It’s near-impossible to build or even run a successful business without being pretty damn good at selling. A good entrepreneur’s main skill is pitching and selling investors on his vision and customers on his product or service. And employees also have to be motivated and trained in — aka, sold on the importance of — […]
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What’s Your Advertising Tentpole?
“It takes a big idea to attract the attention of consumers and get them to buy your product. Unless your advertising contains a big idea, it will pass like a ship in the night.” — Advertising Legend, David Ogilvy What Ogilvy calls a Big Idea, I call a tentpole. And I do that mostly because […]
Advertising Lessons from an Austin MC
That’s MC as in “Master of Ceremonies,” not as rapper or slam poet, though you could probably learn some stuff from those folks as well. Yes, I will be MC-ing Oktoberfest this year with the German Texan Heritage Society, all while wearing my all-too-sexy lederhosen. And as they say in Texas, this ain’t my first rodeo […]
Waxing introspective about joining Craig Finn’s fantasy football league, Hold Steady-inspired team names, being literally Stuck Between Stations, and fostering Faith In The Future (whew)
It’s fantasy football draft season, and I’m saving the best for last, which is tonight. I’m playing in Hold Steady frontman Craig Finn’s PledgeMusic-powered league he is doing with friends and fans. It’s been a pretty busy season so far. I’m coming off two straight years of banking in the Footballguys.com contest (last year I […]
HBO hearts Ray
If you know me at all, you know that this Ray loves HBO. Turns out the reverse is true. If you take a quick glance at all the original programming to be featured on HBO since it started in the 70s, it’s a helluva body of work. I think my first HBO TV love was […]
Reinventing The Real
My best friend Gair Maxwell is reinventing himself, as the King Of Reinvention, which makes him my hero right about now. You might say I’m a “serial” reinventionist myself. Been doing it my whole life. I’ve repeatedly come full circle on the career front and the creative front. They are both important to me, commerce […]