The Greatest Mind Hacks in Marketing History (Craig Clemens Interview)

0:00 All right, you're about to hear a podcast with a guy who does over a billion dollars a year. In sales and yet ninety nine point nine percent of you have never heard of'em. It's my friend Craig he is the smartest marketing mind I know. Period. And in this podcast, he talks about the three greatest lines in marketing history. And he breaks down why they work. He breaks down the ads that he used um in his business and how he took one business from zero to 127 million in sales in year one. Enjoy this episode with Fred Clemens. Be what I want to

0:32 I'm putting my all in it like my days off. On the roadless travel, never looking back. Craig, what's going on, man? We uh we were just having a conversation out there and you gave me this teaser that's unbelievable. You were like Well, you know the three greatest lines in in the history of marketing. And I had to put the finger up to your lips. Like

0:51 We gotta record this. And so we came in here emergency podcast. Uh, before you tell me the lines, I'll tell people who you are. So Craig Clemens, he created Uh he's done many things, but one of the things he created is Golden Hippo. It's a company you've never heard of, but it just crushes it. Uh it's an e commerce company. You guys have done Over a billion dollars of sales online. So whenever the year.

1:11 A billion a year. Billionaire. Every time I talk to you, my the marketing part of my brain just explodes. I just get so much smarter. And so you're one of my favorite people to talk to. And because I every time I learn from you, I can go do something in my business right away. That's gonna make more money. So I always appreciate that. You gave me the teaser. The three greatest lines in marketing. What are they? Okay, so

1:33 The greatest line in marketing history, if you Google or chat GPT it Is going to say A line different than what I was gonna tell you. Okay. What would they say? I'm gonna tell you what they're gonna say in a minute. Teaser, teaser. Marketing is a lot about teasers. Uh because it is a very strong line and it's worthy of discussion. But I'm gonna start with my favorite headline of all time.

1:58 And that was written by a copywriter named Gary Halbert. And the way it Came about. He was contracted by a woman named Tova Borgnine, who is the wife of movie star Ernest Borgnine.

2:12 Before our time. But apparently if we went to our parents and grandparents And we said Ernest Borgnai and they would be like, Oh yes, he was uh Brad Pitt type of the time. So his wife wanted to come out with a perfume and she asked Gary to figure it out for her. So Gary doesn't know the first thing about perfume, but he knows a ton about marketing. At the time, he was a legendary copywriter, had many, many successes. And so

2:36 He's brainstorming on what to do as he's walking through the mall one day and he sees a kiosk where there's like these little oils and things like that. Did you ever walk by that kiosk? There's always like a bird's smooth talker right there. Yeah, yeah, make your own perfume. Right. And so he goes up and he's like, Hey, what are these create created creations of perfume? Do you make them yourself or whatever? And they say, Oh yes. The Essential oils are put together to make your own perfume. And he says, Is there one of them that outsells all the rest? And they're like, Oh yes, China Musk. China Musk is the bestseller by far. He says, Why doesn't someone take China Musk, put it in a fancy bottle, and call it XYZ perfume? And they're like, Well that's a great idea. No one's ever done that. He says, Okay, give me some China Musk. So he takes the China Musk and he walks over to the jeweler that he knows and he says Mr. Jeweler, I would like you to put this in a fancy glass and gold bottle that is shaped like a T.

3:27 Puts it in the bottom. And then he sits on it. For a light. Three months. calls Tova Borgnine and he goes, Tova?

3:35 I have spent the last three months traveling the world in search of the finest perfume, and I think finally after sampling Literally thousands? I've discovered it. I wanna bring it over to your house right now and have you smell it. He brings it over. She's just In awe of how great the China Musk smells.

3:55 And she decides she wants to launch it. And she wants to do the launch party. Candy Spellings Boutique on Roteo Drive. Aaron spelling the the big producer.

4:08 And Gary says That is far too small. We are going to rent out the entire bottom floor of the Century Plaza Hotel. And she's hemming and holling, she's like, How are we gonna fill that with people? This and that he's you know Trust me.

4:23 So She actually strokes the check. Rents out the entire bottom floor of the Century Plaza Hotel. And Gary takes it a full page ad. In the LA Times.

4:34 And The headline is this. Wife of famous movie star. Swears under oath. Her new perfume.

4:43 Does not contain an illegal sexual stimulant. That was the headline in big letters. And then the subhead said And she is so confident in this, she's willing to prove it by giving away Ten thousand sample bottles.

5:02 On this day at this time at the Century Plaza Hotel. So they put it to add. And near you know, will it work? Who knows? And the phones at the Century Plaza Hotel just start ringing and ringing by people wanting to know about this event. And

5:17 this kept going and going and they realized it was gonna be chaotic. So the fire department comes the day of and they like shut down the street and they figure out this way to get all the cars in and thousands and thousands and thousands of people show up and crowd into the lobby of the Century Plaza Hotel with this big reveal. He has Two Uh In shape gentlemen.

5:37 With tuxedos. Get a briefcase, handcuff it to their wrist. And walk it in. Through the crowd. Bring it onto the stage.

5:47 Opens it up. And in there are the twelve sapphires representing all twelve ingredients. In Tover perfume. And Tova auctions off each sapphire for charity. brings in a few hundred thousand dollars. The next day the phang with unsolicited offers from, you know, Macy's Robinson's May, all the department stores of the time, Barney Sachs, et cetera, et cetera.

6:08 It was the best selling perfume in the world that year and went on for many, many years. I think now you'll find it like it's CVS behind the you know. Photo counter or something like that. But it still I think exists. Wow. Yeah. So look for the teeth overfute. That's amazing. So But you love that headline. If we break it down. Wife of

6:28 Famous movie star. Yes. Social proof right there. Social proof. Not using her name. Yeah, some curiosity. Yeah, which famous movie star. Exactly. So curiosity and social proof. Then it was swears under oath. Which is like stakes.

6:44 Drama, right? Or how would you describe it? Is that what you would call? Yes. And then New perfume does not contain sexu sexual stimulants, which is like kind of a an inversion, right? It's like that implies This shit must be amazing. Okay, so I need to come up with a name for this because my favorite part of the headline is the last part. And it's like the the secret marketing embed or some shit like that. You know, it's like the hidden secret message that even the reader doesn't know they're receiving. But when you read that, you're like Wait.

7:13 Okay, it doesn't contain an illegal sexual Stimulant. Does it contain a legal one? Like what is in this fucking thing, you know? And I always wanted to rip that headline and do it for like a new taco stand or something. You know, I think it's universal that you could be like, you know uh new restaurant owner swears under oath his tacos do not contain an illegal addictive stimulant. You know, as he's willing to give away a thousand free tacos to prove that there's nothing weird in here and they're just that good. They're just that good. Actually that's a that's a that's a just a great ending to it, too. Yeah. Um and then it had actually the the sort of the offer. Or the call to action, which was giving away so many samples at this time at this place. Exactly. It's proof that

7:53 This is going to work. You know, a a risk free offer. You're gonna get this for free. Right. And if you don't like it, do cares? You know, so it's removing all the risk, it's making it really easy to go get it. Have you ever done a uh a remix of that headline? Have you I haven't. I I had a open a taco stand and she didn't end up doing it. I I came up with a name too. It was gonna be in San Diego. It's gonna be called Burro Barrachos. So like drunken donkeys. Yeah. I think it would kill it, man. If anyone out there if you're watching this, you want to start a taco stand together, you you you gotta have a good recipe, but I'm in, man. I'll do all the marketing for your taco. Taco stand and you have to name it Bur Barrage. And I get free tacos for life. That can be amazing. Um but no, I haven't, but

8:31 You know, ever since I heard about this Which was very early in my marketing career, I've been obsessed with like marketing inbeds. At about the same time, this this came out, I think, in the nineties or something like that, before I was in marketing, but about the same time I learned about this. another marketing embedd Hit the world. And

8:49 I think this is another of the greatest Lines in marketing history. Okay. And that is, Sean, I'm sure something you can personally relate to. If you get an erection lasting longer than four hours, call a physician immediately. So we've all heard it. We've all heard it. It's the end of every Viagra ad.

9:12 And that's if you're a guy that's not getting it up. You're thinking about this and you're like, fuck, this could actually give me a four hour erection? I'll be happy with four minutes, man. You know? And it's such a great line. So you think that so I always heard that as At the end of any inform uh you know.

9:31 Pharma commercial. Yes. Like you may may uh side effects may include nausea, vomiting, blah, blah. I kind of thought it was like that, but actually you're right. I don't think that was The mandated the mandated side effects. I think that was an inbed. Maybe, I mean it could have been true also. Like the the nausea thing for something else could be like, you know, if you're oh here's something, I I literally got um uh stem cell treatments.

10:00 Last week. And the doctor after he shoots me up. Tells me. Hey. You're gonna have swelling tonight and extreme pain and that's great. That means it's working.

10:11 I was like, Oh interesting. Change the meaning. You know? Yeah. And when I started swelling and I was fucking howling, man. It was like the most pain I've ever been in. Actually, I was literally howling. I was like, Well, at least it's fucking working. You know, my knee's gonna heal. So uh Yeah, they're is is a lot of value in being able to turn positives into negatives. Joe Sugarman was a master of this too. He used to sell a lot of devices. Do you know Joe Sugarman? I've heard the name but Blue Block or Sunglasses. So we could talk about Joe Sugarman for for a hot minute, because he is one of the Is that a real name by the way, or is that kind of Badman name. That's his real name and he's one of the greatest legends in marketing history. Everyone should read Sugarman And study what he did.

10:47 But before he did Blue Blocker infomercial, which was one of the biggest infomercials at the time. He would do these devices. And He had one of the Early

10:56 Air purifiers. And back then the way the technology you think of an air pure fryer now, what do you think of? Slick box in the corner of the room. Like, This one was in the nineties or something like that. And it had to have this crazy weird wire coil on top of it to grab all the negative shit out of the air. And it was very ugly.

11:20 And his ad Attack that head on. He he said like you know, the coil that removes the toxins. And so instead of having this ugly ass thing in your house, you're like, Oh, that's that you see that coil and you're like pulling the toxins out of the air. You know, I forget what his exact headline was on that, but it was turning these negatives into into positive. Okay. So

11:40 Are we on number two? Or that was number two. No. That was number two. Okay. Oh, okay. Okay. So maybe there's gonna be five, four. I don't know how many we said there was gonna be. Yeah. Okay, a shout out to another one I just remembered that's really big. When infomercials first aired The call to action was Please call now.

11:57 Operators are standing by. Do you remember these these information? Yes. There was a woman, man, I I wish I could remember her name, but it was a a female copywriter that that created this and It change the entire world of infomercials and I think the entire world of selling.

12:13 And she changed that line. Two. Please call now. If you get a busy signal, please call again. And

12:25 If you think of the picture in your mind. You know, of operators just standing there waiting for the phone ring and no one's buying this fucking thing to Call now, you you probably get a busy signal. Please keep calling. Please keep trying. You know, they're the the offer is gonna stay around for this many minutes. Please keep trying to call. It just gives a Yeah.

12:43 uh image of the phones flying in the room and everyone's trying to place their orders and it's like high demand and you know it gets you excited and you when you get through and you hear that person answer, you're relieved. You're like. I got through. I'm gonna get the special offer.

12:58 Is there special offer still available? Yes. Still available. It's like that feeling of relief. So that was a big line. I'll give a shout out to that one. We did a uh similar one where um For my company we Let's say on a normal day, let's say when we launch a product It would be awesome if let's say eight hundred people bought the thing.

13:18 Like right when it launches, like the kind of the first ten minutes or so. And so I'm like trying to think about how to drum up. Excitement or whatever. And so part of the team's you know first instinct is like do we discount? No, no, we're not gonna discount that that that's gonna have the opposite effect probably. Do we um free gift with purchase or some kind of limited time, like bonus for like the first people through the door, okay, I think we're on the right track.

13:40 And we did a s uh a similar thing where we were like W I did the founder sent a personal note. It was like an unstyled email and it was basically apologies in advance. We expect this to to go off you know to to sell so quickly. I know that many of you are gonna be upset. And so as a You know, as as a f as a make good, I you know, I'll give you my word that for the next one we're gonna have more, but for this one it's just gonna be

14:02 It's I I know it's gonna be chaos and scarcity. I I'm already worried about it. Yes. And im and immediately we had our biggest day, which we had never had. Like, you know, eight hundred would have been a great day, and then all suddenly it was like twenty eight hundred just by apologizing in advance. Cause we embedded the instead of saying like come get it, yes, we were like We're so sorry. It's you're probably not gonna get it. Yes. And that just the that reversal really worked. Embedded marketing. That's a book, man. It's a book waiting to be written. We've like we've like brainstormed three books now in the last eighteen months that like somebody should write. We want to write these, all right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And actually you and I have been Casually talking about writing a book. And maybe we need some people out there to pressure us. To pressure us and motivate us to the YouTube comments. One day we should uh yeah, we should do this. So let us let us know below if you want to see this book. All right, okay, number three. Number three, four, I can't remember which one which one. Which one.

14:54 They're eating the dogs. They're eating the cats. They're eating the pets. of the people who live there. I have that song in my head now, too. They're eating the dog. Okay. This line

15:12 Was said to have lost Trump the debate and possibly the election. And what happened over the following week. In my opinion. won him the debate.

15:23 And possibly the election. Because that line Of The twenty thousand. Immigrants.

15:29 That had been legally. migrated to Springfield, Illinois. Town of With Springfield, Ohio.

15:37 Yeah, yeah, no. Springfield, Ohio. Town of fifty eight thousand. was torn apart by the fact checkers. torn apart by every news station in the world.

15:50 Viz twenty thousand legal migrants In this town of sixty thousand Are not eating dogs. They are not eating cats. That is complet. Let me say it again.

16:04 Viz twenty thousand migrants that were moved into this little town of sixty thousand people that probably didn't vote to have them moved in, probably didn't know they were coming in. Maybe some of them wanted them, maybe some of them didn't. They're not eating dogs, they're not eating cats. But what does it say to the entire world? Yes.

16:24 Large amounts of Mm immigration, migration, whether it's legal Or Uh illegal. Is happening.

16:32 In small towns and places like Springfield, Ohio. Right. I had never known this was happening. And You know, some people Want that?

16:43 And some people don't. And Trump's base and a lot of moderates. don't want the small town that they live in or their parents live in or You know. They grew up in.

16:54 Та хав суч чан. in population, in demographics, in you know, the style of uh how businesses are run. Excetera. And it spread that message worldwide that wow, there really is a lot.

17:12 And yeah, some people Thought it was great and some people didn't. But It got that message out.

17:18 Because Before that you hear about, you know, oh there's You know. The number was always different, right? There's eight million people that came in under Biden. There's twenty million people that came in under Biden, and there's this big number. Can you visualize eight million people? I can't. Yeah. But I can visualize twenty thousand.

17:33 I've been to a football game and there's twenty thousand in the stadium and I can visualize Fifty eight thousand. And I can put the simple math together, th that's one third. You know, of the population. And that

17:46 Is a change. And so it paints a picture. Did you read um Scott Adams when he was running the first time? Uh Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert. He was one of the first people back in 2016 to when Trump first came out. And if you remember, he did the first speech. And he was like, they're bringing the rapists, they're bringing their their their killers across the border. And it was like, Whoa, whoa. That was like I mean this first exposure to like it's like I saw this TikTok the other day of like an African tribe drinking a Fanta for the first time. And they like you know they don't even know how to get to it. They're like biting the lid off and then they Drink a Fanta and they're like Oh my like what is this Yes.

18:20 That was Trump that was the reaction Trump the first time and Scott Adams came out and he was like, Oh Not only is this not a joke, I think he's gonna win. And the he goes Uh I've been uh trained basically like I think he's like a hypnotist. He's like I have looked at how you communicate with people.

18:35 Not uh sort of overtly, but like the subver the the subtext of what's being said and how effective that is at planting messages. And he called them linguistic kill shots. He goes, Trump has these linguistic kill shots where he just labels something or he brings their attention to it in an extreme way. So like with the eating the dogs or the cats, it's like instead of arguing about the migration, you're arguing now, are the migrants eating dogs and cats, which forced you to first accept the migrant point. But if he never said that, you have to debate the migrant point. And so and he was talking about like uh when he Jeb Bush was the favorite at the time, because it's the Bush dynasty, the father, the brother. Now it's gonna be Jeb. And he just called him low energy jeb.

19:12 And he labeled him that. And then no matter what Jeb did, if J if Jeb was Just being jab. He is kinda low energy looking. If he suddenly got vivacious, Trump would be like Good job, Jeb. You're you're making like you're doing it. And he and so Jeb couldn't win. He tied him up and neither path was like viable. And he was and he just had to like remove the sticker off him.

19:32 And nobody in politics was doing that to each other, right? Crooked Hillary. He was just coming up with these linguistic kill shots where visual words every time you saw the person, that's what you saw. Yes. And uh Scott called that out pretty early on. And and uh whether again, whether it's natural, that's just how he is, or it's like strategic. I have no idea. But I think at this point it's pretty it's pretty clear that that is an effective way of communicating that he does. Yes, yes. He's a he's a showman like with the McDonald's thing. Right. When he went to work at McDonald's. A lot of people didn't know why he was going to work at McDonald's.

20:06 And then they found out. Oh, come all uh has a questionable history. It's in debate whether or not she worked at McDonald's. You know? And

20:16 He did something else where he was interviewed at a conference and he said, I think I Kamala is black now. I thought she was Indian. Everyone's like Trump's a racist, blah blah blah. And It's interesting because not When he says these things it kinda does make him look

20:33 Bad in a way. Does in a way make him look Like a school yard bully. Right. But it's effective. It's it's weird, right?

20:42 Yeah, he he he he creates the frames that then you have to participate in. Yeah. And the garbage truck he did the same thing when Joe Biden called his supporters garbage. He went and got in a garbage truck. He's like, I'm gonna milk this moment and make sure That I dominate the news cycle. That was the really interesting thing I realized in this election is you could feel in the news cycle. Who was winning, and then you could track it on poly market. So like the news cycle, whoever had something positive, their odds would go up on polymarket. And then Trump did the rally at MSG. And he had uh Tony Hinchcliffe did the the

21:15 Dis and the Puerto Ricans and like the poly market starts going down and like Kamala's owning the news cycle and then Biden says the garbage thing and it goes back to Trump favor and the garbage truck and Trump's odds go up. It was wild to see these two things tracking. So let's do another one of the the greatest lines. Okay. So now we can go to the chat GPT line. Yeah, what would they say? And it really is. And this is something That um Everyone knows about, but not a lot of people know. Where it came from.

21:42 So You'll know the line instantly when I say this, but uh You know In the nineteen forties. Only about ten percent of brides

21:52 Got a diamond engagement ring. De Beer's diamonds had an interesting run. They were quite popular in the early nineteen hundreds as like a flex, not as a wedding ring, but you know, in other jewelry or on like a lapel or you know, necklace, earrings, things like that. And then the depression happened. Uh around the same time as diamond mining got really good. So they had an oversupply of diamonds, and then they had people. Losing money and then we should talk about uh Joseph Devine too, the the greatest art dealer of all time,'cause he um invented the American art market. So people were spending money on art and things like that, you know, and so taking more away from

22:31 uh that luxury sector to go into another one. And It was a uh female copywriter, Frances Garti. Who was uh at an agency that De Beer's hired and the story goes is like she was frustrated and she was like, you know

22:46 I don't know at her last Last done her last penny or something on one night she He's working on this campaign and can't think of anything and then wakes up in the middle of the night with this line, A diamond is forever. And what is interesting Is that was the tie in.

23:01 Be before that, the engagement ring would be like a a plain band, a gold band. You know, sometimes it would be like Like an offering like a cow or like uh land or things like that. And an engagement is temporary anyways. Like by definition, an engagement is like a temporary period of time. So that's true. Diamonds are forever is like an exact contrast to that. Yes. And it's an embed because

23:27 It then shows that If someone doesn't present a diamond, maybe they're not in it forever. Right. Right. And what woman wants a half commitment. Right. Ladies out there, do you want a half commitment from your man? Yeah. So uh And from what I remember reading about this. They went to Hollywood. And they

23:45 Basically we're l giving directors diamonds. Uh saying In the key moment in the climax moment where the man professes his love He's gotta give her a diamond ring. And they embedded it in Hollywood in movies by literally bribing the directors in order for them to show that. So then you're watching the movie and that's now become that now if influences culture. That I guess that's how you do it. The big romantic gesture.

24:10 is to literally get down on one knee and hand her a gold, you know, a diamond ring. Yes. That became used kind of top down influence also to do it. Right. And then scarcity, right? Because they limit the supply. So all the core marketing things, you know, influence, social, social proof, um that frame, diamonds are forever, scarcity They kinda used all of it. Yes. And now there's this big debate going on Between lab grown diamonds. And mine diamonds, have you heard of this? It's fascinating. Because I think they're 10%, 20% of the price or something like that. 50 to 80% cheaper. It's the exact same rock. You could look at them under a microscope. In fact, it could be argued it's more perfect. It's a it's a more perfect thing. And so you can get a big rock for this.

24:51 But then The smartest the the thing that I guess De Beers did Was that they They so there's a big problem. They're like, Okay, if there's lab grown diamonds that don't have these social issues with mining blood diamond type of stuff. Yes. And it's just as good, if not better.

25:08 This is a problem. And so what they did, the genius of their business strategy was they got into the lab grown business and just Flooded the market with cheap lab grown diamonds. So they lowered the price intentionally. Like crappy ones? Good diamond good library diamonds, but they just lowered the price so much more that then the consumer's mind it became a perception like oh wow like Yeah. If it was just like twenty percent less or something like that, it might actually be more competitive. They made it so much cheaper that they like took away the uh the value, the perceived value, the prestige of the dime in doing that. I didn't know that. They were like involved in that that process. Pretty crazy. You put me on to um an incredible marketer.

25:46 Gary Benzavanga. Who I had never heard of. And he has this uh little example, little exercise that I love, I want to share, which is like I don't know if you remember this from from learning his stuff, but he d he gives this example of kids going fishing. So the it's like a lemonade stand type of example. So it's like

26:03 Kids are going fishing, uh, they're or they go to the fishing area and they wanna sell They're gonna sell worms. So they go V one is basically like Basically worms for sale.

26:14 Ninety nine cents or whatever, right? And so th they go there. Not much sales. Come back home. Luckily, the neighbor is a copyright. It's like the the story. Neighbor's a copyright says, Hey, you know, why don't we level this up? And he goes, you know. First lesson of marketing, you don't sell the product, you sell the benefit. So Buy these worms, catch more fish.

26:34 So they go back day two, sell a little bit more with buy, you know, these worms will help you catch more fish. Now they have a benefit. It goes okay. And they come back, they're like, Hey, what else you got? How can we make even more? And then they go to the next level where they were like He's like, Well why do they catch more fish? And um I think it's Ogilvy who has this great quote that he was all about like the ri the reason why marketing. And they go.

26:58 Hog you seem to be a big fan of this reason why marketing. And he goes, Uh. Is there any other? Um like it w is there any other way to sell this besides that? It's all you know that I I'm that's crazy if if if it uh if we don't use that. So then the the kids go out and they're like, Well why would I why do our worms catch more fish? Oh, because these are

27:17 local worms from the local soil and it what you don't know is that fish prefer Worms that are from their local soil. And it's more attractive to them. Not these imported things that you find on the shelves. We have the local ones. start selling more, right? And then they go to the next to the next level. He's just sho it just shows like layering on these like master marketing techniques. I love that example. uh, you know, buy two local worms, get a free uh bobber. Exactly. It's like there's like an offer. So he's like juice it with an offer. And I think maybe I'm mixing up two of the stories, but like He did a kind of a h s uh sensational headline too, which was like

27:55 Local fisherman accused of cheating uh because he catches the most fish. reveals reveals his simple secret, right? And it's like oh w we gotta know uh 'Cause there's a guy who catches way more fish than everybody else. People accused him of like, you know, using nets and other other methods. No no no. He's just fishing like the rest of us. But he uses the local worms, right? Yeah. I love Gary's persuasion formula. He's got this very, very simple thing, and it sounds like when you first read it

28:23 You're like, Oh, okay, I didn't I didn't get anything revolutionary. Then I go look at my ads, I'm like, Okay, I'm not doing any of these things. And then you start doing them and your your OS starts going up. So he's got The five Ps. And so the first one is problem. So what's the problem that the the person has and he he says, No problem, no sale. Like you can't sell someone something that they don't do. Have some Advil. I'm not hurting. What why would I want your Advil? So problem then the next one is promise. So what's the the promise benefit that this product is gonna give you.

28:51 Proof that it works. Then there's proposition, which is your offer. And then I I call uh I call the last P product because he talks about the Cracker Jack secret. And he talks about how in a box of crackerjacks, they always had like a gift at the bottom. And he's like, I, you know, even if you give someone the cracker jacks and then He's like, I've never seen somebody just throw it away and not get the the little gift out of the bottom.

29:14 And he's like, So you wanna have the Cracker Jack secret uh in your in your ad, basically. That was his thing. And then you can juice them up, right? So Those are the Ps, and then he's got the Us. And if you l if you stack those together, he literally has a formula where it's like urgent problem. And that's twenty five points. Unique promise. That's another twenty five points. Unquestionable proof, another twenty five.

29:35 User friendly proposition. That's the last twenty five. And then the Cracker Jack secret is the bonus twenty points. If you stack that whole thing together, you get to one twenty. Love it. Amazing. Amazing. So good. Who are the other admin that you liked? Uh, let's do that first. So you uh you were telling me about an admin that I don't I've never heard of, or a marketing Yeah, marketing. I actually study non admin now because I think I've gone through all the admin. So we talked about Ever Bernays the last time I was on your show.

30:03 But the guy I've been really geeking out on is actually an art dealer. Okay. Edward Bernays was a PR guy. Joseph Devine is known as the greatest art dealer of all time. Devine's run was around like eighteen eighty or ninety.

30:18 Uh, I think he died in nineteen thirty five. And He came from a family that had a shop that sold uh like porcelain goods and tapestries. in in London, England. And they were pretty well established. They sold to the Queen and things like that. You know, so they were the go to place. But these tapestries and ceramics would sell for like three to

30:41 five thousand dollars, which I think in that day's money is maybe like six figures or You know, m something around there. And He noticed as a teenager

30:53 That Fine artwork at certain times was selling for like seventy five thousand dollars. And so his uncle and father who own the shop brought him when he was fifteen years old to New York with them to do some business. And he sneaks out from them.

31:09 Goes to Fift Avenue. And leases A little Warehouse with like an upstairs and a downstairs, and he comes back and he's like, Dad, Uncle, I got us a shop. And actually, I should preface this by saying. I don't think fifteen years old then was like fifteen years old now. I think fifteen years old then is when you're going to in the real world. Yeah, yeah, you're going to s get your your shift star. I think was it George Washington led his first

31:34 a caravan of soldiers at like eighteen or something, and he'd been a surveyor and a scout since like fifteen years old. Duvine Was a hustler from from an early age. He books this thing in New York because he has this realization when he's there. And that is that Americans for really the first time have tons of money. This was when Rockefeller was coming up and JP Morgan and Industrial Revolution.

32:01 Europeans Have tons of art. Americans have tons of money. Europeans have tons of art. So In Europe.

32:09 You'd go to the Duke's house, right? And the Duke would have his family portraits up. There's no photographers. And so you'd have to have a painter. catalog grandma or grandma as a baby or whatever. So it would be on the wall and it would be like Raphael painting grandma. Right. Because Rafael was the portrait guy at the time, or whatever. I don't know if it was specifically Raphael, but people like that or Gainsboro or you know some of the people that are now the biggest artists of of human history. We're just

32:35 You know, flooding the the walls of the Duke's house. And these dukes, like anyone else, would go Busto sometimes and they'd be looking for money. So Devine And the Duke was kind of broke and he's like, Yeah, I'll I'll figure out how to get three million dollars for your entire art collection. And that at the time was like You know. Three hundred billion or something. I don't know. Huge.

32:58 But he bought the Duke's entire art collection and it was Some of these old masters, Rembrandts, and things like that. And He brings it to America. And he starts chilling it.

33:10 And his sales methods are just like Unbelievable. So I mean so some of these had some prestige, but like The first thing he does uh as he gets this painting, uh, I think it was was uh Gainsborough's Little Blue Boy. It's been a year since since I read the book. But Uh he acquires this and he makes this huge deal that this great

33:31 Institutional landmark of London is coming to the United States. And when it comes, he arranges to have all the reporters waiting on the deck. You know, there's no airplane, so you take the the cruise liner over. Um, all the reporters are waiting there. It comes in and now it's on American soil and it's gonna be presented at this a amazing spot, you know. and builds the gravitas around this this artwork. And then

33:54 He has a Pool that's a he decides it's gonna be the buyer pool. They don't know it yet, but he's talking to people like Henry Frick and Andrew Mellon and John Rockefeller about this thing coming. And they'd be like, you know, Oh, is this is this gonna be for sale? The crown jewel of London for sale? Are you are you kidding me?

34:14 No, absolut absolutely not at any price. But if you want to make an offer, I could bring it to someone. But it's not for sale. So he'd bring this thing and then he sold it for like two hundred twenty five thousand dollars, which was record shattering at the moment. You know, it's in every newspaper in the world that this painting sold for this much money to this person. And Through a couple of these things he creates the American art market and he has all of these industrial revolution titans. Right. You know, all the names, right? Uh um literally we know Rockefeller.

34:45 Melon. Morgan. uh Van Der Bilt to all these people become his clients. And His sales methods are are just like next level, man. Like so there's a story

34:57 Of um I think it was uh Uh. A guy who made A fortune in California.

35:04 in the oil business. And he comes to Devine's in New York and he wants to buy art. And this guy's like a new money guy and he's not really in the New York clique. He brings him the shop and he has the guy show up at Uh uh the time he says and Davine takes ninety minutes to show. Leave him waiting there for ninety minutes. Finally gets the guy and he's like, Okay, come on upstairs with me. And he walks them into this corridor and there's the five paintings there that are stunning and he and he walks them past and he's like, I'm gonna show you some of the things in the in the back. And the guy's like, Wait, wait, wait, what about these paintings like

35:34 Sure. Those paintings are reserved for Mr. Mellon. Come this way. We need to get you. Something that will be more suitable for your collection. Tell me again what's in your collection.

35:45 Oh. I have not heard of any of those artists. That's cute. Let me show you a a nice starter work. He's like, Well, what about the what about the pieces, you know, and the like how much is Mr. Mellon paying you? Making him feel small, yeah. How much is he paying you? And

36:01 You'd think that he would do this as a roof, but he really didn't sell the guy the paintings for Mr. Mellon. He made him buy the starter piece and is like I can work on one of those. And then he call him a few months later and be like, look You know. Uh, I think I might be able to wrangle one of those paintings loose from from Mr. Mellon. Uh but

36:19 the price is going to be outrageous. And Duvine's saying was when you overpay for the priceless. You're getting it cheap. That was his quote that he propagated, which is kind of like a diamonds are forever. Yeah, exactly. And so he's got all these inbids that he does in just his everyday behavior, you know, like putting people in tears and things like that, and propagating the saying that overpaying for the priceless is like the best financial move you can make, you know? And the things he does is just next level. I mean on the sell side, it's fucking crazy. It

36:52 He's so relentless. He would go on uh cruise liners and back then The the boat from London to New York was the big thing and it was different levels or whatever, and your deck chair is like your baller spot, right? And so you go in there and he the way he met Andrew Mellon is he grease the the Uh Stafford to seat him next to Mr. Mellon. And then he gets there and he finds out that Mr. Mellon is a recluse and doesn't like going outside and only stays in his room. And he's so mad that he

37:21 Greece so much to get the deck chair. But what he does is he starts kind of stalking the elevator. And he times it to get in the elevator at the same time Andrew Mellon gets in the elevator. He was like how do you do, sir? What's the intent of your travels to London? And and Mr. Mellon's like, Oh, I'm here on this business, you know, how about yourself? And he's like, No, you know. Having a brunch in the

37:43 The Duke of Carnegie's uh Hm. Not sure what else, you know, but just drop something like that. And then you know, where where where else are you gonna be on your travels and things like that? And you're like, Oh, you're the you're the person who founded this I forget what melon did steel or something something. You know?

38:01 Um, would you like to join me for brunch at the Duke's house? Oh sure, I would love to meet'cause royalty was the thing, you know, and Davine really did have these connections. So he brings Mellon to brunch at the Duke's house. When you go to a Duke's house The Dukes have the art on all the walls and it's from all these old masters. And you're like, Oh, if I wanna become A dynasty.

38:23 Like these royal families that are dynastic families. I need to do what they do. And that means having these old master paintings. On my wall. So

38:33 He sells melon so well that he becomes a a top client of his and When you became a top client of Divine's You're no longer allowed to use your own architect. As a rule for him getting you the great pictures, you have to use his architect to design your house to have optimal viewing to give these pictures justice. Otherwise,

38:53 I'm sorry, Mr. Mellon, but this picture cannot be in your collection because it does not to be Showcased in a side room or something like that. And he would have his architects design their apartments with like very little windows and huge wall space, but way more wall space than they would ever need. And then he ran into an issue. Um the people just didn't buy enough real estate to hold all the paintings. And this wasn't like crypto art where you can store it all. You know, you gotta have walls to put it on. And so

39:19 He started convincing them that Open museums. The National Gallery in Washington Is Founded by Andrew Mellon, at the urging of Joseph Devine, and he said the key to your immortality is building

39:31 This gallery. And having your work live on beyond you in it. And we're going to build it 30,000 square feet. And so he does this. Mellon builds the national gallery. And then Devine's able to sell him.

39:44 way more art, you know, to stock up all those walls plus all of his houses and shit like that. Right. Uh Melon passes on. And then I think it was Henry Frick. Uh he's his next big client. He's like

39:57 You know, Mr. Frick, if you really want to achieve immortality, you could add on to the National Gallery a bigger wing than Mr. Mellon made. And stack it with your art. And he did. He fucking did. You know, and bought all this art from Duvine. I mean the guy was so ruthless. He the another Oh, my favorite Divine tricks he would do is When he'd be at

40:18 Uh Andrew Mellantus. There was a couple other competing dealers. You know, you'd ride the horse and carriage over there, right? It's not like a car. Um he greased the staff. To tell him if they find out that another art dealer is going to their house.

40:34 So he'd find out when the the competitors go into Mr. Mallon's house and he would show up the same day and be like just passing through the Hamptons. You know, happened to be oh uh you know, hello. Mr. Peary fancy seeing you here. I was just visiting my client and he would go and just sit there all day. And you can't like reschedule the meeting because that person probably travel several days to get there, you know? He was just relentless, man. And that's actually I know you have a a lot of young kids in your audience, and I I did an experiment recently. I was at a Uh mastermind where everyone paid two hundred fifty grand to attend. Wow. And I asked him, I said, you know, I'm just curious about this room. You guys are all established people. How many of you in your youth had some sort of

41:15 sales job that required you to be relentless, like two hundred phone calls a day or knocking on doors. And Almost all the room raised their hand. I think it's something that really shapes something. Did you ever have a job like that? I don't think I had that kind of

41:30 I've noticed the same thing, but like uh you know, so we've uh we've talked to people who are a lot of Mormons who go on missions. Oh, that's the best dude, you got to you spent two years in complete solitude, isolation, not talking to your family. selling Jesus to, you know, uh whoever, right? You're you're selling religion to people who didn't ask for it necessarily. You're knocking on doors, you're facing tons of rejection. And day after day you c you carried on. Like that is such a formative experience. My uh my uncle had told me one thing about he used to sell textbooks door to door, like textbooks, textbooks uh companies. I guess there's a couple of them in America that were really big that way. And we recently just had another person on the like we've had several people on the podcast with this one same job, which is like door to door sales. Whether it's textbooks or knives or whatever it was.

42:14 And Yeah, the hit rate on those is really high. Brian Johnson, who was gonna be here at the event. I was just watching his documentary, same thing is first job was door to door credit card processing sales. Mm. I was

42:26 Tell marketer of credit card processing. Oh, you were you were too. Amazing. And so you he he rejection, rejection figured out figured out how to sell. Figured out how to carry on in the face of rejection, got numb to rejection, just started started to see it. Like my uncle told me, he goes, You know how I I He I go, How many did you actually sell? You're selling textbooks like in a day, knock on a hundred doors. How many do you actually sell? You're walking through the hot Atlanta, like Sweating.

42:49 And he's like, Oh, you know, like one or two or three would be like an amazing day. Yeah. And I wasn't telemarketing too. It's about two hundred calls. Uh Shitty Day is one. Five sales is an amazing day. Right. Which is just like Even if you hear those numbers, go go actually do something hard where ninety seven times out of a hundred you just get slammed in the face. And he goes, The way I did it was very simple. He goes, I just did the math and I realized actually I know I have to knock on a hundred doors to get the two sales.

43:15 So actually I I don't just Count the revenue from the two yeses. I just assigned a price to every no. So he's like a no is worth fifty fifty bucks for me. Every time I collect a no. All right, that was a fi that was a fifty. I wasn't just coming up with the zero. I wasn't coming up empty every time. It was a psychological trick. That allowed me to like

43:33 See the nose still as like progression because I'm just getting closer to that yes, the you know the one out of a hundred, two hundred two out of a hundred that are gonna happen. And uh so I've actually used that in fundraising, for example, where it's like all right, I'm raising funds for a company It's when investors reject your company, it's a very personal thing and what ends up happening is people don't raise money. And then you ask them, Well, how many calls did you make? How many meetings have you had? And they just have a funnel problem. It's like you guys haven't had enough conversations. 'Cause you're afraid of rejection or you're avoiding rejection or you tasted some rejection and it scared you off. Yeah. Um, but it's a numbers game. And like the way to do it is put a dollar value even on nose. Yes. I like that that method.

44:08 I was gonna ask you one last thing, which is what's the best way to get great at writing ads? If I wanted to go from, you know, okay to good or good to great. What do I what do I do? I do a lot of it, I'm a practice is a big part of it, but is there a better way to practice? Okay, this is funny, man. You have to be studying ads. Right now, uh uh we're at a event. Yeah. We call hoop group now. Hoop group, a high level group. And I meet this guy who's got a thirteen million YouTube channel.

44:34 And I'm like, what's your channel? And I go to type it in. There's like five people behind me, and they type it in and they see the ad pop up. And they're like, Come on, Craig, you don't subscribe to YouTube, right? You can't afford the 50 bucks or whatever, you know? And Mike. Are you Fucking kidding me?

44:51 An advertising guy is gonna turn off the ads? Right. I want behind my back YouTube topics to get the ads on purpose. Like I would watch the ads all day long if I could. 'Cause I need to know what the lay of the land looks like. One of my best who's a great marketer, uh, and has made probably personally made, I don't know, two hundred million dollars and his businesses all are just Facebook ads. But like that's like his take home that he's probably made.

45:17 And he switched his um gender and age on Facebook. So he's a forty five year old woman. And I was like, Why does it say I have a forty I do a forty five year old woman? And he was like So I can see the ads, dummy. Why would I want to see the ads of a 28 year old dude or whatever? You know, like that was that would be terrible. Yeah. I'm I know who I need to sell to. This is the golden customer. And like I need to I need to have my I need Facebook to be showing me what they're what they're seeing. Absolutely. I was like, wow, that's genius. Yeah. And then I also hang out in a lot of biohacker circles.

45:49 So I find the things that people are doing at Burning Man and on Venice Beach And when they catch fire in these little circles, you can tell they're like ready to go mainstream. I like it. You know? And sometimes I Get on the trend and sometimes I don't like Uh mushrooms was one of them.

46:05 And you know, that's a massive category. Now I I I think um You know, our our mushroom supplement with Gundry MD is sells okay, but it's not like a a category creator. Like the mushroom coffee did really well, really well, right? Like the mud water type of thing. There's a few that have done. Four Stigmatic is owned by a friend of mine. It's a great brand. I I take those products myself. Um yeah, there's a few mushroom brands that are that are amazing. Yeah, sometimes you you Catch it. And

46:30 You can As I say like create the wave. Sometimes you're Riding the existing wave. And I think too many people start businesses trying to like ride the white water.

46:43 You know, uh uh there's a supplement company I won't say that Say the name, but uh You know, they launched with a epic celebrity. And then the product looks like every other product out there.

46:55 And it's out of business now. Because They had this great celebrity who was certainly a scroll stopper, as I like to say. But They're offering a product that

47:06 Everyone else has too. They could just, you know, learn about it from the celebrity and then they go on Amazon and buy a cheaper one. You know, you gotta get things that are are unique. And that's why the probiotics was so great in twenty fourteen. I don't have a probiotic now that's you know, doing big numbers like that because probiotics have become commoditized.

47:23 Craig. Amazing. As always. Thank you for doing it. Impromptu. Craig Clement. Yeah, this was the impromptu. We're this is our conversation. We just moved it over here with the microphone. So thanks for doing it. Always love chatting with you. All right, let's get back to it. All right. See ya. I feel like I can rule the world, I know I can be what I want to I'm put my law in it like my day song On the road less travel never looking back

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