Business = Alchemy

Listen up, because I’m about to explain one of the most important, most fundamental realities of economics. The simple truth that I’m about to explain changed the way I see everything, after I discovered it.

People in poor countries are often told that America became successful by stealing from them.

Political liberals usually look at the world as a pie that needs to be divided some different way. And although  there may sometimes be truth to those ideas, the essential reality is that business is alchemy.

Remember the alchemists from the middle ages? They craved a formula that would turn lead into gold. They never found it, and of course the idea itself was flawed. If they could make all the gold they wanted, it would become worthless. Supply and demand.

But they were right about one thing: Wealth is all about the reinvention of existing resources.

It’s about transforming useless things into useful things.

Business, at its essence, is all about the conversion of lead into gold. Converting worthless things into items necessary and valuable. Moving resources from areas of low return to high return.

Harnessing the natural forces of nature so they produce food and wealth for everyone. Politics may be about cutting the pie, and the endless argument about how it should be sliced – but entrepreneurship is about baking more pies, not cutting them up.

Take two of the most influential and successful companies of the last 10 years – Intel and Microsoft. Intel takes sand out of the desert – which is worth less than lead – and turns it into Pentium chips – which are worth more than Gold.

If that’s not alchemy, what is?

Microsoft literally creates software out of thin air. They create strings of 1’s and 0’s that make those Intel chips do amazing things for us. Nothing else has done so much to make the world smaller.

Does Intel have to steal anything from anyone to make those chips?

No.

Does Microsoft have to steal anything from anyone to write software?

No.

It’s alchemy. It’s literally the creation of something out of nothing.

100 years ago, we didn’t have cars, or airplanes, or TV’s, or computers, or skyscrapers. Now we have all of those things, and we didn’t steal them from some other country. All of those things were created by inventors and product developers and entrepreneurs.

I was first exposed to concept of economic alchemy about 10 years ago when I heard Paul Zane Pilzer speak about his book Unlimited Wealth. He nailed it. It was an idea that changed my life:

Wealth is not distributed, it’s created. They’re not poor because we’re rich.

Abundance is the true reality. Scarcity is the great illusion – one that causes people to be envious of each other, to wage war, and to literally destroy the abundance that’s already there.

People start wars to get others’ wealth, but in fact nothing destroys wealth faster than a war.

Actually people in the third world are less poor because we’re rich, no doubt about it. Most of the clothes that kids wore in Mozambique were obviously hand-me-downs from Europeans and Americans. Two thirds of their government’s budget is foreign aid.

And in the end, whether you’re shopping for a get-rich-quick business opportunity or trying to assist the downtrodden on the other side of the world, there’s no way around it, no shortcut: We all have to be taught how to create wealth for ourselves. We must learn the art of alchemy.

Alchemy is not an idea or a construct. It’s reality. A very liberating reality, once you truly understand it. It doesn’t relieve us of the responsibilities that come with having money. It doesn’t mean we can turn a blind eye to the woes of the world. It doesn’t excuse me from being my brothers’ keeper or answering the WWJD question.

But what it does mean is that there’s nothing wrong with having money. It means that all of us who operate in an innovative, competitive marketplace are making a positive contribution to the world around us in a very tangible and important way.

I was talking to a friend today, Tom Perazella, who’s an IT manager and electronics hobbyist, and we were discussing “the good ol’ days.” He said, “The people who reminisce about the good ol’ days are out of their minds. They don’t make things the way they used to, they make them better. The good ol’ days are right now.”

Indeed, you can talk all you want about the horrors of the 20th century and I won’t disagree with you. But there’s been no other century that’s seen more medical advances, more healthy people, more stomachs filled, or more problems solved. We’ve got a long, long way to go, but make no mistake: The innovations and improvements that are made by entrepreneurs and businesses everywhere are making the world a better, more livable place. And when under-resourced people around the world learn what you and I know, they’ll be liberated from their bonds of poverty too.

Don’t ever apologize for being an entrepreneur. The only people who should be apologizing are the bureaucrats standing in your way.

And by the way, one of my projects is to create some fund-raising materials for this staffed-bylocals, empowerment and education based Ray Of Light Project in Mozambique. If you’d like more information, email me: info@perrymarshall.com.

Reality Check from the Other Side of the World

A sizable chunk of the last issue was devoted to the antics of those commies over in China, all of the absurd ways that big American companies act just like ‘em, and a long list of things you shouldn’t be doing.

Today, some international spice of yet another flavor. Africa instead of Asia.

I travel a lot. Wasn’t always the case. But I’ve never looked at the world the same way since touring the slums of Sao Paulo, Brazil four years ago. And today, living an upper-middle class life in Chicago, hobnobbing with entrepreneurs, company presidents and business leaders; eating in posh restaurants and going to Disney World for vacation; running a worldwide marketing operation from my basement office / spaceship – well, it’s a little too easy to get absorbed in that little comfort zone and forget about the rest of the world.

So when Laura and I finally wrenched the credit cards and Dilbert cubes from our necks, we made this little deal: Every year, one of us keeps the kids and the other one goes to the jagged edge.

Last week it was my turn. Africa.

After a week in Mozambique, which is one of the world’s poorest countries, I don’t have any problems. None. Life is a punchbowl. Compared to the 3rd world, every day in America is Christmas, and every night is New Years Eve.

Of course when you turn on the TV and see some refugee camp, you can’t possibly relate.

Looks like a different planet, and it is. There’s a number on the screen to call and give some operator your credit card number, but for all you know, somebody could be stashing 90% of the money in a Swiss bank account somewhere. OK, so Bush is sending ‘em $15 billion to combat AIDS. Beyond that, what’s a guy to do? Does the fact that we’re “rich” make them poor? I’ll get to that.

I won’t give you a blow-by-blow of the trip right now – I’ll save that for a website – but I will cut to the chase and tell you what the real deal is. There’s an economic lesson in all this that’s pertinent to every person who’s reading this newsletter.

First, a story or two.

I went to Beira, Mozambique, on the Indian Ocean, just northeast of South Africa. Laura’s brother Alan runs a relief organization for kids in 3rd world countries, and he’s got a project there. A school, a church, a medical clinic and a feeding program.

Most people in Mozambique live in mud huts, women walk barefoot with baskets on their heads and boil manioc roots (which taste sort of like potatoes) over an open fire. They grow rice and dry it in the sun. Primitive stuff.

I suppose you could say that living in a hut is a wee bit like a camping trip in the mountains; not necessarily as bad as it sounds. No, the real eye-opener was the heath problems I saw during the 2 ½ days I spent with Robin, an RN who went village-to-village with her makeshift medical clinic.

She would take a box of medicine into a hut and sit down at a table with a translator, and the endless line women and children would form outside. I sat next to her and saw a little bit of everything – Malaria, parasites, malnutrition, asthma, AIDS, burns, measles – you name it.

The sheer quantity of the problems was staggering. But the real a-ha moment was when I started to recognize how simple, how basic most of these problems are.

We can solve most of the disease problems by educating people about hygiene and digging a well. AIDS stops spreading when people keep their pants zipped up. (The witch doctors tell men that they can cure themselves of AIDS by having intercourse with a virgin, believe it or not… there are many such legends there.)

And do you know what? They can completely solve most of their nutrition problems with plants and herbs that grow naturally in their own back yards. Literally.

But merely throwing money at the problem is not going to help. If that were true, the problems would already be solved. No continent has been the object of more generosity (or more thievery) from the west than Africa.

No, what 3rd world countries need is time and attention from people in the first world.

Education. Mentoring. Empowerment. People who will show them that those Moringa trees growing in their back yards have 7 times more Vitamin C than oranges, 4 times more Vitamin A than carrots, 4 times more Calcium than milk, 3 times more Potassium than bananas and almost as much Protein as an egg.

You know what? Sending Billion-dollar aid packages to Africa is kind of like hiring an ad agency to solve all your marketing problems. Unless someone gets completely inside the problem and understands it from the bottom up, you’re merely throwing money at the problem.

Only helping hands can help. And the best kind of helping hands are those of people who already live there.

By the way, that’s what Alan looks for – local efforts who are doing good in the hood and need funding to do more of it. That’s true leverage. Because there are four – and only four – things that you can do with your money.

They are:

1) Spend money on yourself

2) Invest in yourself

3) Spend money on somebody else

4) Invest in somebody else

Like I said, only four things. Every withdrawal from your checking account falls into one of those four categories.

I’m in the business of helping people do #2. That’s what my newsletter and consulting business is all about. Alan’s Ray of Light project is all about #4. That’s the only way to help welfare moms, poor communities and 3rd world countries get out of poverty – investing in peoples’ ability to help themselves.

Once you understand that, big pieces of the puzzle start to fall into place.

Why and how to be a Guru

Phil Alexander

When Perry asked me to write about being a Guru for his newsletter, I was instantly flattered.

Perry already knows a lot about “Guru Status”, and doesn’t need me teaching him anything.

But… Perry, I, and hopefully you know that the best way to learn is from Multiple Sources.

Different teachers have different slants topics that can cause readers to break through to a whole new level of learning.

You’ve probably read your fair share of other documents like this. “How to annoint yourself as an Expert”, “How to become an Authority”… They’re all pretty much say the same thing… Get the word out, publish, write articles, speak, and, oh yes, buy whatever services or goods the writer of the article is selling… Usually something to fatten the ego and slim the wallet.

Few tell you how to leverage that media/publicity/advertising into Guru Status. Here’s the most essential ingredient. This is the foundation on which all Gurus must stand.

The key to remember in all speeches, articles, and advertisements you make is they should provide a reason for your prospective customers to contact you. Not just a way to contact you, but a good reason. And this means you are providing a real solution, a solution to a problem that is keeping them up at night. Take a peek in your local business magazine, if you can stand the simplistic examples. Read a few of the articles.

How many of those people do you actually want to contact? How many do you consider to be a guru? None, right? How many offered you a new solution, or any solution to your problem?

Usually, none of them. Same with trade journals. Same with most websites.

You see, Guru’s provide solutions and secrets. If you want to be a Guru, a REAL guru, you simply have to provide your flock with them. You can’t cheat! They have to be solutions your customers want. Not solutions you think they want.

A Guru knows what keeps his flock up at night.

Ultimately, if you keep providing solutions to your customers, you’ll accumulate what I call a “Flock”. A large, connected-to-you flock who thinks your have a storehouse of secrets. That is exactly what every single Guru on the Planet wants.

A member of your flock considers you a de facto employee, consultant and mentor regarding your niche. But… Only if you are actually providing true solutions to your niche.

Members of your flock are usually price – insensitive, they come to you first, and they’re happy to do business with someone who has a bit of star power. Nice situation to be in, eh? But to be in that situation, you must become totally in-sync with your target market. You have to be. That’s one reason there are so few “true” guru’s out there.

Perry’s marketing materials and approaches come with a built-in assumption: That you actually have something useful to say, that you have knowledge and experience that other people need.

The truth is, everybody has knowledge and experience that others need. No matter what you know, there’s somebody else who needs to know it.

Wow. Who knew a page could fly by so quickly? This is but a single page in a massive, 300+ page course rapidly nearing completion. Perry will be offering an introductory special to readers of this newsletter, so keep an eye out.

I do offer some consulting to people who want to leverage their knowledge into Guru Status, and have meeting planners, publishers and media calling them. To find out more, send me a brief fax to 1-905-574-4632.

Rich Text or Plain Text?

Unless you have a really good reason to use rich-text and graphics in your emails, don’t. Send plain text, 60-70 characters wide, just like a personal email.

Why not send a rich text email?

First, rich text is more likely to get caught in spam filters. Secondly, it LOOKS blatantly commercial, before the person even opens it. More likely to get deleted.

Third, simplest is best. If you’re doing it just to look good, don’t do it.

What are legitimate reasons for using rich text?

One reason is if pictures are a necessary part of the message. Another is for tracking purposes. You can’t tell whether a plain text email was opened or not. Rich text email gets graphics from a website and graphic files can be embedded to track how many of your emails get opened.

Put the Newsletter on your Website instead

The less text your email has, the more easily it can get through the spam filters. So you can use a format like this which is from my 5-Day Google AdWords autoresponder at www.perrymarshall.com/google:

Hi Jack,

Today’s ‘5 Days to Success with Google AdWords‘ course is online at:

http://perrymarshall.com/google/day2.htm

The title is: ‘The Bid Price is NOT the Price You Pay — and Why it’s Good for You’

Click on the link above and read it now… or…if you’re an AOL user, click on the link below:

<a href=’http://perrymarshall.com/google/day2.htm’>Day 2</a>

Sincerely,

Perry

 

Getting Your Message Through the Spam Filters

This is not a trivial issue – not anymore, anyway. It’s especially not trivial if you’ve got a lot of customers who use big ISP’s like MSN and Earthlink. These guys automatically implement spam filters, which can and will prevent your message from getting through. Here’s how most of them work.

These spam filters reference 3rd party services which maintain updated lists of spammers and virus sources. If your message comes from one of those addresses, you’re out.

Then they evaluate the text. They look for words like “mortgage,” “debt”, “sales”, “make money”, etc. They keep score on how many occurrences of such things there are, and if it goes over a certain limit, your message is deleted without the recipient ever finding out.

Here’s a list of things you should to do, or not do, to help your messages get through:

Words to avoid in your mass email messages:

Security firm CipherTrust combed through more than 250,000 junk emails for Wired Magazine and identified the top 25 subject-line words and symbols: Fwd, Free, Get, FREE, $, !, SPAM, You, Your, Norton, Credit, Save, 000, Now, Check, Year, Make, Sale, Money, DVD, just, now, Lose, software, Earn.

The top 25 phrases in body text: opt-in, now!, offers, most, partners, 999, fulfillment, yamato, naviant, partner, removal, recurring, mailings, free!, assistant, enjoy, grocers, mailing, subscriber, cash, sun, rewarding, buy, today!, marketing.

You’ll do well to write your emails without using those words. Another thing to avoid: “unsubscribe.” Say it a different way: “If you no longer wish to receive communication from us…”

One of the benefits of avoiding these words – by substituting “no cost” for “free,” for example –is that you don’t sound like a spammer.

Autoresponders

Now another hot strategy is autoresponder courses. I’ve got a few – “9 Great Lies of Sales & Marketing,” “5 Days to Success with Google AdWords” – and after you’ve walked a person through a series of problem-solving steps over a period of several days, you’ve earned the right to pitch them on your solution. There are a bunch of good autoresponder services; I’ve been happy with www.proautoresponder.com and www.1shoppingcart.com.

If you sign up for one of my courses, you’ll see that I don’t have any qualms about sending you messages after the course is done. In the 9 day course, there’s a “P.S.” message on Day 10, and a few more after that. You can keep adding and adding to your autoresponders as you develop new material, new products, etc.

You should seriously consider using autoresponders as a substitute for your e-zine. It relieves you from the burden of always having to come up with new stuff – you can keep sending new people your old stuff, but it’s still new to them. I constantly get positive comments about my 9 Lies course. People even send me emails telling me they’ve missed or deleted one and would I please re-send.

And of course once a person is on an autoresponder course, you’re free to email them about whatever else is going on – like a teleseminar or other customer event.

Your E-Zine: To Be or Not To Be?

Back when the whole “permission marketing” concept caught on, the sage advice was that the real purpose of your website was to capture the person’s email address and send them your e-zine. The principle behind that is still correct, but the advice is a bit dated.

The world really has too many e-zines. If you’re going to do an e-zine at all, it had better be good. Specifically, sending out an e-zine every week or every month just so your customers can pick up a casual tidbit or two just doesn’t cut it anymore. Too easy for your readers to just press the DELETE key.

I’ve had more success with sending email for highly specific purposes: Announcing teleseminars, for example. Most of the “marketing gurus” I know do teleseminars but very few brick and mortar people do. This is a tremendous opportunity.

For example I’ve got a friend, Kevin Thompson, who sells mold remediation chemicals. He’s got a website www.getmoldsolutions.com where he has a whole series of course material for getting rid of mold, and he has live teleseminars with 100+ people on the line, learning how to get rid of mold.

It’s a very unusual business, really, and he’s making a good living in an extremely narrow and profitable niche. I bet you could get a lot of benefit from doing teleseminars, too. Anybody who deals with complex processes, problems or systems can get a lot done this way.

Now there are a lot of fancy “webinar” services out there, but I just get a conference call line from Eagle Teleconferencing www.eagleconf.com for a flat monthly fee, and get unlimited usage. I put whatever teaching material I want to use on my website and away we go.

Perry Marshall’s Email Crystal Ball

The fundamental problem with spam is this: Something that is worth money is being given away for free. That’s why your inbox is clogged with get-out-of-debt ads, Viagra ads, mortgage ads and porn.

Think with me for a minute. For several years, search engines were also giving away free listings – something that was worth money. And what happened?

A tiny little company called GoTo.com started selling clicks for pennies… then syndicated their clicks to others… then the free search engines started to weaken… GoTo became Overture and grew even stronger… Google started selling clicks too… and now Pay Per Click has become one of the most important business models on the Internet. Now Yahoo just bought Overture for $1.6 Billion.

Formerly free, but worth money, search engines are a multi-billion dollar business.

Email is next.

Here’s what’s going to happen: Right now if you have a list of 10,000 customers and you want to send them an email, there’s no guarantee your message will get through. Major ISP’s like AOL and Earthlink will start charging commercial mailers to guarantee that their emails go through.

So someone will start, and the others will follow, and it will evolve much as the search engines did. There will always be free email just like there will always be free search engine listings, but if you want any kind of control or guarantee of results, you’ll have to pay for it.

The gatekeeping of email will be the next billion-dollar Internet business.

If it cost 1 cent, or even 0.1 cent to send every email message, the vast majority of spammers would be stopped in their tracks. Legislation won’t work. Pay-For-Email is really the ONLY viable solution to the spam problem.

The SPAM Mafia

What’s funny, though, is that in NONE of the newspaper or magazine articles I’ve seen on this subject, has anyone bothered to mention that 70+ percent of spam comes from, or is brokered by, the Russian Mafia. As a matter of fact there are quite a few “legitimate” US companies who work with these guys through the back door, and if someone wants to send spam, they can always find a way to do it, in a way that’s very difficult to trace.

So they can pass all the laws they want, but it’s not going to stop it. Nobody’s lawsuit is going to touch anybody in Russia. But it still makes regular US citizens possible targets of legal action, and I’m sure there’ll be some innocent fall guys. You need to be extra careful so that you do not become one of them