My buddy Peter Bregman just wrote a commentary for CNN.com advising people to embrace the recession as a chance to reconfigure their careers in line with their passions.

The interesting thing about this article turns out not to be the article, but the comments by CNN readers. Some are wildly favorable, and the ones that aren’t are downright hostile.

For example:

"Someone throw this guys off of the roof of Harvard Business School. People are starving to death looking for work and they’re supposed to find their inner child?"

"You are a jerk and should keep your trap shut until you learn a thing or three about hard work."

"Is the author’s passion in life to write stupid articles? Or does he do this for the money? I’m guessing he wrote this to get a paycheck."

"I think it’s great when people with high paying jobs and a big savings account tell us not to worry. Bite me, Peter."

"This is (nearly) the stupidest article I have ever read on a news website. CNN is supposedly a news network, not kumbayah, feel good, ideological bs. Work isn’t necessarily fun, which is why it is called work."

And those are the nice ones… ;)

The response is so polarizing, it’s like people are responding to two completely different articles. Other responses thank Peter for his inspiring words. Several readers say that this philosophy is backed up by their own experience.

Why the Anger?

So what’s going on? Why are so many folks so resistant and angry at the idea that work can be soul-fulfilling?

My guess is, folks who read my blog will resonate with Peter’s message. If only because you’ve seen that it’s possible to make a good living online. Whether you sell industrial equipment or massage or coaching or travel advice or radio-controlled toys or juggling equipment, you don’t think that entrepreneurship is simply "pie in the sky" positive talk by delusional ex-hippies or meaningless advice from the wealthy to the impoverished.

We’re entering a new phase in human history. The internet is part of it. The unsustainability of our assault on our planet is part of it. A stirring of the soul – a wave of common recognition that life is more than molecules and atoms – is part of it.

And saying it ain’t so ain’t gonna make it not so.

Ironically, the commenters who decry Peter’s lack of "realism" are the ones with their heads in the sand, in my opinion. They’re looking at the world saying, "This isn’t how things should be." Rather than looking at what is and asking, "What’s the opportunity here?"

Those of us who’ve been bitten by the entrepreneurial bug know that we humans can dream a reality into being. And that if we don’t, we’re abdicating our responsibility by colluding with the consensus reality that seeks to minimize and disempower us. That wants us to be good little consumers and not passionate seekers and boat-rockers.

Of course, entrepreneurs are not the only ones who understand this powerful and esoteric truth. But we’re the ones who get to test it out in the world of molecules and atoms. And when we succeed, our advice is sought by others who want to follow in our footsteps, and scorned by those who don’t dare to hope of a better world ("Bite me, Peter").

My mentor and good friend Perry Marshall writes in defense of entrepreneurs on a regular basis (his latest post is a particularly eloquent and inspiring example). I confess, sometimes I’ve felt that he goes overboard in seeing "anti-entrepreneur" sentiment almost everywhere. But wading through the anger and nastiness (and outright threats) that cover up the fear of the abandoned, I’m reconsidering.

It’s important to recognize that the irrational anger is simply misplaced and projected fear. The fear is understandable. So don’t think that I’m looking down on those caught in its grip. When I’m afraid, nothing anyone says or does matters. The fear projects its own rules upon reality, and anyone who tells me the monster isn’t real is just trying to get me killed. Hence my anger. It’s self-preservation.

Tentative Takeaways

So what’s the takeaway here? I’m not sure. Here are a few contenders:

1. If you’re an entrepreneur, realize that no matter what happens to the economy, you’ll be in a better position than almost anyone to land on your feet. (See my post from yesterday on the 8 Magic Words of marketing.)

2. If you’re doing well these days, keep your mouth shut. Most people will not celebrate your good fortune.

3. Don’t give advice to anyone who doesn’t ask for it. Heck, who doesn’t beg for it. The only people you’ll be able to influence are the When Harry Met Sally Crowd: the ones who look at you and say, "I’ll have what she’s having." Not the ones who envy your money, but the spirit you bring to your work and life.

Please leave a comment and let me know what you think. Unless you want to throw me off a roof…

Save the dates: February 23 and March 2, 2009, from 10-11am EST, for a two-part telecourse on AdWords Checkmate. Learn an advanced technique for doubling CTR and conversion rate – even (heck, especially) in highly competitive markets. Check it out…

The nice thing about a website is how easy it is to change.

The hard thing about a life is how hard it is to change. And how easy for that change not to stick.

So when I change – when I grow as a person, lose some fears, embrace new beliefs, etc. – I want to make sure my environment reflects and supports those positive changes. Including my website.

You see, when people contact me for coaching, or consulting, or to attend a workshop, what they know (or think they know) about me comes from my marketing material. The book (AdWords For Dummies, for those of you who are here accidentally and have no idea who I am), the website, my contributions to blogs and interviews and other products and so on.

I don’t want to broadcast an outdated message and attract clients who won’t be in sync with my current reality.

Some of the stuff I’ve done is just out there, and can’t be put back in the bottle. You can see all the iterations of my first site, howieconnect.com, on the WayBack Machine at archive.org. Like snapshots from a childhood, there are versions that make me laugh, cringe, crow in pride, and shake my head in amazement in how far I’ve come.

There’s nothing wrong with improvement – in fact, I always take solace in the fact that when I create a new web page, it’s the worst it will ever be at the beginning. Improvement is inevitable if I ask for feedback and pay attention to it.

But just as I update my resume and wallet snapshots of my kids, I want to make sure that my website represents my current reality. Not just the details, but the heart of my business.

So today I’d like to share with you just a few questions I’ll be using over the next several weeks as I update and upgrade my marketing messages at askhowie.

Website "Marketing Makeover" Queries

Is this page telling the truth? Is it still technically accurate? Is it missing anything?

Is there anything misleading on this page?

Am I focusing more on my own needs or the needs of my prospects and clients? In other words, is this page motivated by service or selfishness?

Am I speaking with confidence? Do I deeply believe my own claims?

If someone just reads this page and doesn’t convert, are they still better off than when they started? (Thanks to my coach Christian Mickelsen for that insight.)

Does this page try to get the sale by appealing primarily to the "lower self" of the reader, or to their better nature? In other words, does it elevate or suppress consciousness?

Am I teaching a technique that, when applied, supports or raises the standards of my client’s industry?

Does this page sound like me today? If I wrote it today for the first time, what would be different?

Not the same as split testing

This process is not a scientific march to higher conversions. It’s not a technical fix to a poorly performing site.

Instead, it’s an acknowledgment of my personal discovery that my business is a projection of my self. A trailing indicator of the person I keep becoming.

And the Queries listed above are my queries, not necessarily yours. They reflect my own journey – into greater self-confidence and away from marketing "trips and tricks" that sometimes substituted for true connection during my business odyssey.

I’m sure I’m missing some pretty important questions. But I trust that the ones I’ve listed will move me and my website in the right direction.

So my question to you is – what are your big queries to ensure your marketing is in sync with your being?

Please post to comments, if you’re inspired to share. Otherwise, feel free to make this an internal process (or to ignore it completely and go on with your day;).

We human beings are wonderfully distractable. One second we’re working away at our desk, next second we’re feverishly searching Google for the name of that actress who played opposite what’s-his-name in that movie about the stuff…

Today we’re obsessing over LCD TVs, and tomorrow we’re checking out weathersealing. Day after that, scented candles. We lurch from desire to desire with no predictability, it seems.

Well, the externals of what we’re searching for may change, but the essence of the search remains constant, and has done so for tens of thousands of years.

After all, Google is a new method, but search has been the human pastime since we got those fabulous opposable thumbs. What do we do all day? We walk around trying to get stuff. More stuff, better stuff, newer stuff, bigger stuff, smaller stuff, cooler stuff, more environmentally friendly stuff; it’s all stuff. And not just material stuff; emotional stuff as well: experiences, feelings, and so on.

Why are we so programmed to search and collect? Because we all want the same thing: to feel good about ourselves.

And here’s the thing: we’ll give almost anything to get there. We’ll submit to peer pressure, eat junk food, listen to pounding music, spend more than we can afford on luxuries and trinkets, and put others down.

So no matter what keyword your visitor searched to find your site, they want to feel good about themselves. They want to feel clever, in control, in the know, and special.

If you can make your visitors feel good, you’ve already done 90% of the sales job.

The following 16-minute video is just fabulous. A great story, funny and sweet and inspiring. And a wonderful reminder of the one motivation that underlies all our other ones. Enjoy!

From the “unintentional irony” department, comes this Google ad that showed up next to my gmail:

I haven’t taken the time to visit the site, but would you trust them? :)

And why are they throwing away money on AdWords?

Let the consumer of marketing education beware, and be aware of “Do as I say, not as I do” marketing…

A reader wonders:

I recently bought ‘Adwords for Dummies‘ and I really enjoy it. Now my problem is trying to figure out a product to sell. Any hints on how to find products to sell?

My response: First, thanks for your kind words about the book. You should feel free to write a nice amazon review for it :) Now, let me gently criticize the thought process that produced the question:

That’s backwards thinking.

The world is so full of products and services, unless you live naked in the woods (or at the beach, which I don’t recommend), you’re tripping over things to sell all day long. Right here, in my home office (OK, my wife’s home office, but she’s sleeping and I like her artwork better than mine, and I have to step over the dog to get to my office), I see binders, jewelry, postcards, battery chargers, matches, keys, picture frames, organic rice milk, window blinds, etc. etc. etc. Somebody is making money selling every one of those things – else they wouldn’t exist.

Instead of looking for products to sell, look for markets to serve. Focus on needs and desires and pains and longings. People will buy things that they think will improve their lives.

Every purchase I’ve ever made has been an act of hope in a better future. Every purchase, from the bananas at Trader Joes to the Prius at the Toyota dealership to the 2 by 12 planks at Home Depot that I turned into raised garden beds. Toothpaste. Shaving cream. Bass guitar lessons for my son.

Every purchase is motivated by a desire to increase pleasure and decrease pain. When you focus on a particular market – a group of people who share some meaningful characteristics – and get to know what they deeply want to have and what they want to get rid of and what they want to avoid, then you’ll know what to sell to them.

And you won’t have to wonder.

Now, if you want to use AdWords, certain realities come into play, which you can get from the book. Like, who’s looking for it, and how much can you make from selling it compared to the cost of an AdWords click. Some products are not well suited for AdWords.

But don’t start with products. Don’t even start with media. Start with people, and figure out how to serve them.

Khalil Gibran wrote, "Work is love made manifest." If your business is an expression of love of a group of people, and a sincere desire to improve their lives, then you are on the easy path to success.

Glenn Livingston and I spent about an hour on the phone yesterday, chewing the fat about AdWords and online marketing in general. We talk about:

• my Official AdWords For Dummies Official AdWords checklist – including Glenn’s improvement
• Glenn’s AdWords journal – how he uses an ongoing word document to get a birds-eye view of long-running campaigns
• Glenn’s extremely clever process for choosing a great ad headline before he even buys a domain name or sets up a web site
• the famous person Glenn sat next to in homeroom
• how to improve your content network results with site-targeting and CPM bidding
• when you should NOT split test your ads

Although Glenn was interviewing me, I spent about half the time asking him stuff. He’s brilliant at breaking down systems into their key parts, and streamlining processes to make them easier, cheaper, and more effective. Talking with Glenn is like reading "Zen and the Art of AdWords Maintenance."

Download the interview – free – from Glenn’s site:

The Glenn Livingston – Howie Jacobson AdWords Interview

On Tuesday, I took the day off and drove to Winston-Salem for the 60th annual International Jugglers Association festival. I attended a bunch of workshops, armed with my trusty Flip Video so I could capture the moves to practice later (on the off chance that I couldn’t master 4-ball high-low multiplexing on my first attempt).

During the hat manipulation workshop (check out old Charlie Chaplin or Jerry Lewis movies for some classic examples of this wonderful art form), I was struck – first by a heavy felt bowler, then by the following thought: "A good juggling teacher must be just like a good marketing teacher. She or he must be able to perform the trick expertly, and then break it down into understandable and repeatable components."

When you’re learning a skill, you need a vision of the end result. You must be able to see and model a well-executed example. If you’re looking for a marketing teacher, ask yourself, "Can they demonstrate proficiency in the skill I want to learn, and will I be able to witness that proficiency?"

But proficiency isn’t enough. Lots of accomplished marketers should stay marketers, and not get sucked into the guru business. Because being a true teacher means not just the ability to do something and then convince a lot of other people to part with their money to learn how to do it, but also to be able to chunk the skill down into repeatable, observable, feedback-able, and practice-able actions.

Dave Finnigan, juggling teacher and entrepreneur extraordinaire, taught a workshop on "The Easy Path to 5 Ball Juggling." For many jugglers, 5 balls is the Impossible Dream. The plateau they’ll stare up at for their entire, envious, frustrated juggling lives. I can’t do 5 balls yet, and I’ve been juggling – on and off – since 1988.

The reason 5 balls is so difficult is that the complexity and speed of the feedback loop is overwhelming. "Too many balls in the air" is a metaphor that may be relevant here.

Dave, a masterful educator, was able to break down the technique into achievable bits. Throw 5 balls and let a partner catch them. Throw 5 and catch only the first one (use different colored balls to enhance intake of feedback). Etc.

So when you want to further your marketing, or juggling, or any skill, look for the proficient performer who also knows how to teach. The guru imparts, but the wizard just wows.

Enjoy the wizards, and let them inspire you. But make sure you pay to learn from someone who can do AND can teach.

Seth Godin’s new book, The Dip, is relevant to AdWords Jugglers in several ways. To summarize, the tiny book (which took me 25 minutes to read and enjoy cover to cover, and will take me about that much time to blog about) is a quick and clever riff on Jim Rohn’s advice: "Don’t wish it were easier; wish you were better." The Dip of which Godin writes is the learning curve, the unnecessary hurdles, the barriers to entry; all the stuff that separates the exceptional winners from the average losers. The key to success in life is to anticipate and recognize Dips – as opposed to dead ends and cliffs.

Godin encourages quitting early and often: when the Dip leads to an outcome you’re not passionate about achieving, and when you’re stuck in a situation where excellence and the accompanying market predominance just aren’t possible. Quit so you can focus all your energy on getting through appropriate Dips to achieve your own remarkable potential.

In this mindset, a true Dip doesn’t have to be frustrating, felt as a delay or a doldrum or a punishment. When my AdWords students complain about the agony of optimizing their campaigns and doing long hours of competitive research, I remind them that their competitors probably aren’t expending the energy – and that’s precisely why they should. 

When Pain is Good

My college roommate Geoff was on the crew team. He used to get up before 5am every day and work out, or go running, or get on the lake in weather fair and foul and pull until his muscles burned. One day he returned to the dorm room aching and angry after a particularly difficult practice. I (sensitive friend that I was) asked him if it really was worth it. He thought for a moment and replied, "The thing that makes it worth it is when I beat some other sucker who put in almost as much effort and pain as I did."

Godin exhorts us to be the best in the world, or not try. He’s not speaking globally – otherwise Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods would have been very lonely and bored when nobody else showed up to play. Godin is really talking about positioning yourself or your product or your company as #1 in the minds of a particular niched market segment.

If you’ve ever been confused about the concept of the USP – Unique Selling Proposition – grab The Dip and read Godin’s definition of The Best. It will help you write great AdWords ads and landing pages, and hopefully encourage you to mobilize your business resources towards the goal of utter predominance in a marketplace.

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