An Absolute Must Read

You have no choice but to read this article right now, courtesy of Brian.

Click Here ... I'll Wait For You.

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What did you think?

Remember last year when I gave a talk in the Czech Republic and my thesis was that all of retail / e-commerce / catalog marketing was trending toward Sports? In other words, entertainment and the ecosystem around entertainment would come to commerce ... as part of a necessary evolution of shopping.

• Here's an article from last year as an example (click here).
• Here's an article from the past week as an example (click here).

Don't believe me?

Who is Shop.org featuring in a few weeks?

• Kobe Bryant.
• Tyra Banks.

Neither individual will share best practices for email subject lines or non-branded paid search terms. They are there for one reason and one reason only ... to entertain you. And you'll spend the profit generated by 50 customers to attend and be entertained. You'll come back to the office and your boss will say "What did you learn?" and you'll regale your team with the myriad ways that Kobe Bryant inspired you to be great.

Remember that talk I gave in the Czech Republic last year? Evening DJs and a festive environment and food & beverage ... an entertaining environment ... one that caused 1,500 seats to sell out in eight minutes ... EIGHT minutes!

So back to the article. The Mall of America was criticized for their approach 25 years ago ... they ignore the moribund pundits who demand that you do things their way so that they get paid ... and now with 5,000+ store closures THIS YEAR ALONE the Mall of America is thriving. Did you read how they HUSTLE ... did you read about how hard they work? More annual visitors than DisneyWorld?

Your future is low-cost / no-cost customer acquisition.

You'll accomplish this not by paying Facebook another $100,000, but by hustling, by entertaining your customers. Fuse those concepts with great merchandise and fair prices, and you've got something.