Can I Review Your Portfolio?

You could, but what for?

Aaron Levenstein once said...

"Statistics are like bikinis. What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital."

Portfolios are the same. For instance, what you see when you look at a website is a tiny part of the full story. You can say whether or not you like the colours. But does it matter what you think? That website was designed with someone else's target market in mind. And thousands of morons judge webdesigners' capabilities based on what their clients asked them to do.

You see, some people build portfolios in search of awards, glitz, glamour and glory. Just look at the award-winning "Got Milk" ad, Pepsi commercial with Michael Jackson or a few years ago the Nissan commercial. All three of them won numerous awards and were great ego-candy for the ad agencies, but financially all three bombed miserably, having lost millions of dollars for their clients.

My clients seek fortune over fame. Money over medals; profits over plaques and portfolios; Moolah over memorabilia; rewards over awards; cash over cachet; fortune over fame; greenbacks over gimmicks. And I've always thought that selecting professionals based on their "portfolios" with no regard to the improvement in their clients' condition is just as retarded as selecting surgeons based on their portfolios of cool and impressive incisions and fancy and fashionable stitches with no regard to how many of their patients died during or after surgery.

Using Oscar-winning British actress, Helen Mirren's words...

"Awards are the crème-de-la-crème of bullshit."

This reminds me of an interesting and relevant story. One day, the European aircraft manufacturer, Airbus held a test evacuation exercise on its A380 plane. The exercise was a blazing success. That is, the exercise was completed within the allocated time frame. Although several people got hurt, one broke his leg, but the tasks were completed within the given time allotment, so the real outcome was deemed to be irrelevant.

I've recently talked to someone who is a co-ordinator at a government-sponsored self-employment programme. After taking these courses, some 75% of participants, instead of starting their businesses, get a job and live the rest of their lives as employees, just as they did before. To my surprise the co-ordinator explained to me, "Tom, you don't understand how government programmes operate. As long as we dispense 140 hours of classroom tutelage and can prove that every participant wrote document called "business plan", we are blazingly successful regardless of the actual failure rate. And we are blazingly successful even if they end up on welfare or homeless begging on the streets."

Fancy portfolios carefully hide one thing, the most important thing from the client's perspective: Was that initiative profitable for the client? Was it a wise investment with substantial return or just another idiotic waste of time and money?

In the movie Amadeus, the royal court requested Mozart to submit samples of his work to a selection committee to select the most appropriate tutor for a 13-year old child. Imagine! A group of pompous, snob musical idiots are to judge whether or not the musical genius Mozart was good enough to teach a kid.

But personally, I don't care much about awards or portfolios. I only care if my work improves my clients' condition. That's all. I have been told that you can't use awards and portfolios to feed your family and make payroll. So, as a direct response marketer, I focus on helping my clients to create business development programmes that generate new sales leads and bring in new clients. Smart business owners seem to prefer money to plaques, trophies and portfolios.

Just look at the difference between martial arts and real combat skills. In martial arts you learn how to score points and win trophies. In combat you learn how to kill (a.k.a. produce results) without the frills. Huge difference. Maybe a bit rough comparison, but it will do, and being a former soldier, it's a bit close to me. If you are looking for a security guard for your family who do you choose? A martial arts master with trophies or an ex-commando who actually has seen real bullets fly, has shot some people and been shot at? The former knows how to score points and collect trophies, but the latter knows how to defend, protect and kill... if necessary.

Every project is drastically different, because every client is unique. If you are interested, you can get a taste of my work by taking advantage of a "Show Me The Money" Sample Session. Also, my clients love the idea that I keep their success under the radar screens and away from the keen eyes of their competitors who'd love to lay their dirty little paws on my clients' strategies.

As Mark twain once put it...

"Thunder is good, thunder is impressive; but it is lightning that does the work."

Similarly, a portfolio is just veneer. The power is a lot deeper. Of course, idiots who don't have the brainpower to dig for substance, get impressed with style and what they see, and blissfully ignore the essence. I'm just wondering... What is the logic in admiring the photograph of a healthy-looking child, while ignoring the X-ray that shows advanced cancer?

One thing is certain. Together we can create a portfolio for your that could kick arse in your industry.

Now you decide...

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