Business: Hershell Gordon Lewis, Ben Suarez, Jim Straw, Melvin Powers, and other Masters....

On Simon Latouche's board,
http://www.internetparables.com/cgi-bin/letters/webbbs_config.pl?

which you all should start visiting and learning from,

I posted a little blurb about how I see myself in this whole copywriting/marketing universe.

Tony Blake did a great job analyzing the WSJ letter and telling us all why it worked...

Tony is a MASTER, and I compared him to a Jack Nicklaus of golf, and me?

I'm more like Rod Funseth...

I hear the WHOs...

The late Rod was one of my favorite golfers. You'd have to be a real golf fan, not some Tiger come lately jump on the bandwagon golf fan.

Rod won, I think, 3 tournaments in his 20 year career on the tour. Maybe at Hartford, and the Sammy Davis Tourney, memory escapes me and I'm not about to look it up..

Rod is probably most remembered for the '78 Masters tournament, which he lost...

but it was none the less a crowning moment of his golf career.

Rod was a day in and day out player. A journeyman. A work horse.

He seldom won, but for 20 years made a decent living at the game he loved. He wasn't a star.
He wasn't a celebrity. But he LOVED the game and stayed with it for years.

So, I'm proud to compare myself to Rod.

I'm not a MASTER, I'm a student. I have a lot to learn from the Jack Nicklaus' of the world.

I'm never going to be a Hershell Gordon Lewis, or a Ben Suarez, and quite frankly that is OK with me.

I LIKE what I do. I get to pick and choose the things I want to work hard on. I may never hit a home run in marketing or copywriting, but like the little engine that could, like Rod Funseth, I keep on keeping on.

Personally, I don't care for the limelight, I'd much prefer to work behind the scenes, to just go out and play the best round I can today.

So, I study the MASTERS. I learn from them. I grow daily knowing I may never be one of them, but happily I trudge down the fairways of anonymity, because it sure beats working for a living, I'm sure the late Rod Funseth would agree.

Gordon (Master of the lazy stroll down the 18th) Alexander

It didn't look right to me.

Over there at the International Society for Strageic Marketing.

It is spelled Hershell...

but after reading his bio and seeing all those names he directed under, I assumed he was tracking where his mail came from.

But I knew it was Herschell, for crying in the buckets, his books are staring at me from the shelf.

But a lesson. I code my name(s) too.

For example, I sent or called for information regarding every ad in one of those Money Making kind of a mag.

I start in front, and in this case I used J.A. Alexander, J.B, J.C. etc. all through the magazine and when I used those up I switched to G.A., G.B., etc.

So what?

Well, after 6 months, I can state with a certainty that the guy whom got J.E. Alexander is making more money selling my name (his list) than he probably makes from his biz-op.

I talked today with a man that had a house list of over 3 million, and he made thousands per DAY from that list, on rentals.

So my apologies to HersChell for not Ceeing the tree in front of me while I was surfing the forest.

Gordon (Maybe) Alexander

PS. There are many legitimate reasons for using aka's and aliases, honest! Thomas Jaye

> But a lesson. I code my name(s) too.

> For example, I sent or called for
> information regarding every ad in one of
> those Money Making kind of a mag.

> I start in front, and in this case I used
> J.A. Alexander, J.B, J.C. etc. all through
> the magazine and when I used those up I
> switched to G.A., G.B., etc.

Gordon, I never thought of coding my name....

Coding my address, yes, but coding my name is new to me.... :)

However, it does make sense....

I'm going to get myself on as many mailing lists as possible too.... I'm sure it will be a real education....

I'm looking forward to the flood of promotions! :)

Dien "alphabet soup" Rice