving into new technology.
* How to ride the wave of the evolving web without having it crash
in on you.
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My Cousin Lost A Finger — And Taught Me All About Web 2.0!
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“WHRRRRRR CHUG CHUG WHRMMMMMMM.” The big brown door groaned out a
protest as our brand-spanking-new garage door opener *yanked* it up
and along its track to rest quietly above our heads.
This was winter in the 80’s–maybe 1985–and my aunt, uncle and
cousins had come over on a Sunday to play trivial pursuit, get
sugar-high on peanut butter bars and listen to my dad tell weird
stories about his weird life and that weird time he *swears* he was
abducted by mustache-wearing aliens.
My cousin Michelle and I weren’t having it though. We’d heard all
the weird stories before and didn’t know enough about Reaganomics
to be much use at trivia. So we scarfed down some sugary goodness
and snuck downstairs to play with Mom and Dad’s new toy.
“Whoa, cool!” Michelle said when she saw it for the first time. And
I had to agree, the shiny new electric garage door opener *was*
cool. It was all shiny metal, blue plastic and grease.
*And it was just begging us to play with it.*
“Here, let me show you.” I said in my little eight-year-old voice.
I clambered up onto a rickety chair and stretched up on my tippy
toes to push the button. I had to push hard to get the bright red
light to flash, but when I did the whole room rumbled.
“WHRRRRRR CHUG CHUG WHRMMMMMMM” our life-changing new technology
went. It gave us a clear view of the snowy street and sent us both
into ecstatic fits.
“WOW!! AWESOME! LET ME, LET ME!,” Michelle screamed amidst the
giggles. For the next half hour we switched off back and forth. We
opened and closed and opened and closed and opened and closed the
door, balancing precariously on that wobbly little chair every time.
And then we stopped.
Michelle was stretching up and pushing hard on the button again
when her foot slipped. She tumbled and gave a strangled shout.
*And then I saw the blood.*
Michelle was crying from shock than from pain. I ran upstairs to
get my Uncle and wondered why I hadn’t noticed the 12-inch rotary
saw blade propped up against the wall right under our new “toy.”
The finger had come off clean just under the knuckle closest to the
fingernail. My dad searched around franticly for it, packed it in
ice and rushed off in his big brown Lincoln Town Car to meet up
with Michelle and her dad at the hospital. I stayed home with mom
and stared at the bloody saw blade, wondering again how we managed
to miss the dang thing.
=================================
“Alright, Haddad. You’ve freaked us out, now what the hell does
this have to do with Web 2.0?”
=================================
Good question.
Now I *love* podcasting, blogging, web video, web audio, dynamic
web pages, social networking, Pay-Per-Click and all the other
symptoms of the evolving web.
But sometimes I think business folks get so caught up in the shiny
new technology that they lose sight of the powerful basics.
And as Michelle and I (OK, mostly Michelle) learned way back in
‘85, getting hypnotized by “radical new technology” and ignoring
the fundamental truths about your environment (like a big honking
saw blade right underneath you) can be more than a little bit
dangerous.
=================================
So here’s the real message of today’s newsletter.
=================================
If you’re in business today you *need* to a part of the web. You
*need* to be aware of the radical changes that are happening
online. And you *need* to make some hard choices about how you’re
going to take advantage of the opportunities to start *real*
conversations with your customers and sell your business like never
before.
But you also *need* to realize that the medium is *not* the message
and that *what* you say to your audience is always going to be more
important than *how* you say it.
Which means coming up with a strong offer, developing a powerful
Unique Selling Proposition and laying out in no uncertain terms the
*reasons why* your customers should work with you.
Oh, and since you’re undoubtedly dying to know, the good doctors at
that hospital in Massachusetts managed to put my poor cousin back
together again and she has just a tiny little scar to remind her of
her run in with the garage door opener and the saw blade.
Comments? Questions? Harsh Invectives? Head on over to the Hard
Working Words Blog (http://www.haddadink.com/blog) or email me at
chris (at) haddadink.com
=======================================
About This Newsletter and Your Subscription
=======================================
©2007 Haddad Ink. Copywriting Services. All Rights Reserved.
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=======================
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===================================================
Haddad Ink., 230 14th Ave. E., #302, Seattle, WA 98112, USA
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I don’t go to the movies much anymore. I mean, the whole experience is kind of horrifying. Uncomfortable seats (especially for a half-crippled word warrior like myself), seemingly-hours of crappy advertising, loud people, crying kids . . .it’s really just not something I, you know, enjoy.
But every once in a while I pop down to the multiplex for that big screen experience. And whenever I do I’m always struck by the little signs they’ve got out front by the door.
They say “Unfortunately no outside food or beverage will be allowed in the theater.”
And I always have to think to myself “Unfortunately for who?”
Because it sure as hell isn’t unfortunate for the theater. By “not allowing” outside food and beverages they get to charge me downright abusive prices for my big old bag of Peanut M&M’s.
So really, it’s just unfortunate for you and me, the movie going public.
And really the theatre is trying to use false sympathy to make me feel better about the fact that they’re trying to suck as much cash as possible out of my pocket.
Now, I’m not against people making a play for my money. Heck, I work in marketing. I manipulate people for a living. But act bugs the hell out of me. The falseness bugs the hell out of me. The “oh, aren’t we clever” tone bugs the hell out of me.
Here’s my rewrite:
“We need your money. Leave your ho hos at the door.”
I’d love to see how it tests.
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