Internet Profits Blog: The Power of Perseverance and Your Business

Thursday, July 06, 2006

The Power of Perseverance and Your Business

I just finish to read a new issue coming from one of my favorite copywriters. You probably heard about him -- it's John Forde! If you don't, rush to subscribe to his weekly newsletter (use the bottom link from this post).

Today's article from John issue caught my attention. It's so well written and full of strong and plain advisees so I couldn't resist not to copy and past into my blog. So enjoy reading...

"If at first you don't succeed," says Homer Simpson, "give up."

What a cogent and penetrating analysis of how we all feel sometimes, eh? I'm a sucker for a good quote.

Here's one from another cartoonish character, General George Patton: "A good plan executed right now is far preferable to a perfect plan executed next week."

Mario Andretti, the racecar driver: "If things seem under control, you're just not going fast enough."

Different takes from different folks on whether to plow ahead when the going gets tough... or at least to make sure you're challenging yourself on the way.

And thus, what we'll talk about this week.

JUICE ON A STICK AND THE POWER OF PERSERVERANCE

Enough with the quotes.

Ever heard of Frank Epperson? Sure you have. Epperson, at age 11, invented the "Epsicle."

It all started one unusually cold night in San Francisco, 1905. Epperson had just mixed fruit-flavored powder into a glass of water, a popular kid's drink at the time.

How, he wondered, would this taste frozen?

(Something akin to, say, when our two-year old thinks, would this camera float if I threw it in the bathtub? Inventive little nippers, kids.)

Epperson left the glass on the porch. Lucky for him, it froze (San Fran doesn't dip below freezing often). And voila -- juice on a stick.

He promptly forgot the idea... until 18 years later, with five children of his own in the house, he needed to find a way to make money. The Epsicle seemed like just the ticket.

First hurdle, Epperson was broke.

Second hurdle, like I said, it doesn't exactly get cold enough to start a Epsicle
production line on your back porch every night. And home freezers had yet to be invented.

That didn't stop Epperson.

He gained access to a commercial freezer. He hunted down a machine that could stamp his name on the sticks. Plus, the perfect glass mold for shaping the frozen deserts.

Still, local ice-cream makers weren't interested. "There's just no room for it in our market," they said. Private investors also balked. "Cute idea but it will never sell on a large enough scale."

Epperson pressed on.

On a suggestion from his own son, he swapped "Epsicle" for "Popsicle," the name that's still popular today. Then he applied for -- and got -- a U.S. patent on the idea.

In 1928, he sold that patent for a tidy sum to the Lowe Corporation in New York. Of course, he could have made an even bigger fortune if he'd hung on. Popsicles are now a staple of summertime the world over. Millions are sold every year, just in the U.S.

Point is, he hung in there. And he made it happen.

How, you ask, can this possibly pertain to what we're supposed to talk about here, in an e-zine about copywriting and marketing?

Or perhaps you anticipate the analogy.

(For which I give you credit -- not all people, including some of our best and otherwise brightest, have a talent for understanding analogies, alas.)

GUTS ENOUGH TO FLOP

I was in Baltimore recently, meeting with an old friend who happens to be a fine copywriter.

He was helping me set the agenda for a private copywriting seminar I'm giving this fall, to a group of about 40 marketers and copywriters.

"I'll tell you one thing," said my friend, "one thing that's really made the difference for me is just getting the stuff out there, getting feedback on it as fast as possible, and pushing it through so it can hit the mail."

This guy, by the way, has written some monumental flops. Of course he has. However, he's also penned some enormous successes. A few of which, he can point to directly as the cornerstone of his very successful career.

"Remember that one promo? I must have sent it around to you guys four or five times in just a couple of weeks. But we just kept the momentum on it and got it out the door... it was huge."

Absolutely.

And there's definitely something to this. By contrast, for instance, I knew a young copywriter who cared very much about quality. He would write a headline and print it out.

He'd try it in a couple different fonts. Then he would change one word, move a comma, and then change it all back.

Very impressive.

Except... he never seemed to get past tweaking the headline. He was obsessed with it. All while the other 16 pages of the promo begged to be written.

Sometimes, the only way to get over flops, failures and obstacles is... well... to get over them. Literally. Rocket right over the top. Or plow right through the center.

Get it done, get it tested, get results.

And if it didn't work, go after it again.

In a world as trackable (right to the penny) as direct response marketing, this is especially true.

Let me leave you with one more quote, the one that actually inspired this issue. It's from Mike Bloomberg, current mayor of New York and founder of the Bloomberg network. He's talking here about how he grew the business that made him a billionaire:

"We made mistakes. Most of them were omissions we didn't think of when we initially wrote the software. We fixed them by doing it over and over, again and again. We do the same today.

While our competitors are still sucking their thumbs trying to make the design perfect, we're already on prototype version no. 5. By the time our rivals are ready with wires and screws, we are on version No. 10. It gets back to planning versus acting: We act from day one; others plan how to plan--for months."

Makes sense, doesn't it?

John Forde, author of Copywriter's Roundtable.

Oh, and one more thing... John could really use an epsicle right about now!