Yours truly,

Luis Galarza,
Internet Marketing For The Poor

Sent you an email with my contact info and some times that are open for me. To help you avoid harassment I edited out your email address now that I have it.

Jack

Glad to see everyone is getting along now… drop me an email at (email removed) and let me know a good time to reach out to you. I will also try your email address from above.

Josef

First let me say thank you for your compliment to my response. You are clearly a gentleman to be able to do that in this situation. Rest assured you have a TON of my respect at this point.

Now let me respond to your two points you sure as heck are entitled to my response once again and again I thank you for commenting on my blog.

First Point you said - “I submit that the best way to get people to have an open mind is to not start out by saying that their work “sucks” and that they should be fired. I don’t think that opens a whole lot of minds, do you”?

Actually I have found the opposite to be true, well, mostly. I did read my post over and get how you could have gotten that I said you should be fired out of it, that was not my intention but I do get how you could see it that way. Yes I would be PO’d if I were you and read it that way.

However, when it comes to being willing to tell someone something sucks I have closed many deals simply by doing that. I know it may seem counter to conventional wisdom but a lot of VP’s, CEOs, etc are absolutely sick and tired of “yes men” I am a marketer first and foremost so when I consult either by invitation or via blogging I am brutally honest and have found for every person I tick off I make 5 into life long partners and clients and that is a ratio I am happy to keep.

Next on this point, let me ask you in all honesty if I posted a POSITIVE post about your blog would you be in discussion with me now, would Mr. Katz? You get people’s attention by pointing to problems at least when they are honestly a problem. In short I would like to work with you or your company some day and I could have called you, emailed you and praised you and 99% odds are that I would be still talking to myself. My way may seem abrasive but it does work.

Second Point and this is WAY MORE IMPORTANT then my first response. You said - “So from that, it is pretty clear that The Trump Blog does not suck, per your own definition of what sucking means - a failure to achieve desired metrics and goals.”

OK I am going to try to be a good teacher here by taking this into your world and putting it in concepts that make perfect sense to you. Let us say that you went to talk to a perspective business partner and were considering investing in or buying his business. Say he said look at our numbers our Gross Sales and Gross Margin have both grown for 12 quarters so you have to admit we are a success. Say he wanted you to make your decision ONLY with that information.

You would know something STINKS. First you would want to know Net Profit (or if any net profit actually existed). You would also want to know the growth trend, sure it went up for 12 quarters but is the growth flattening, rising or constant? You would want to know what other companies were doing in the same niche, what their margins were, growth was and more right?

Well, that is how I would look at your Blog and at T.U. as a whole. I don’t care that your subscriber number is rising, I really don’t, of course it is! You have the Trump name, I want to know how well you are maximizing it. So my HARD QUESTIONS in a board room to you and the total staff would be,

1. What percentage of new visitors to the site show up every day and how many subscribe?

2. Is that trend going up or down or is it flat and why? I mean I don’t give a crap that he number is going up, of course it is, subs always go up. What is your conversion ratio and what trend is it on? That matters.

3. What is your 30, 60, 120 and 365 day retention ratios?

4. What percentage of subscribers buy a course and what is your reorder rate and what trend are they on?

5. What is your VPV? (value per visitor) what trend is it on?

6. What is your ARPU (average revenue per user) what trend is it on?

7. Where is your traffic coming from other then direct requests and is it growing and at what rate?

8. Why do you seek rss subscribers, news letter subscribers but not email subscribers for notifications of each new post when only 12% of blog readers currently use RSS? How do you explain your lack of attention to this detail? What are you doing to improve subscriptions over all?

9. What percentage of users comment? Further how often does the staff answer comments and what effect does that have overall on interaction and comment rates?

10. What is your bounce rate on your main blog and your individual pages? Which pages have the highest and lowest bounce rates and why is that the case?

11. Are you testing and split testing to improve all the above metrics? If not, why not?

Let me honestly ask you how well could you answer those questions if Donald himself asked them in a board room scenario? Would you really want to stare down the barrel of those questions?

When I question the effectiveness of your blog that is how I am judging it.

Again this is not personal just how I view the cold hard METRICS of the web. And I know your numbers are not as good as they should be with the name you have based on the simple rules you are not currently aware you are breaking.

Again I hope this is actually helpful and I offer my further insight to you or Mr. Katz, just tell me how to get in touch with either of you off line,

Jack Spirko

Be well,

Gene Carbonell

Your reply is - got to admit it - well written.

Just let me make two quick comments, then we both have more important things to do I am sure.

First you say, “You know with an open mind it just might be the case that you can indeed learn something from me.”

I submit that the best way to get people to have an open mind is to not start out by saying that their work “sucks” and that they should be fired. I don’t think that opens a whole lot of minds, do you?

Second, you say that “The biggest thing I can teach you about online marketing if you want to learn is that what I think and what you think both are meaningless. Everything you do online can be measured based on goals and or metrics.”

So from that, it is pretty clear that The Trump Blog does not suck, per your own definition of what sucking means - a failure to achieve desired metrics and goals.

I’ll sign off now,

Barry Lenson

My friend and business partner, Jack Spirko, recently wrote a post that was saying that Donald Trumps blog sucks.  It is an interesting post that has stirred up some debate between a few members of Trump University and Jack.Basically, Jack……

Let me first say I am honored that you both took time to comment in my blog and I will take the time to reply to each of you individually. Both of you certainly deserve to be answered.

First to Mr. Katz,

I would like to thank you for being open to the criticism I directed at your blog. My intention was never to slam Mr. Trump (whom I admire greatly) or the authors on your blog. Clearly you understood this and heard my “voice” in my writing. You see the reality is this post was never, at least directly about Donald Trump, his staff or even the Trump Blog.

It was more about all large corporations who are making the leap into blogging with out the full understanding of what today’s blog readers expect. If I had pointed to let’s say a lesser known figure making this same mistake (and there are plenty of them) the effect would have been far smaller then pointing to someone like Mr. Trump.

In essence I pointed to Mr. Trump’s Blog because he is one of the people I admire most and is most well known person that I know of who is making the mistakes I pointed out.

On your invitation to speak off line about this I am more then happy to. One issue I don’t know how to get in touch with you. If you could provide me a means to contact you I will do so. You can email me at jack@marketingice.com

Now on to Mr. Lenson,

Clearly you did not understand my criticism at the level that Mr. Katz did. I am assuming by your titles that perhaps you report to Mr. Katz on some level. That may be inaccurate but one way or another you may want to discuss this with him as I believe he did in fact understand what I was trying to say. In any event I will attempt to clarify for you the reality of what I meant in the above post. Let me try to do so by responding directly to a few of your points.

First you stated - “I am also a business journalist with 25 years of experience in the profession. I have written more than a dozen books and literally thousands of articles”.

See that is exactly my point your understanding of what makes good writing is based on your EXCEPTIONAL understanding of how to write books, articles and other types of commercially published hard copy. In other words the true concept of “Blogging” is foreign to you. People DO NOT read blogs to hear polished content, proper syntax and well crafted prose.

There is nothing wrong with those things! And having them does not make a blog bad nor does the lack of them automatically make a blog low quality either. What I am pointing out is that your staff seems to believe that simply by “writing well” that your blog is effective.

I am not even saying your blog is not effective I am saying it sucks because it DOES NOT realize its’ full potential. Because it lacks voice, because it lacks emotion and because Mr. Trump himself does not post often enough.

Second you stated – “Just so I understand the full scope of your wisdom, you are saying (among other things) that if I lowered our editorial standards so that our content became as shoddy as what you have on your blog, that would be an improvement”?

No that is not what I am saying. What I am saying is if you told stories, spoke from the heart, gave some controversial opinions and by and large use the same “voice” you spoke with that your blog would improve. Now I never claimed to be a great writer but I am a pretty damn good blogger. My point is you can be BOTH or ONE or the OTHER but being a great writer will not mean that you are also even a good blogger.

People read blogs to get away from traditional media, they want direct honest opinions. They want to see something a Magazine, News Paper or TV News would never publish. When it comes to something the size of an institution with the Trump name they really want to FEEL connected with the people behind it.

Much (not all), of your writing on the blog is devoid of this connection, this voice. Now if you do it with college level English or my personal poor skills as a writer doesn’t matter in the blogoshpere, it is getting that opinion and true voice into your publishing that is the most important skill a blogger can develop.

Third you said – “In fact, not a single person in our organization, from Mr. Trump down, does anything that sucks”.

See this is your problem! First of all this is a blatant lie, no organization of any size is devoid of some things and decisions that “suck”. Your statement is typical of a corporate person that must defend the internal decisions he and his fellow employees make no matter the reality.

You know who would say parts of his organization suck? Donald Trump would! When something sucks Mr. Trump says it sucks that is WHY PEOPLE BOTH LOVE AND HATE HIM. It is certainly what his fans love about him. Mr. Trump is always honest with people about the way he thinks, right or wrong, agree or disagree you have to respect him. Not for his money and power, Rosie O’Donnell has power and money (I don’t respect her nor does Trump), he is respected because you ALWAYS KNOW WHERE HE STANDS.

What I get from most of the postings done by anyone but Trump is sales pitch or polished brochure text devoid of PASSION and FEELING. I can get that anywhere!

Fourth You Said – “I would never go out there and say that anyone else’s content does. But clearly you have no problem doing so”.

No I don’t! That is because I am a BLOGGER not a WRITER at least when I blog that is the case. Believe it or not I am actually “decent” as a writer when I want to be, when I take the time to edit and really think about my writing. That just is not how I blog. I blog by saying what I think or feel at the moment, the same way I would talk to you over a beer.

Next back to your boss, Mr. Trump, he will and does say someone or something sucks. Perhaps the words are different but the message is the same! For your review I present from your own blog the following post by “The Donald” On Rosie O’Donnell

http://www.trumpuniversity.com/connect/newsletters/itt/issue63.cfm

Calling someone a loser and saying they always were a looser is far more direct and far more negative then saying one thing a person does sucks. Trump is honest, direct and to the point, he blogs with emotion and he does not try to sell his courses in most of his posts. He builds a relationship with his reader and his reader feels that they know him as a man better. In short when he takes the time Trump himself is a master blogger.

So you have two ways to improve the blog. Blog like your boss does or get him to blog more.

I have four or five tests you could run and would be happy to tell you how to measure the results that would prove what I say to be true. I know how to market and sell online far better then most people. That is my true skill and I know how to reach across a cold screen and resonate with my readers so they KNOW WHO I AM.

That is blogging. Mr. Lenson, I have no doubt you are a better writer then I am, nor do I doubt that to be the case for most of your staff. Yet writing is ONLY ONE part of the over all skill of blogging. I write sufficiently to communicate; the rest is just about informing people with real voice. That is the part your blog needs work on and again I was trying to other CEOs and Executives by pointing out the mistakes made by an organization I actually admire a great deal.

You know with an open mind it just might be the case that you can indeed learn something from me.

The biggest thing I can teach you about online marketing if you want to learn is that what I think and what you think both are meaningless. Everything you do online can be measured based on goals and or metrics.

My goal with this post was to get members of Trump’s organization to engage me, so you tell me how well that worked out,

Jack Spirko

I am the editor of the Donald Trump Blog. I am also a business journalist with 25 years of experience in the profession. I have written more than a dozen books and literally thousands of articles.
Just so I understand the full scope of your wisdom, you are saying (among other things) that if I lowered our editorial standards so that our content became as shoddy as what you have on your blog, that would be an improvement?

There is a word for that kind of reasoning; it is, “delusional.”

People who can’t write often construct complex defenses to shield their egos from people who can. It is just one of those things that good editors and writers learn to live with.

By the way, our readership has grown exponentially in the last year. So we clearly do not “suck.” In fact, not a single person in our organization, from Mr. Trump down, does anything that sucks. I would never go out their and say that anyone else’s content does. But clearly you have no problem doing so.

Best regards,

Barry Lenson
Executive Editor, Trump University

Sometimes it hurts to hear the truth about your company’s blog but I look at this as an opportunity for change. I am not sure how long you have been reading our blog but we have been making changes and trying to make it better. When I started with Trump University I shared a few of the same comments you pointed out. I am sure you understand that it sometimes takes time to make changes in larger organizations. I have posted a few guest blogs and would be interested in your feedback on those items. If you would like to discuss the blog in more detail feel free to contact me off line and we can discuss. I would love to win you back as an RSS subscriber.

Thanks for your input.
Josef Katz
www.trumpuniversity.com