MarkAttwood.com

That’s an extremely nice thing to say, Drayton, thank you.

The point of putting this video up is not about butteringup my ego, rather to bring to your attention that there is a monumental opportunity here for entrepreneurs to tap into the mind and vast experience of a man who has helped shaped not only the way businesses market themselves over the past 50 years, but also our culture (anyone buy a Bullworker? That was Drayton).

Compared to the plethora of marketing gurus out there (many of which have only ever run one business: the marketing guru business), this is a diamond in the rough.

The fact that this man wants to share and help people when most other people would have long hung up their boots is too good to miss. It’s one thing buying and reading his extraordinary books, but entirely another to engage with the man himself. He’s currently in test mode with his “Drayton Bird Learning” programme. You could do worse than take a look at it here: Drayton Bird Learning

There’s nothing in it for me apart from the hope that you get something out of being exposed to this man’s brain. Enjoy!

Drayton brings up a very important point here, one close to my heart..

I have met an extraordinary amount of people that focus on the latest trick or fad whilst ignoring the fundamentals of their business: find a hungry market and sell to it.

It’s that simple.

Here is Drayton on the recession, and how it breeds mistrust in business…

Here is Drayton sharing his thoughts on the perils of believing your own success is all down to you, and what that can do to your ego…

It’s more than a valid point. The longer you go on in business, the more people you meet who are at various stages of success. Some are on the way up, some are there, others are on the way down. In business, as in life, you’re never aware of being in a peak or a trough until you’ve passed the event – you are usually somewhere in between either point. Business is truly a roller-coaster ride. It’s also entirely amoral.

Success brings it’s own demons, such as jealousy from competitors or colleagues. The biggest problem though, is yourself.

I know. I was one of the people that Drayton talks about (and I suspect he was one himself once).

In his masterwork “Commonsense Direct and Digital Marketing” he points out in Chapter Two:

“..I was most interested to read that an eminent Japanese businessman, when asked why he was in business, replied: ‘To ensure the survival of my company’. I suspect this reply would not be unusual in Japan. For many years Japanese industry tended to invest a higher percentage of its profits in building for the future than the UK did. It did not feel obliged to squeeze very yen out of the annual turnover and hand it over to the shareholders.

Clearly, if you are intent upon survival rather than a fast buck, you are going to plan more for the long term. No doubt this attitude explains why the Japansese did better than us for a good 40 years, and still do in many areas. But whatever your aim, it will colour all you do: the way you structure your organisation, manage your staff and set their targets, everything, right down to the smallest marketing decision.”

If you haven’t got this book, I highly recommend it:

Attitude is clearly king.

I’ve lost count of the number of show-off entrepreneurs I’ve met with pictures of million dollar boats on the wall of their office, Rolexes dripping off their wrists, and all the other gubbins that seems to motivate them. When I first started making money, it did go to my head a bit. I’m from a council house background, so it was bound to

In recent months I’ve become much more focused on building for the future. I’ve experienced massive highs and massive lows, especially in the past two years. One piece of literature that I find hugely leveling and inspiring whenever I feel the need for a lift (or realise my ego is running away with me) is the poem “If” by Rudyard Kipling, which I shall reproduce for you here:

IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
‘ Or walk with Kings – nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man, my son!

In relation to Drayon’s point in the video, I think the lines..

“If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;”

…are particularly relevant.

I hope you find it useful too, and wish you a fantastic 2010.

Turkey was not the only Bird I had at Christmas this year.

I was also honoured to have Drayton Bird over as a guest. We’re cooking up a few very exciting things in the New Year together, which I will soon be sharing with you. In the meantime, I got a few snippets on tape from the Grand Master himself for you to enjoy. Here’s a funny story about Christmas and a certain David Ogilvy….

Look out for the next one in a few days.

How does one review this book?

If you are in business, my message is simply this: take your finger out of your backside, buy this book, read it, implement what you learn as fast as you can.

Drayton is the dog’s bollocks. He’s erudite, funny, brilliant.

David Ogilvy said Drayton knows more about DM than anyone else on Earth.

Ogilvy knew his onions (literally, as he used to peel them for a living in a Parisian Restaurant in the 1930s before he became the “King of Madison Avenue”).

This book is about as definitive as you can get on the subject of direct marketing. You know, the kind of marketing where results and profits are actually measured. The kind of marketing that does not get taught at Universities. The principles of which form the basis of all successful internet marketing.

I first met Drayton when we both spoke at The System Intensive in London in 2008. We met again in 2009 and regularly exchange jokes and advice by email. You can see how good the old goat is here (in fact, that’s my developing bald spot you can see in the foreground):

So, go and get “Commonsense”, then whilst you’re at it, get this as well:

Then follow one of the best blogs on the whole t’internet here: