I couldn’t outrun the gazelles…so I just outworked them. -Martin “Marty” Edelston (February 14, 1929-October 2, 2013) A novice says, “I’ve already heard that;” a master says, “Ah…thank you for the reminder.” -Sean Stephenson (May 5, 1979-August 28, 2019) Sean Stephenson #Sean365 Of all the “Hallmark holidays” I love Valentine’s Day the best. It ...

This past week I’ve heard from multiple friends and colleagues who recently lost a parent…and unrelated to that, I’ve also heard from four people in my life about their near-death experiences that I never knew about previously. Tough week? On the surface, yes. But it has also been uplifting. When discussing the fragility of ...

There is your audience. There is the language. There are the words that they use. -Gene Schwartz With the re-election of Donald Trump this past November, I went back to the post I wrote when he was first elected in 2016 to see if it was still relevant. I believe it is…but I’ll let ...

Advertising opportunities are now infinite -A wise investment banker, circa 2012 If there is a number called “more infinite,” that would be more appropriate for 2025. And that is true whether TikTok is part of your long-term future or not. 🙂 When the clock was “tiking down” regarding the dissolution of TikTok, there was ...

Inside my Titans Xcelerator Mastermind, I recently created “accountability PODS” (i.e. groups of four to six members, getting together once a week to talk about specific opportunities and challenges within their businesses, outside of the larger group calls). I leave it to the group to determine their agenda for each meeting…we have different templates ...

If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings And never breathe a word about your loss… …Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it. -From the poem “If—” by Rudyard Kipling If you lost everything ...

My buddy Ryan Lee shared something with me a few weeks ago which reminded me of a core tenet of business…well, the way I do business…and I will submit it here for your approval. The fact that Ryan agrees with me makes it easier to share. 🙂 Ryan received this message from an acquaintance ...

25 years ago, as many prepared for the end of the world (“Y2K”), there were visionaries who knew we were on the verge of greatness. For every paranoid IT guy at the time, there were many more who only saw opportunity. For those of you who don’t recall the emotional terrorism at the time, ...

“There is no luggage rack on a hearse…” – Clotaire Rapaille, cultural anthropologist, in his book, The Culture Code A few years ago, a member of my Titans Xcelerator Mastermind group put the quote above inside the chat…and I was reminded of it today since this past week I approached this topic while being ...

If you follow Perry Marshall, one of the greatest marketing minds in the world, you might think the subject line refers to a piece of advice Perry gives out freely and often: Everyone needs to read something that was written before Gutenberg every day Since Gutenberg invented the printing press, it makes sense. Anyone ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

“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 ...