The Expertise Imperative

As most of my regular readers know, I was a self-employed marketing consultant before I got into the executive search business. Very often my clients would complain about how they had flushed a bunch of money down the print advertising toilet, and that they were hungry for better results. They looked to me for answers, and, initially, I had none. Yet after a few of these conversations, it dawned on me that no marketing medium must work harder than a simple direct mail letter that ...


  1. shows up totally unannounced (and uninvited) in a prospect's mailbox,
  2. makes a compelling and entertaining case for its product, and
  3. gets the prospect to part with his hard-earned cash.


I figured any marketer who could do that must be a genius, so I set out to learn the direct mail business. "DM seemed like the perfect marketing medium. It was cheap, highly targetable, easy to measure, and easy to cost-control. A real workhorse. But to do it right, learning DM also meant learning to write copy, which is simply salesmanship in print.

"Nothing will make you a better marketer than learning to write great copy." -David Ogilvy

So from eBay, I began to buy tapes by Jay Abraham. Which led me to Dan Kennedy. Which led me to Ted Nicholas. Which led me to Carl Galletti. Which led me to John Carlton

Members help make our journalism possible. Become a Restaurant Business member today and unlock exclusive benefits, including unlimited access to all of our content. Sign up here.

Multimedia

Exclusive Content

Financing

Why social media, and not price, is behind Starbucks' sales problems

The Bottom Line: The coffee shop chain lost momentum quickly in November. That was too fast to be explained by consumer reaction over the prices of its beverages.

Financing

Franchisors who want faster remodels should reach into their pocketbooks

The Bottom Line: Burger King is spending $550 million to get more of its restaurants remodeled, not counting its own upgraded restaurants. More brands should do this.

Leadership

Meet the restaurant fixer who now owns Etta

Tech entrepreneur Johann Moonesinghe suddenly finds himself leading a growing group of restaurants. His secret? He doesn't expect to make a profit.

Trending

More from our partners