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In today’s episode I am joined by the indestructible Molly McPherson, who you may know as the TikTok “PR Lady,” as her followers have affectionally dubbed her.
I just know her as my first stop when a brand or celebrity is in the news for reasons they’d rather not be. Molly is hilarious, warm, and witty and I’m absolutely thrilled and delighted that she’s on the show today, talking about the #1 biggest mistake that brands make before, during, and after a public relations crisis and even dishing with me on my favorite topic — the online business family tree and the curious case of the SEO-optimized friendship (featuring personal brand celebs Rachel Hollis, Jenna Kutcher, and Amy Porterfield).
But, more than anything, I appreciate how Molly always brings us back to our humanity and helps us see that public relations is just a fancy way of talking about human communication.
On today's episode about cancel culture and personal brands in crisis, we discuss: Molly's next gig as the star of "PR CSI" and how punctuation can catch a culprit The biggest mistake brands make during a social media crisis The real reason Bud Light still hasn't recovered from backlash How to make a crisis go "poof!" and the 3 tenets of Molly's Indestructible PR framework Why Rachel Hollis' brand still hasn't bounced back, 2.5 years after Toilet Gate Molly's beef with Amy Porterfield and the online business family tree Why Colleen Ballinger (or was it Miranda Sings?) mistakenly believed her ukulele would win the day What do Molly's four Gen Z kids think about Mom being a TikTok sensation? The difference between social media vigilantes, bullies, and investigative reporters The problem with Reddit snark and parasocial relationships The other side of the cancel culture coin and the pot of gold at the end of the snark rainbow About Molly McPhersonMolly reports on crisis communications and breaking news stories with a perfect blend of snark and heart. She has over two decades of experience in public relations, emergency management, and media. As a crisis pro, Molly previously worked at FEMA and as the Director of Communications for the Cruise Line International Association, where she managed media responses during major crises. Today, Molly is a crisis communications consultant, keynote speaker, and TikTok sensation. She hosts the Indestructible PR podcast and recently won the 2023 Adweek Creative Visionary Award for Careers Creator of the Year.
Read the episode transcript, watch the YouTube video, and get the show notes on the Marketing Muckraking website here.
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Welcome to Part 4, the final installment of the Online Business Family Tree series, where we traced back how we arrived at this moment in internet marketing and online business and who are the key leaders who brought us here.
We also highlighted the 10 elements of the rotten tree. To review:
Prosperity gospel and the "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" myth of meritocracy Mastermind relationships and being "in the room" where it happens with powerful leaders JV partnerships Affiliate marketing Tabloid / clickbait / pain point / shame-based marketing Gaming the system Propaganda, mind control, and hypnosis Cross-pollinating audiences Personal branding and “If I did it, you can, too” And finally, the idea that you don’t have to cite your sources, fuck your sources. So that the web becomes so tangled, no one knows where any of this came from.But now, hopefully, you do know.
And our hope is that this series has helped you become a more informed consumer, a more ethical marketer, and that you feel seen and less alone in this jungle of the Online Business Industrial Complex.
To understand marketing history is to understand ourselves and our culture — marketing is the fuel for the engine of capitalism.
But now that we’ve taken this trip through time, it’s time to talk about what to do next and how do we build a better future…
About Lisa Robbin YoungLisa Robbin Young has 30 years of business experience as a coach and creative entrepreneur: she is an award-winning speaker, best-selling author, and accomplished musician with multiple albums to her credit. You may even recognize her from the Disney+ show “Encore.” She is also the host of the “Creative Freedom” show — I highly recommend her music video parodies. Check out “There are worse things I could do” for a Marie Forleo crossover with Awkward Marketing. She specializes in helping creative entrepreneurs build a business that works for how you’re wired to work.
For the transcript and annotated guide to the online business family members we discuss in Part 4, check out MarketingMuckraking.com and the show notes here. -
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Welcome to Part 3 of this four-part series on The Online Business Family Tree, where we trace back how we arrived at this moment in internet marketing and online business and who are the key leaders who brought us here.
In this installment, we’re time traveling from WWI and WWII all the way to today, where clickbait, ClickFunnels to hell, and faking it ’til you make it have spread across the branches of this rotten business tree, poisoning the fruits that fall to everyone clamoring for their taste of success.
Remember, this stuff didn’t start on the Internet — it goes back hundreds of years. To understand marketing history is to understand ourselves and our culture — marketing is the fuel for the engine of capitalism. Let’s take a trip through time, so you can be a more informed consumer and, hopefully, a more ethical marketer.
What you can expect in Part 3 of the Online Business Family Tree: What ex-employees are saying about Brooke Castillo and The Life Coach School How a bro marketer gamed the system to launch a chart-topping country music album (by tricking people into buying it) The true story of the country's first famous "snake oil salesman" and how he culturally appropriated his way across the country Why we can thank Frank Kern for the CAN-SPAM act and how he still brags about building his business illegally That Tony Robbins scene in "Shallow Hal" and how he hypnotized his way to the top The appalling truth of ClickFunnels and why Russell Brunson thinks Adolf Hilter is a business leader — while the industry co-signs this concept What Nazi leaders learned about marketing from American propaganda How Christian nationalist preachers built the advertising industry What Jenna Kutcher, Amy Porterfield, and Mel Robbins really did on their Napa Valley mastermind and how they leverage parasocial bonds to sell to your sense of loneliness Who monetized her friend's death to boost her clickthrough rate Why no one can be Gary V, even Gary V, and the problem with corporations masquerading as people How "more good millionaires" isn't the answer to systemic problems About Lisa Robbin YoungLisa Robbin Young has 30 years of business experience as a coach and creative entrepreneur: she is an award-winning speaker, best-selling author, and accomplished musician with multiple albums to her credit. You may even recognize her from the Disney+ show “Encore.” She is also the host of the “Creative Freedom” show — I highly recommend her music video parodies. Check out “There are worse things I could do” for a Marie Forleo crossover with Awkward Marketing. She specializes in helping creative entrepreneurs build a business that works for how you’re wired to work.
An annotated guide to the episode can be found at MarketingMuckraking.com in the show notes here. -
Welcome to Part 2 of this four-part series on The Online Business Family Tree, where we trace back how we arrived at this moment in internet marketing and online business and who are the key leaders who brought us here.
In this installment, we’re diving into six figure masterminds, Marie Forleo’s B-School, the Cult of the Syndicate, and how early Internet marketers like Mark Joyner, Dan Kennedy, Yanik Silver, and Russell Brunson brought mind control and manipulation online.
If you don’t know — or care — about these names, never fear. We focus on what tactics these leaders popularized and how they’ve invaded nearly every celebrity online business course, including Matthew McConaughey’s.
Remember, this stuff didn’t start on the Internet — it goes back hundreds of years. To understand marketing history is to understand ourselves and our culture — marketing is the fuel for the engine of capitalism. Let’s take a trip through time, so you can be a more informed consumer and, hopefully, a more ethical marketer.
What you can expect in Part 2 of the Online Business Family Tree: How 6 figure masterminds became a thing (someone please tell me why anyone would pay Amanda Frances $100K to "sit in her energy"?!) The rise of joint venture partnerships and affiliate marketing Why Marie Forleo's B-School is the bee in my bonnet The concerning trend of "business" coaches who are really just teaching the marketing of the self and personal branding through proximity to power How celebrity personal brands manipulate refund rates and quash negative reviews through stick strategies and boilerplate non-disparagement clauses The boy bosses responsible for bringing junk mail into your inbox Where clickbait came from (spoiler alert: Bat Boy!) Why easy "ethical marketing" swaps are just more of the same The nuance of shame-based or pain point marketing (and my unpopular opinion on speaking to pain — it might surprise you!) About Lisa Robbin YoungLisa Robbin Young has 30 years of business experience as a coach and creative entrepreneur: she is an award-winning speaker, best-selling author, and accomplished musician with multiple albums to her credit. You may even recognize her from the Disney+ show “Encore.” She is also the host of the “Creative Freedom” show — I highly recommend her music video parodies. Check out “There are worse things I could do” for a Marie Forleo crossover with Awkward Marketing. She specializes in helping creative entrepreneurs build a business that works for how you’re wired to work.
See MarketingMuckraking.com for the full transcript and visual guide.
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If you've ever wondered how the Online Business Industrial Complex was built, this is the 4-part series for you.
I'm joined by Lisa Robbin Young as we trace back how we arrived at this moment in internet marketing and online business, and who are the key leaders who brought us here, starting with Ben Franklin, Henry Ford, and Thomas Edison, all the way to Tony Robbins, Marie Forleo, Jenna Kutcher, Russell Brunson, Brooke Castillo, and Matthew McConaughey? Yeah, he’s a life coach now.
If you don’t know — or care — about these names, never fear. Lisa and I focus on what tactics these leaders popularized and how they’ve invaded nearly every corner of online business.
This series is foundational in understanding the evolution, not only of online business and marketing, but American culture and many of the advertising principles we have come to take for granted as “how it’s done.”
But, as we say on the show, this stuff didn’t start on the Internet — it goes back hundreds of years. To understand marketing history is to understand ourselves and our culture — marketing is the fuel for the engine of capitalism. Let’s take a trip through time, so you can be a more informed consumer and, hopefully, a more ethical marketer.
What you can expect from Part 1 of the Online Business Family Tree: Why we're "naming names" and the difference between solopreneurs and corporate entities in girlboss clothing How the "American dream" became a sales pitch for individualism at the cost of systemic change What muskrats taught Henry Ford and Thomas Edison about making millions The surprising secret of how to "think and grow rich" Behind the scenes of coaching coaches to coach coaches How the Industrial Revolution turned into toxic wellness culture Why hating yourself is good for business (online business, that is) About Lisa Robbin YoungLisa Robbin Young has 30 years of business experience as a coach and creative entrepreneur: she is an award-winning speaker, best-selling author, and accomplished musician with multiple albums to her credit. You may even recognize her from the Disney+ show “Encore.” She is also the host of the “Creative Freedom” show — I highly recommend her music video parodies. Check out “There are worse things I could do” for a Marie Forleo crossover with Awkward Marketing. She specializes in helping creative entrepreneurs build a business that works for how you’re wired to work.
See MarketingMuckraking.com for the complete transcript and annotated visual guide.
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In this installment of Marketing Muckraking, we explore the question...should brands be "political"? And what does it mean to be "political" in the context of global capitalism? Are we turning to corporations because we've lost our faith in government?
What do we do, as brand consumers and business owners, with the answers to these questions? How do we build a better world?
In June, the world’s most powerful advertisers gathered at Cannes Lions, where this year’s biggest themes included AI, ad tech, influencer marketing, and most notably — “dialing down the politics,” which was the directive to jurors voting on the advertising industry’s top awards.
While the Cannes leadership never made a statement on the issue, it’s hard not to see these jury instructions as a direct response to recent right-wing fueled culture wars, specifically as it relates to “woke” M&M’s spokescandies, Bud Light’s short-lived influencer deal with Dylan Mulvaney, and the backlash in response to Target’s 2023 Pride line.
But even without making a statement, the message from Cannes Lions leadership was loud and clear: “Shut up and sell.” And they really brought that home when they awarded their “Marketer of the Year” award to — Anheuser Busch’s Chief Marketing Officer.
Yes, that’s right, after exploiting Dylan Mulvaney to gain market share, then dropping her into a sea of death threats and right wing violence when their sales suffered, Anheuser Busch won the top marketing award in the world for the second year, making history as the only brand to ever win this award twice in a row. Dylan Mulvaney confirmed in late June that Bud Light never reached out to her after the backlash, which further confirms their stance towards the LGBTQIA+ community: “We won’t stand with you, but we will sell to you.”
Award-winning marketing here, folks. In the wake of what some call “woke washing,” also known as “rainbow capitalism”, “pink washing”, or “green washing” — all terms synonymous with corporations positioning themselves as friendly to progressives, social and environmental causes, and historically excluded groups to gain market share — the growing efforts by right wing extremists to make examples of brands with messages they don’t like, have opened up conversations around whether brands should “stay out of politics” and stick to selling.
This is my bat signal. We need a muckraker on the scene because if we leave it up to advertising apologists, well — they’re gonna keep giving awards to hypocrites who care more about profits than people or the planet. And if we leave it up to whichever talking head is auditioning to replace Tucker Carlson, they’re gonna keep inciting hate to promote their Make America Gilead Again agenda.
So, the question we’re muckraking about today is: “Should brands be political?” But before we can answer this (or not answer this, because you know my style) we gotta clarify — what does it mean for brands to be “political”? How do we define politics in this context? Let's go...
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Content warning: this episode touches on sensitive topics that include sexual assault, child abuse, and religious trauma.
Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets released on Amazon Prime on June 2.
In this episode, I review the docuseries through the lens of marketing muckraking, looking at how the Duggars and the IBLP used modern marketing, branding, and PR to re-write history as it was happening, in a bid to arrest political control of the country.
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Welcome to Season 2 of Marketing Muckraking!
I started Season 1 with The Age of the Personal Brand — and because I love a good callback, I’m continuing this conversation as we kick off Season 2.
In my very first episode I traced back the origins of the term “personal brand” to Tom Peters and his 1997 Fast Company article “The Brand Called You,” when Peters told readers to “take a lesson from the big brands…establish your own micro equivalent of the Nike swoosh.
Peters positioned personal branding as freedom from corporate rule:
“You’re not an “employee” of General Motors, you’re not a “staffer” at General Mills, you’re not a “worker” at General Electric or a “human resource” at General Dynamics (ooops, it’s gone!). Forget the Generals! You don’t “belong to” any company for life, and your chief affiliation isn’t to any particular “function.” You’re not defined by your job title and you’re not confined by your job description. Starting today you are a brand.”
Don’t listen to him.
You are not a brand.Because, a brand, by its very definition doesn’t belong to itself. And you do.
As I explored in Episode 19: “The Not-So-Subtle Art of Caring What Other People Think,” a brand lives in its audience’s mind.
A brand is a memory. And yes I’m going to quote myself here:
”Your brand is what people remember about you, based on a complicated mess of factors — what they’ve experienced, felt, heard, read, and seen — that ultimately becomes a paint splattered memory that people like me neatly fold up into a five letter word.”
The best brands are consistent in ways that humans are not built to be.
Brands only change when the market demands it.
Brands answer to sales — not themselves — because a brand doesn’t have a self.
The promise of personal branding is that you can “get paid to be yourself” but the capitalist disclaimer buried in the fine print — results not typical — hinges on whether the “self” you’re selling is what people want.
So much of what is taught about personal branding revolves around scaling the self, streamlining the self, sculpting the self around an audience.
Replacing “to be” with “to buy.”
The “get paid to be yourself” promise only comes true if you are ready and willing to surrender yourself to the version of you that the market will bear. And then package up that commodified you into a neat little box and get to work cranking out more, more, more in an assembly line of ideas to stock the shelves of the Creator Economy.
Let’s pause there — because just as “personal branding” promises freedom, when it’s really selling you a box you’ll never fully fit inside...
The term “Creator Economy” suggests an economy that belongs to creatives, when it’s really asking you to create for free, get paid in attention, and thank the platforms that profit off your labor for the opportunity to “do what you love.”
To be a “content creator” is to accept an unpaid internship in "The Attention Economy” (a more accurate title than “Creator Economy”) with the hope that it’ll turn into dollar bills somewhere down the line.
But the folks making the most money aren’t the creators — but the tycoons at the top of the pyramid re-selling the attention that creators capture for them...
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Jeff Harry is back! Earlier this year, Jeff and I asked the question: "Is America a scam?" Today, the question is, "Can we fix capitalism?"
Yvon Chouinard, self-styled "reluctant billionaire" and Patagonia founder recently made headlines for giving up ownership of the company and dedicating future profits to fight climate change. “Earth is now our only shareholder,” Chouinard wrote in an open letter.
The Internet went wild for the news with many celebrating the move as proof that there is hope for capitalism yet. In an exclusive New York Times interview Chouinard himself positioned the decision as just that:
“Hopefully this will influence a new form of capitalism that doesn’t end up with a few rich people and a bunch of poor people. We are going to give away the maximum amount of money to people who are actively working on saving this planet.”
Others questioned whether the move was a way of avoiding the $700 million tax hit that would come with selling the company, while keeping company control within the family. We've def got billionaire trust issues, even with the "reluctant" ones.
Jeff Harry joins me again on this episode of Marketing Muckraking to talk about the dangers of billionaires with platinum cards and hearts of gold.
And we explore the question of whether we can "fix" capitalism...and if the uberwealthy are the ones to do it?
Is the solution to our systemic problems simply a matter of rustling up more well-meaning millionaires and billionaires?Let's CoMuckrake about it. Come along for a wild and messy ride. We cover:
Why a "reluctant billionaire" like Yvon Chouinard of Patagonia might not be qualified to fix the planet and its problems How "the one moral CEO in America," Dan Price of Gravity payments, fell from grace and why we're embarrassed we ever re-tweeted him Andrew Carnegie, wealthy philanthropy, and paternalism in do-good clothing What climate change has to do with Super Mario World Camp Reset and how a stuffed monkey named Uche might save us all A simple practice to help you deconstruct capitalism today — or your money back! About Jeff HarryJeff Harry shows individuals and companies how to tap into their true selves, to feel their happiest and most fulfilled — all by playing. Jeff believes that we already have many of the answers we seek, and by simply unleashing our inner child, we can find our purpose and, in turn, help to create a better world.
An international speaker and consultant, Jeff has presented at conferences such as INBOUND, SXSW, and Australia’s Pausefest, showing audiences how major issues in the workplace can be solved using play. He was selected by Engagedly as one of the Top 100 HR Influencers of 2020 for his organizational development work around addressing toxicity in the workplace. His playwork has been featured in the New York Times, AJ+, SoulPancake, the SF Chronicle, and CNN. And he’s a damn good follow on TikTok. Go check him out.
Links from the episode:
Is America a Scam? Ep. 5 of Marketing Muckraking with Jeff Harry Winners Take All by Anand Giridharadas "Social Media Was a C.E.O.’s Bullhorn, and How He Lured Women": Karen Weise, New York Times piece on Dan price "The Prophet Motive": Stephen Rodrick, Esquire magazine piece on Dan Price "Community Love vs. Romantic Love" TikTok duet with @AyandaStood Camp Reset Hima Batavia Shout outs to Wendy Conrad, Tiffany Joy Lanier, and Lisa Robbin Young for joining in with questions and ideas during the CoMuckraking live!Muckraker's note: My episodes with Jeff always start with him messaging me on Instagram like, “Should we talk about this?! Let’s talk about this.” So we don’t do this in a typical podcast interview style, like you might be used to, but two friends dishing and debating the topics we’re passionate about. The day we recorded this, Jeff had some tech issues getting onto Instagram live, which I have edited to make our conversation easier to follow. But that also means there’s more of an RKA monologue at the beginning before Jeff could connect and some messy IG audio — but by the time you hear what Jeff has to say at the end of our chat, I think you’ll agree that this messiness is a plus, not a minus. On with the show.
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I believe that marketers and the people who consume marketing (that's everybody) need to know the history of the advertising industry and how we went from “Mad Men to Math Men” to quote Alexander Nix, former CEO of Cambridge Analytica.
There is so much more to this history than a bunch of Don Drapers clinking scotch glasses while they come up with pithy slogans. Marketing history intertwines with how politics and culture took shape over the last century. To understand marketing history is to understand ourselves. If you want the short version of this, check out this 3-minute TikTok I created last week.
For the full deep dive into the history of marketing, propaganda, and politics — from WWI, Edward Bernays, and the advent of public relations, to social media, the 2016 election, Trump, the Facebook / Cambridge Analytica scandal, and the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago that brought us to this moment in history — you'll want to listen to this full episode. Or read the essay version here.
This episode covers:
- How WWI propaganda legitimized the advertising industry;
- The irony of Americans declaring independence and then copying the British;- That time in 1918 when the U.S. government institutionalized fake news;
- The one thing Rand Paul is right about (for all the wrong reasons);
- How public relations put the "truth" back in advertising;
- The not-so-funny story of where "snake oil salesmen" come from;
- What Nazi Germany learned from U.S. laws and leaders;
- The American banana propaganda that led to 36 years of civil war in Guatemala;
- How Facebook exploits the data of people who don't even use the platform;
- Why global corporations have more power than our individual governments
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There are 4,230,000,000 Google results for "caring about what other people think."
Caring about how to stop caring about what other people think is a timeless (and highly marketable) problem to have — one that hearkens back to the Greek and Roman times, when Stoics like Epictetus first spoke about detachment as a virtue.
Modern Stoics like Ryan Holiday or Tony Robbins have re-popularized these ancient concepts. They sell books and $5K weekends to teach you the secrets of how to care deeply about not caring deeply.
But is "How do I stop caring about what other people think?" possibly the wrong question?Is it even possible in the age of the personal brand?
After all, a brand is literally what people think.
And opting not to care makes it challenging to make a living.
Or to make change...seeing as systems are built and reinforced by people who make choices based on what they think.
Can you imagine a movement — or a world — full of people who don't care what anyone else is thinking? Are we already living in it?
Mentioned in this episode:
"Why I'm Not a Stoic" by Mark Manson Episode 1. The Age of the Personal Brand -
America is a brand.
And if you are an American, you are an affiliate or brand ambassador.
Theoretically, we’re paid in “freedom” and the benefits of living in this country. But are we being paid in full?
As both consumers and ambassadors, the questions to ask ourselves are:
“What is the value proposition? Does America deliver on its brand promise of freedom and justice for all? Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? What are the benefits of my brand loyalty? And what are the costs of buying in?”
In this episode of Marketing Muckraking, I’m exploring America the brand and the history of patriotic advertising, both for the country and its companies.
Did you know that the Pledge of Allegiance was originally written by a Christian socialist copywriter for The Youth’s Companion newspaper in 1892 as a way to sell more newspapers? Readers who sold the most newspapers were awarded a free flag!
The Pledge of Allegiance was advertising, first and foremost.
Join me as we examine America the Brand through:
Copywriting – there’s no brand with more consistent language around “freedom” and “happiness” than America. Pain Points — the American brand appeals to our sense of scarcity and our fear of what would happen to us if we lived anywhere else. Opt-Ins — when we vote, we opt in to a sense of political efficacy that keeps us invested in what we’ll get in return. Do our politicians deliver? Accept No Substitutes — as schoolchildren, we’re taught that the USA is the greatest country on Earth and everything else falls short. Is it true? Brand Loyalty — branding is meant to justify a higher price because of our emotional connections. What price do we pay for loyalty to Brand America? Is it worth the extra cost?Branding, at the end of the day, is the engineering of a reputation.
America The Brand has sold us on a reputation of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.If any other brand sold us this message and failed to deliver, we would stop buying. So why do we keep buying into this one?
Join me as we explore the history of selling America and using America to sell:
Colonial Advertising – America the Brand was sold to immigrants in order to populate the nation before it was even formally a country. Its free market was one of America's selling points, but the nation itself was its first product. Post-Industrial Revolution Advertising – After the Industrial Revolution, the message of mass production was that the best way to exercise our freedom was through consumption. The American public was taught to buy constantly through, what Edward Filene called, "The School of Freedom": advertisers emphasizing the patriotic call of duty to "do the shopping." WWI and WWII Advertising – War propaganda legitimized advertising as an industry and showed the powers that be that consistent and repetitive campaigns could shape public opinion. Advertisers sold American nationalism alongside star spangled corn biscuits and cigarettes. Commodity Activism in Advertising – In response to counterculture, the struggles of marginalized communities to gain civil liberties, and their fight for representation, brands evolved to ads that positioned America as a utopian paradise of unity and diversity, where world peace was as easy as "buying the world a Coke" or purchasing from companies who ran social justice campaigns. Ask yourself, "Does America deliver on its brand promise?" or does it simply offer layaway plans for freedom, asking us to keep making payments for a product it can't and won't deliver? -
Many famous “thought leaders” cite Napoleon Hill’s Think And Grow Rich as the foundation of their philosophy of success.
Donald Trump loves it. So does Shark Tank mogul, Daymond John. And Tiny Tony, or as you may know him, Tony Robbins.
But some names might surprise you.
Rachel Hollis calls it “incredibly sound” and links to it on her blog.
Denise Duffield Thomas loves it and writes about its influence on her own work.
Amanda Frances has a whole tag for it on her blog.
John Lee Dumas says his book, The Common Path to Uncommon Success, is the “modern day version” of it.
The list goes on — Marie Forleo, Selena Soo, Brendon Burchard, Dean Graziosi, Lewis Howes, Ali Brown, Brooke Castillo, James Wedmore...
If you type a celebrity personal brand name into Google with a plus sign + Think And Grow Rich you’ll find MOST of the folks leading the online business coaching conversation citing this book on their blog, in podcast interviews, or on their recommended book lists.
Never mind the fact that the book and its author’s teachings, Napoleon Hill, have been widely debunked.
Check out Matt Novak’s piece for Gizmodo, “The Untold Story of Napoleon Hill, the Greatest Self-Help Scammer of All Time” for all the dirty details.
Hill lied about his famous connections and his wealth and left a trail of lawsuits, murder investigations, cults, and angry ex-business partners in his wake.
With the information we have today, there is absolutely no question that this man was a liar, a scammer, a grifter, and a cult leader.
But people still reference his book as their business bible.
What does that say about them and their own teachings?
This is Part 2 of my debunking of Think And Grow Rich, focused on the immortal baby cult that Hill was a part of — and what happened after.
For Part 1, check out Episode 13 of the Marketing Muckraking podcast. You’ll laugh and you might even cry. It’s that bad.
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Just like tobacco companies targeted kids to create a market of “replacement smokers,” so do gun manufacturers.
Boys as young as 6 are targeted with ads conflating guns with masculinity, so that by the time they turn 18, the seed has been planted.
This helps answer the question, “Why would a young man turn 18 and go buy a gun?”
He has been sold guns since childhood.
The history of marketing guns as an emblem of masculinity goes back to the 1800s. Guns were positioned as protection for Southerners and their property against a slave uprising, which is why Anderson calls the Second Amendment "steeped in anti-Blackness."But even after the Bill of Rights was ratified, most Americans didn't own guns.
Guns were expensive. They had to be custom made for each buyer.
The Industrial Revolution changed that.
Not only did Eli Whitney invent the cotton gin, he also developed technology that helped produce interchangeable rifle parts — a key element of mass producing guns.
Guns were standardized and mass produced for the Civil War, leaving surplus that needed selling.
Manufacturers needed marketing to offload their guns — and justify producing more.
This is when catchy slogans like this one from Colt were born:
"God created man, Sam Colt made them equal,” a phrase that would become a favorite of gun lovers throughout history and today.
Gunmakers aimed their advertising at white men and their fears of life after slavery was abolished.These same men brandished guns to intimidate newly freed slaves, telling them not to vote — and often killing them if they did.
But gun manufacturers didn't care: there was no regulation around gun marketing or sales, so they continued on, convincing general stores to stock guns next to oats and patent medicines, telling boys and their parents that owning a rifle would help them cultivate "sturdy manliness."
In the early 20th century, the Winchester Repeating Arms Co. launched the “boy plan” to reach 1 million boys between ages 10 and 16. “Every real boy wants a Winchester rifle” read the slogan.
This marketing campaign told boys that “real men” owned a Winchester.In the early 2000s, Remington created the “Man Card” campaign to spotlight the AR-15, which is the rifle used in the Sandy Hook massacre.
The campaign told young men that if they didn’t “man up” (and buy a rifle) their “man card” would be revoked.
In February 2022, the parents of the Sandy Hook victims won a landmark $73 million dollar lawsuit against Remington for specifically targeting young men in their marketing.
Up until then, firearm manufacturers had blanket immunity from liability for the crimes committed with their products, regardless of how they marketed them.That is changing.
If you’re asking yourself, “What do I do?” there is political change to be made BUT the consumer protection route is an important approach, as well.
We might not be able to get lawmakers to do what we want — but we can approach activism through the commercial angle.
Today’s firearms manufacturers use influencer marketing and “white label” ads through young people in the Creator Economy — on social media and on YouTube.
We can demand legal changes.
But we can also demand that gunmakers stop sponsoring kids with brand deals so they’ll promote their guns to young audiences.
Read the full show notes here.
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Lots of famous folks are closing shop and "retiring" from coaching and online business. Some people are asking:
"Is the coaching bubble bursting?"I don't think so.
Grifts and pyramid schemes and “coaches” by different names are part of the historical fabric of capitalism. Remember Episode 13 and Napoleon Hill? He was a business coach before we had that term!
There will always be more people desperate to “get rich quick.”
I think people leaving coaching and online business aren’t evidence that the bubble is bursting but that their bubble is bursting.
They are burned out and, more than anything, realizing that the only ways to continue “scaling” at massive rates are unsustainable and unethical…
Coaches aren’t going away. The world is hurting right now and there will always be people who need support...or want a magic pill.What we’re seeing is turnover.
For all the burned out folks leaving, there are endless ready to come in and take their place.
Why do you think so many business coaches target brand new entrepreneurs or hopefuls eager to give their “two weeks notice” (the title of Amy Porterfield's upcoming book targeting folks with day jobs who want into the online business economy).
Because this audience is green and hasn’t been around long enough to notice the patterns.
This is how folks like Tony Robbins & Dean Graziosi continue to scale. With partners like Jenna Kutcher who give them access to a brand new audience of folks who’ve never heard their sales pitch.
Folks who don’t realize much of their business advice is available free on Google.
Filling a funnel with newbie entrepreneurs is part of the strategy for gaining “transformational” testimonials.
The info they sell in their programs is elementary but to a new entrepreneur who has never heard this stuff before, it feels MIND BLOWING.
So do I think the coaching “bubble” is bursting forever? No.I think we can expect more regulation, yes.
But just like “diet pills,” sellers will simply adapt and change their methods.
The worst coaching weaponizes the desperation people feel within capitalism.
As long as people are hurting, others will sell to that pain.
Who doesn’t want any easy way out?
Tale as old as time.
The problem is the system that puts profit > people. Not a few unethical coaches.I see many folks peddling the message that wealth building is a feminist endpoint, specifically.
But this denies the reality of this economic system.
Extreme wealth (or wealth, in general) is literally impossible for all people within this system.
Selling wealth as the solution without a critical analysis of the reality of capitalism is just more of the same.
We can’t buy (or sell) our way to a better world!
This episode of Marketing Muckraking is all about the question:
"If the coaching bubble ISN’T bursting for good, then who are the GOOD coaches, RKA?"Can you give me a LIST? Make it easy for me. I’m kinda exhausted by all the muckraking. I’d like some feel good answers.
Well I’ve got answers, alright.
I pulled this episode from the FREE SCHOOL archives.
Last year, I did a live in June 2021 about this very question — “Who are the good coaches, RKA? Who can we trust?”
Listen up — it’s a wild ride!
You meet my character Brad the Braggy Bro and learn his back story. You get a peek at what I teach in my keynote speeches about reverse niching. And you get my answers about who are the coaches you can TRUST, dammit!Buckle up. Let’s go on an adventure...
And you can download the reverse niching exercise I discuss in this episode here:http://reverseniching.com/
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This episode of Marketing Muckraking is not our usual fare of shit talking, but a dip into what it looks like to make shit happen in a world that needs change. Most people have a clear picture of what change looks like to them: For some, it's fixing the broken systems we're living in. For others, it's calling shit out and shining a light on injustice. Others want to dream bigger beyond the solutions we see before us today. And still others are passionate about building bridges to the future without ignoring the people existing within the reality we know now. Each is convinced their way is the best way.
And they're all wrong. (And they're all right!) I believe there are four types of people who will change the world. And we need all of them.Fire starters like me often want to dismiss the important work of reform. Until I started looking at change through the lens of what I discuss on today's show, I struggled with my own anger and frustration at what I saw as an incomplete approach to change.
And that was my privilege talking.
Oh, I still believe we need a revolution.
But to suggest that nothing other than burning it all down will suffice is to ignore that our world needs change now, not later. Yet, I tried the reform route — that’s why I went to law school — and it nearly crushed my spirit.
As a hopeful public interest lawyer, I saw a future of heartbreak that was too much for me to bear. During law school, I worked in an immigration clinic and even successfully helped win a case to reunite a mother and her son. But, despite that accomplishment, and the joy of bringing a family together again, the process of cutting through bureaucracy and red tape — the work of lawyers — was hard on my soul.
I spoke with many working attorneys fighting against injustice from within a broken legal system and knew that, if I took that road, it would not end well for me.
So I quit law school and started...a marketing company? WHAT?!
Over the years, I wondered aloud many times how a radical anticapitalist ended up in branding and advertising — the industry that fuels the engine of capitalism.
It wasn't until I burned it all down last year that I realized, this was the place I was meant to make change. At least for now.
See, for all the soul crushing aspects of working in marketing, there is so much that feeds my spirit and gives me the energy to keep muckraking.
My business has created a playground for my creativity to run wild and free. Before law school, I went to theater school, and realized the life of a working actor wasn't for me, either. But, in my business, I can be much more than an actor — while still folding that in, too. I'm a writer, speaker, comedian, video editor, producer, strategist, designer, researcher, saleswoman, coach, collaborator, cheerleader, GIFluencer, and the woman of 1,000 wigs.
Within capitalism, we all have to make compromises.
The career question then becomes less about finding your "dream job" — because it likely doesn't exist. At least, not without its drawbacks. Instead, it's about, finding the career path that hurts the least while fueling your soul the most.And, for me, it was about finding — creating — a job that allowed me to make change while also making space for my spirit.
For you, your career might not be where you're making change. Maybe your job makes it possible for you to make change "off the clock." That's your compromise.
We all have to make them.
And that's what this episode is all about.
How to find your way in the world as a changemaker, whether it's in your job or in your community.
I outline the four types of changemakers to help you understand how to best position yourself in the world to make the maximum impact, while staying true to yourself. But the reality is, we each have all four types of changemakers inside of us. We just harness them at different times.
I know many people who may reformers at their day jobs, innovators in their businesses, bridge builders with their friends, and fire starters when it comes to politics.
You may express the changemaker within differently in different contexts...that's the rainbow of it all. ;-)
Want some help? I created a quiz to help you determine which of the four changemakers you are!
Listen now to learn about all four changemaking types and figure out which one best defines you.http://changemakerquiz.com/
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I hear it all the time: "How do I build a business without being sleazy about it?"
I spent many years creating content that spoke to this question in my show, Awkward Marketing, where I tried to help people find "easy" swaps for the unethical practices that had become industry standard.
But, then I realized there was more to the conversation around "sleaze" in business than just switching out the "bad" with the "good."
I wrote about this in my essay, "I Hate Marketing" And Other Lies We Tell Ourselves.
Because after 13 years of running a branding studio and speaking with hundreds of entrepreneurs, I started to notice a pattern.
When people want a “non-sleazy” way of marketing their business, I believe what they are really asking for is a way out of capitalism.Becoming a business owner forces you to participate in the system in a different way, no longer as a passive consumer but someone driving your own products and services. And when you do this, you quickly realize all the ways that the game is rigged.
The celebrity personal brands leading the online business industrial complex want us to believe that if we don't like their methods, we have a mindset issue.
This is the same argument Tony Robbins makes when he says that the #MeToo movement is simply a "drug" to make victims feel good. He promotes an ideology that says we shouldn't get angry about systemic injustice, but instead think our way out of it individually.
And this is also the same argument that Napoleon Hill makes in his book, Think And Grow Rich.
In today's episode of Marketing Muckraking, I explore the culture of personal branding and my own quest to understand what branding is doing to us. This led me to explore the history of the personal brand, which took me back in time, stopping in the early 20th century, when Napoleon Hill built his brand and popularized the idea of thought leadership and manifestation in Think And Grow Rich.
Many of modern business's most influential leaders cite Think And Grow Rich as a book they draw immense inspiration from.Tony Robbins promotes Think And Grow Rich on his website with an affiliate link.
Daymond John of Shark Tank swears by its teachings.
Donald Trump loves Napoleon Hill and cited Think And Grow Rich in some of his own books.
The book is prosperity gospel meets snake oil.And if you know the history of snake oil, which was popularized in the USA in the late 19th and early 20th century by Clark Stanley, self-described "Rattlesnake King," then you also know that muckrakers tested his snake oil liniment and found that 1) it didn't contain any actual snake oil and 2) it didn't cure any of the things it purported to. That's where the term "snake oil salesman" comes from!
And Think And Grow Rich is snake oil, too.Napoleon Hill lied about much of the wisdom he shared in his book, where he claimed to interview the rich and famous, like Andrew Carnegie and Thomas Edison, on the "secrets to their success."
Not only that, but Hill ran one of the country's early pyramid schemes, led a sex cult, and covered up a murder? For the juicy details, you'll want to listen to this episode of the show.
Hill's success is more a credit to how capitalism rewards abuse than his own genius.
As I shared in this episode, there is no “do no harm” way of existing within capitalism.Most of the products we are surrounded by, with the very small exception of things like handmade goods you purchase directly from small creators — make their way through the supply chain, passing through the hands of many workers, with environmental impacts, as well as the implications of packaging and waste.
If you purchase fast fashion or buy your clothes from nearly any major retailer — that clothing has passed through a sweatshop.
If you’re a Midwesterner like me and you buy fruit in the winter — or any food that isn’t local to your region — that food has traveled thousands of miles to arrive at your grocery store. And there were people paid less than they should have been to get that food to you. I could go on and on.
I speak to many people who proudly boycott Amazon, for example, without realizing that Netflix and Disney+ both use Amazon web services.
So does Pinterest, AirBNB, NASA, The Guardian. So if you pin things on a mood board — you are supporting Amazon. If you read The Guardian, you are supporting Amazon. If you stay at an AIRBNB, you are supporting Amazon. And, if you are a tax paying American, you are supporting Amazon, simply because your taxes go to NASA.
There is no way to fully divest from the harms of capitalism. We are all participants in this system, whether we like it or not.
If you are troubled by what I shared in this episode, then the painful truth I must tell you is that the answers you seek won’t be found within capitalism. We’ve gone too far for that. There is no easy way to level the playing field or buy our way out of this.
Business, all business, within this system, is “sleazy.”
So then the question becomes — not “how do I find an easy, ethical swap for running my business the GOOD way,” but...
How do I run a business that mitigates and prevent as much harm as possible while building towards a better answer, a better future — outside this system?In my next episode, I’ll talk about the 4 types of change makers to help you figure out the most effective ways for YOU to make change within and outside of this system. We don’t ALL need to burn shit down — but we DO need all hands on deck.
Stay tuned for the next episode for more on what you can do to be part of the change we need — and spoiler — NO, it’s not thinking and growing rich.
Oh and should I do a Part 2 of this to tell you more about Napoleon Hill and his Immortal Baby Sex Cult?
Let me know!
Sources for and mentions in this podcast:
The Untold Story of Napoleon Hill, the Greatest Self-Help Scammer of All Time by Matt Novak on Gizmodo What You Need To Know About the Cult of Online Marketing, Episode 11 of Marketing Muckraking StoryBrand Scandal about Josh Harris and Donald Miller (And Josh Duggar?!?) -
Whether you've been in business for 10 years or 10 minutes — and even if you're not — you know that "freedom" is a term used to sell most anything. From online courses to laundry detergent to...the United States of America.
There is a history here.
When America shifted from an agrarian economy to one based around mass production, the capitalists who owned the factories churning out mass produced goods needed all hands on deck, not just on the factory floor, but at the cash register.
Many people believe that worker rights were won solely by dedicated activists but this is not entirely true.Decades before labor laws were passed, many forward thinking factory owners and CEOs started scaling back work weeks and increasing employee pay. Not because they had big hearts, but because they had big inventory to move. And they knew that a mass public too tired and broke to part with the few dollars they earned would spell catastrophe for their sales.
So, companies increased wages and decreased hours so that people had just enough time and money to buy the widgets they were producing.
And they rolled out widespread advertising campaigns to help people feel more comfortable spending their hard earned money.
Edward Filene deemed this "The School of Freedom," where the public was "trained" in being constant consumers.Freedom — the same selling point behind The Constitution — was now seen as the freedom to participate in the economy and buy whatever we wanted, regardless of race, ethnicity, sex, or credo.
Today, we no longer need "training" in "The School of Freedom."
We see buying as self-care.
Our liberties may be shrinking, but the amount of products fighting for the honor of helping us "treat" ourselves is consistently growing.
In this episode of Marketing Muckraking, we dive into the history of how advertisers helped create a mass buying public and what "freedom" means as it pertains to reproductive rights.
I am publishing this on Mother's Day weekend because this year, parenthood looks different for many people, which is why I'm choosing now to share my story of choice and my own complicated relationship with motherhood.
In the spirit of this episode on consumer culture, I urge you to consume more history. If you're going to buy, buy more books. Learn about this nation's history and traditions.I recommend A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn. This was the first book I read about American history that didn't present our founders as flawless heroes. Start here and then keep reading...
Sources for this episode include:
Captains of Consciousness: Advertising and the Social Roots of Consumer Culture by Stuart Ewen Land of Desire: Merchants, Power, and the Rise of a New American Culture by William Leach Satisfaction Guaranteed: The Making of an American Mass Market by Susan Strasser The Origins of the Family, Private Property, and The State by Friedrich Engels Self Care by Leigh Stein -
This podcast episode began in FREE SCHOOL. Listen to the full episode for more on what FREE SCHOOL was exactly and why it culminated in this essay and video.
I’ve thought a lot about whether I should include this in the Marketing Muckraking podcast...
This was while I was “burning it all down” and this recording is very fiery, to put it lightly.
But it’s also hilarious. And it’s also true.
Which is why I decided to include it here.
Nothing has changed since I posted this last year, except that time has passed and many people have forgotten that all this ever happened or never knew about it to begin with.
In this recording, I talk a lot about “putting it on the Google record” and that the scary thing about the Internet isn’t fake news, but no news. And I stand by that.When we’re talking about corporations with human faces in the age of the personal brand, one of the most troubling features is that people with self-professed 7, 8, 9+ figure companies want us to treat them the way we would a girl next door, instead of a corporation.
Many people believe that “women supporting women” don’t publicly say anything when a woman is harming millions of women.
But who exactly are we supporting when we believe this? Are we supporting the women who are harmed and gaslit into believing that they weren’t?
This recording doesn’t go after small businesses, but the folks at the top who are getting rich by making the rest of us believe we’re all just “one funnel away” from sitting at the table with them.
Just a few weeks ago, Rachel Hollis re-entered the speaking circuit — on Russell Brunson’s ClickFunnels stage. You’ll hear me address why he is so incredibly troubling and problematic in this video but let me boil it down to this.
Russell Brunson directly compares building a business to building a cult and he uses examples like Hitler to do it, rewriting history to position Hitler as a "movement builder."He says this in page 2 of his book, Expert Secrets, which Amy Porterfield still has a live affiliate link to on her own podcast and blog, where she says, “no one knows how to build a movement better than super entrepreneur Russell Brunson.” Later in the show notes she says, “I loved this book so much and I know you will, too.”
This is how I learned about Russell Brunson in the first place. Because I trusted Amy Porterfield and her recommendations.
In a 2017 interview with Andrew Warner of Mixergy, recorded at the same time as Porterfield's, Warner says, “You are the Adolf Hitler of ClickFunnels,” and Brunson agrees, while laughing.
Every person I cite in this recording has supported Brunson over the years and continues to support him — including and especially Jenna Kutcher and Rachel Hollis — and have never distanced themselves from him and his harmful approach to business as they did so performatively last year with Hollis when she made her statements disparaging her housekeeper.
So, that is why I’m bringing this recording back.
It’s still true.
It’s still deeply troubling.
And it should not be lost to Instagram history and forgotten simply because time has passed.
As I repeat again and again in this episode, put it on the record.Mentioned in this episode:
The Cult of Online Marketing Made Easy: the essay this podcast is based on Why are there no negative B-School reviews? StoryBrand Scandal: what Donald Miller, Josh Harris, Josh Duggar, and StoryBrand have in common -
The online business world is obsessed with 7-figure launch numbers and "scaling" your business model or, as they would have us believe, we're "leaving money on the table."
Small business owners mistakenly believe that once they've polished and validated their offerings, the only way to grow is to take themselves out of the equation, automate, evergreen, and sell to thousands.
When those thousands don't come (or they do come and they complain about the value of the program not matching its testimonials), folks feel that they've done something wrong. Maybe it's the ad targeting? Or the copywriting? Or some other "easy" marketing tweakaroo that can launch them into the 7-figure stratosphere?
But the "wrong" isn't the business owner or their offer...it's the belief that a 7-figure launch is just "one funnel away." And, ultimately, it comes down to the fact that some businesses have no business being scaled.
There's a lot more to a 7-figure launch than crafting a valuable offer and then throwing a few bucks at Zuck in hopes that his ad robots will serve you up to the right willing buyers.
In this episode of Marketing Muckraking, I break down the 7 secrets to a 7-figure launch...and why you don't want one. And the beautiful monster at the end of this episode is my alternative to "scaling" that doesn't include you withdrawing from your business and watching the dollars pour in while you smugly sip your $7 marg on tropical shores.
What I can tell you is that, yes! There is a way to save time and energy while still offering your customers and clients personal attention. Listen for the full scoop.
Read the full transcript here. - もっと表示する
