Wheel of Fortune

My maternal grandfather, a watchmaker, survived the Great Depression by operating a carnival wheel in an amusement park in Newark, New Jersey.

Today, the wheel hangs on a wall in my home, a gaudy artifact symbolizing weird work and small wagers, and the legacy of a man whose real trade was time.

Most of my grandfather's biographical details are lost, but at least one is clear: despite the Depression, he stayed in the game.

Fortunate are the people who—as he did—show up, learn new skills, take risks, think weird.

They don't surrender to the feeling they're hostages or has-beens. They choose instead to be bootstrappers.

Right now, two generations, Millennials and Boomers, are joined at the hip by the prospect of near-poverty.

They're placing bets on the next spin of the wheel.

The bootstrappers are mastering new, adaptive skills. 

The rest are at home, consuming games and gameshows.

Which are you doing?

Terms of Endearment

The role terms play in the marketing mix isn't discussed outside the pages of the Harvard Business Review.

But your terms matter to prospects.

Here's a case study.

Recently, Bob (yours truly) shopped Craigslist for the services of a freelance editor, on his employer's behalf. Based on his Craigslist ad, Steven seemed a capable choice. Bob phoned Steven, described the project, and sent him background materials.

Below, verbatim, is their email exchange immediately after that call.

From Steven to Bob

I've read over the attached documents and have a good grasp on what you want in terms of the scope of the editing. I can realistically accommodate the edits for the 400 documents you've stipulated for $475 and have them ready within your two month time-frame. Or, if you'd like them ready within one month's time, I could accommodate that for $599. Just let me know which option you choose. Also, if there are any other stylistic recommendations you have for the revisions go ahead and send those over to me. I accept Google Wallet for payment. To proceed, go ahead and send your payment, via Wallet, to me and then I can confirm, put this on my schedule and get started.

From Bob to Steven

Wow, I think you are underpricing this project. A few thoughts:

• How much time do you think you’d devote to each document?
• Advance payment on line won’t work. We can pay in installments or a lump sum, but only as satisfactory work is delivered.
• Doesn’t the style guide I sent you make clear the “stylistic recommendations” desired?

From Steven to Bob

You're right. I sent you a quote meant for a different client. Realistically, I could accommodate this within 2 month's time for $3,500 or within one month's time for $3,999. However, I do not accept checks (they have that pesky ability to bounce...) and I do not do work without a payment, or at least a serious deposit, in advance. You came to me so please abide by the processes that I work by. Otherwise, I'd have to deny this request due to lack of seriousness. The only other payment methods I accept are Square Cash, Chase Quickpay or bank transfer.

As the Harvard Business Review might put it, "Steven's terms erected a considerable obstacle to Bob the Buyer's consideration."

By insisting on online prepayment, Steven demonstrated he works only with students and, perhaps, the occasional entrepreneur. He failed to grasp, in this case, his prospect represented an 88 year-old, multibillion company with customers like McDonald's and Microsoft.

The rest of their email exchange follows, again verbatim.

From Bob to Steven

No thanks, Steven.

From Steven to Bob

No skin off my nose. You're obviously a joker or a scammer. Before you waste more time trolling the Craigslist ads like a desperate prostitute, you should know that no self-respecting professional is going to be doing any work without payment upfront. Perhaps if you weren't a senior citizen you'd realize this is how commerce in the 21st century works.

Do your terms cost you customers?

How about your manners?

All the Money You'll Ever Need

The noted playwright Robert Anderson once wrote, "You can make a killing as a playwright in America, but you can't make a living" (for that, he stooped to screenwriting).

While crowdfunding could put an end to "starving artists," no amount of money will spare us sniveling ones.

At grad school, I worked for a professor who counted among his friends many renowned intellectuals.

One day, he invited me to join him and a neighbor for lunch in his home. 

The neighbor turned out to be best-selling novelist Herman Wouk. 

I thought our lunch conversation might revolve around love and war. But Wouk spent most of the 90 minutes kvetching about the sum ABC had just paid him for the rights to make The Winds of War into a TV epic. (Wouk lived in a stately townhouse in Georgetown, but still resented the fact that stars Robert Mitchum and Ali McGraw received more money than he.)

On another day, my professor recounted a visit he'd made to the posh Left Bank apartment of philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre. Instead of discussing his Critique of Dialectical Reason, Sartre spent the whole hour griping about his royalties.

When it comes to money, even giants in the humanities can feel discontent. 

"Money isn't everything," novelist Lillian Day wrote. "Your health is the other ten percent."

Or as comedian Henny Youngman said, "I've got all the money I'll ever need. If I die by four o'clock."

Exorcize This

Few people know I played a bit part in the 1973 horror film The Exorcist.

It's true. I appear with two of the stars, Ellen Burstyn and Max von Sydow, in a wide shot that's on screen for a full three seconds.

Don't cover your eyes, because you'll miss me. Don't blink, either.

Want to know what's super-scary?

I'm always playing bit parts.

Edward Bernays used to warn students who were considering a career in marketing to think twice, because his was strictly a "sidelines job." 

Your sweat will go into glorifying others, Bernays warned. All of it. And that's as it should be. Marketers are paid to make non-marketers look good. 

But most social marketers have never heard of Bernays, nor heed his advice. They continue to break social marketing's Number 1 rule: It's not about you.

Get with the program, please. Quit striving for stardom. Get used to bit parts. It's about the glory of others.

As Geoffrey James puts it in Inc, "Stop talking about yourself. Stop thinking about yourself. Stop trying to be unique. Put yourself in service to the world. Figure out how to help other people."

It's the perfect time of year to exorcize your ego from your social marketing.

Bread and Circuses

For 25% of Americans, entertainment trumps accuracy in content, according to a new study by Adobe, The State of Content: Expectations on the Rise.

And the younger you are, the more entertainment counts, the study shows.

Entertainment is more important than accuracy for 10% of Boomers; 20% of Gen Xer's; 35% of Millennials.

In his new collection of essays, Notes on the Death of Culture, Nobel Prize winning novelist Mario Vargas Llosa laments the fact we've become puppets of “emotions and sensations triggered by an unusual and at times very brilliant bombardment of images that capture our attention, though they dull our sensibilities and intelligence due to their primary and transitory nature."

Our addiction to spectacle shows its worst side in politics, today a “mediocre and grubby activity that puts off the most honest and capable people and instead mainly recruits nonentities and rogues," he says.

Instead of leaders, we settle for clowns, ready to do anything to grab a moment of our attention.