The most infamous marketing genius you probably never heard of
Published: Tue, 07/06/21
Or, maybe you have.
But, I would guess if you have, you didn’t realize you were watching a natural at work.
I am talking about the mysterious man known as:
“Count Dante”
Who was Count Dante?
Well, for starters:
He was famous in comicbook ads for his “Dim Mak” (i.e., Death Touch”) self-defense book. He sold millions of dollars worth of his books using comicbook ads, from what I am told. And if you have any old comicbooks from the 60’s and 70’s chances are you’ve seen them.
But those don’t even begin to tell the real story behind this mysterious man.
Or even begin to teach his astonishing marketing tricks.
Here are some facts about him:
* Co-founded the United States Karate Association (USKA).
* Retired undefeated from pro competition in 1968.
* Was a legit Karate sensei who organized the first US MMA event.
* Created his own system of fighting called “Dan-Te” or "Dance of Death" system.
* Used his marketing wiles to create such a cult-like following, he was able to engineer a series of “Dojo Wars” — consisting of attempted arson, booze, dynamite, building invasions, and, tragically, the death of one of his students.
* Changed his name from plain vanilla “John T. Keehan” to Count Juan Raphael Dante, i.e., “Count Dante”, claiming his parents were secretly royalty from Spain who'd fled to America during the Spanish Civil War.
* Was (oddly enough) also the director of a wig and hair-piece company, a world famous hair stylist, and creator of the "natural seductive hairstyle" of many top Chicago models and Playboy Bunnies.
* He died of stress induced ulcer bleeding at the height of his fame/reach.
* And most interesting of all to my marketing pals:
One of my clients back in the day & “Email Players” subscriber Captain Chris Pizzo (who was easily the biggest marketer on the planet in the self defense niche until he sold his company several years ago) told me:
“The whole Dan Kennedy martial arts crowd (me, Furey, Lloyd Irvin, Stephen Oliver, John DuCane, etc) used to analyze/talk about [Count Dante] all the time. There’s probably a whole shit-ton of stuff we did based on it that I’ve forgotten about.”
I have always found this guy fascinating.
Yes, even with this obvious character flaws.
So much so, I did an entire training just on this guy for our Profit Pirates as part of a bundle of trainings I called my:
“Swipestreams”
These are word-for-word breakdowns of some of my favorite ads.
And, Count Dante’s ad was one of my favorites to do such a breakdown of.
To access it — along with nearly 300 hours of additional content from all the other coaches inside the Profit Pirates app — use the link below.
It ain’t cheap.
And it ain’t for newbies or wannabes looking for hacks & tricks.
But going by the feedback, the super low “churn” in the program over the past year, I daresay it’s worth every penny (and much more) to those using the info.
Especially if you do it before the next price increase.
(On Friday, July 9th at midnight EDT.)
To be grandfathered in forever at the current price, go here:
https://www.EmailPlayers.com/pirates
Ben Settle