“Gentlemen, this is a soccer ball.”
-Vince Lombardi
Dear friend,
I know a little about weight training.
Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to do much since I broke my L-5 vertebra in my lower back last year and broke three disks.
But I know how to gain muscle and lose fat. (I hope so. I’ve been working in the muscle niche for 15 years!)
It’s a weird niche.
The truth is that building muscle and strength is not that complicated.
You need to lift heavy weights and eat plenty of the right foods.
It’s pretty simple.
I didn’t say easy…just simple.
But you can’t sell a bodybuilding system that says “lift heavy weights regularly and eat a lot of food.”
People don’t want to hear that. They want to hear that there is some kind of sexy new secret, shortcut, magic pill, etc.
Launching my first Doberman Dan product last week has been a learning experience. I really didn’t expect to find myself in the same mindset as the bodybuilding market…but it’s there.
I found that the niches of internet marketing, direct response marketing, copywriting and “how to make money” have a lot in common with bodybuilding.
In both markets, what REALLY works are tried and true principles. But apparently the market doesn’t want to hear the truth.
That’s why all these internet marketing gurus have to INVENT new techniques with catchy names in order to sell more and more products.
Another Gary Halbert story…
One of Gary Halbert’s other protégés told me this story. (It was Caleb O’Dowd or Scott Haines… I don’t remember).
Halbert attended a seminar a couple of years ago with a bunch of different breakout sessions. There was everything from initial mail order sessions to ultra-complicated direct mail regression analysis.
Guess which one Halbert went to?
The initial class of mail order.
Now, Halbert had been writing copy for nearly 40 years at the time. He had written some of the biggest winners in all of mail order history.
Why would I go to a beginners kind of mail order?
Gary said that if I was forgetting something, there was a 99% chance it was the basics.
The great Vince Lombardi
The great football coach Vince Lombardi began each new season with a lecture for veterans and rookies on the basics of football.
He literally held up a soccer ball and said, “This is a soccer ball.”
He talked about its size and shape, how it can be kicked, charged or passed.
Then he would bring the team out onto the field and say, “This is a soccer field.”
He took them around the field, describing the dimensions, the shape, the rules and how the game is played.
Apparently he did it every year… even after the Green Bay Packers became NFL champions and won the first two Super Bowls ever played.
Can you imagine how “basic” and boring that must have sounded to their veteran players?
Lombardi apparently believed that no matter how advanced his veteran players were, they still needed to be coached in the basics.
Perhaps that explains why Vince Lombardi was one of the most successful managers in football history.
Do you really KNOW?
You see, there are many “experts” on the web who share their “knowledge”.
Their “knowledge” consists of repeating things they have heard other people say… or things they have read in a book.
Or worse yet, repeating what they have read online from other person repeating things he has heard other people say.
Everything I share with you on this site are things I have LIVED. I have the battle scars to prove it.
Sure, I originally discovered the principles and concepts from books, seminars, or other people. But I didn’t really start learning until I started doing it.
Whenever I hear someone say they already know what I’m teaching…that almost always means they may have heard or read it before…but actually HAVEN’T.
And if you haven’t… you don’t know.
A lot of people in this niche think they know the basics, so they go looking for the next biggest and newest “secret.”
And there is no shortage of people willing to sell them their “marketing fantasy” for big bucks.
Unfortunately, these poor souls are chasing fantasies that are never going to work out.
If Gary Halbert spent his career focusing on the basics, what makes you think you don’t have to?
The 3 ways to earn money
As I said in my “Master Formula for Success”, there are really only 3 ways to make money and build your business.
97% of business owners only focus on one of the three. The few who “get it” and focus equally on all three experience a quantum leap in income.
But let me be totally transparent with you…
The master formula for success is not sexy. It is not a “magic pill”.
It is based on decades of tried and true principles that just WORK.
The bad news is… it takes work. (gasp!)
Yes, you have to implement the master formula for success (or any basic marketing principle) if you want to get results.
If you just read it or study it, then you really don’t. to know it’s.
I’ve noticed that a lot of the youngsters and newbies in this niche (especially those who are IM guru disciples) don’t really know the basics of direct response.
They are always chasing fantasies in search of the latest “secrets”.
The truth is, there are very, very few new discoveries and secrets in direct response marketing.
In fact, you can learn the basics of direct response in a weekend.
And it will only take you a lifetime to master it.
So stop chasing fantasies and buying into the “magic pill” myth.
Focus on the basics of direct response. They will take you where you want to go.
If it’s good enough for Gary Halbert, it’s good enough for the rest of us.
My best wishes,
dan doberman