I’ll never forget this story…
Last year, when my wife and I were in Maui for our Honeymoon, we went to a 3-hour variety show in downtown Lahaina, which included food + drinks, ghost stories, live music, comedy, and best of all, magic.
At first, I didn’t know what to expect.
But soon I was amazed by the star of the show:
A white haired entertainer named, Warren, who wow’d us with his world-class wit and improv ability. Plus, he had the slight of hand skills of David Copperfield.
He was the best showman I’ve ever seen.
And I could write bunches of emails on his performance skills alone.
But what made the experience extra special was that my wife and I got selected to sit in the “hot seats” up front and participate in the spectacle.
Now, I’m not going to reveal his secrets (98% of them fooled me despite my best efforts).
Instead, there’s another surprise I’d like to share…
During the act, Warren asked members of the audience what they do for work.
So when he came around to me, I gave my boilerplate response and told him that I work in advertising.
Here’s what happened next…
WARREN: “What do you do in advertising?”
ME: “I write them.”
WARREN: “What kind of advertisements?”
ME: “Long-form infomercials that go for about 30 minutes to an hour and a half.”
WARREN: “What do you sell in these infomercials?”
ME: “Financial newsletters.”
WARREN: “For who?”
ME: “Stansberry Research and several other publishers.”
Now typically, when I tell my friends that I write advertisements for financial newsletters, they have no clue what I’m talking about.
They’ve never bought a newsletter in their life.
And most don’t know the first thing about investing — let alone the nuances of stock valuations, behavioral economics, or central bank chicanery.
So I’ve developed the bad habit of being vague when I describe what I do.
But Warren was different.
His eyes didn’t glaze over at my job description.
Instead, he bursted with excitement at my response:
“You’re kidding,” he said. “I get some of Stansberry’s stuff!”
Then later, he brought it up again.
And he even asked the crowd if they’d heard of Stansberry Research too.
I was socked by how many people said, “Yes.”
And one guy shouted, “Porter [Stansberry] *goes* there.”
It was a situation I’m not used to.
But it reminded me of an important copy lesson that even *I* forget:
I’M NOT MY DEMOGRAPHIC.
Instead, Warren is.
He’s…
Old. Rich. White. Male. And conservative (I could tell because he kept calling California the “Broke State”).
So the next time I tell myself that NOBODY knows a thing about what I do…
I just got to remember Warren the Magician and his crowd of card-carrying AARP members.
Because the buyers are out there.
…Even if I’m not one of them.
Your pen pal,
Matt Rizvi