Roundtable Chronicles for January 31, 2012

Last week in Orlando Florida my highest level coaching groups had our once-every-4-months Serial Entrepreneur Fest. Highlights:

–>10MIL IN LESS THAN 2 YEARS: Mr. S has grown his company from $1 million to $10 million in 21 months. Just had his first million dollar month this fall. He’s got bugs in his teeth and every kind of growing pain you can think of. Fortunately he takes the mercenary approach to problems, and the guy never looks back.

Challenges:

*The opportunity he’s exploiting is huge but will evaporate in 5 years. He’ll either be in the driver’s seat then, or in a different business. Either he builds the platform that everyone standardizes on, or somebody else does.

*He’s doing business in dozens of countries and each has its own regulations. He’s got all sorts of fun with lawyers, foreign bank accounts, taxes etc. Good problems to have.

*Everyone wants what he’s building. If he plays his cards right, he’ll grow this thing to $100 million and sell to a much larger company.

–>SAFE ENTRY ON A SHOESTRING: Mr. T and his wife sell natural products and their #1 channel is good ol’ fashioned snail mail catalog. They’re about to jump into the Cosmetics market.

Not an easy decision. Because you either have ALL the colors people want, ALL the ingredients of a beautiful face, or none. There’s no doing this halfway. Major investment in containers, labels and product launch, just to get the first sale.

The group brainstormed a new way of getting critical data from a small group of test users without biting off the whole investment. Now they can do this in stages.

–>TAIL WAGS DOG: Mr. B is a specialized lender who gets referrals from major players in his business. 1/3 of his business comes from guys ‘throwing him a bone.’ He grew his biz 31% last year and his marketing is solid.

His next move is to maneuver himself in the tollgate position where he’s the one giving out the referrals and them waiting for him to throw the bone. A total reversal of what’s normal. He’s doing it by exploiting every ounce of authority he’s got. He’s got the perfect demeanor for it and I think he’s gonna pull this off.

–>RE-INVENTING LEAD GEN: Mr. E has been buying leads the old fashioned way. He’s very good at it but I showed him a completely new way to do it, which gets him not leads but qualified buyers, at lower cost per acquisition than he’d ever get from a lead.

–>CHANGING THE WORLD: Mr. N has two businesses and both are doing great. He’s now turned his attention to a burning passion, which is reforming a very specific segment of the education market. This could conceivably be worth millions but that’s not why he’s doing it. The money is not his focus.

Rather, it’s a CAUSE because he knows he can transform the world. (At least for a few hundred thousand kids.) The group gave him input on how to keep some huge company from patenting his ideas and taking them off the market.

–>EVIL LAWYERS: Speaking of patents, Mr. J has been embattled for years with a bogus patent lawsuit perpetrated by bloodthirsty attorneys exploiting the legal system. We explored his situation and concluded: There’s no way to call the dogs off.

In his session, based on advice from an attorney in the group from Italy, we discussed how to move his assets to the European Union and take advantage of the differences in patent law. Hey, sometimes you gotta fight fire with fire.

–>THE POWER AND THE GLORY: I can tell you this guy’s name. Roundtable Member Benji Rabhan of Morris Media Works, age 26, made the Empact100 List, a roster of top young entrepreneurs in the US. In November he attended a special reception at the White House, honored by President Obama for his achievements.

I’m extremely proud of my Roundtable members. If you’d like to apply for the Roundtable waiting list, visit www.perrymarshall.com/roundtable/

Perry Marshall

Facebook Firestorm starts today. Why it matters.

When Google introduced AdWords in 2002, people started making money with it immediately. Yet almost nobody’s making money from social media. Allow me to explain why.

When people search Google, they’re hoping to make a decision.

When people log onto Facebook they’re trying to AVOID making a decision.

Facebook users are paddling in the opposite direction of Google searchers. So if you don’t have a mechanism for turning them around 180 degrees – for converting the DIS-advantages of social media to your advantage . . .

. . . you’re screwed.

On the other hand, if your sales funnel is built to accept Facebook traffic and perform that 180, there’s a LOT of traffic to be had. A LOT. One of our Facebook Firestorm students (who insists on anonymity) has made 100 million dollars.

There is a LOT of traffic on Facebook.

So we built a platform called Fanalytix™ which harnesses the rich knowledge that Facebook affords and converts it into actionable information. It’s so powerful that almost anybody – even with an IsFBforMe score of 3 – can boost their marketing by 10%. Even if you never spend a dime on Facebook ads.

We’re teaching Fanalytix™ in Facebook Firestorm 2. It starts at 1pm ET today:

http://www.perrymarshall.com/facebook/firestorm/

Get in on our live Q&A session at 11am ET:

http://www.perrymarshall.com/facebook/training/

Tom Meloche knows things about Facebook advertising that nobody else knows. He’ll teach ya. Do not miss out.

Perry Marshall

http://www.perrymarshall.com/facebook/firestorm/

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