The Grumpy Marketers - Two middle-aged nerds have moan...

It's hard to find the right balance between being one of those obnoxious 'hardcore closers' types who are only interested in making you sign on the dotted line...and being terrified of selling at all.

Here's how to do it.

As the title suggests...want to become a millionaire? Listen to Richard and Al.

Richard and Al debate whether 'funnel hacking' is really just ripping off the hard work of other people...and can funnel hackers survive long term?

Al grills Richard on what needs to go into a sales message (whether that be a Facebook post, video, long form sales letter, carrier pigeon etc).

When you understand these principles, writing persuasive messages becomes a lot easier.

Is the elevator pitch a waste of time these days, given that everybody seems to be coming out with the same 'I help X person do Y thing' in response to the question 'so what do you do?'

Spoiler alert: It's still valid, but only if you follow the instructions in this episode.

We've both screwed up a lot in our time as marketers.

Here's the top 3 highlights for each of us. With a bit of luck, you can avoid making the same gut-wrenching, shameful mistakes yourself.

We all know about the customer avatar, where we create a fictional prospect, 'Linda'. 'Linda is 45, a single mother with 3 kids. She works 2 jobs to make ends meet.’ We then pull a random stock photo of a middle aged lady off Google images and woop, our avatar is complete.

Except we are missing something. Probably the most important thing. And we're not going to tell you what it is in this description.

We all know about the customer avatar, where we create a fictional prospect, 'Linda'. 'Linda is 45, a single mother with 3 kids. She works 2 jobs to make ends meet.’ We then pull a random stock photo of a middle aged lady off Google images and woop, our avatar is complete. Except we are missing something. Probably the most important thing. And we're not going to tell you what it is in this description.

Back in the day, banner ads were fuckers. What is the new banner ad for today? We talk about the history of banner ads, what pisses us off about about them and whether they can or do ever work.

In their very first podcast, Richard and Al reflect on the bad old days when banner ads would ruin your life (and you’d end up clicking through to some weird Panda porn site in front of your nan) and look at the modern day descendants, like pre-roll ads and ask: ‘Should they all be wrapped in heavy cloth, weighted down and thrown off a trawler in the North Sea?’

Naturally they’re grumpy old men who don’t hold back on their thoughts (or the swears), so if you’re easily triggered... well you’d better press the stop button and go calm down with a Chamomile tea.

Back in the day, banner ads were fuckers. What is the new banner ad for today? We talk about the history of banner ads, what pisses us off about about them and whether they can or do ever work.

In their very first podcast, Richard and Al reflect on the bad old days when banner ads would ruin your life (and you’d end up clicking through to some weird Panda porn site in front of your nan) and look at the modern day descendants, like pre-roll ads and ask: ‘Should they all be wrapped in heavy cloth, weighted down and thrown off a trawler in the North Sea?’

Naturally they’re grumpy old men who don’t hold back on their thoughts (or the swears), so if you’re easily triggered... well you’d better press the stop button and go calm down with a Chamomile tea.