What I believe about…. Entrepreneurs

Some time ago my travels took me to the red soil of Nairobi, Kenya. A gracious schoolteacher named George ran a foster care program for AIDS orphans. He took me on a tour of his world.

How incredibly different it was from mine.

Someone had given George a Toyota station wagon, so we didn’t have to walk. He drove me through twisting back-county roads of Kukoyu, dodging potholes the size of bathtubs and showing me how the other half lives.

We would pass bands of children walking along that road and women balancing jugs on their heads. I met all kinds of kids without moms and dads, mostly living with relatives and hopefully holding body and soul together.

I met one kid whose most recent home was a rock quarry.

We visited a wooden hut where a girl, maybe 9 years old, was playing in the dirt in her filthy pink dress. She was mentally handicapped and there was no one else around. George spoke kindly to her in her native language. He gave her something to eat. Eventually, we left.

As we drove away, I thought, “I’d never leave MY kid here….”

I met a 7 year old boy who was dying of AIDS for lack of a $1 bus ticket to get a free shot.

It was gut wrenching. All these people staring at me with that blank gaze of poverty and apathy. Paralyzed by a belief that there’s nothing they can do to make their life better.

I asked George if he ever helped any of these people start businesses. “Yes!” he nodded excitedly. “I will show you some of our micro loan recipients.”

George drives me to another village. We walk into a cobbler shop. A guy named Paul is fixing shoes. Paul had polio when he was a kid so he can’t walk. His crutches are leaning against the wall behind him.

Paul does NOT have that blank hopeless stare. His eyes are clear. He’s alert and he’s aware. He’s proud of what he does. His kids have uniforms, they attend school, they are well fed. He’s a respected man in the community.

His legs might not work right, but he’s not a cripple.

George explains to me that with a $50 business loan, Paul founded that cobbler shop and became an economic pillar of his community.

By American standards Paul is poor, but he’s not living in poverty. Paul doesn’t speak the same tongue as me yet when our eyes lock we both sense that we share a common language: The language of entrepreneurship. He’s proud of what he’s accomplished and he’s not asking for handouts.

My friend, there is one and only one path out of poverty. It ain’t UNICEF. Or the United Nations. It’s not even jobs or technology.

It’s entrepreneurship. It’s brave people like Paul.

NOW:

Imagine for a moment that someone had taken Paul’s $50 and sold him a sham “business opportunity.” Big bag o’ smoke. Hit & run. Ain’t worth the paper it’s printed on.

How much would that scam have cost Paul… really?

For one thing he’d be a cripple living in a rock quarry today. Begging on the side of the street. Not a successful entrepreneur. Not a guy with a house and a kitchen and 3 beautiful kids.

His 3 kids would be living with who-knows-who, or maybe no one. Paul’s cobbler shop wouldn’t be there in the middle of his village. People wouldn’t be getting their shoes fixed. A certain school would be minus 3 students. A seamstress would have sold them three less school uniforms. The vendors who sell him soles and nails and leather would have one less account.

His kids might be stealing food instead of buying it.

Do you see how these little tiny hinges swing big doors?

That’s why it really frosts my cookie when snake oil salesmen and film flam men sell bad business advice. They’re teaching people s*** that doesn’t work.

Doesn’t matter whether it’s Africa or America or Antarctica, it’s still a crime. I hope them scammers end up living in a rock quarry. They sure don’t deserve to be making megabucks, that’s for sure.

I got fleeced real good for the first few years of my business career. You probably know that story and if you don’t I won’t bore you with it. But anyway, I’m one of those people who believes things happen for a reason. Maybe one of the reasons that happened to me was …. so I’d know what it’s like.

Cuz God forbid that I ever sell people big bags o’ smoke. Or that you should ever spend your money one of those bags o’ smoke.

I believe that when someone teaches how to fish, they should teach you with real boats and real fishing poles and real ponds. Not with a flight simulator. They should be able to prove what they do works. In real market conditions with real tools and real customers. Not shills.

Every time someone sells fake business advice, the world loses a few entrepreneurs. People who might have made it, but they couldn’t recover from that one loss.

Who knows… what might have been?

Every time someone delivers *real* business advice, the world gains a few entrepreneurs. More “Pauls”. More cobbler shops. More kids going to school. More food to go around. More for everyone.

I take my job – and your job – very seriously. What we both do matters. A lot.

If you have any kind of “real” business on the Internet; if you know that more clicks for less money, better sales conversion, improved follow up and a superior marketing strategy would put more money in your pocket; then I invite you to apply for this fall’s personal AdWords coaching session.

Not all are accepted, but if we let you in, I back it with a hugely ballsy guarantee and a promise that if you put in the effort, you’ll get the results. www.BobsledRun.com. Starts September 28.

Whether you live in Africa, Europe or America – whether you only learn, or if you teach as well – I hope you take your teaching, and your learning, very seriously. Because a very very important entrepreneur depends on the knowledge you apply:

YOU.

Perry Marshall

Why Selling as you know it is dying a slow death

There’s nothing more scary in sales than mashing your foot down on the gas pedal, and feeling the clutch slip.

. . . then pressing harder and smelling the odor of your transmission starting to melt.

If your prospects smell a hint of desperation, it’s all over. They disengage more and more. The harder you chase them, the more they hide from you inside their Dilbert cubes.

In the spirit of the current age, nobody *thinks* they need a sales person telling them what to do. (Even if they DO need someone to tell them what to do. And let’s face it – some of them need to do what you’re telling them!)

As the economy toughens, it’s time re-think the way you sell in every medium you use, to attract and create new customers for life.

Ari Galper has a beautiful philosophy: “Get to the truth, not the sale.” It creates startlingly different results, and it makes it almost impossible to “burn out the clutch” with prospective customers. Because it’s all about pulling, not pushing. It’s congruent with the spirit of the age.

Ari’s warning to all sales professionals, business owners and entrepreneurs:

http://www.perrymarshall.com/salesbreakthrough/

(Be sure you optin so you can download Ari’s audio “7 Strategies For Making Selling Painless.” Read the part about his live event in November. I’m sending my staff & it’s going to be great.)

Perry

The Cleverest Email Scam

This came to me today from one of our close personal friends. I thought, “Dang, I didn’t know she was going to the UK!” Almost fell for it. I hope you don’t….

How Chinese Water Torture Ended American Slavery

In June 1851, US anti-slavery magazine “National Era” began publishing a fascinating story in 40 weekly installments. Written by Harriet Beecher Stowe, it depicted the life of a black woman, Eliza, who escapes with her son Tom who is sold “down the river” into slavery.

In 1852, Stowe’s 40 installments were bound together in book form and sold 300,000 copies the first year in print. “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” was translated into all major languages and became the most influential novel of the 19th century. It also became the best-selling book after the Bible.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin ignited a firestorm of protest from defenders of slavery and triggered the Civil War. It was reported that in 1862, when President Abraham Lincoln met her, he said, “So this is the little lady who started this great war.”

drip, drip, drip….

Whether in the form of magazine articles in 1852, or timed emails in 2010, falling water wears away even the hardest of stone. And in our version of “Chinese Water Torture,” the ‘torture’ part is merely anticipation of what’s comin’ next. :^>

Who would have thought that the eradication of slavery itself would be triggered by a series of… autoresponders?

Thanks to John Fancher for telling me about this. John is my compadre in our Autoresponder Boot Camp. Starts next Tuesday at 2pm. Heck, if you want, John will write your AR’s for you.

If Harriet Beecher Stowe can free a million slaves with 40 installments of Chinese Water Torture, surely you can free yourself with 10.

http://www.perrymarshall.com/chinese-water-torture/

Perry Marshall

Try this 10 second Facebook experiment

Without sucking yourself into a big distraction (!!!), I’d like you to take TEN SECONDS and do a little experiment.

I want you to open a new tab in your browser, log into your Facebook account and look at whatever ads appear on the right side.

And ask yourself this question:

“How many of these ads hit my sweet spot? And how many of them are either mildly irrelevant or completely uninteresting?”

I think that for most people, less than 1 out of 3 ads are highly relevant.

If it’s true for you, it’s true also for your prospective customers. They could be seeing your ad and engaging with you instead of somebody else.

And that’s why, of all the places you can buy web traffic right now, Facebook Pay Per Click is generally the most “wild west”, the least competitive and the least expensive.

Bryan Todd and I are doing an extensive Facebook training and “Right Angle Marketing” session in London on September 12. On September 10, every single hot seat participant will have my personal assistance in re-inventing your hooks and marketing message, in a very small intimate setting.

It happens in 3 weeks – www.perrymarshall.com/ukvideo/

Perry Marshall

A Few of My Favorite Headlines

Fake cocaine: A legal substitute that fools even the experts!

Researcher Calculates A Snowball’s Chance In Hell To Be .000000000134%

Deaths Of 550,000 Confirm Which Mushrooms Are Okay To Eat

EATEN ALIVE! Giant tigers kill pretty zoo keeper who ‘loved all animals’

Hungover Couple Unaware They Broke Up Last Night

Headless Body in Topless Bar

500-ft Jesus Appears At UN

It’s Official: LSD, Special K, and Magic Mushrooms Are Now Good For You

Every secret but one* is in this book

Metal-eating bugs can chew through a car in just 5 days!

Sarah Palin’s Mother-In-Law: “I’m Not Sure What She Brings To The Ticket Other Than She’s A Woman And A Conservative”

Rat Rides on a Cat Riding on a Dog

Cave Paintings Reveal Existence Of Prehistoric Insurance Salesman!

Psychics Are Just Charlatans Used By Imperialist Dogs To Control The Population – psychic says

Mr. Rogers’ Ghost Terrorizing Children!

Pack Of Wild Cocker Spaniels Terrorizes Wyoming

Orgy a logistical nightmare

“How to get new customers without spending a fortune” – MP3

How can you get new customers to your website without a major investment?

How can you get more prospects, sales leads and sales?

In this MP3, Bryan Todd and cover 5 hot traffic sources and the pros and cons of each:

1) Google ads – what they’re capable of, and their limitations; when they’re cheap and when they’re expensive
2) Solo emails to rented email lists
3) Advertising in online publications
4) Article marketing – the RIGHT ways and WRONG ways to do it
5) Social Media and Facebook Ads (when it will work, and when it’s just a time-suck)

In less than 1 hour you’ll have a clear picture of where you can go to get more traffic and more customers. And you’ll gain birds-eye view of these 5 traffic sources.

Download MP3

Join me in London September 10-12 where we’ll provide in-depth treatment of Facebook Pay Per Click, Email Marketing and my personal interlocking system of marketing tools and strategies. Attend the optional Friday Swiss Army Knife workshop and get an exhaustive marketing makeover.

If you procrastinate, these 384 words are worth your time

I took a customer survey earlier this week. The last question was totally open-ended:

“If you could ask Perry any question what would it be?”

The most common question was:

“How do I stop procrastinating and just DO the stuff I need to do???”

Let me tell you what I do.

I have an accountability buddy.

Every morning I email or text my friend with a list of the 3 super important things I’m absolutely going to get done today. In the evening I email or text him and confirm that I got them done.

Every evening he texts me with a summary of some daily habits he wants me to hold him accountable for. FYI his daily habit list is:

• Do 1 thing to get new clients every day
• Get out of the house and get some exercise
• Connect with one of his family members
• Do something creative or artistic that feeds his soul

Again, he just pings me every day to let me know how he did against his checklist.

This has been *extremely* useful for both of us. It forces me to focus on 3 BIG things because it is incredibly easy for me to get sucked into the other 300 little things that don’t matter so much instead. Focus and not procrastinate.

For him, it’s made his inner world and personal life much more satisfying. He falls into bad habits far less often. This is a seriously cool system because it’s simple and it works.

My friend, I just described a $1 million habit to you. Most people cannot appreciate the compound interest of cultivating simple disciplines over time.

When your saw is constantly being sharpened and you are constantly FOCUSING that blade on true hot spots of opportunity, you can’t help but improve and improve and improve.

Get yourself an accountability buddy and watch your productivity soar. It’s THE best way to slay the procrastination demons.

DO THIS: If you struggle with procrastination, call up one of your friends – one who values and appreciates your mission as an entrepreneur – and set up a buddy system. Do it RIGHT NOW, before you finish this email.

You’ll feel good on the inside as you hang up the phone, because you’ve picked up a $1 million habit.

Perry Marshall

Text Length: 384 words

Grade level: 7.9

“10 Minute Daily Action Injection”

I’m doing a little experiment, that you might like.

For the rest of this week and all of next week, I’m going to do a 5-10 minute “mental focus” teleseminar. Every day at 11am Central Time.

I will share ONE thought that you can take action on and be encouraged by. A 5-minute picker-upper. Or maybe a story or a really short interview with someone interesting.

Lately I’ve been running across a lot of people who are feeling discouraged and this is one way I can do something about it.

Time: 12pm Eastern, 11am Central, 9am Pacific, 5pm London . (See www.time.gov for time zones.)

Dates: Thursday August 12, Friday 8/13 and Monday-Friday August 16-20.

MP3′s will be posted for Renaissance Club members and above.

For now this is an experiment. Depending on how this goes, maybe I’ll keep going.

How to appease the Search Engine gods

Does Google ever seem like a Greek goddess who demands burnt offerings from her fearful worshipers?

If you’ve ever done any Search Engine Optimization, you know what it’s like to get sucked into all kinds of time-wasting activities, hoping they’ll someday pay off.

And if you’ve ever wondered what it might have been like to toss a damsel in the volcano, hoping rain would finally come . . . well, maybe you do know what that’s like :^)

I’d be hard pressed to name any topic with more urban legends, flim flam men and mystical freaking voodoo than SEO!

Eric Ward did link building for Jeff Bezos and Amazon.com Books back in the mid 90′s, and I’ve arranged for him to do a free webinar on link building strategies that produce fast results, improved SEO rankings and FREE traffic.

Thursday, Aug 12, 2010 12:00 PM Central time (1pm Eastern / 10am Pacific / 18:00 London)

He’s going to explain some dire pitfalls that most SEO guys are currently selling as “really cool hot strategies.” Some of these strategies will get you banned and almost none of them produce lasting results.

After this webinar is over, I’ll also send you Eric’s new 30-page “how to” manual for link building (this is a Perry Marshall exclusive!) This guide will show you how to add to and diversify your site traffic with two new sources of FREE traffic: (1) traffic from Google, and (2) traffic from the sites who link to you:

https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/187993971

Enjoy!

Perry Marshall