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Sam Horn's "Take Action"
Newsletter |
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In This Issue: |
September, 2007 |
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How To Grab Readers with
a Brilliant First
Paragraph
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How To Create A Million
Dollar Brand
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“I try to leave out the
parts people skip.” -
Elmore Leonard
“James Boddie rose from a
leather chair in the living room
of his townhouse, minutes from
downtown Baltimore, and walked
upstairs to retrieve something.
‘I want to show you this,’ he
said.
He’d been telling stories about
his grandson, stories about how
a poor kid from a rough
neighborhood in Newport News, VA
used football to build a fancy
house for his mother. Stories of
taking a train to New York to be
there when the Atlanta Falcons
made his grandson, Michael Vick,
a quarterback from VA Tech with
a powerful left arm and magical
legs, the top pick in the 2001
NFL draft.”
So begins the attention-grabbing
first two paragraphs in an
8-21-07 Washington Post
article by Mark Maske entitled
Playing to the Wrong Crowd.
What’s the point?
Hundreds of articles have been
written about Michael Vick in
newspapers around the country in
the past few weeks. I bet that
is the ONLY ONE which starts out
that way. The
reporter was not content to be
common.
I imagine he thought, “How can I
intrigue readers from the get-go
by starting in an unexpected
way? How can I paint a word
picture so they see what I’m
saying? How can I relive
the interview so people feel
they’re a fly-on-the-wall and in
the room with us?”
From now on, don’t start your
article, blog or book with what
you think or what you
believe. Don’t start
off by explaining
something or by telling
us what you’re going to tell us.
As Struck and White said in
their classic Elements of
Style, “Every word must
tell.” Put us in a real-life
scene. Describe what happened
with visual detail so it comes
alive. Feature back-and-forth
dialogue in quotes.
Do that and we’ll keep
reading.
Want more tips on how to write
page-turning prose that flows?
Ready to learn how to write a
book that catapults your career?
Want to attract more clients and
customers with written work that
establishes you as a topic
expert?
If so, register for Sam’s Book
Camps on the West Coast or the
East Coast – coming up Sept.
21-23 near San Francisco Airport
and Jan. 25-27 near Washington
DC’s Dulles Airport.
Discover for yourself why 4-time
Pulitzer nominee Fawn Germer
said, “I’d been struggling with
my conclusion for three days.
You looked at it and solved
everything in two minutes. The
lights came on and the band
started playing. Your ability to
see a problem and fix it is far
keener than any editor I’ve ever
seen. You are brilliant.”
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“When you can do a
common thing in an uncommon way,
you will command the attention
of the world.” -
George Washington Carver
What’s in a business name and
brand?
Your future.
You have about 10 seconds to get
people’s favorable attention. If
your business name or brand is
boring, unpronounceable or
nonsensical . . .people will
move on and you will have lost
potential clients and sales.
If, instead, your brand is
Purposeful,
Original, and
Pithy, you’ll
catapult your company’s
memorability, marketshare and
money-making capacity.
For example, two farmers in
Virginia were looking for a
health-conscious, low-fat
alternative to traditional beef.
They cross-bred a yak and a cow
to produce what they laughingly
call a “Frankensteer.”
What to call these cattle-yak
hybrids? Use a POP!
Technique called Alphabetizing
to create a trademark-able
Brand. If you take the word
“cattle” and talk it through the
Alphabet, changing the sound of
the first syllable to match the
related letter, you come up with
YATTLE.
"Big deal," you say. You bet
it’s a big deal.
Washington Post ran a
two page article on August 11
about this new species - and now
millions of people know about
Yattle because
these enterprising entrepreneurs
used a little brainpower to come
up with an attention-grabbing
name that helped their pet
project get noticed on a
national level.
The premise of my Branding Ph.D. Weekend is “The best way to corner
a niche is to create a niche –
and the best way to create a
niche is to coin a new word.”
Creating a first-of-its-kind
word for your business and brand
makes it easier to trademark and
obtain the URL. That means you
don’t just have a clever name,
you have the beginnings of a
business empire.
Coining a new word for your
creation, company, and/or cause
generates media attention
because TV reporters, radio talk
show hosts, and print
journalists are always looking
for the Next New Thing. Clever
brand names build buzz and turn
people into word-of-mouth
ambassadors for your product or
program. They compel people to
remember you and talk about you.
Want a few other examples? What
would you call a musical based
on Dr. Seuss’s work?
Seussical.
What do call a new form of
“portable” yogurt that’s
designed for busy, on-the-go
parents and kids?
Gogurt.
What would you name a
sight-seeing business in Alaska
that takes tourists up in float
planes? Flight-seeing.
The good news? You don’t have to
have a million dollar budget to
come up with a million-dollar
business name and brand — you
just need a little brainpower
and Sam Horn’s Branding Ph.D. Weekend.
Visit www.SamHornPOP.com for
details on Sam’s Oct 19-21 Branding Ph.D. Weekend by Washington DC’s Dulles
Airport. You’ll identify and
articulate how you and your
business, product, or service is
doing a common thing in an
uncommon way. Once you clarify
that, you’ll apply Sam’s
innovative POP! Process
to create a one-of-a-kind brand
that gets you noticed – for all
the right reasons.
Discover for yourself why Seth
Godin calls Sam's POP! approach
to branding “revolutionary,” Ken
Blanchard says it’s an
“inspiring guide to getting
heard,” and Jeffrey Gitomer
endorses it with “your best way
to build buzz.”
Call Cheri at 1 800 SAM-3455
with your questions and to
receive a special $100 off
discount for people who register
by Sept. 15.
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Sam Horn helps
entrepreneurs and organizations
POP! What does that
mean? She helps clients develop
one-of-a-kind ideas, identities,
approaches, niches, pitches and
brands that help them break out
vs. blend in. She does this
through her books (POP!
Stand Out in Any Crowd,
which Dave Barry calls
“excellent”), one-on-one
consulting, weekend camps, media
interviews (NPR, Investors
Business Daily, Chicago Tribune)
and presentations (Outstanding
Capital Speaker 2003-04). She
lives and works from her
lakefront home-office, 10
minutes from Wash DC's Dulles
Airport.
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Sam’s Business Manager, Cheri
Grimm, works out of her
California office.
Contact Sam, in care of Cheri,
at:
PO Box 6810
Los Osos, CA 93412
805-528-4351
Info@SamHorn.com
www.SamHornPOP.com
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