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It was at a seminar in Chicago in the 70's. I will NEVER forget it. He spent 2 days covering how he finagled and got control of some of his unique products and covered, in detail, how he marketed them.

Then, on the 3rd day he asked those who had products or product ideas...to bring them in and he would try and give them some tips on the best ways to market them.

At the time, I had gotten the rights to a plastic baby bib that had a bowl in the bottom to catch the slop. It had a unique name (which I've since forgotten)

So there we were, about 40 people in the first 2 rows of this conference room in McCormick Place.

Joe would go to each person...hold the item (or photo of the item) up for all to see. Explain what it did and then proced to tell the person how HE thought it should be marketed.

He was amazing. He was like a "master swami" guy...like "CARNAK the Magnificent" (one of Johnny Carson's characters)

I learned SO MUCH those 3 days....about Marketing and Selling and Promoting. Joe LOOKED like a multi-millionaire. Beautiful physique. Expensive clothes. Beautiful WHITE teeth. Manicured nails.

I learned something, living in the Aspen area for 12 years; The rich can wear anything on their bodies....(I once saw Leon Uris (wrote Exodus and other great novels) at an Antique Auction. He was wearing a scrungy old pair of Levi's and T-shirt BUT....a $1,000 pair of hiking boots) BUT, they will ALWAYS TAKE CARE OF THEIR FEET AND TEETH!

Jack Nicholson, Don Johnson (Nash Bridges) Buddy Hackett, Bob Conrad (Wild Wild West), Robert Wagner (Hart to Hart)....would come into my wife's Antique Shop....usually wearing real "slouchy-nondescript, almost decrepit" clothes BUT....their feet were clad in the BEST money could buy. Don Johnson came in once, wearing a beat up levi jacket and pants with white paint blotches all over them...sun glasses, a cowboy hat and a $2500 pair of Tony Lama cowboy boots.

My wife first noticed this about the rich and famous. When they're out in public, many of them do NOT dress up....EXCEPT their shoes are the BEST.

Anyway...Joe Cossman, that weekend, changed my life forever. I KNEW THEN that I would always enjoy creating or promoting the UNIQUE and Different. The "excitement" in life, for me, is to come up with a New Product or way of doing something and run with it.

Sure beats "working" for a living.

I think I read that Joe now has some sort of seminar program he sells. I think he's still living in So Cal. Get everything you can that Joe sells. He's a master.

Thanks ......Don Alm


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