I remember hearing an interview with copywriting great John Carlton talking about how he and the legendary, late Gary Halbert used to focus all their marketing and copywriting efforts on sucking money out of their customers. John called this “Operation Money Suck”.

It sounds crude, but my understanding of Operation Money Suck is that, as a marketer or copywriter, you should really focus the bulk of your time, energy and resources on activities aimed at making money. Not spending your time on activities that avoid or PREVENT you from making money. Like rearranging your desk. Sitting in time-wasting meetings. Or engaging in useless admin tasks.

In other words, it’s about time and resource management for marketers. But “Operation Money Suck” is much more provocative and engaging, don’t you think?

This also means focusing your money making activities on those that make the MOST money. For a marketer, this may mean prioritizing your marketing budget; for a copywriter it may mean cutting out any copy that detracts from your sales message. (You can see how “granular” Operation Money Suck can be!)

Frankly, everyone involved in marketing should see themselves as involved in Operation Money Suck. Perhaps you’d rather not use such in-your-face terminology - and I’m also assuming, of course, that what you sell offers HUGE value to your customers - but the principle of optimizing your time by concentrating on your biggest money makers is certainly sound.

Source: John Carlton’s Big Damn Blog