BEFORE TALKING ABOUT Jake Steinfeld’s new book “I’ve Seen a Lot of Famous People Naked, and They’ve Got Nothing on You!” I should note two personal connections to the bodybuilder-turned-entrepreneur.
The first is that about 15 years ago, I sat a few tables away from Steinfeld at an awards dinner in Las Vegas during the annual conference of the National Informational Marketing Association (now the Electronic Retailing Association). I have no recollection of whether he was honored that evening. What I do remember is that in person, he was stunningly handsome.
The second is that following the birth of my son Jacob, I referred to the post-natal state of my physique as “Body by Jake.”
Neither of these facts has anything to do with his book, which for the sake of brevity (and my own amusement), we’ll call “…Naked.” And when he talks about seeing celebrities naked, he doesn’t mean in the buff, but rather stripped of the “trappings of fame and fortune.”
Lack of full frontal aside, as an inspirational business book, “…Naked” is actually a decent read. To say that Steinfeld is a positive thinker would be an understatement. The man never met an exclamation point he didn’t like, and is extremely fond of words like “awesome” (or rather, “awesome!”) and phrases like “Don’t quit!”
Aside from his infomercials — if you’ve owned a TV in the past decade, you’ve seen at least one — and his long-standing relationship with the Home Shopping Network, Steinfeld has a lot of direct marketing savvy. He’s adept at branding — every mention of Body by Jake (make that Body by Jake) in the book — and there are many — is italicized, for greater emphasis.
In a particularly good chapter on the subject, “Name It and Claim It,” he stresses the importance of being clear about what your brand stands for and maintaining that image. Steinfeld cites an incident from his early career. He was approached by a record company promoter in 1978 to do bodybuilding poses on stage during a Village People concert. Not realizing the nature of the disco band’s fan base, he imagined scores of screaming girls in the audience. Needless to say, he was quite surprised when he realized the audience was full of men, blowing kisses his way.
It was an experience he says he’ll never forget, and is something he now laughs about. But it was a something he’d probably never do again, since he has a global brand to consider.
“…Naked” also touches on other topics of relevance to DMers, like the importance of CRM and listening to your customers (those infomercial testimonials don’t come out of thin air), and taking advantage of — but not rushing into — emerging channels. For example, his company secured Bodybyjake.com as quickly as possible, but took their time building a site that would best represent the brand, rather than rushing to go public and make a quick buck selling stock in a new Web-based business. Today over 20% of the company’s sales are conducted online.
I would have titled this column “Business by Jake,” but he’s already keenly taken BizbyJake.com as the URL for his Web site and blog promoting the book. The audio blog is comprised of approximately two-minute daily entries from wherever Steinfeld is in the world (at home in Los Angeles or on vacation in Nantucket were the locales at press time). Some cover other topics like Major League Lacrosse — of which he is a founder — but for the most part Steinfeld diligently stays on point, talking about the book and urging listeners to buy the book and enter a contest co-sponsored by AOL, where someone will win $200,000 in seed money to start their own business.
(For an author blog that blends the realms of self-promotion and reader involvement a bit more smoothly, might I suggest visiting NeilGaiman.com/journal, where the writer deftly keeps readers up to date on new projects and appearances, and holds court on any number of topics, from his children and gardening to art and writings by other creators he enjoys. But, as another author with an interesting blog, Peter David — peterdavid.malibulist.com/ — would say, I digress.)
Overall, the book itself is a deft bit of self-promotion, and I don’t mean that as a knock. There’s a lot of solid advice for wannabe entrepreneurs, including a guide of sources for essentials like start-up funding. But Steinfeld keenly uses the book to drum up interest for the aforementioned Major League Lacrosse (hey, I didn’t even know Boston had a team until I read “…Naked”) and Exercise TV!, an on-demand cable fitness network venture with Comcast.
Steinfeld has inspired me. I’d like to announce Couch Potato!, my new cable television project. Feel free to start your own franchise.
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