Just for fun …
Will The REAL Clayton Makepeace
Please Stand Up?

The worst has happened. I’m a laughingstock. It’s an absolute disaster.

My friends, clients and peers are in stitches – and my new e-zine, THE TOTAL PACKAGE™ is the source of their relentless mockery.

Actually, it’s not the e-zine itself – it’s getting kudos all ’round.

The problem is the photo at the top of the page. Just about everyone I know is calling or e-mailing me to hoot and holler about it.

For one thing, most figured they’d have to wait until my funeral to see me in a suit.

“And what’s that mischievous smirk on your face for anyway?” they ask.

“I wasn’t wearing any pants,” I reply.

My feeble attempt at humor fails to diffuse their derision.

So after all these years of working in the marketing trenches, charging a king’s ransom for my ideas, I finally offer help for free – and this is the thanks I get?

Bummer.

Why is everyone having such a good time at my expense?

Because that photo simply isn’t me. Well, it actually IS me, and the most recent version of me, too – I had it taken just a few weeks ago.

But as my daughter would say…

“It isn’t ME me.”

The suit says, “This guy’s conventional.” To look at the pic, you’d think I probably have a degree in marketing, maybe even an MBA. You’d think I read all the “right” business books and mindlessly parrot verbose pontifications like “facilitate a synergistic relationship.” And, you’d probably assume that I live in a corporate environment.

The truth is, I never graduated from high school – let alone college. I haven’t drawn a regular paycheck since 1979. And in the last 26 years, I have worn a suit precisely twelve times (two graduations, three funerals, six weddings, and to pose for the aforementioned photo).

In truth, I’m the antithesis of the corporate type. I believe that office politics are – forgive me – absolute bullshit. I’ve seen too many political weasels – and the CEOs who tolerate them – prevent good companies from becoming great. And in some cases, I’ve seen them cripple or kill entire businesses.

The only reason my clients’ corporate structure or “corporate culture” means anything to me is when it’s either conducive to or non-conducive to getting things done.

The legendary and long-suffering Bob King – president of Phillips Publishing during its most explosive growth phase – once sighed, shook his head and said, “Life will never be dull with Clayton around.”

The Redhead (my wife Wendy) rolls her eyes ten times a day, saying “There’s no middle ground with you – you’re ‘all-or-nothing’ in everything you do.”

Yesterday, Parris Lampropoulos – a good friend and great copywriter who is now busy taking Soundview Publications to the moon – just called me “a crazy man” – right to my face.

That pretty much sums me up, I guess …

I run flat out, pedal to the metal, balls-to-the-wall, 18 hours a day. Except days like last Tuesday: That was a 21-hour marathon. A few weeks ago, I put in 120 hours in a seven-day stretch – and loved every minute of it.

I write flat-out, too. When I’m on a copywriting project, I pour every ounce of energy into it. Everything that passes through my mind – every reason why the prospect should buy … every proof element … every corny little turn of phrase … everything – ends up on paper.

I’ll write 32 … 46 … as many as 64 pages for a 24-page self-mailer. I do my dead-level best to leave no stone unturned and nothing to chance. Writing to fit is for wimps. Cutting copy is why God invented second drafts.

The great Mark Victor Hansen – the genius behind the world-famous “Chicken Soup For The [fill in the blank] Soul” series – once endeared himself to me forever by saying: “I use every sales technique I can get away with and still get into Heaven.”

Words to live by. I won’t do anything I suspect might result in Beelzebub, lawyers or bureaucrats poking me with a pitchfork. Short of that, the sky’s the limit.

Ditto for my consulting work. I’m not a team player – unless I’m leading the team – or at least sitting at the right hand of god (the real president of the client company). When I find something the client could be doing better to generate bigger sales more often, I can be about as tactful as a bull in a china shop, and as tenacious as a pit bull on steroids.

Department heads who can’t keep up or get between me and one new customer or one additional sale often wind up with footprints up their backs. Afterwards, I buy them drinks and apologize. Sometimes, I even have to send flowers. No problem – as long as the work gets done.

My “all-or-nothing” attitude towards life extends to my real life, too. As hard as I work, I play even harder.

In my other life, I’m a biker – and I do NOT mean those skinny yuppie dudes sporting a jaunty pair of Spandex shorts with matching helmet you see quietly peddling along the roadside.

I’m one of those bad-ass bikers on big Harleys who thunder through town on weekends, drawing envious glances from p-whipped husbands hopelessly enslaved to their “honey-dos” … as well as resentful (and sometimes wistful) glances from their wives.

Rules – and the nitwits who attempt to impose them on all of us – bore me. Give me a rule to break and you’ve made my day.

I’ve been told I’m intense and intimidating, flirtatious and fatuous, ribald and raunchy, infuriatingly stubborn, obsessively rebellious, politically incorrect, and unrelenting in my pursuit of whatever objective lies before me.

And yes, I have a healthy ego. That’s a good thing, in my book: Too little ego, and you’ll never get anything done. Too much, and you’ll never get anything done right.

I’ve met too many smart people whose egos cost them money. That made them dumb in my book. So I try to keep a healthy balance. When I fail, I can always count on The Redhead to give me a kick in the pants.

In the immortal words of the great Popeye …

“I yam what I yam”

They say my FBI file is a foot thick. Not because I’ve done anything wrong, mind you. I’ve never been accused of any misdeed more egregious than speeding.

But my 34-year career in marketing has given me opportunities that few people ever have – and at times, these “opportunities” resulted in a scrap of paper or two being added to my file …

• And throughout my career, I’ve had the honor of serving countless courageous and brilliant entrepreneurs and business owners, and have helped seven young copywriters to millions of dollars in royalties.
• In the 1980s, I nearly got thrown out of a fine restaurant in Boulder after tippling with U.S. mercenaries who’d been helping freedom fighters in Cuba, Mozambique, Angola and Afghanistan. And I worked with and rubbed elbows with more than my share of music, film and TV superstars.
• Wendy “The Redhead” Makepeace and I have a young daughter and son. My grown daughter and son live nearby and have given me three grandkids.
• I’ve lived for weeks at a time with the noble Supai Indians at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. Personally flown planeloads of food to earthquake victims in Central America. Partied with the guerilla leaders of Nicaragua’s anti-communist Contras during the height of hostilities.
• In the 1970s, the U.S. Secret Service had to do extensive background checks on me before they’d let me work for White House Communications. I got to light press conferences and film TV spots with three U.S. Presidents (Nixon, Ford and Reagan). And I drank Mateus Rose until the wee hours of the morning with Vice-President Nelson Rockefeller and the secret service agent who was guarding George Wallace when he was shot. We got rowdy.

… But I think you’d probably like me anyway.

Some of the best people do. And boy, do I love them back.

The Redhead says I’m too generous and too loyal to my friends. Buy her a drink and she’ll be more than glad to regale you with stories. She’ll probably tell you how on two separate occasions since 1988, I lost millions because I was too loyal to quit clients who had gone into self-destruct mode – making decisions I predicted would erase the growth I had helped them create.

They were my friends. Frankly, if I had it to do it all over again, I wouldn’t change a thing.

… So back to the suit.

I figure that any fool can put on a suit and tie. In fact, thousands do, every day of their lives. To me, and to any business person worth his salt, clothes shouldn’t matter. Only performance should matter.

Nobody ever said, “Let’s not hire the best … he dresses funny.”

Nobody ever said, “Let’s get that horrible copywriter again – I liked his tie.”

If we ever meet personally, I’ll probably be the guy in Levis. Unless we meet on a weekend. Then, it’ll be because you ran into a bunch of rough-looking bikers on really cool Harleys. I’ll be the one on the orange Screamin’ Eagle Electroglide, cool shades, black tee-shirt, and black leather vest covered with pins from every biker rally I’ve ever been to. If you get an outfit, you can be a biker, too.

… So why did I engage
in this shameless act of misrepresentation?

I’m a big believer in eye contact. I insist that on each spread of my direct mail promotions, the ersatz author locks eyes with the prospect and delivers a compelling benefit … or validates the prospect’s dominant emotion … or suggests a “horrifying alternative” to accepting his generous offer.

Likewise, I decided I wanted to look you square in the eye in each issue of
THE TOTAL PACKAGE.

But that posed a problem: What should I be wearing in my photo?

Well, I reasoned, my goal in THE TOTAL PACKAGE is to help three kinds of people get a LOT richer: 1) Business owners, 2) marketing execs, and 3) the copywriters and graphic artists who create their sales promotions.

Most freelance copywriters and graphic artists work in their Fruit-Of-The-Looms and couldn’t care less what I wear. Furthermore, most business owners and marketing execs have worked with enough copywriters to know this – and to them, my selection of attire would be equally inconsequential.

But for a significant few who still place high value on cutting a professional figure – and for those who would find an image of a 50-something copywriter in his tidy whiteys somewhat unsettling – I decided on the suit.

So there.

Yours for Bigger Winners, More Often,

Clayton Makepeace
Publisher & Editor
THE TOTAL PACKAGE™