Ever wondered what would happen to your life if you just said "screw the rules"?
You DidWhat?
82 years of misadventure, mayhem - and millions
by Drayton Bird
How to make buckets of dosh, screw things up, lose the lot, shake with fear, talk your way out of it, live under a false name, behave appallingly, fall in and out of love - often with the wrong people, feel joy, shame, terror, misery, disbelief, skirt death a few times, have an endless stream of dreadful hangovers - and still be at it when I should be tucked up in bed with a nice warm drink.
If the idea of that little lot interests you, here’s a few snippets from my story.
• Three stabbings and two near funerals
Believe it or not, I have been stabbed or partially stabbed three times. And I damn nearly lost my life twice after two of them.
• Hiding from Hitler
In 1940, I trembled with fear in a bomb shelter. Was Hitler going to conquer Britain? It looked like it. Being scared like that is something hardly anyone nowadays can imagine, but I remember it vividly.
• Millions made and millions lost
I never kept the millions I should have, though I did make two or three. Then through my own stupidity, lost almost all of it. Find out how to avoid my mistakes!
• Trips to Ogilvy’s Chateau Touffou …
How my wife took the great man for a ride …”Have you any idea what the roof cost?” … “I hate rabbit” …… the lost owl …Helena Rubinstein’s bed, “That’s the local mayor; 0he hates me.” And other Ogilvy stories
• She saw Daddy ***ing Granny…
It's absolutely true, and it refers to my mother seeing my father doing something no father should do with his mother-in-law.
• Why did she forgive him…?
Nowadays, people get divorced for infinitely less than what my father did to my mother, yet she forgave him, because of what had happened to her as a child.
• Even after he gave her the ****?
Surely no marriage could survive what my father did to my mother. But they stayed together. What made their extraordinary marriage survive?
• Knee deep in shit with David
Ever visited a sewage plant? They don't often run conducted tours, but I made an impromptu entrance when young with one of my cousins. I can almost smell the pungent results 70 years later.
• My most stupid money mistake
I never would have had to work again if I'd taken the advice of my accountant back in 1967. But I didn't, so I had to struggle for decades afterwards. Let me tell you why I think this was a blessing.
• How a CIA idiot sealed my deal with Ogilvy
Till the night before I sold my business to Ogilvy & Mather I was negotiating with another big US agency. I might have gone ahead with them …Then a pompous fool, formerly in the CIA, opened his big mouth...
• What’s wrong with those sure-fire marketing money makers?
If you're in business, you are cascaded with messages from people who claim they're going to make you rich and give lots of “proof”. I'll tell you why they're lying, and why the proof is false.
• “Carabinieri, there are thieves in here”
I went to the opera in Verona, not far from where Romeo is supposed to have romanced Juliet. It started to rain on the performance. What happened next was hilarious - and could only have occurred in Italy.
• Bunkum, bullshit and business baloney
In my lifetime, business, which seemed fairly simple when I began, has turned into an exercise in waffle and irrelevance, and I'll give you my perspective on this, why it's happened, and what you should avoid.
• Cricket with P. G. Wodehouse
My family were more interesting than I realised when young. My grandfather played cricket with the great comic writer, PG Wodehouse. He was also a great salesman and gave me a demonstration.
• Management advice from a business idiot
I never studied management, except for a book by the founder of General Motors. Almost all the advice you get is wrong – because people overcomplicate matters. Try my three step formula
• My secret German relatives
Somewhere in Germany, I have relatives. I don't know who they are. But I know my grandfather strayed during his time after the First World War.
• Naked in Bold Street … Drayton dies
My father tore all his clothes off in Bold Street, Liverpool.He was distraught at the death of his oldest brother, his hero. What was his hero's name? Drayton.
• What made Granny turn to booze?
She had good reason, according to my aunt. But as a result, she inflicted a great deal of pain on me unintentionally. This involved a hot water bottle and, I suspect, a lot of gin.
• “This hurts me more than it hurts you”
So said John Edgar Rhodes, headmaster of my prep school, where I went at 7. A hypocritical, sadistic old sod with a secret mistress who punished me for things I didn't do. I think this shaped my character.
• Running away from school – and being dragged back
I hated that school so much I ran away one sunny morning with my younger brother and another boy. It didn't help. We were taken back to face the consequences.
• A most peculiar marriage
Nowadays, the idea of an open marriage seems quite common, just as it was in the 18th century amongst the aristocracy. Maybe my parents were ahead of their time, but they made it work somehow.
• I discover sex – with the "wrong" sex
The boarding schools I went to were single sex, all boys, no girls. So how did you discover sex? Well, with a boy. And what a surprise when I saw him at a reunion years later. I'll tell you all about it.
• “Only the good die young”
I am the first person ever to recover from a ruptured liver in the north of England. That was my grandmother's helpful comment. But it was not the last time I nearly died.
• Colostomy bags at the ready!
When in hospital after nearly dying I ended up changing colostomy bags. I don't know how instructive this experience was, but I did it. My small contribution to the National Health Service.
• Uncle Ray turns to God – after selling his ***e in London
When I came to seek my fortune in London, I stayed with uncle Ray an old navy man who turned to God. He told me the surprising reason why - and whether the navy really was all about "rum, sodomy and the lash" as Churchill put it.
• Nosebags, knockers-up and bowlegged ladies
Manchester’s streets smelt of horse shit and the horses had their nose bags on in Piccadilly. At dawn he knockers-up tapped on windows to wake mill-girls for work. Little bow-legged ladies had suffered from rickets in their childhood. A different world.
• “Can our Mavis use your bath”?
My first house cost £750. We were the only one in the row with a bath and people used to ask if they could use it when they were going out. My God, times have changed; but those houses that I lived in are still there.
Confused? You May Be. But not as much as me
This book is a mongrel. That’s because half is about my private life, which has been slightly unorthodox. I hope you find it entertaining.
The other half is about my business life. Read that not just for entertainment, but for profit. By that I mean I will offer you an awful lot of advice, mainly based on an awful lot of mistakes and very little success.
It could save you a lot of misery and quite possibly make you a great deal of money. You just have to avoid all the stupid things and copy the very few intelligent ones I did. I hope you'll find it entertaining.
A money back guarantee
I've only seen one book with a money back guarantee. It was my own: Common Sense Direct and Digital Marketing. I have no idea how many thousands of copies have been sold in 17 languages. But since 1982, when it first came out, nobody has asked for their money back.
It is my pious hope that you won't do so when you read this book. But nevertheless, once again, here’s the same guarantee. You've got to love it or I'll give you your money back.
Plus - BONUS CONTENT!
A filmed interview with my richest-ever client. the first I ever did and one of the best
His name is Peter Hargreaves and he's worth worth $4.5 billion.
Another interview with one of the top marketers in Bulgaria
Why should that interest you?
Because, believe me in Bulgaria you really have to be good to succeed.
My talk about the sheer simplicity of marketing
It strips away the makes the complex bullshit so that anyone can understand what matters, what doesn't and why.
Ok - I've heard enough.
I want to buy the book now!
• The Great Wiglet disaster
We couldn’t believe how much cash was there. We were looking at an absolute fortune, worth at least £50,000 today, from one ad in my first money making attempt - but it all went wrong because of a puff of wind - and a crooked hair dresser.
• Did you get big and strong because of me?
More people have bought this exercise device because of my copy than anything else I ever worked on. I still hear regularly from - believe it or not - copywriters who've bought it. It's an interesting story.
• The most expensive day of my life
It started in San Diego zoo … and ended when I threw up after eating in a restaurant in Tijuana. The expensive bit took place earlier in a small room where I got married. I’m still paying for this.
• My first million vanishes – before it was made
I did a deal with somebody in 1965 that would have made me rich in my 20's. The deal fell apart, but believe it or not I'm glad it did. Success at that age would have ruined me. Not to say it didn't ruin me later.
• How to become an alcoholic
If anything runs in our family besides a love of music and a talent for bullshit, it's the love of booze. I was more or less drunk most days for 27 years. I'm amazed I'm still alive. A heroic Polish count saved me from an early death with one piece of advice.
• A death foretold
A little girl I loved and used to push on her swing in the park died at the age of 24. She had great musical talent, but I could sense what would happen when she was a toddler. Who is to blame? Her parents? Heredity? Just bad luck?
• The Attorney General who escaped jail - by dying
My meetings with one of Australia’s biggest political crooks. He changed the laws on homosexuality and divorce – and showed me how he planned to do so. But he was in cahoots with Sydney’s biggest crime lord … whose mistress was my wife’s best friend. He only cheated justice by dying.
• How female wrestling came to Australia
My second wife introduced female wrestling to Australia. The crooks moved in so she never made a fortune from it. But her description of the results of her first adverts made me laugh like a drain.
• Life among the whores of Mayfair
For a while, I lived in the most notorious part of London’s Mayfair. I even got free sex when others were paying for it. Lady Denise downstairs was one of the most successful whores of the 20th century.
• Darth Vader and me
I'm amazed at the people I've run into in my life. One was the man who played the role of Darth Vader in Star Wars - and later became the Blue Cross man. Lovely bloke.
• “If you don’t marry me I’ll jump”
This was the 1971 Christmas morning threat from my future wife, delivered whilst sitting on the bannister three floors up at 139 Harley Street. I wanted to go home to mother – but the trains weren’t running.
• Fancy another dollop of horse, sir?
I've worked in 55 countries, one being Kazakhstan. The national dish is … yes, horse. Practically every meal I went to, horse was on the menu. I never really took to it. But they did pay in cash.
• Donkey Carpaccio – and the views are amazing
My partner used to take me on secret trips for my birthday. One of which ended up overlooking Lake Garda. I tried the most unusuaL item on the menu ... hee haw. Then we went to the opera.
• Why I hopped for JoJo
I met a cat called JoJo around the corner from where I lived. A little girl was explaining to me how frogs hop. I must be a bit strange because in no time at all, I was hopping along the pavement to her delight.
• Emma’s friendly crocodile
A little girl I live with has an imaginary crocodile as her best friend - except for her other best friend which is a wild boar.
• What 55 countries and 62 years taught me about marketing
If doctors knew as little about medicine as marketers know about marketing, half the population would die every year. Most don't have a clue what they're doing. I’ll reveal what bitter experience taught me.
• My three-word management secret.
I never learned how you're supposed to run a business, but we built up the most successful of its category in the UK in three and a half years. Our approach was childishly simple. Three words are all you need to know. Booze and frolics are two of them.
• The best salesmen I ever met
One was David Ogilvy. I’ll tell you what I learned when making a video in Paris with him, But also what Britain’s best salesman – whose first book I edited - taught me.
• The job of a good manager - not what you think it is
I believe almost all business managers have it 100% wrong. I think it's much simpler than they think and that they focus on the wrong things. See what you think when I explain.
• My rather odd working practices
This may not work for you, but it seems to have worked for me, though I think I ignore most of the rules given by the experts. It involves a lot less work, and a lot more thinking.
• How to get a better job - most people don't have a clue
Stuck in a job you hate? Most people are. But I knew how to get better jobs. Most people don't. Would you like to? I'll tell you.
• The night I ended up in the wrong apartment after The Mud Club
I just went out for a few drinks and a dance. I ended up with the wrong girl in the wrong place. Syringes, creepy crawly things; altogether a bad idea, but not the first nor the last I would have on my trips to New York.
What you have just read just hints at the stories that reveal the life of one slightly eccentric man in the 20th and 21st Century.
If you're intrigued make sure you sign up below, and I'll keep you informed about everything else I'll be writing about.
Oh, and though this may not be the most intellectual book you read this year, I promise two things.
1. No heroics, I’m afraid. But if you have a sense of the ludicrous with a dash of bad taste it'll make you laugh (if you don't it isn't for you.)
2. Want to get rich? You will learn a hell of a lot about real business than business schools teach you. I didn't do it in theory, it did it in practice. I lost more than I won - but had a hell of a ride on the way.
So this is the autobiography of somebody who has done absolutely nothing heroic or remarkable, except have a glorious time rising to the top of a "profession" that hardly anybody understands and does little more than sell prodigious quantities of stuff, often to people who don't need it, at prices they shouldn't pay. In fact, the only thing interesting about this book, is how he got away with it and how maybe you could too, with a host of misadventures, disasters, catastrophes and cock-ups along the way.
"That which we anticipate rarely occurs. What we never expect invariably happens." - Benjamin Disraeli.
GIVE ME THE BOOK!
Tha
DRAYTON BIRD