inluminent

I recently read Confessions of an Advertising Man by David Ogilvy, and thought it was an awesome book about the advertising business, A true classic.
Ogilvy’s rules on How to Write Potent Copy:
On Headlines:

The headline is the most important part of the ad; it is what gets the reader’s attention and what makes them keep reading. [...]

I recently read Confessions of an Advertising Man by David Ogilvy, and thought it was an awesome book about the advertising business, A true classic
Ogilvy hated the idea of firing people the produced good work, but in the advertising field it was necessary when the advertising failed the client, and the client fired the agency [...]

I recently read Confessions of an Advertising Man by David Ogilvy, and thought it was an awesome book about the advertising business, A true classic
According to Ogilvy, the first clients are the hardest to get, but after you get a reputation of doing good work, companies start to seek you.
Ogilvy’s Rules for Selecting New Clients:

Only [...]

I recently read Confessions of an Advertising Man by David Ogilvy.
Here are his rules on…
How To Build Great Campaigns:

What you say is more important than how you say it.
Unless your campaign is built around a great idea, it will flop.
Give the facts. (The consumer isn’t a moron; she is your wife. You insult her intelligence [...]

I recently read Confessions of an Advertising Man by David Ogilvy, and thought it was an awesome book about the advertising business, even if it was written in the 60s by a man who started an agency in 1952.
Here are his rules on…
How To Be A Good Client:

Emancipate your agency from fear.
Select the right agency [...]

I’m reminded of this quote this morning from Dave Barry after reading an article on scheduling and meetings by Paul Graham:
“Meetings are an addictive highly self-indulgent activity that corporations and other organizations habitually engage in only because they cannot actually masturbate.” – Dave Barry
I’ve only worked at one organization that used meetings well all [...]

When you aren’t sure if you’re keeping you integrity, ask yourself these questions:

What do I know to do?
What am I saying I will do?
What do others expect me to do, even though I haven’t said I will do it?
What do I have to do to have my work complete?
What do I have to do so [...]

“Entrepreneurship is throwing yourself off a cliff, and building a plane on the way down.” -Reid Hoffman, CEO of LinkedIN.

“You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government can not give to anybody anything the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they [...]

This kind of says it all, doesn’t it:
To All My Valued Employees,
There have been some rumblings around the office about the future of this company, and more specifically, your job. As you know, the economy has changed for the worse and presents many challenges. However, the good news is this: The economy doesn’t pose a [...]

Things on the internet have a way of disappearing, so I’m copying the below so I know I have it, if I ever want to reference it. Originally posted at http://www.ycombinator.com/pagequotes.txt:
(This article originally appeared on a site that split it across
*eleven* pages. To save people from that I copied it into a single
text [...]

“Today is the best day to do something, if you want something done.” – John Engler, 1/5/2009 in a IM conversation with a friend.

Seth Godin writes things all the time that just make so much sense. In his post “The You Show” I found this nugget:
“Some bosses don’t want to hire people who have a vision, a personality and a shtick. That’s okay. You don’t want to work for them anyway.”
[via @tylerfonda]

“You’ve got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down.”
Ray Bradbury (1920 – )
American author

I love this cartoon from Hugh:

Classic.
More great cartoons here.

“You cannot keep determined people from success. If you place stumbling blocks in their way, they will use them for stepping-stones and climb to new heights.” – Mary Kay Ash (1918–2001)

A few months ago, my wife asked me to send an email to our Senators and Congressmen, after watching an episode of Oprah about Senate Bill 1738. So I did.
Here’s the response I just got from my Senator, Kay Bailey Hutchison (who I’d love to see run for president, btw):
from: Senator Kay Bailey [...]

From Entrepreneur.com this week:
Forget the Sale–Go for ‘the Kill’
Create the scenario that can help you establish invaluable business relationships.
By Mark Stevens. September 22, 2008
All across the nation, thousands of salespeople are preparing for sales meetings. Sales calls. Cold calls. Networking sessions. You name it.
All are variations on the same thing. All are wastes of time. [...]

I use LinkedIn to advertise open positions in my company, but, I do it for free, instead of paying for them (we also use Craigslist and the University of Texas Access website for former graduates, since we’re in Austin). All of these options are free. Craigslist and UT Access are great sources of [...]

Love it:

I’ve got two job openings that I’m trying to fill:
A Sales Manager position and an Account Manager or Coordinator position (if you’re looking in Austin, shoot us your resume … contact info on those job postings – or if you can find my email address on this site (it’s on here somewhere, but I don’t [...]

Here are some management lessons for anyone that runs a sales organization. No names will be used. If you know who I used to work for, I’d appreciate it if you kept it to yourself in the comments (or your own posts) on other weblogs about this entry.
These are the reasons I left [...]

Today was my first day at the new job. I showed up at 8, spent about 3 hours with the C-Level execs talking turkey, then spent a couple of hours with one of my direct reports. Then a meeting or two, then played with my laptop getting some of the settings just right. [...]

Just a note to say I quit my job on Monday. Or at least I gave them two weeks notice.
I start my new job on May 22nd, and will post more then.
I’ll also say that my former company is enforcing my non-compete, which limited the offers I could accept (I had three on the [...]

Go watch this: WWJD?
Powerful stuff, huh?

“Remember always that you have not only the right to be an individual; you have an obligation to be one.”
– Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962), U.S. First Lady, U.N. diplomat, humanitarian
from JustSell.com

In “How To Use Your Weaknesses To Sell More” Jim Logan makes us go through a great excercise:
First, pretend for a moment you’re your main competitor. What traps would you set if competing against your offering? List everything your competitor is likely to say or highlight in positioning your product, service, and company in a [...]

I just love our mailroom guy at my company. I just got this email from him:
Ladies and Gents:
I’m writing this note to inform you that in our constant duty to keep cost down on Fedex’s, we’ve came up wit a system although not perfect, but then again what is? that will make everybody here [...]