A very critical marketing lesson I learned while trying to bluff a veteran poker player (Hint: I lost.)

I know, I know... I sound like a broken record with the “get a life” rant. But I see the wasting of life as a crime. You know, many subscribers tell me they always wished they’d started a band way back when, or had a few more unseemly adventures before settling down. And I say, yeah, I hear you.

But many other subscribers eagerly tell me about their own history of being in bands, of pursuing a crazy dream before they finally decided to get after bidniz. And I say, yeah, it’s fun when you’re immersed in life, isn’t it.

Because it is fun. The lessons may be painful, but if you learn them, they can take you a long way toward being a person of substance... and substance is the elixir that attracts great things. Take, for example, the rather brutal lessons about business I learned while playing poker with steel-eyed professional gamblers. (How’s that for a segue?)

As a young man, I always had one foot in the “normal” world (college, steady jobs, meet the parents)... and the other foot in the “darker” world outside most folks’ radar (smokin’ in the boysroom, hangin’ with thieves, hipsters, and hustlers, especially if they could play drums).

One of the “adult” pleasures I decided to pursue for awhile was cards. A drink, a stack of chips, the slippery coolness of the deck, the sense of time standing still. Just like in the movies.

I learned the game the hard way, which is also the best way:

Getting fleeced by pros.

At first, you’re too consumed with the rules (“seven card stud, high low, roll your own, the bug is aces, straights and flushes”) to do much but hang in there and pray for a better hand. Soon, however, you start thinking about developing a “poker face”, and pulling a little schoolyard psychology to put the odds in your favor.

I remember the first time I bluffed. We’d been playing five-card stud, and the hands were sucking all around the table. I was dealt another rotten hand, but kept my face calm... and bet the max.

Everyone folded, and I collected the pot. Hey, it was easy. Just act like you have a good hand, and you’ll scare the others into folding.

So I bluffed the next hand, too. Same result. A few curses, cards slammed on the table, suspicious stares. I didn’t say a word.

Cocky now, I bluffed a third time, despite being dealt a hand I should have buried. Pushed in the max bet, kept my face stoic. Three of the guys folded again... but ol’ Pistol Pete – the grizzled veteran sitting across the table – looked at me with a strangely pleasant expression.

He called my bet, and I was forced to lay down my pathetic hand, exposed for a bluffer. He beat me with cards only slightly better than mine – but still good enough to win -- and raked in the moolah with a chuckle.

For the rest of the game, he seemed to be able to read my mind -- he would fold if I truly held a good hand, call me when I tried to bluff, force me to fold in fear when he bluffed. He cleaned me out.

I learned two very important lessons that night. They work in business, as well as cards:

First: Never fool yourself into thinking something is easy, when you KNOW it’s difficult. Take the diet market. I recently saw a series of TV ads making outrageous claims like “lose weight while you dream”, and “eat all the pie and candy you want, and still lose 20 pounds a week without exercise”. I have a little experience in this market -- if an ad works, it can bring in aton of orders.

But the feds watch diet advertising like a hawk (especially ingestible products that promise magical results). I’ll bet the guys running those ads thought, at first, that they’d just discovered a secret passage into Fort Knox with their cute exaggerations and outright lies. (“Hey! This iseasy!”)

Until they got that dreaded visit from a bunch of guys with badges rudely asking them to put their hands on their heads. The diet game isnot easy -- there are critical rules to learn that, violated, will get you slammed in the hoosegow.

Second: You can bluff your way along for a while... but if you really don’t have the chops to back it up, you’ll eventually end up being exposed. I know of many people out there touting themselves as “marketing experts”... and they’re just flat out writing checks their ass can’t cash.

I remember one guy calling me in a panic -- he was being interviewed that afternoon on some national business show as a “marketing genius”, and he desperately wanted me to share some secrets with him so he wouldn’t sound like a fool.

(“A little late for that,” I told him.) His brazen act had gotten him into the studio. Now, forced to back up his claims, he was about to be exposed.

Listen carefully:

The world is awash in bullshit... and starved for substance!

For products that really perform as advertised. For experts who can provide the service they promise. For teachers who can reveal honest secrets. We have too many idiots who think thatattitude is a good substitute for substance. They get away with it for a time, but in the end, you’re far better off knowing you can back up every promise you make.

And that’s the Big Secret to making a killing in marketing: Have substance. So you can make seemingly-outrageous promises with total confidence... because you know you can back it up.

It really is that simple.

By the way... that pro who cleaned me out did me a huge favor after the game. He took me aside and explained what I’d done wrong. I had my poker face in place during my first bluffs... but when everyone folded, a slight flicker of relief appeared. That small “tell” was all the pro needed to be able toread me like a book the rest of the night. I was all nerves and bluff, and he knew he could beat me with just a little real substance in his own hand.

I have never again regarded poker -- or any other adult endeavor -- as “easy”.

John Carlton, http://www.marketingrebelrant.com/

Further Reading

The Theory of Poker

And

Advertising Secrets of the Written Word: The Ultimate Resource on How to Write Powerful Advertising Copy from One of America's Top Copywriters and Mail Order Entrepreneurs

Massive Free Internet Marketing Software Giveaway ($497 Worth Of Free Software)