Frank Joseph (Mister DM™), Consultant, Washington, D.C.
What was your first job out of college and how did you get into this business?
Reporter for the City News Bureau of Chicago, the legendary, beloved and much-missed training ground for cub reporters. I’ve had a lot of luck in my life, for which I’m profoundly grateful; the year and a half I spent at City News was one of the luckiest breaks of my lifetime. I then spent three years at The Associated Press Chicago Bureau where I got my post-graduate education in journalism. I covered the Detroit riot, the Democratic National Convention 1968 disorders, Dr. King’s march into Cicero and many other hallmark events of the mid ‘60s—and attained the post of night city editor. I came to Washington in 1969 as a reporter for National Journal (starting at Prototype Minus 3). Eight months later, I signed on as co-author of a book of journalism criticism funded by the Twentieth Century Fund (now renamed the Century Fund). I was an editor at The Washington Post from 1971-75, the Watergate years—more luck—but in a dead-end job. That’s when George Spencer came along [and eventually] hired me as editor of his flagship newsletter, U.S. Oil Week. I [soon] found myself in New Orleans covering a meeting of the National Oil Jobbers Council and working 60 hours a week as de facto editor of U.S. Oil Week.
Has there been a defining moment in your career? Perhaps when you knew you were on the right road.
The time in graduate school [just before I came to Washington] when I realized I’d taken a seriously wrong turn—that I wasn’t meant to be a professor of political science.
In brief, describe your business/company?
Back to George Spencer and U.S. Oil Week. George was some sort of genius, I believe; he also was a great publisher, supporting [incredible] journalism. (His phrase, which I still remember: “Let’s kick over some trash cans.”) Came a time, I and my Oil Week colleagues, Bruce Levenson and Ed Peskowitz, had had enough. We began plotting in secret. When an Oil Week competitor came on the market—The Touhey Report/Oil Express, a one-man-band whose band member had died—we chipped in the $20,000 and Bruce flew to the West Coast to buy it from the widow of John Touhey. We brought it East, renamed it Oil Express and were off to the races. I was a founding partner from the beginning—my $6,666.66—but because of an employment agreement, I couldn’t leave U.S. Oil Week for six more months. During that period, Bruce and Ed started the company I was nominally competing with, while I was a covert mole inside George’s operation. At the end of the year, I joined my partners at the company then known as United Communications Group and now known by its acronym, UCG.
Our partnership lasted four years [after which] they bought me out and I departed to start Key Communications Group Inc. That was 1982. By 1986, I’d grown Key to five newsletters in health policy/healthcare and sold the healthcare newsletters to Bruce and Ed. [Fast forward a bit and I started consulting for Capitol Publications] to whom I had sold our flagship newsletter, Managed Care Report. I wrote a number of packages for Capitol during this period and they liked my work. At the end of the 6 months, they proposed a second 6 months. I said, ‘Fine, but I’m taking on other clients too.’ And that’s how I got into my present line of work. Along the way, I began styling myself “Mister DM™.” And yes, I did trademark it.
What are two or three important concepts or rules that have helped you to succeed in business?
Do what you love and the money will follow; and its corollary: And even if the money doesn’t follow, you did what you loved.
What is the single-most successful thing that your company is doing now?
Writing 16-page e-mails for investment advisories is really challenging. These projects take weeks from start to finish. But it’s the most creative work I’ve ever done. Don’t take this the wrong way—everything in my packages is sourced and factual, if hyped—but my fiction-writing background is tremendously helpful. In this work, I use the techniques of fiction all the time.
Do you see a trend or path that you have to lock onto as we look to 2012?
Things are changing so fast it’s impossible to keep up, though I try. The Internet has revolutionized all our businesses. With $500 subs and 85% renewal rates, being a publisher was a lot easier in the ‘80s and ‘90s than today. When I advise clients, I try to keep these changes in mind to the extent I can. SIPA meetings are a tremendous crystal-ball resource. But no one can see very far into the future, least of all me.
What are the key benefits of SIPA membership for you and your team?
I’ve been a member, or part of a member company, since SIPA was the Newsletter Association. I was Washington Chapter president and chair of the Small Publishers Group in the ‘80s. I’ve spoken at many an annual meeting, and critiqued many a newbie’s promotion package. Almost everything I know about copywriting, I learned directly or indirectly via SIPA; as well as everything about running a small publishing company that I didn’t figure out via brutal experience. Whatever I’ve given to SIPA over the years, SIPA has given far more back to me.
Where did you grow up?
Chicago and its suburbs.
What college did you attend? Is there a moment from that time that stands out?
Northwestern University, B.A. English Composition (Creative Writing). Many turning points come to mind but I’ll mention this one: My dad, Irwin Joseph, was in the movie business. He had a small distribution company. I started college in the business school, planning to go into my dad’s business. I had misgivings but, being 18, I stuffed them. Only in the middle of my sophomore year, in the grip of a life-shattering sophomore slump worsened by the breakup of a mind-shattering romance, did my demons burst their bounds. And then I contracted mononucleosis. I went into the infirmary for 10 days. All I was able to do was lay flat on my back and contemplate my young life. When I came out, I dropped accounting (which I’d have flunked otherwise) and switched out of business school into Liberal Arts and a creative-writing major. It was my first mid-life crisis, though not my last. I’m pleased to report that, in retrospect, I made the right decision.
Are you married? Do you have children?
I have been married to Carol Anna Jason since Jan. 20, 1979. We have two of the most spectacular children on the planet—Shawn Alexis Goldstein, a real estate developer working in Washington, D.C., and Samuel Jason Joseph, an aspiring actor in Brooklyn. Oh, and also the most spectacular grandson on the planet, Kai Alexander Joseph. Every last one of them is adopted but, as I never tire of saying, I couldn’t have done as well with my own genetic material.
What is your favorite hobby and how did it develop in your life?
Writing fiction, reading fiction, nonfiction and journalism, playing tennis, skiing and arguing about politics and public affairs. For a guy my age (don’t ask), with an artificial right knee, I play a LOT of tennis; and I’m getting better at it all the time. (Because I never used to be very good.) Another life lesson: Practice makes perfect. But you knew that.
Is there a book you recently read or movie you saw that you would recommend?
To Love Mercy, by Frank S. Joseph (Mid Atlantic Highlands, 2006). Check it out on Amazon, where you can read 27 reviews averaging 5 stars. Autographed copies available directly from the author. Visit www.tolovemercy.com. As we say in the direct marketing biz, do it NOW.
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