Ramit Sethi graduated from Stanford University in 2005, where he earned his undergraduate and master’s degrees, and studied technology and psychology.  He co-founded PBwiki, a venture-backed start-up.  He created and blogs at his own site, IWillTeachYouToBeRich.com, which serves over 300,000 readers each month, and has written a New York Times best-selling book by the same name.

He’s been featured in every imaginable print and broadcast outlet, including regular personal finance segments on ABC News.  He’s also created 3 very strong pieces of original content for SpendLessTV.com, the personal finance and lifestyle site that I co-founded.

I’ve enjoyed getting to know Ramit over the past year or so, not least because he models conception, action and momentum so amazingly, but also because:

* he’s methodically assembled an amazing list of accomplishments in 6 short years since leaving university and has done so with seamless integrity;

* he’s interested in psychology, consumer market dynamics and how the reptilian brain drives purchasing decisions, as am I;

* a stunningly smart guy like Tim Ferriss tells me that Ramit is his go-to source for guidance in web analytics and testing;

* he’s built a smart, solid and sustainable web-based education business with great copy and design that looks and sounds more like PBS than Let’s Make A Deal;

* he’s turned away hundreds of thousands of dollars in business because it didn’t fit with his vision for his business, his personal brand, and/or his personal integrity;

* and — he’s a sharp-witted, endlessly fluent, appreciative and generous guy.

All of this makes Ramit Sethi a very rare breed . . . and someone to learn from, and watch closely.

And — I’m thrilled that Ramit will be one of the keynote speakers at my 12th Consumer Health Summit on May 5-6.

Here’s the story of this big mutual win, as Ramit recently told it on his blog:

“How a Random Twitter Follower Got $20,000 Of My Time — Free”

Most of all, I’m happy to call Ramit Sethi a friend.

An experience many years ago demonstrated to me clearly that the best way to experience the appreciation of a brand for its customers is to watch what they do and how they do it when they make a mistake.  In that case, without me asking, it was Disney in a stunning display of pro-active over-delivery when they didn’t have our reserved rooms at the Grand Floridian at DisneyWorld.  While a portion of what they gave us were perks that we would not have otherwise paid for, they also gave us nearly a thousand dollars in tickets and amenities that we would have had to pay for.  In that case, Disney’s lapse led to our family feeling amazingly pampered and cared for and an enduring customer service story that I’ve told periodically ever since.

In his book, Crush It, and on his video blog at GaryVaynerchuk.com, entrepreneur and visionary business observer Gary Vaynerchuk has talked passionately and repeatedly about how businesses must care and what they must do to win and hold the affections of customers.   Like many who do business in digital content and who network and participate in communities on the social web, I love the combination of his full-out, unhesitant personality and his observations on contemporary business and the brand/customer interface.   I’ve heard Gary speak several times both on stage and to a small group in his office at his Wine Library retail store.  I’ve also bumped into him and chatted at airports and restaurants.  So I’m qualified to tell you that what is perhaps Gary’s #1 mantra, how much he cares, seems 100% authentic in my experience.   And it’s why I’m so thrilled that Gary agreed to create a video segment that appears exclusively on the web TV property that I co-founded last year, SpendLessTV.com.  Gary’s piece debuts on the site, today, April 26th.

For his contribution to SpendLessTV, I asked Gary to look at the flip side of what he generally talks about — that is, what customers must do in this new, caring economy to interface with brands and to get the best deals, the best service and the most memorable experiences.   Gary’s comments remind me of an experience that Jamie and I had this past Fall, and for which a blog entry has been long overdue.   There are so many ways to extract and apply its lessons about how companies must participate on the social web, and how a business culture committed to highest customer experience does so naturally and quite publicly.  In this case, the story involves another hotel, the Angeleno in West Los Angeles which is one of 30+ individually branded properties owned by the California hotel and hospitality entity, Joie de Vivre.

The Angeleno is conveniently located given the locations of our family and the restaurants and other places we like to go, and we’ve returned there again and again.   And its simple, modern decor, high-touch and super attentive staff, and hip/boutique culture make it a nice fit to our taste.  They’ve got a lounge music soundtrack in the lobby which always feels good when I pass through even though I never listen to lounge music at any other time.

The day after our arrival, I noticed that the edges of nearly every towel in our bathroom were coming apart, and that their frayed and overused condition was completely inconsistent with the experience that the Angeleno provides.  In fact, these towels were no longer usable in any hotel of any kind.  I knew that Joie de Vivre Hotels had a Twitter account, so I decided to see how closely they were watching it, and more to the point, how well prepared they were to vulnerably and publicly respond to a guest complaint.   So I tweeted this message that morning:

At Angeleno Hotel / Los Angeles and showed the shredded bath towels to the front desk; lets see how well customer svc works here @JDVHotels

Within several hours, the towels in our room were changed, and in less than 24 hours came the response on Twitter from Joie de Vivre Hotels:

@MichaelFishman We apologize for the inconvenience. We received new towels and all questionable towels at the Angeleno were replaced.

But here’s the kicker: my hotel room was registered in Jamie’s name, not mine, so they could not have targeted our room for the new towels.   They had replaced the towels in the ENTIRE hotel just a few hours after reading my entry on Twitter.

When you watch Gary Vaynerchuk’s video on SpendLessTV.com, you’ll see the connection to the story I’ve just shared.  In a few words, it’s this: customers that are willing to communicate with brands in full view on the social web, and brands that are committed to acknowledging the concerns of these customers with swift responses AND action, can co-create amazingly satisfying outcomes.  In turn, those same businesses build communities of avid customers/clients/fans.   And what also builds reputation and trust equity for companies committed to this kind of exchange?  The amazement of the thousands of web onlookers who observe the interaction between business and customer.

Here’s the link to Gary’s video in the Exclusives programming at SpendLessTV.com:

Be a Customer Who Gets What You Want

Here’s the link to SpendLessTV.com’s blog post with a discussion of the same subject:

Want Awesome Service?  Communicate…

I’d love your comments!

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It was just a year ago this week that I arrived at a hotel in Dana Point, California for a very small, very private 3-day mastermind session.   In attendance were 7 other marketer/entrepreneurs who spend most of their business time in the health markets as I do.    We were prepared for a fun but very rigorous cooperative smackdown, with egos quite definitely checked at the door – each of us took the hot seat for at least several hours to have our business activities critiqued, improved and even praised by the others.   It was as sacred and safe a space as one could imagine, and although the 8 of us have not reconvened, there is a sense of ourselves as a close collective that still endures.   We are there for each other.

One of the other guys (might as well come clean, it was all guys) at this special gathering was Mark Joyner.   I’d heard of Mark, but this was my first time meeting him, and while Mark is marketing royalty, you’d never know it from the way he handled himself during those 3 days.   Like all the best communicators, Mark is as skilled a listener as he is a speaker, and listen he did.   And while Mark and I hit it off right away, it took my own research efforts in the days after the Dana Point summit to fully gather and appreciate the full extent of what Mark had achieved way before his name had ever reached me.   He was comfortable enough in his own skin that he had neither the need nor the inclination to fully detail his achievements during our brainstorm sessions.

After Dana Point, Mark and I have stayed in touch.   He attended my Consumer Health Summit last May (after which he tweeted a confession about his man-crush on my keynoter Dr. Clotaire Rapaille), and we connected right after that at Ryan Lee’s great Continuity Summit.   And we’ve had the occasional phone call tossing around ideas for possible collaborations . . . all good and fun stuff.

Some months ago, Mark invited me and a small group of other business types to contribute material for his next book, The Worst-Case Scenario Business Survival Guide, a serious treatment of what to do in a business when things go wrong.   To add to the fun and honor of collaborating with Mark, the “Worst-Case Scenario” franchise has been to date one of the most successful of all book publishing concepts, ever.   This would be an exciting project to participate in, and after reading Mark’s list of suggested subjects, I dug in on “How to Fend Off Mission Drift”.   Since I’d studied work culture matters extensively, and done a fair amount of consulting in that area, I figured it would be a kick to write about something other than marketing for a change.   I submitted the article to Mark’s office at the last possible allowable second, and then found out within just a few weeks, my submission would appear in the book.   This made me really happy.

Fast forward to September 28, 2009: The Worst-Case Scenario Business Survival Guide is released, and is a worthwhile and even important book.    It’s relevant in these or any times.   Mark and his co-author, David Borgenicht, have caringly seen to this.   It covers things that all classic business books do like HR and financial management, but also examines workplace cultures and how to maximize the most important asset of any business — the people.   It’s written and contributed to by smart and successful entrepreneurs, each of whom is “a product of the product”, as Sean Stephenson would say — all have lived with and through their own guidance and seen it work.   Most of all, none of what’s in this book is treated the way you’ve seen it treated over and over, everywhere else.   It’s worth your dime and your time.

Back to Mark Joyner — this is a guy who wakes up each morning fully intentional on changing the world for the better, and well within his own lifetime.    He’s got the intellectual horsepower to do it, a huge purpose, and more than enough heart.   He has set up a business and philanthropic entity, ConstructZero, to get on the court and actually do something.   Check it out. If you bet against him, you will likely lose, and lose badly.

Thanks for including me in the book, Mark.   There’s more fun in store for us, I’m certain.

MediaWeek posted a brief video interview with Dr. Mehmet Oz several days ago which is both revealing and instructive for authors, personalities or anyone publishing and/or advising them.   Just as I was taking a “wait and see” attitude with his upcoming television show (which debuts tomorrow), this brief piece gives me a new context for Oz’s approach that has me positively anticipating his show both professionally and personally.

Although a relative minority of doctors/coaches, etc. are ever interviewed on video or television or get to host their own show  (although web-based formats are changing the landscape for video/TV exposure very quickly), be sure to consider Oz’s points for maximizing your impact or that of an author you publish in both audio and print formats as well.

(NOTE: 11/23 - unfortunately, I just discovered the video has been pulled from the web so I’ve removed the link!   Two months later, I still think Dr. Oz is doing an admirable job.)

I finally had my first opportunity to travel on Virgin America Airlines this past Thursday, July 23, from New York to Los Angeles.    I’ve flown from NY/NJ airports to the West coast countless times over the years and typically at the 3 hour mark into the 5+ hour flight I’m counting the minutes until touchdown no matter how many books and how much busy work I have brought with me.  The only past exception?   A flight to Las Vegas on a private jet with some friends who are NetJets members.  I didn’t want that ride to end.   This flight on Virgin America was almost that good.

How do they pull it off?  In fairness, the well-publicized cabin decor, the high-tech dashboard at your seat (you order your food on the touch screen in front of you and it is swiftly brought to you), the fresh and delicious food really help to craft the experience.  And the wi-fi internet service enables you to spend 95% of your onboard time doing exactly what you want to do to be productive, it really helps accelerate your experience of the time.

But all of this would still not deliver the high experience that has won the Virgin America brand its considerable accolades and pricelessly awesome word of mouth.   What is the final x-factor that really gets it done?   Clearly, a highly trained staff both at the gate as well as on the plane that takes the providing of great experience very seriously, but does it in a way that is completely UNserious.

They get to improvise at times, like when the captain stands at the front of the plane after you board, in full view of the passengers, introduces himself by his first name, welcomes you on board, says he’ll be flying you to Los Angeles, and sets up a friendly tone for the flight.  I’m guessing all the VA captains do this intro from the cabin and not the cockpit.  And he didn’t give us a weather report that only a meteorologist could understand.

Also, they use language simply and effectively to have you feel like an honored guest, not just a piece of inconvenient, biological freight.  All the other cabin announcements refer to the flying customers as “guests”, which immediately and unconsciously embeds within you a total unwillingness to ever be called a passenger again, i.e. you’ll fly other airlines as little as possible.   On landing, the announcement was that “we hope you enjoyed your experience with us today”, as opposed to “your flight” or the quirky JetBlue line “jetting with us”.

Why use the word “experience” at this moment?   Well, Virgin America delivers an experience worthy of the hospitality standards at Danny Meyer’s New York City restaurants.   But even more, with VA’s quite reasonable fares, what people will always pay most for is an experience, and when I think about my experience (plus let’s not forget they got me across the country) with Virgin America and what I paid for it, not only is the value great, but I notice that I am a loyal customer after just one flight, I can’t wait to fly with them again, and I hope they add many more destinations ASAP.

Virgin America has done an amazing job of differentiating themselves and taking the commodity out of air travel.  So yes, I am impressed with the experience, the authentic staff who generate it, and thus, the brand.

For many years, I have been acknowledging my friend, the late copywriter Gene Schwartz, for the timeless insights into human nature which he shared with me and which have helped me to be a much better marketer. If you have joined me at the Consumer Health Summit, you have doubtless heard discussions about Gene’s work and enduring legacy. More recently, a book by Dr. Clotaire Rapaille entitled The Culture Code has been a hit in the broader advertising and marketing worlds, and yet offers varied and rich lessons for direct marketers in much the same spirit as Schwartz’s classic Breakthrough Advertising, restored to print a few years ago by our dear friends at Boardroom, Inc.   It was my great pleasure to have Gene’s participation at the very first Consumer Health Summit in 1994, and to have met Dr. Rapaille just last month as one of my keynote speakers for the 10th Health Summit.  Once again, I’ve been thinking a lot about the similarities between the philosophies of Schwartz and Rapaille, and the guidance that each offered to very different, non-overlapping client communities.  A few years ago, I put some thoughts into the following short piece which I hope you will enjoy and find to be valuable:

Gene Schwartz and Dr. Clotaire Rapaille, Marketing Visionaries

I’ve had the fun and privilege of coaching many of the most successful copywriters in direct marketing, as well as in-house creative teams at some of America’s most admired magazine and newsletter publishers. But before that could even be possible, I was fortunate enough to have as one of my personal mentors in the nuances of human behavior the late great copywriter Gene Schwartz, author of the direct marketing classic, Breakthrough Advertising, which is required reading for anyone in the field.

Gene’s benefit-laden writing style was particularly well suited to the book and newsletter publishers for whom he wrote direct mail copy until his passing in 1995. Gene was so consistently successful in writing selling copy for Rodale, Boardroom, Phillips Publishing and his own company, Instant Improvement, because he knew how to identify and write to the most deeply held desires and aspirations of his prospect readers. I’ve always believed that Gene knew the collective mindset and consciousness embedded in his markets far more profoundly than could have ever been observed or elicited in any focus group.

Gene also knew that human beings, and Americans in particular, predictably favor quick and easy results, and as such his copy was always filled with big, fantastic and opportunistic claims. With Gene’s wise counsel in mind, I am frequently reminding copywriters to distill their benefit promises to the deeper desires that lie beneath the more obvious ones at the surface.

In a 1993 presentation to the executive team of what was then Phillips Publishing, Gene offered one of the key pieces of guidance that I think served his own work better than any other, because it provided the foundation for every word of copy that he ever wrote: write to the monkey brain.   That is, he attempted to secure people’s desire for his products by writing to levels of aspiration and survival that originated with our pre-human evolutionary ancestors. Thus, companies that sell weight loss products are really in the “looking good/self-esteem” business; companies that sell retirement advice are really in the “piece of mind” business; and marketers that sell organizing products are really in the “order and integrity” business.

Another brilliant observer of human behavior and the seller-to-prospect resonance that drives purchasing decisions is a self-described cultural anthropologist, Dr. Clotaire Rapaille.   Rapaille’s book, The Culture Code, incorporates the following timeless theme throughout its fascinating pages that echoes Gene Schwartz and that makes it one of the most important marketing books ever: the reptilian always wins.

Rapaille conducts group research to unconceal the most widely-held, unconscious, reptilian-brain associations with products and words – which he boils down to one or two-word phrases he calls codes – which powerfully shape consumer impressions and influence purchasing decisions. He then counsels his clients to create advertising that fundamentally captures and embeds these associations. It’s worth noting that Rapaille’s clients tend to be major brands that use general advertising methods and yet his way of looking at product presentation and ad messaging is of immense value to all of us in the direct marketing world who regularly write copy or oversee the creative process.

To follow are some examples of the codes that Rapaille has arrived at for common and important health terms. You can immediately see how the knowledge of the codes would be immeasurably valuable in driving word choices within headlines, sidebars and body copy that discuss health and our healthcare system.

health and wellness = movement

doctor = hero

nurse = mother

hospital = processing plant

fat = checking out

youth = mask

You also see that not all of the codes in the group above are affirming or complimentary. With Rapaille’s counsel, if you were conducting a campaign to raise funds for a hospital, you would create copy themes designed to offset or reverse the “processing plant” code widely held in American culture. If you were marketing a health newsletter edited to provide alternatives to the traditional “drugs and surgery” healthcare model, you might harness the disparaging code for hospital in some way to support your value proposition.

Schwartz in his day, and Rapaille as I write, although operating in different client communities and with different yardsticks for success, have both rendered enormous positive impact and value to marketers of virtually every kind of product, publication, service or fundraising activity.

Having known Gene for the last 10 years of his life, I’m guessing that he would find gratifying pleasure and vindication in the wide readership that Rapaille has found for The Culture Code, and in the striking similarities between his own “monkey brain” and Rapaille’s “reptilian” models for securing a consumer’s attention and driving purchases.

I would welcome any comments on either of these two sages or their books.

It’s June 20th and I’m on the blog . . . to stay.    I’ll be offering up thoughts and comments here once a week, if not more, so I hope you’ll come back again and again.

The first half of 2009 has been a wild ride . . . for the historic economic and political events in the U.S. and around the world; for the steep challenges faced by many businesses, and particularly in the print media, financial services and automotive categories; and for the huge advancing opportunities presented by new uses of the internet, including social media marketing/networking, aggregated video, and original ”web TV” programming.

My excitement for what is happening on the web has led to my participation in the launch of Juniper Pond Media, LLC, with its SpendLessTV.com property already launched and other exciting concepts  yet to come.

Since November, I’ve also spent a lot of time (too much??) on Twitter, which has proven to be an extremely powerful platform, especially for business groups and other special interest communities with much common ground to discuss.    My personal brand has expanded quite a bit through my use of Twitter, and I’ve made many new friends through the generous introductions and referrals that happen there almost constantly, while other relationships have been more frequently nurtured through frequent touch-ins on Twitter.

The health and personal development categories where I focus most of my consulting activities are faring very well, and again, especially on the web, where many companies enjoyed record business performance in the first quarter of 2009 and continue onward with comparable success.

I hosted my 10th Consumer Health Summit event in May, where Dr. Joe Mercola and Dr. Clotaire Rapaille offered great keynote addresses to the 45 other participants.   I was happy to welcome quite a few other business and marketing stars to the event for the first time including Joe Sugarman, Mark Joyner and Tim Ferriss.

In September, my older daughter will be a college senior and my son and younger daughter will be entering college.   Also, at that time, I will be moving from New Jersey to Southern Connecticut to join my girlfriend at her wonderful home.   It’s a great area with many good friends and clients right near by!

For future entries, I’ll plan to be more focused, so please have no fears that I’ll ramble like this again anytime soon.   I wish you a great summer, and I’ll post comments and thoughts here as promised, please check back.

Best, Michael.

New Year’s Eve 2008.    A perfect time to add blogging to my web presence.   Welcome !   I look forward to sharing a range of topics with you and hearing your thoughts in return.    Wishing you a year of success and great times ! !