If you have been liv­ing under a rock in the past few weeks, then you might have missed one of the biggest ker­fuf­fles in Inter­net his­tory. Or so it seems.

No, I’m not talk­ing about the con­tested elec­tions in Iran.

I’m talk­ing about the recent Face­book user­name frenzy, when Face­book allowed its users to reg­is­ter user­names, mak­ing pro­file addresses shorter and more memorable.

Lead­ing up to it, they used a count­down timer. Brilliant.

Last week, I was watch­ing a movie with my wife Sylvie Fortin. At 12:01 AM, I decided to log onto Face­book using my iPhone, just to see. And wouldn’t you know it? I man­aged to secure Face​book​.com/​m​i​c​h​e​l​f​o​r​tin for me, and Face​book​.com/​l​i​c​o​r​ice for our fan page.

(Sylvie also cap­tured “sylviefortin” for herself.)

The Licorice Group, LLC is the name of our pub­lish­ing com­pany, located in Las Vegas, Nevada. Obvi­ously, “miche­landsylviefortin” was way too long and would defeat the pur­pose of get­ting a shorter mnemonic. So I decided on “licorice.”

Any­way, you might be won­der­ing why I said this was a ker­fuf­fle. Well, hold on tight, because this one is a doozie (and there’s a mar­ket­ing les­son in here, too)…

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“Peo­ple say that what we’re all seek­ing is a mean­ing for life. I think what we’re really seek­ing is an expe­ri­ence of being alive, so our life expe­ri­ences on the purely phys­i­cal plane will have res­o­nance within our inner­most being and real­ity, so we can actu­ally feel the rap­ture of being alive.”

“Fol­low your bliss.”
–Joseph Camp­bell

Over the years, I have read many books on mind power, self-​​empowerment, time man­age­ment, suc­cess and achieve­ment, phi­los­o­phy, and spir­i­tu­al­ity. I’ve attended many sem­i­nars, lis­tened to moun­tains of tapes, and took numer­ous classes. And the one com­mon thread I have found in all that I have learned was that they all taught in some way that a person’s outer world is some­how con­nected to his inner dimension.

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I’m going to tell you why long copy is here to stay, no mat­ter what Michel Fortin and John Reese tell you.

And when it comes to guys who keep their ear to the ground and their eyes on the num­bers (and test results), no one has my greater respect than those two guys.

Yes, atten­tion spans are dwin­dling. Yes, it’s becom­ing more and more an audio-​​visual world on the Web.

But let’s look at the whole ques­tion from a consumer’s point of view.

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The next ques­tion is, what does Web 2.0 have to do with saleslet­ters, if any­thing? And how does it affect them? For mar­keters, Web 2.0 presents a num­ber of new oppor­tu­ni­ties and avenues that allow more interaction.

More specif­i­cally, tools cre­ated by Web 2.0 can help to not only human­ize but also mag­ne­tize a web­site, which, in turn, gives mar­keters the abil­ity to cre­ate bet­ter rela­tion­ships with prospects, and sup­plies them with bet­ter tools to offer more proof, com­mu­ni­cate more effec­tively and develop that trust they so seek.

In terms of mar­ket­ing, it can lever­age a viral mar­ket­ing cam­paign by cre­at­ing a cer­tain buzz about the busi­ness, which can enhance a website’s traf­fic, expo­sure, stick­i­ness and, to some degree, believability.

But in terms of saleslet­ters specif­i­cally, which is what I really want to focus on, it can serve up a sales mes­sage in the way the user wants, not how the busi­ness behind it wants or thinks their users want.

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Thought is the cre­ative power or the impelling force which causes the cre­ative power to act. Think­ing in a cer­tain way will bring riches to you, but you must not rely upon thought alone, pay­ing no atten­tion to per­sonal action. That is the rock upon which many oth­er­wise sci­en­tific thinkers meet ship­wreck — the fail­ure to con­nect thought with per­sonal action.

We have not yet reached the stage of devel­op­ment, even sup­pos­ing such a stage to be pos­si­ble, in which a per­son can cre­ate directly from form­less sub­stance with­out nature’s processes or the work of human hands. A per­son must not only think, but his per­sonal action must sup­ple­ment his thought.

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You can­not retain a true and clear vision of wealth if you are con­stantly turn­ing your atten­tion to oppos­ing pic­tures, whether they be exter­nal or imaginary.

Do not tell of your past trou­bles of a finan­cial nature, if you have had them. Do not think of them at all. Do not tell of the poverty of your par­ents or the hard­ships of your early life. To do any of these things is to men­tally class your­self with the poor for the time being, and it will cer­tainly check the move­ment of things in your direc­tion. Put poverty and all things that per­tain to poverty com­pletely behind you.

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Turn back to Chap­ter 6 and read again the story of the man who formed a men­tal image of his house and you will get a fair idea of the ini­tial step toward get­ting rich. You must form a clear and def­i­nite men­tal pic­ture of what you want. You can­not trans­mit an idea unless you have it yourself.

You must have it before you can give it, and many peo­ple fail to impress think­ing sub­stance because they have them­selves only a vague and misty con­cept of the things they want to do, to have, or to become.

It is not enough that you should have a gen­eral desire for wealth “to do good with.” Every­body has that desire.

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