Direct Response Marketing works because it plays into basic human psychology. Trouble is, it’s mostly not taught that way. Instead, most Direct Marketing principles are taught with an emphasis on how it works. That’s fine as far as it goes. But sometimes people don’t get it, or they forget the basic truths on which it is grounded.

Now we’re going to explore WHY it works – the RULES. Basic human psychology starts from a few assumptions about human nature. The interesting thing is that, while these assumptions have been brought together under the umbrella of NLP, they are actually drawn from sources as different as General Semantics, Gestalt Psychology, and behavioral observations. They apply directly to good response-driven marketing.

And now these assumptions are being validated by modern brain research. I’ve matched these NLP assumptions about human nature with the elements of Direct Response Marketing they explain.

The customer is the source of your success. YOU cause your failure, not the customer. How? The way to fail is to ignore what the customer wants!

Direct Response Marketing is about you and the market. We’ll start in order of importance. But note. All of the principles noted under “Market” apply to you, and all the principles noted under “you” apply to your customers also. These principles apply to all humans. I just clustered them where they would make the strongest points about marketing.

I. The Market

This is where successful Direct Response Marketing begins. With the market.

NOT the product, and NOT your needs or interests. Those priorities are where old-fashioned, force-feeding, foot-in-the-door hit-you-over-the-head advertising starts. And why it largely fails.

Instead, we start with the market. What do they want? How do they want to be addressed? You will succeed to the exact degree that you match them.

It’s been said that successful advertising begins when you enter the conversation going on in your prospect’s head. So, how do you do that?

You must understand how people work. How they think. And that’s where we begin.

1. People are like map makers
This means that all  humans – including you and me — make “maps” of our world. These maps are a representation of the world as it appears to us. And each of us has a slightly different map. The trouble comes when you think that everyone’s map is the same as yours.

The way to succeed is to fit yourself and your offer into the customer’s maps. That means knowing their world as well as you know your own.

2. People respond to their maps of reality, not to reality itself
All thought  — memories, recall, imaginings, daydreams, fantasies; all of these can be called maps. Therefore, your communications must be addressed to your market’s maps. Not your own.

3. People’s maps are made up of pictures, sounds, feelings, smells and tastes
These are “languages of the senses” that our brains use to record our experiences. When you communicate in these languages your message has power.

Your message may shimmer before their eyes, it may whisper into their dreams, it may warm or chill them, shock or thrill them. But it will be physical and sensory. NOT intellectual. Verbs and nouns. Not adjectives and adverbs.

4. Some maps are out of awareness
We are unaware of some of the maps that we have made, and much of effective communication is aimed at the unconscious. Sound manipulative? Maybe. This is psychological reality, not philosophy.

5. If you change someone’s map, his or her emotional state will change
To an individual, their map IS their experience.  Maps are the source of emotion and belief. When you communicate effectively to your reader they will relate to you emotionally. THAT’S how to succeed.

6. Behind every behavior is a positive intention
When you seek the “goal behind the behavior”, you will find a universally shared need, like love, safety, self-respect, etc. By linking your appeal to these universal emotions/needs/values you will be irresistible to your audience.

7. People work perfectly to produce the results they are getting
Again, your success or failure is determined by you — and your results are perfect for what you attempted. People are perfect - all you need to do is to discover what they want and offer it to them.

8. Choice is better than no choice
No choice means slavery. Two choices is digital, either-or, black-white, robotic behavior. Having three or more choices in any context gives an individual the freedom to change and grow; “More clicks on the dial” is a good thing. So, offer more attractive choices.

And remember, there are always more choices available than your offer, more messages demanding the attention of our audience. That’s good. More opportunity for you to study what succeeds. Then you can imitate the successful parts of those messages, while you draw a contrast between their offers and your own.

9. People always make the best choices, based upon the information available to them at that moment — but they would often be happier and more effective if they had more choices. It’s your job to offer them a better choice than what they see now, and show them why it’s so.

II. You

Okay, now we’re at the point of real interest to you, which is you. What’s your place in the scheme of things? What do you have to do – or think – to become a success juggernaut?

Hint: it’s all about the maps in your head. Maps about you, and the world, and success.

10. The map is not the territory
Our maps determined by the focus of our attention in the moment. So, when you think about marketing, what comes up for you? Work? Risk? Prosperity? Service? Discovery? Freedom?

What’s YOUR map?

What do you want?
What would it be like if you get what you want?
How will you know when you get it? What will you see, hear, and feel?
What keeps you from getting it now? What are you afraid of?

11. Anyone can do anything that anyone else can do
Since all human nervous systems are similar, we can model and learn each other’s skills and attitudes.  “Monkey see, monkey do”. Therefore, you can learn to be a successful marketer, on behalf of anything you want to promote. You just need to decide.

12. The quality of our lives is determined by the quality of our communications
Internal and External.  How we communicate with ourselves influences our experience; how we communicate with others determines the way we are treated throughout our lives.

In the context of Direct Response Marketing, communication means the discipline and art of Copywriting. It’s the most easily judged and highest paid writing there is. If it succeeds you know it almost immediately, and you can earn immense sums of money.

13. A system’s most flexible element has the most influence
True freedom lies in this presupposition. When you have more ways to respond to a situation you have more influence — more ways to get your desired outcome. People who get mad and go home, or who get discouraged and quit, are NOT the most flexible or influential.

To win you must allow No excuses, no B.S. Only endless variations of your behavior until you get your desired outcome. It may even lead you to change your original idea of what you wanted.

14. The meaning of any communication is the response it gets
“But that’s not what I meant”, you say when you’re misunderstood. Tough noogies. When you’re communicating, it doesn’t matter what you intend – all that matters is what others think of it.

Communication is not a solo act. It takes place somewhere between the communicator and the receiver. And the receiver gets to decide what the meaning is.

This is the key to successful Direct Response Marketing. Did you get a response? Good.

Was it what you wanted? Yes? Then go to the bank and celebrate. No? Then you should change your approach until you get what you want. Direct Response Marketing is much more like engineering than it is like art.

15. There is no such thing as failure; there is only feedback
You are always producing a result; if it’s not what you want, use the unwanted result as feedback to guide you to trying other choices. Again, the key to Direct Response Marketing is this concept.

Like NLP, successful communications depends on PAYING ATTENTION TO YOUR LISTENER/READER.

16. If what you are doing isn’t working, try anything else
If you keep at it you aren’t certain to succeed, but you sure stack the odds.
The only way to fail is to quit trying!

This is the key to success in any field.

Firm commitment. Extreme flexibility. Firm commitment AND extreme flexibility.

It’s a “Zen blend”.

It was a dark and stormy night.

I always wanted to start a story that way, and actually, it WAS a dark and stormy night. I was driving a compact car and dragging a covered trailer with about a ton of books and personal property in it. We were on a four lane highway coming out of the mountains, headed steeply downhill to the valley floor. As I came out of the last set of mountains I could see the valley below lit by flashes of lightning.

I would have enjoyed the view, if we hadn’t been slammed by a gust of wind that was pounding across the face of the mountains. The trailer started fishtailing wildly, whipping the car from side to side. The highway was divided and there was a dropoff on each side, hundreds of feet deep. I didn’t want to lose control and arrive at the bottom of the mountains any sooner than we could get there by driving.

“We’re in trouble,” I told my wife.

“Can you fix it?” She asked.

“I don’t know. Hang on.”

I remembered my Dad telling me that when you were dragging a heavy load and it started fishtailing, you should speed up so that the trailer was directly behind you, and then apply the brakes. I knew my Dad had done a lot of driving in his life, so I followed his advice.

It was hard to get myself to do it. We were going downhill fast in the stormy dark and weaving wildly all over the highway. Believe me, the LAST thing I wanted to do was go faster.

I gulped, and put the pedal down to the floor. We got up to about 70 or 80 and the fishtailing smoothed out. I thought we were going to be fine until I saw the trailer slide past me on its metal side. It had broken a wheel, tipped over and snapped the trailer hitch, and was traveling faster than we were on the rain-slick highway. And it was going to drag us by the safety chain, which was attached to the frame of my car. Oops.

We pinwheeled across the highway, headed for the edge. I waited until the trailer was behind us and applied the brakes.

Now we were going backwards at about 60 miles per hour, facing uphill. I warned my wife to brace herself for a sudden stop. We jerked to a halt when the trailer axle dug into the curb at the edge of the dropoff, and then we slammed backwards into the trailer.

“Get out, get out!” I yelled, fearing that someone coming downhill would plow into us. I had the headlights on but we were below a curve in the highway and facing into traffic. I ran uphill, laying out road flares to warn other drivers. Fortunately, it was late and traffic was light. We were very lucky.

Okay, here’s the punch line and why this story makes sense for you, in this economy.

A few hours after our accident, when our property had been gathered from the spill and the trailer and car had been towed, we were given a ride to a hotel by the Highway Patrol.

“You know, we’ve pulled lots of people out of that dropoff and they didn’t do too well,” the officer told us. “You were smart to put on the gas when you did.”

“Huh?” I said. “I thought that it didn’t work.”

“Oh, it would have worked a lot better if your trailer hadn’t broken off a wheel,” he said. “But it turned out pretty good anyway. If you hadn’t dragged your rig straight, it would have jackknifed into you, and you probably would have rolled off the highway. Lots of drivers in your situation panic and hit their brakes.

“Because it was straightened out before you used your brakes, you were able to let the trailer stop at the curb and then stop against it. Following your father’s advice probably saved your lives.”

I remember thinking about that officer’s words as I enjoyed a hot shower that night. Here I was, safe and warm when I might have gone over the edge and been crushed at the bottom of the canyon instead. If I hadn’t followed Dad’s advice and faced my fear and taken control.

Hmmm. You know, it’s kind of like our whole economy is spinning out of control right now, on a dark and stormy night. We have had some bad financial news in the last few months. And there are 24-hour news channels on TV repeating it until people start to freak out and believe that things are hopeless.

Actually, the worst effect of hard times comes from these sensational stories. They’re repeated so much that lots of people overreact and create even more bad effects. Sales slow down, projects are delayed, jobs are eliminated and it’s all you hear about for a while. Totally unjustified by reality. Fueled entirely by fear.

So this story is useful to you how? Here’s how — YOU don’t have to star in the “financial highway crash” stories that they tell on the news.

In my highway story, my Dad’s driving experience gave me a tactic that saved us, even though it was the opposite of my impulse.

When it comes to economic upset I’ve been here before. A drop in real estate values also triggered the Savings & Loan collapse in the 80s’, and I was working in land development. I remember being told by a sales manager that hard times were full of opportunity. You needed to go out and sell more because that’s JUST when all your competitors are running for their caves, thinking that no one will buy anything.

The truth is, SOME PEOPLE ARE ALWAYS BUYING. There are just fewer of them. But there will also be less competition if you hang in there. That means your customers will have fewer choices, so you need to let them know you’re confident and stable when others are cutting back and shutting down.

“What you oughta be doing,” a sales manager told me, “is to sell more, invest more, and take advantage of price reductions and special offers. There’ll be plenty of ‘em.

“Your competition is thinning itself out. Just work a little harder and smarter for a while, and when things turn around you’ll be better off than you were before.”

So I invite you to think about it. It might be a good idea to hit the gas and take control of things. You’ll have more influence over events instead of being the helpless victim.

That way, chances are much better that you won’t go over the edge.

Seeya,

Tom Hoobyar

Word count 292, reading time 1.5 minutes

Boyoboyo…

The Olympics ruined my sleeping schedule. And now there are the Political Conventions!

At least there are boring parts in the Conventions where reporters will tell us what we just heard (filtered through their biases) so I can get some work done.

It’s amazing how many things there are to keep us from doing what makes our lives work - in my case what makes my life work — besides my relationships - is writing.

These other things seem so important (the Olympics only come around once every four years, and so do the Conventions!) and yet, if the really IMPORTANT stuff slides, our lives can go down the drain.

Vikki and I are struggling to get some time together when we’re not tranced out in front of the TV in the evenings - and I do have some serious writing to do quickly - important new products are pushing their way from my mind down into my fingertips and need to get tapped out into my laptop.

But then someone like Michelle Obama or that guy from Montana will break my concentration with some great TV theater, and —

I guess I’ll be glad when all this is over.

Or maybe I can discover a new way to think about these interruptions.

I remember in a past life, my mate’s mother said something that stuck in my mind.

She had remarried in late middle age, to a well-to-do widower. They had a wonderful life, migrating from a northern city to their Florida home with the weather, and she was complaining about the constant round of cocktail parties and redecorating and getting ready for trips to Europe — then she heard what she was whining about.

She caught herself and laughed and said,

“Boy, there’s just not enough time to do all the things you don’t have to do!”

Nope. There’s NEVER enough time to do all the “things you don’t have to do.” We all get the same 1440 minutes in each day of our lives. And that’s enough time to do the things we need to do. So I’m resorting my schedule during the rest of the Conventions, and putting the important things first.

Still, I’m glad I saw as much of the Olympics as I did. Some of those young athletes’ performances were amazing and inspiring. And I can always use a dash of inspiration.

Seeya,

Tom

1469 words, reading time 5.9 minutes

I had casual conversations with three men on a recent business trip. It wasn’t until I was thinking about them on the way home that I realized how special each visit had been, and what wonderful surprises were in store for anyone who noticed these men and took a moment to pass the time of day. Here they are:

DANTE

Dante worked at the hotel where I stayed, cooking breakfast for the guests at a breakfast buffet. I met him the first morning — he was hard to miss with his tall white hat cocked at an angle, and wearing a smile that lit up the room.

“How do you want your omelet, sir?” He almost sang it to me in a West Indies Accent.

“Oh, just ham and cheese,” I replied, “winter in Baltimore must be a lot colder than where you’re from — Caribbean?” I asked, just to make conversation.

“Oh, yeah, man, this is even colder than where I last moved from — Arizona, I really loved it there,” he said.

“Why did you move here?”

“Well, my mom was sick and I came to take care of her. And when she died I had taken this job.” He smiled and cracked more eggs for the grumpy guy behind me in the line, who seemed to suspect that our conversation was going to delay his breakfast.

“Why didn’t you move back there afterward? There are lots of hotels would love to have a cheerful cook like you.”

“Yeah, I know, but man — I really love what I do here — and in Arizona you gotta go to this school and get a food handler’s license. And I just wanna cook, man. And now I got a girlfriend and I’m happy doin’ what I do. So I put up with this cold, because that’s not as important as doin’ what I love to do.”

We said our good days and I took my eggs to my table, and behind me I heard Dante telling the next guy, he was going to get a specially good omelet for being patient while Dante ‘visited with his friend Tom’.”

Dante had next few days off, so I didn’t see him till the day I was preparing to leave.

“Hey, Tom, goin’ back to that warm California?” he greeted me.

“Yep, Dante, going home today. I just came by to get one more of your omelets.”

“I’ll make you one up special. You take care now, and I’ll see you when you come back.”

He was as happy as he’d been the first day I met him.

I’ll always remember the Jamaican guy who didn’t mind the Baltimore winters as long as he could cook omelets for the guests in that hotel. Doing what he loved to do.

TILLEY

The hotel desk lady told me that they had a limo driver who could take me to the airport. I thought she said he was named “Tilley.” I pictured a kind of Irish guy so I was surprised when my driver turned out to be emphatically Middle Eastern.

“Where you from?” I asked him, as we got under way.

“Casablanca,” he said.

“Oh, I just wondered. When they said your name was Tilley I expected a Irishman or Englishman.”

“Do you trouble if I’m Moroccan?” he asked, “Because I can turn you over to another driver if you prefer, Sir.”

“Oh no, I’m fine, and you have a lovely car.” I said.

Then after driving in silence for a while I asked him why he had offered to get me another driver.

“Well, since 9-11, some people don’t like me because I’m Moroccan,” he told me. “They don’t care that I’m good driver and not Al Queda.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I told him.

“Yeah, last week this guy told me that my people killed friends of his at the World Trade Center. I told him that those were Saudi Terrorists, and I’m American citizen for twenty years. It didn’t make difference for him.”

“That’s terrible,” I said. “My dad’s from Iran and my daughter got hassled in school back in 1980 when the Iranians took those hostages from the American Embassy. And she was born here and has more Danish blood than Iranian. People can be pretty dumb when they’re mad at someone.”

He chuckled, “It doesn’t bother me very much, Sir. I’m married to a wonderful woman and have two wonderful children. They love me. And I own this fine car and have a good life. These rude guys don’t bother me at all. I know what people say to me isn’t really about me. I’m happy and I know God loves me.”

He was a very wise man.

We rode the rest of the way to the airport in companionable silence.

ODAMA

On my way to California I had to switch planes in Atlanta, with more than three hours between flights. I made my way to the airline club to wait in comfort. It was a slow day with very few people in the club. The room was warmed by the sun streaming through the windows in cozy contrast to the icy day outside.

As I made my way to the men’s room I passed a shoeshine station, high leather chairs against a wall. I startled an older man sleeping in the sun in one of the chairs, and arranged to get a shoeshine on my return from the restroom to make up for waking him.

He was from Nigeria, and as we talked I asked him if a slow day at Atlanta airport did him much damage in the pocketbook.

“Oh, I take it as it comes,” he said. “God knows what I need and it all balances out. Some days slow, some days busy. I never fret about what I can’t change. I just think about doin’ my best and things turn out mostly okay.”

He whistled a little tune to himself as he worked over my shoes, nodding his head as he whipped the cloth around my heels. As I got down I reached to shake his hand. He pulled away.

“Oh, no Sir, I’ve got polish on my hands and you’ll get dirty.”

“I’ll go wash up, but I want to shake your hand and thank you for a good visit.” I said.

So he smiled and wiped his hands on his cloth, and with a little formal nod he shook my hand and wished me well.

As I walked away I realized that he shouldn’t have felt embarrassed. I was the one who had been blessed by our meeting.

Hours later on the plane, I found myself thinking about these three men.

A short-order cook from Jamaica, a limo driver from Morocco, a shoeshine guy from Nigeria.

Most people would just pass them by and never notice them. Yet each one had reminded me of an important principle of wise living and they had not only talked about it, they were EACH LIVING EXAMPLES of what they said:

1 - If you’re doing what you love small inconveniences aren’t important.

2 - Don’t take personally what others say to you — it isn’t about you — it’s about how they’re feeling at the moment.

3 - Don’t worry about things you can’t change, just focus on doing your best and things will turn out as well as they can.

Wise men — and women — live among us everywhere. They’re serving us food, mowing our lawns, and handing us our clothes at the dry cleaners. Any casual conversation can surprise you with inspiration, humor, optimism and hope.

I don’t know about you, but I can’t possibly remember all the wise attitudes and advice that I’ve heard and read.

But now things are different. I feel like I am going through my days surrounded by coaches and wise people. It’s like almost everyone I talk with is a helper, supporter, cheerleader and companion on this adventure trip called Life, and they all have tips or encouragement for me on the way.

If I’d figured this out when I was younger, life would have been even MORE interesting and fun than it has been.

Maybe it will be for you.

Word Count 588, approximately 2 minutes reading time

I’ve been traveling a lot this year. For instance, I haven’t been home for a complete week since July.

That means that for the last four months I’ve seen lots of hotel rooms, restaurants and airports.

LOTS.

And here’s the thing. After a while, even a life of constant shifting and change becomes ordinary. Even though I was almost never in the same hotel, restaurant or airport for more than a day or so, I got used to certain things.

Like for instance, the paper towel dispensers in the men’s rooms.

At home, when I wash my hands I reach over to my left and there’s a clean hand towel, nicely folded on the towel bar by my loving wife.

Haven’t seen much of those hand towels this last season or so.

Nope, what I’ve seen instead is a bunch of these black plastic contraptions on the wall by the sink that dispense paper towels. Some of them have a little seeing eye in the front, and when you wave your wet hands around, flipping water all over the place, they burp out a stingy little towel.

So you have to wave your hands several times to get enough towels to dry your hands.

And it takes the towel gadget a few seconds to realize that you want another little piece of towel, and a while later it finally gives you one. And by then your hands are mostly dry anyway.

Or there’s a button on the front or on the side.

Which is usually messy because everyone with wet hands has had to press this same button.

So I’m in this men’s room - I don’t even remember whether it was an airport or a restaurant - but I was at the sink with wet hands, already irritated by the machine I was gonna have to plead with to get my hands dried off.

I wave around, and nothing happens.

Maybe it didn’t see my hands.

I wave them closer. Nothing. Then I wave them under the front of the place where the towels come out. Still nothing. So I wave my hands right in front of the damn thing. Nothing.

Grrr. IS IT BLIND???

Okay. I see a little silver round thing on the side. Could be a button. I push it.

Nope. It was a rivet.

I look over the box carefully, and push on a plate with the trademark and another thing that turns out to be another rivet. Nothing.

So then, being a hotshot engineer and an experienced traveler, I examine the slot where the towels come out. Maybe I can just pull one out even if the machine’s broken.

I see the edge of a towel sticking out. I pull it, and it pops right out! Wow! So I pull out another one. And another one!

It works! Just like the old-fashioned towel dispensers of the good old days.

Turns out that’s just exactly what it was. An old-fashioned towel gadget that just looked like one of the new ones.

No buttons. No seeing eye. Just a slot where you reach out and pull out a paper towel, or a bunch of them if you want.

Sometimes, you should just look at things with “new eyes.”

And that seems especially true when you go into a situation thinking that you already know how things are.

So take care and keep exploring your world — with new eyes.

You never know what you’ll stumble across.

Seeya,

Tom

Article Word Count 828, average reading time 3.3 minutes.

I did a dumb thing the other day. That’s not all that unusual for me, but this one stayed with me for a while and I think something interesting came out of it.

Have you ever whipped out a quick answer to an email and hit the “send” button?

I mean, hit it too fast? And then thought of what you REALLY should have said?

That’s what I did, and it cost me a re-do and an explanation. Minor embarrassment. No biggy.

Here’s what happened. I was going through my emails, trying to answer as many as possible, and I wrote one to a colleague of mine to congratulate him on something he had written. Just a quick note of appreciation was all I intended.

Trouble is, I hit the “send” button just as I was thinking that I hadn’t said what I meant. Even worse, I HAD said stuff that I didn’t actually mean to say. The words just came out wrong.

I really respect this guy, and now I had to go back and say, “Never mind. This is what I was trying to say the first time.” I finished my explanation by saying, “Sometimes the ’send’ button is just damn too easy!”

Later that night, as I was trying to go to sleep, there was this argument in my mind. I heard a little voice saying to me, “It’s not the ’send’ button that’s the problem, Tom, the problem is you didn’t even stop to read your email and consider whether that’s what you intended to say. It’s not the “send” button that’s too damn easy, it’s you!”

I vowed that in the future I would reread my emails and consider what the other person reading them might make of what I wrote, before I actually send them.

I went to sleep thinking thoughts about how life is speeding up, there’s too much email in the world, and maybe I ought to reduce my number of email boxes or something.

Still thinking about it over coffee and melon the next morning.

Then I had a really nasty thought. It’s even easier to hit the “send” button when you’re talking! I mean, when you write an email there’s something you can read before you send it. All you have to do is to take the time to do it, and you can send out your best thinking.

It’s different when you’re talking. Once you open your mouth it’s out there, whatever you may have said.

I immediately remembered the last few times someone had misunderstood something I had said to them.

Like my wife Vikki. Or my grandchildren. Or a waiter, or someone on the phone.

Oops.

You know what? It wasn’t them. I have to admit that when we got to the bottom of each of those misunderstandings, it turned out that they had gotten the wrong impression from something I had said to each of them.

Huh!

I remember reading somewhere that God gave us two ears and only one mouth so we would listen twice as much as we talked.

Still, what got me into trouble wasn’t talking more than listening. It was talking without saying what I wanted to say.

“So,” went my thinking, “Suppose I treated my verbal communications just like the email. If I wanted to reread my verbal “emails” before I hit the ’send’ button in my jaw, I would have to think more before I speak.”

I’d have to consider what I was going to say from the standpoint of the person I was talking to - and consider how it might strike them - instead of just saying whatever came into my mind.

Being more thoughtful about what I said didn’t mean I was going to become a stiff robot. It just meant that, before I said something I was going to try to hear it as if I was the other person.

I remember when I was a teenager; there was this old black lady who was a waitress in a coffee shop I used to hang out in when I was a kid.

Everybody in the place loved her and was always asking her advice. Whenever two people were discussing something important, the answer I heard over and over was, “Ask Hildy.”

I couldn’t figure out why she was so important to all of these people. She was just a waitress in a coffee shop, but businessmen and even the owner of the place would go “ask Hildy” what she thought — about a new menu, a new girlfriend or a new job.

I asked her one day why so many people liked to talk with her.

“Well, Tommy” she said. “Every time I start to say something, I just stop and taste the words before I let ‘em out of my mouth.”

Hmmm. Forty years ago, before anyone had ever even heard of email, this wise woman knew about checking her messages before sending them out.

In the future, I think I’ll review more than just my emails before hitting the “send” button.

Seeya,

Tom Hoobyar
(Excerpted from “Friendly Persuasion”), © 2006, 2007 by Tom Hoobyar