Stabbed! - The latest victim - Posted by John Behle
Posted by John Behle on April 17, 1999 at 15:36:02:
I had been so thrilled to stay off John T. Reed’s hit list. He doesn’t have a competing book about paper, so I thought I might be safe. Apparently someone inquired and now his faulty memory and facts have colored me too.
It’s not a big deal, just not true. I left a message on his voice mail which since it wasn’t “worshipful” will probably lead to further attacks. I guess I knew it was just a matter of time.
Here’s the scoop - I mean poop.
John Behle—I do not recommend
Behle once tried to rent my mailing list. I refused to let him because I thought the advertising piece he wanted to send was misleading. It was made to look like a newspaper article and had a post-it note on it that looked like it came from a friend. It was signed “John B.” I had received the same piece myself previously and called my friend John Beck to ask if he had sent it. That’s when I first heard of John Behle.
I’ve never tried to rent John’s list. He has nothing to do with paper and wouldn’t be an interesting list for me anyway. The only list I’ve ever rented in my life is Creative Real Estate Magazine (a couple times).
I doubt John cares about facts, but the letter/ad he is referring to was developed and marketed by a company named Unicorp or Millionaire Consulting Service. They marketed a consulting service for Bob Allen and Mark Haroldsen.
I sued them and won over the fact that they used their infamous “John B” letter as they called it. Nothing in the letter ever mentioned me or referred to me, yet in a marketing script that we uncovered it mentioned that if they thought it was a friend or relative that had sent it to not disagree with that.
If they were upset or enquired as to who sent it, the marketer was told to say that it came from John Behle in their marketing department. I never had anything to do with their marketing department. For a few months I helped out in doing some training for their consulting staff and handling the most difficult consulting situations.
I sued them because many people did assume the letter came from me. At that time about 100,000 people per month had been reading the magazine articles I wrote for many different publications and my name was the first to come to many people’s minds. They mailed out tens of thousands of these ads per week and just about anyone with the name “John B” paid the price. Chuck Abbot, Doug Holmes and Richard Allen that developed the ad said that they chose that name because almost anyone knew a “John B”.
I sued for $750,000 in damages and because they didn’t have a leg to stand on, they settled. I just wanted an apology, the cessation of any use of my name and just to rub Doug’s nose in it a little, I received rights to use his mailing list (total junk), the Unicorp mailing list and had him sign a letter to clear up falsehoods that they had spread among their employees. I’m not a real vindictive person, so I didn’t mail the letter. I guess I should have.
Anybody want a 10 year old 30,000 name mailing list from a consulting service?
Once again, John T. Reed’s facts are messed up. Hopefully he will show his intentions are honorable and clear it up. What do you wanna bet?
JOHN T. REED - I DO NOT RECOMMEND HIS RECOMMENDATIONS
From what I’ve heard, his books are very worthwhile reading, his opinions of others in many cases are flawed.