text: Which expensive, startup-killing marketing mistakes do you need to avoid? How do you plan and implement a successful, brand-building Kickstarter campaign? How do you find just the right angles to earn local and national media coverage? How do you position yourself, your product or service against established competitors? What is your brand? Your USP?
  Entrepreneurs, inventors and startups are attracted to me because they want no-BS answers to these questions, and more. They appreciate a non-judgmental, objective opinion from a marketing and PR expert with over 25 years of experience. Most appreciate working with a copywriter who's trained in psychology, hypnotherapy and NLP, and knows how to market directly to the lizard brain. Some are jazzed up about the media coverage and web traffic I help them earn.
  How did it all start? Cash-stuffed reply envelopes burst out of the too-full post office box, falling like autumn leaves and covering my shoes with hundreds of dollars in donations. It was 1986. With my first-ever direct mail campaign, I had raised twice as much as any previous campaign in a fraction of the time...ultimately enough money to keep myself employed.
  Fresh out of college, I was working at the local arts council, promoting gallery openings and running the grant program. Recently-announced budget cuts meant I was getting the axe at the end of the fiscal year. So, as the token writer on staff, I was elected to write a fundraising letter to our in-house list of 5,000 or so painters, sculptors, musicians, actors, filmmakers, dancers and their patrons. My goal? Replace about 75% of our current budget with new donations. (No pressure, Kathleen.)
  I wrote from the heart, person to person. No B.S., no hype, just a reminder of how the agency made our community a better place for artists and the arts. I asked for money, and explained the tangible and intangible benefits the reader would get in return.
  Without any formal training--without even knowing what a “copywriter” was or what “direct response” meant--I had discovered that people would send you money (or buy your stuff...or cover your event...or run your press release) if you just asked them the right way and explained what’s in it for them.
  I’ve been persuading people to do my bidding (er, my clients’ bidding) ever since.
  At the turn of the Millennium I was invited to fill in for a vacationing copywriter at a direct response agency (learning two new words for the price of one, and discovering what I was really supposed to be doing with my life.) For seven years I soaked up DM wizardry from the best mentors in the business, earned scads of awards, and helped our clients generate millions of dollars in revenues and media coverage with my benefit-drenched copy.
  Now I work directly with clients and causes I believe in, wielding my superpowers as a Force for Good. (My superpower is "Spreading Good News That Improves People's Lives." What's yours?)
  I'm not sure what you'll like most about working with me. Why not give me a call, and we'll find out?