Over my 40+ years working and playing in the world of direct response marketing, there are two guys who I can almost always trace as the source (culprits?) of how each of us got into this wacky business.They are each the “first domino” for more legacy marketers practicing today than anyone else.And they are ...

Now that we are past the presidential election in the United States…and Thanksgiving too…I thought it would be a good time to revisit the post below which speaks to being “apolitical in marketing settings” (but learning from what politicians say and do at the same time). During this election season I attended two different marketing events…one ...

It was November of 2017 when I began my annual Thanksgiving blog posts.And it remains my favorite holiday.In 2023 I changed up my post a little…which I will continue today on the same theme…along with a bullet point summary of themes from the past 7 years of Thanksgiving posts.On November 22nd 61 years ago, ...

During the “go-go 1980’s” in direct marketing, everyone seemed to have THE answer (i.e., the hot new technology or methodology), especially in the areas of database building, regression modeling and advanced list segmentation techniques through cooperative databases. Yes…people were into new stuff before the Internet too. And if any of the terms above do not ring ...

From Legend to Icon That is the headline on the letter that accompanies the renewal bonuses sent to members of my Titans Xcelerator Mastermind who are renewing for their sixth year. No…I am not giving them away to you today…although I would if I could. 🙂 What I will do instead is share “why ...

Since it’s “election week” in the United States, I used a subject line today that I used right before the 2016 election (do you remember that one?) …to talk about anything but politics. 🙂 After all, there are thousands of news outlets for that…but where else other than this blog can you read about ...

As hurricane Milton was bearing down on the west coast of Florida earlier this month, I had two things on my mind: My daughter, her husband’s family (lifelong residents of Tampa, Florida) …and other friends, mastermind members and anyone in my online family who was in the path of the monster storm.(I hope you ...

“Learning is rooted in repetition and convexity, meaning that reading a single text twice is more profitable than reading two different things once. – Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Lebanese American essayist and scholar The first time I read this quote and saw the word “profitable” I knew I needed to share it with you, my ...

During our Titans Xcelerator call this past week, one of my astute members asked me the question: “Brian…what did you make of the firing of the Jets head coach Robert Saleh?” I will assume that none of you know who Robert Saleh is…or what the member is referring to…and therefore his firing was not ...

I had the privilege of hearing one of the “young sages” of the online marketing world, Ryan Levesque, speak at a high-level mastermind this past week. It was epic. And he has agreed to do a repeat performance for my Titans Xcelerator Mastermind in the coming months which will be equally epic. His message ...

“People who say, ‘I don’t have time for reading’ are too busy not succeeding.” -Sean Stephenson #Sean365 During the pandemic in 2020 I took this picture of my office: Yikes! And I made a promise that I would clean up my mess. Note that I am not including an “after” picture because my office ...

I learned last week that knitting is much more than a hobby. And in doing so, I also learned a paradigm for how to hire experts. Background: I was attending a Genius Network meeting (Joe Polish’s group of exceptional entrepreneurs and results leaders) when one of the speakers (who I had never met before), ...

My good friend, AI genius (he’s not a Bot!), investment guru and huge sports fan, Howard Getson, shared something in his weekly blog that made me think about levels of excellence.It’s a fascinating topic…and Howard expressed it like this as it pertains to professional athletes:It should be self-explanatory, but it seems to be a concept ...

“Keep your friends close and your enemies closer…and keep them all well fed” -Brian Kurtz, March 30, 1981 I can’t say whether I said those words on 3/30/81 (my first day working in direct marketing and the day Ronald Reagan was shot outside The Washington Hilton) …but I can safely say that it is ...

For those of you who are working towards retirement in a traditional sense (i.e. no work/all leisure) … …if we redefined the “R word” to incorporate your work with your play and you could have your preferred (leisure) lifestyle while still creating impact and changing lives… …would your goal for retirement be the same? ...

Whatever path you choose for your life…or whatever path chooses you…it is never your career that defines you. It’s also not your “vocation” that defines you…although that gets a little closer to the root of who you are, who you want to be, and what you want to share with the world. But that ...

I received an email from a member of my online family in response to a P.S. two weeks ago about my interaction with the greatest living copywriter, Gary Bencivenga. You can read the full post here with the P.S. Here is that email exchange: Hey Brian, Loved this Email and I think I like ...

The “magalog” and the “advertorial,” whether you’ve heard of them or not, are two offline marketing formats from the last century (i.e., that would be the late 20th) which I believe set the stage for so much of what we do online today. And rather than make this a history lesson…which is always instructive ...

During the “Overdeliver Bootcamp,” which completed last week, when I spoke about “the smartest guy I have ever met in the world of direct mail,” I received many questions…which led to a discussion…and the overriding question was “why was he the smartest?” It’s worth a blog post. I call him “The Bogey Man” (more ...

In 2022, I wrote a post regarding baseball…war…and overall excellence. Those three things would make for a weird three circle Venn diagram…but let me try today to put together a post that adds in some additional current events…but still with a focus on excellence. For those of you who follow baseball in the U.S., ...