The Odd web site that allows you to take new photos and make them look old, black and white, sepia, and share ‘em with others, Instagram, was purchased by Facebook last month for one billion dollars.

The purchased site has no income model. It might give an investor pause about giving Facebook money to buy things with, but presumably, they have wisdom I lack.

Art Linkletter was once offered exclusive rights to the photo business at Disneyland, by Walt, when Walt was raising capital—Art scoffed. Kodak later banked billions. Of course, today Polaroid and Kodak, a corpse and a zombie.

At the SuperConference, I posed with people for hundreds of photos. Taking photos can wind up embarrassing.

First Lady Rosalyn Carter is in a photo, posed, shaking hands with John Wayne Gacy, who turned out to be a serial killer of some infamy. You can Google him. Before the photo opp, he did have a felony conviction for sodomy, and should not have passed security clearance.

There is a photo of Saddam Hussein receiving “The Key to the City” at a ceremony in Detroit, Michigan in 1980.

You really never know when somebody you’re posing with for a photo may later turn out to be a serial killer, mass murderer or worse.

I give a standard caveat: “1. You can’t use this photo for any purpose implying direct commercial endorsement. 2. If convicted of an embarrassing felony, you can’t use it anymore at all. Misdemeanors don’t count.”

It’s kinda unenforceable though. Once on Facebook, it apparently stays on Facebook. In the run-up to the SuperConference, I’m told people trotted out all their photos with me all over their social media sites and I imagine I was even Instagrammed, all flattering, appreciated, and harboring peril.

All this, the nature of the beast of my life and I’ve made it.

There is always the risk of looking goofy in a photo and having that preserved for posterity and widely circulated. (The photo here), from Easter, shows what can happen to The Million Dollar Dog when I’m not around to protect her.

In nearly 40 years of being photographed, I’m sure there are photos of me looking peeved and eager to get away from the person posed with me, of me looking down at cleavage I shouldn’t be—although, if it’s on display, me with eyes closed, a spittle on lip, collar asunder, wearing a stupid hat or incredibly garish outfit, etc.

There is no Michael Phelps photo: not only didn’t I inhale, I never smoked the stuff.

Sadly, there is no video of sexual acrobatics either.

I have a few home movies converted to video and a few photos from childhood locked away that I don’t like, a couple first wedding photos, quite a few early speaking career photos with me bearing a huge head of hair (I used to get a perm) and a far bushier mustache, there are my fat-Dan photos (at 235-250).

There are photos of me posed next to famous people too, although I have worked with many I’ve not troubled to get photos with too. In a few cases, I wish I had.

There’s a photo of me with Ronald Reagan, but the damn photographer refused to just take a candid one as we talked, and the posed one makes Reagan look like a wax dummy. I have a photo of me with a wax dummy of Madonna that looks more real.

There is a photo of me on stage with Gene Simmons, but it would be way more-cool if he’d been in full KISS regalia—establishing my status as an opening act for KISS.

My office walls are filled with my win photos from driving in races, which I once religiously up-dated week by week but has now fallen 20 or so wins behind, the photos stacked, waiting to be framed; me too busy.
Perhaps too busy at the wrong things.

The win photos are important in keeping me working, ‘cuz, at this point, the only thing I am working for is oats ‘n vet bills.

Most people have enormous collections of photos spanning their lifetimes, and of their parents, kid, grand-kids, pets, houses, cars and more, and are into getting them organized in scrapbooks, looking at them with family and friends, sharing them with others, now posting them to social media.

I’m not so into this myself, but that’s just me. Most are.

Most are sentimental about their photos—and even photos that aren’t theirs. There are iconic photos from American history that many people react to very personally.

The kiss on V-Day after WWII, JFK and Jackie, those sorts of photos. I imagine this is why the right photographic image can be so powerful in advertising, something you should never forget; as a copywriter embroiled with the written word, I have to remind myself of this. A photo can get to emotional response instantly while words cannot.

I have never actually seen a photo of me I really like, and early on, I very much resisted making myself the focal point of my marketing; resisted using photos of myself on book covers, cassette album covers and the like.

I have not gotten over this, but I long ago got past it. (There is a difference.) I’m a very big “what works” and “whatever it takes” guy, especially on relatively minor matters that make possible my autonomy and independence on matters major to me.

This is something a lot of people do not understand, that could be of great benefit to them. That photo of me on the albino bull, me in a business suit, us in the Arizona desert, has been worth millions to me and to others, so I guess that’s the photo of me I do like, or dislike the least.

I spent $2,500.00 getting it done, at a time when $2,500.00 was NOT pocket change to me. There is a photo first used for the No B.S. Letter of giant, steaming cow patty in grass I did like, but Carla hated it, so it was short-lived.

There are a couple of photos of Carla and I that I especially like, one of my father in my office. Others of my father and parents I’d like to have but one of my brothers let them disappear in a storage shed abandoned, rent unpaid, moons ago. A nice photo album our daughter Jennifer made of our family trip to Disney.

There is a photo I don’t have, for which I offer a $5,000.00 cash reward or half-day consulting reward—but the photo must be authenticated, no risk of having been photo-shopped (a modern evil): a photo of Dean Martin in or with this Rolls-Royce convertible that I now own.

I have the title, his original Owner’s Card, all kinds of documents, no photo. An extensive hunt has occurred, but you’re welcome to try.

Photographers have their place in the comic book/super-hero world, of which I am both a fan and a serious student.

Superman/Clark Kent’s pal and colleague was the young Jimmy Olsen, news photographer for The Daily Planet, frequently accompanying Lois Lane, the reporter.

Spiderman/Peter Parker, a news photographer. In every way, photography is a big part of our lives, our culture, our history, and our advertising.

Most catalogs rely on photos—Peterman famously deviates. Virtually all product packaging relies on photos. You’ll pay hell trying to sell weight-loss without photos of all the great food you can still eat while on Diet X.

Politicians’ consultants and handlers work feverishly at “photo opps.” Michael Deaver, with Reagan, was a genius at it. And the wrong photo can destroy a candidate: Dukakis in the tank, Kerry wind-surfing, Kerry pretending to be hunting, Donna Rice on Gary Hart’s lap on his boat named ‘Monkey Business.’ The photo of Jane Fonda with the tank in North Viet Nam earned her “Hanoi Jane” and has never been forgotten or forgiven.

I have long had a near photographic memory for many things, including certain kinds of information, yet I have a severely dysfunctional memory for peoples’ names and ages and for dates and I rarely notice changes in peoples’ appearances.

I have a photographic ear even more so, for dialogue, for jokes and material and that has been and is very useful. I can record long conversations or stories in my head and recall and write them out verbatim and I can write in other peoples’ voices – and often do, for celebrities like Fran Tarkenton and Joan Rivers and Jennifer Love-Hewitt and Florence Henderson and of course, for copywriting and ghost-writing.

You know, The Million Dollar Dog doesn’t look that unhappy, being posed with the pink bunny ears for Easter. Maybe confused, thinking she was being tapped as a Playmate of the Month for Playboy. Or maybe just grinning and bearing it just like I do when the camera comes out.

During SuperConference, I gave a talk on the “Six Bullets You Should Never Leave Home Without”…

I could certainly add to this list, however if I were buying, building or starting a business today, these are the essential things I wouldn’t want to leave home without.

While I don’t have room to cover all six here, I do want to talk about one idea – because it’s a colossal mental mistake most business owners make.

In fact, it’s an ongoing fight I have with my clients—no matter the size of the company or the spending power.

What I’ve found is that when it comes to attracting a lead, a customer or a patient, they ask…
“What is the cheapest thing we can do to get customers?”

Be forewarned, if you think this way, you too are in need of a mind shift and MUST train yourself to think differently. If you don’t, you will deprive yourself of the opportunity to outspend every direct marketer in your market space thus limiting yourself in what you can do.

You see, by outspending your competitors, you can buy speed and growth and you can create discouragement to your competitors.

Here’s an example of what I mean…

A client in the martial arts arena called me a while back. A big competitor was trying to enter his market and he asked me what he should do.

My advice was to run billboards. My client said, “Billboards? I thought we tested those and they didn’t work in my market.”

My reply, “They don’t. But your competitor doesn’t know that. They’ll come to town, see your billboards everywhere, and then they’ll start running billboards too. You can stop after a couple of months and they will use up marketing money on a media that doesn’t work, causing discouragement.”

The marketer with the willingness to invest in acquiring customers—and even lose money on the first sale—with an effective strategy for maximizing customer value has an enormous competitive advantage. Including being able to use many media others cannot use.

Instead of asking “What is the cheapest thing I can do?”– The right question to ask is…
“How can I structure my business so I can do it more expensively than everyone else?”

or

“What can I do to outspend everyone else?”

Another advantage of outspending—you can give more value to a customer, which attracts more valuable customers, which gives you more money to spend per customer.

For example, you can offer better bonuses or send a shock and awe package.

The smartest marketers structure their business so they can outspend their competitors. Show up like no one else—spend the most you possibly can to get a new customer and you’ll attract more valuable customers which means you’ll minimize the number of units you need to sell to reach a million dollars.

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Today, a story from one of my direct response copywriting students about an ongoing misdiagnosis…

Her mom who had battled a problem for more than thirty years was finally given a proper diagnosis.

Constantly falling asleep at odd times, she often brought up the problem to her doctor. The doctor, knowing she was a busy mom with children always brushed her off and said something to the effect of—“You’ve got three children, it’s no wonder you’re tired. There’s nothing to worry about.”

Finally, as the problem seemed to be worsening, she made a list of concerns about the problem.

Upon reviewing her list, the doctor said, “You fall asleep in the middle of sentences?”

To which she replied, “Yes! Don’t you find that odd?”

Finally, tests completed, a proper diagnosis of Narcolepsy, a neurological disorder that affects the control of sleep and wakefulness, was made.

Businesses often fail because of personal bias, clinging to an idea or failing to do and/or look at all the research. Therefore opinions are made without the proper facts and personal bias can skew decisions.

Opinion is not truth. It’s opinion. Fact is truth. When you base your marketing diagnosis on ALL the facts and proper research instead of opinions, you’ll find your marketing and promotions more likely to succeed.

An example from my client files, a year or so ago a client flew into Cleveland with six people from his company for a half day meeting with me to brainstorm marketing messages ideas, offer strategies, and direct-mail concepts.

One of the items we examined was a promotional book they had prepared, as a new customer gift. The purpose of the book was to stop customer refunds.

They’d invested time and money and were pleased with it.  It looked great and was well-written.

But I believed it to be a failure in context of strategic purpose.

So I asked them about the reasons new customers give up on and are quickly unhappy with their product and why they return the product for a refund.

That question yielded five chief reasons, which were based on customer feedback, surveys, and focus groups data. I pointed out that the book did not directly address any of these five reasons—which meant, if the purpose was to stop refunds—then in my opinion its title and cover should be kept but its insides discarded. The content needed to be started from scratch and directly confront these five reasons and “sell” the sticking with the product.

One person most emotionally married to the beautiful, clever little book still defended it: “Well we wanted to educate the customer about (the problem) in an interesting, easy to read way.”

I agreed that had been accomplished, nicely, but that was a useless purpose: do you want to educate or do you want to sell more of your “glop?”

That is the question.

Somewhat unhappily, she came to: we want to sell more glop.

The book was great in one context, a failure in another.

If you want to secure better clients, have more control over clients, retain clients and limit refunds, you have to train yourself to be immune from emotional attachment and instead look at all the facts.

When you do, you’ll stop making marketing diagnosis based on your own bias and create a business that makes better decisions, isn’t afraid to sell and makes real money.