The Always Invisible Edge

Join the Last 4 Man Intensive before its Hiatus: Chicago August 1-2 South America August 29-30   Mel,   At my first engineering job there was a guy in the next cubicle named Boris. He was a Russian immigrant.   Boris explained to me what it was like to stand in bread lines in the Soviet Union and have virtually zero choices... then come to America and walk into a supermarket and suddenly be assaulted with choices, inundated with options from every direction.   The effect on him was visceral. Physically overpowering. It was so shocking, some of his Russian friends literally got on the plane and went back home, to where the number of choices was manageable once again.   That conversation happened 20 years ago. How many more choices do we have now than then? No less than 100 times more, probably 1000 times more.   1000 times more people talking and sending out newsletters, and only you can decide who to pay attention to. 1000 times more places to spend or invest your money. 1000 times more businesses you can get into. 1000 times more opportunities to succeed. 1000 times more opportunities to screw up. How do you navigate? Being tech savvy won’t help. College education won’t help. A faster Internet connection or 30” widescreen monitor won’t help. Having more connections and a bigger rolodex won’t help. Being more motivated won’t help. Being a better copywriter won’t help. Getting more visitors to your website won’t help. A bigger email list won’t help. No, all these things will only get you in more trouble, faster, unless you have THE number one 21st century success skill: In the 21st century the #1 success skill- a skill that NOBODY ever seems to talk about - is… Discernment. Discernment is the thing that makes the invisible edge visible. It's the thing that tells you what you need to know - when you don't even know what you don't know. I wish you could just read a book and suddenly GET discernment. I wish I could spring some magic pixie dust on all my customers and they would suddenly have it. Books help and pixie dust probably helps too. But the only way I know for people to acquire discernment is to seek out other people who have… discernment. At our last Mastermind, Benji Rabhan, who made the President's Empact100 List as one of the 100 top young entrepreneurs in the US, said every time he comes to the group, he gets advice that steers him away from a project that would have wasted 6 months of his life. THAT is discernment. He gets it from our group, the hot seats, our lunchtime and dinner time conversations. Through the power of association. Seek discernment and you will never lack for anything else. Perry Marshall P.S.: The final 4-Man Intensives before getting rebuilt and introduced at a higher price are August 1-2 in Chicago & August 29-30 in South America. Grab your chance while seats are still available.         ***NOTE: Please do not reply directly to this email, instead go to http://support.perrymarshall.com Free Video We manage our emails with Infusion. This Guide and Video explain my secret marketing sauce. If you no longer wish to receive our emails, click the link below:  Update subscriber options Perry S. Marshall & Assoc 159 N. Marion Street #295 Oak Park, Illinois 60301 United States (312) 386-7459   Having trouble viewing this email? Click here

The Consulting Maestro Pole-Vault

Mel,   Consulting is like Monopoly.   The more squares you own on the board, the more exponentially profitable your business will be.   At this 4-Man Intensive, a marketing consultant presented a scenario. I went on to show him how to immediately pole-vault beyond his initial expectations into a richly profitable arrangement.   How big is big? You can get so much more of the pie. Eavesdrop on our conversation in this 10 minute audio clip:   http://www.perrymarshall.com/27863/pole-vault/   Perry Marshall           ***NOTE: Please do not reply directly to this email, instead go to http://support.perrymarshall.com Free Video We manage our emails with Infusion. This Guide and Video explain my secret marketing sauce. If you no longer wish to receive our emails, click the link below:  Update subscriber options Perry S. Marshall & Assoc 159 N. Marion Street #295 Oak Park, Illinois 60301 United States (312) 386-7459   Having trouble viewing this email? Click here

Sky-high click prices? How to penetrate the fortress

Mel,   The Neanderthal way to penetrate a market is to jack up your bid price. And sure, if you are the guy or gal who can outspend all others, you can become the 800 pound gorilla. But that is not the only way. Imagine this: Getting more of your ideal customers affordably is like penetrating a granite fortress on a day where a thick fog shrouds everything and you literally cannot see 3 feet in front of you. Yes, you can sit there and fire cannon shots into the mist, hoping that one eventually pounds through the mortar. You hope that if it does get through, you are actually able to somehow know it got through, considering you can't see a single thing. Or you could shine some other kind of light at some other frequency, like night goggles, clearly seeing that if you stand on a 20 foot scaffolding and fire your gun at the perfect angle, you take out the castle's entire electrical system in one shot. Not only that, there are 40 other angles that could work as well. If you just knew where the general was sleeping, a raven could drop a hand grenade down his chimney and it would all be over. There's also a window where you can see the king's chair and a round of bullets would take him out in 12 seconds. In every market there are MANY angles in. They just happen to be invisible to you, given the regular tools that everybody has. But they still exist. There are still ways. It might "officially" cost $100 to acquire a customer with brute force, but you can still get 'em for $40 if you use finesse. This is precisely what Glenn Livingston's career is all about. For several months he's been planning entry into yet ANOTHER market (this is his 18th). I got an email from him last week: "Did a survey, built a project, and the bits are flying! My first class is almost full, and at a profit against the advertising right out of the gate... THIS one is scale-able!" This puts Glenn at 80% success rate for entering new markets. How? With his 360 degree view of the fortress: Microwaves, laser light, geiger counters, infrared, night vision. Glenn also offers a done-for-you service where he scopes out the castle for you and gives you a detailed report of all the ways in - including the secret water supply that feeds the city from underneath. Find out more: http://www.GlennLivingston.com/Dominate.php Perry Marshall           ***NOTE: Please do not reply directly to this email, instead go to http://support.perrymarshall.com Free Video We manage our emails with Infusion. This Guide and Video explain my secret marketing sauce. If you no longer wish to receive our emails, click the link below:  Update subscriber options Perry S. Marshall & Assoc 159 N. Marion Street #295 Oak Park, Illinois 60301 United States (312) 386-7459   Having trouble viewing this email? Click here

Wednesday: Bruises, Combat, Opposition… and finally: VICTORY

3 Star Estudiantes - the good, the bad & the ugly: Register to hear their battle stories, LIVE.   Mel,    Jay Harper just popped me this report over the weekend:   The whole month of July 2011, Red Apple sales totaled $12,8xx.   This july, we created 6 new lipsticks, and had a registration process to a private sale.  Your wife can tell you all about it, cause she registered and bought (thank you)   From July 4th til right now, sales are at 26.5k (yes, 26,500 dollars, the first 16,000 came in the first 4 hours), and expecting to top at least 30k - 35k by the end of tomorrow. Total Revenue $26,470.45 Unique Visitors: 1,899 Completed Orders: 452 Conversion Rate: 23.80%   It frustrates my brother to pieces. He feels he's a really smart guy ya know… he plays golf 3 times a week… That counts for something right?? and he's been selling hair dye for 5 years now.  Google thrashes him to death, Adwords eats every penny, facebook befuddles him, and he has a hard time spelling "newsletter" unless it's a coupon, despite the fact that he has huge opportunity in taking down the PPD world.   When I told him about the weekend sales numbers his jaw hit the floor, and he asked.. Where's that traffic coming from man, it's gotta be coming from someplace!!   ….Well Jay is going to tell you exactly where that traffic came from. On Wednesday I'm interviewing 3 star students. Travis Smith, Joshua Boswell and Jay Harper.   Joshua's gonna tell you about his bloody knuckles and so is Travis. They're going to drop all kinds of juicy tidbits on the floor so you can pick 'em up. Bumps. Bruises. False starts. Bill collectors, dashed hopes, long dark nights of the soul.   AND: Battles won, victory parades. High fives. Raging success. Their dames sweetly admiring them and their prowess, just as they always dreamed.   Join me - 12:30pm ET / 11:30 CT / 9:30 PT / 5:30pm London Wednesday July 10   Register here. Perry Marshall           ***NOTE: Please do not reply directly to this email, instead go to http://support.perrymarshall.com Free Video We manage our emails with Infusion. This Guide and Video explain my secret marketing sauce. If you no longer wish to receive our emails, click the link below:  Update subscriber options Perry S. Marshall & Assoc 159 N. Marion Street #295 Oak Park, Illinois 60301 United States (312) 386-7459   Having trouble viewing this email? Click here

Enemy Numero Uno: Loneliness & Isolation

4 Man Intensive will soon dark for upgrades. Last chance to get in at $7500 before price goes up:   Chicago August 1-2 - Lima Peru August 29-30 Mel,   At our last Roundtable meeting, Susan Kruger said, "One of the reasons I come here is just so I can have friends!" It's not that Susan or her husband Brian are not friendly or do not have friends or cannot make friends. It's not like their relationship skills suck or anything like that. They're actually awesome, popular people. It's just that when you're an entrepreneur, your problems are DIFFERENT from everybody else's. You do not have the same problems they have. You can't say to your regular friends, "We decided we really really needed to go to Johannesburg South Africa for a few days to pitch a new client on a deal and it cost us $13,000." They will not nod and smile and understand you. They'll be quietly upset that you get to do cool things and they don't. They don't really even stop to consider what it costs you if that deal falls through. You also can't brag to your regular friends about how you just beat your best control by 56% and your income just spiked $11,000 per month. You can't complain to your regular friends how the last 3 people you hired were all deadbeats. But most of all, you can't ask them for advice. Who do you get wisdom from, anyway? The higher you climb, the farther you fall from one bad decision. And the bigger the bruise. The narrower the range of what works and what doesn't. The more successful you are, the more selective you must be about your friends and advisors. Even BEFORE you're successful, you find out real quick: there are not many people you can trust. When I was just starting out, I had access to a message board roughly equivalent to our current Mastermind Club private forum. I *desperately* needed help at times - and when I sought help, it HAD to be sterling advice the first time out. If I didn't get it right the first time, there was NOT going going to be a second time. A handful of times, their advice paid off. BIG TIME. In investing, they teach you: The key to doing well is not making big screw-ups. It takes a lot of 25% increases to make up for one 100% loss! Same is true selling products, getting clients, chasing your dream. You need a peer group. You need confidants. That's why increasingly, the value of Planet Perry is the communities. From the Mastermind Forum (which has no equal anywhere on the Internet), to 4-Man Intensives and Roundtable. All are networks of people who care about each other and care about your success. In all of these places, you can almost always get the exact answer you need within a day. And probably within an hour! There are very few places in the world where you can get that. One of the most important things you will ever do in your career is build those relationships. They are your safety net. If the thing you're doing does a belly flop, it's your friends who are going to connect you to new vistas and help you bridge the gap. Perry Marshall Time and motion Flesh and blood and fire Lives connect in webs of gold and razor wire Spin a thread of precious contact Squeeze in all that you can find Spontaneous relations And the long-enduring kind -Neal Peart, "Time and Motion"               ***NOTE: Please do not reply directly to this email, instead go to http://support.perrymarshall.com Free Video We manage our emails with Infusion. This Guide and Video explain my secret marketing sauce. If you no longer wish to receive our emails, click the link below:  Update subscriber options Perry S. Marshall & Assoc 159 N. Marion Street #295 Oak Park, Illinois 60301 United States (312) 386-7459   Having trouble viewing this email? Click here

If you only learn 1 thing about email, you must know this

After August, 4 Man Intensive goes dark for upgrades. Last chance to get in at $7500 before price goes up:   Chicago August 1-2 - Lima Peru August 29-30   Mel,   What is the absolute bedrock of *bonding* with your customers via email? Watch these two videos:   Part 1   Part 2   Perry Marshall         ***NOTE: Please do not reply directly to this email, instead go to http://support.perrymarshall.com Free Video We manage our emails with Infusion. This Guide and Video explain my secret marketing sauce. If you no longer wish to receive our emails, click the link below:  Update subscriber options Perry S. Marshall & Assoc 159 N. Marion Street #295 Oak Park, Illinois 60301 United States (312) 386-7459   Having trouble viewing this email? Click here

Google Search or Display? Find out in 60 Seconds

Mel,   I've created a free tool that judges how effective advertising on Google search will be for you, vs. millions of sites in Google’s Display Network. It’s the "Google AdWords Scorecard":   http://www.perrymarshall.com/scorecard/   Scores vary widely:   -A local plumber mostly gets calls in an emergency. Interrupting people at other times seldom works. His score: Search = 9, Display = 3.4   -Home school parents won't not actively search for home school management software, but like it when they see it. Display Network is much more effective than search. Score: Search = 4.8, Display = 8.7.   -Many people do search for Nutritional Supplements, but “interrupt” driven advertising works almost equally well. Score: Search = 7.2, Display = 6.8.   Get your score at http://www.perrymarshall.com/scorecard/   Perry       ***NOTE: Please do not reply directly to this email, instead go to http://support.perrymarshall.com Free Video We manage our emails with Infusion. This Guide and Video explain my secret marketing sauce. If you no longer wish to receive our emails, click the link below:  Update subscriber options Perry S. Marshall & Assoc 159 N. Marion Street #295 Oak Park, Illinois 60301 United States (312) 386-7459   Having trouble viewing this email? Click here