"Nice Guy" Perry and The Deadbeat Babysitter

Mel,   I have a tale of woe to tell today.   Before I'm finished you're going to think I'm stupid. But fear not, for I have since wizened up.   Our last house had a small basement apartment that we rented to a woman named Lydia.   Lydia was neither particularly sharp nor reliable, but for about four years she got us that rent check on the first of every month without fail.   Then she lost her job. And she wanted to know, was there anything she could do for us in lieu of the money?   By then business was good, and a few hundred bucks a month wasn't going to kill us.   So we gave her some jobs. She would do babysitting when we needed it (very convenient when the babysitter lives downstairs and is available pretty much anytime), clean our house every week, and hand address envelopes with her lovely handwriting—literally an in-house mail shop.   This worked OK for awhile.   Then the situation began to S-L-I-D-E downhill...   As it happened, Lydia wasn't the greatest babysitter.   She was also a sloppy house cleaner, but Laura doesn't like to nitpick.   And while she did OK with the envelopes, Lydia was 100% computer illiterate. So I still had to handle the data entry, cover letter printing, and other order-fulfillment tasks.   Finally I outsourced the shipping to a real mail house—what a relief.   Only now Lydia wasn't pulling her own weight. The babysitting and the mediocre house cleaning was certainly not equal to the rent she had stopped paying us.   Micromanaging Lydia into a model of productivity was also not worth my time.   If you think firing a deadbeat employee is tough, try dealing with one who's taken up residence under your roof.   We rationalized, "Lydia isn't as capable as we are, she has a hard time holding down a job, let's just be kind and generous and let things go."   Then the strange charges hit our credit card statement—two for take-out pizza and one trip to Olive Garden.   That was the last straw. As if it wasn't enough that we were giving Lydia free rent in exchange for a few easy odd jobs, now she's stealing our money to wine and dine on Italian?   When we confronted her, she sobbed that she's so ashamed of herself, how could she do such a terrible, stupid thing, she'll do anything to make this up to us.   "Lydia, we forgive you. But I think it's time for you to find a new place to live. I want you to be out by the end of the month."   It took almost 2 more months (and a threat of police involvement) before Lydia was finally out of our lives.   In hindsight, I was as much to blame in this situation as Lydia was.   My hiring criteria for Lydia was "can fog a mirror." She wound up in a role that was completely unsuitable for her.   And as Lydia taught me, this is a costly mistake—expensive in time AND money.   These days, I don't hire anyone without making them jump through a few hoops first. I require candidates to send me their Marketing DNA score. Often I'll start them off with a small project as an "audition."   And more and more my go-to source for freelancers and contractors is Marketers 24/7.   The marketers on M24/7 have already jumped through hoops.   They're familiar with how we do things in Planet Perry. Many have already posted their Marketing DNA score right in their profile, so you know right away how they mesh with your strengths and weaknesses.   I've used M24/7 to find volunteers, barter for services, and straight up hire contractors, and I'm continually impressed with the quality of the people who apply.   If you HAVEN'T taken advantage of Marketers 24/7 yet, go there today.   It's free.    Carpe Diem,   Perry Marshall       ***NOTE: This email address isn't monitored! If you need help, please email:   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: Opt-Out of Email Communications   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

A Marketing Plan for the 'Death of the Web' (Live Free Presentation)

5 Lessons I Learned from Getting Banned by Facebook Free, Live Presentation February 23, 11AM Eastern Register Here   Mel,   Listen up, Marketing Maven:   Two years from now, that old school direct marketing paradigm will be utterly replaced by a whole new mousetrap.    If you’re doing the old AdWords-ad-to-optin-page-to-autoresponder-sequence dance, you’re days are numbered.    You’re probably already feeling the squeeze.   And it’s gonna get squeezier. Because Facebook is out to dominate online advertising, render the old model obsolete.    And you better start mastering the new one NOW.    Here’s what I’m gonna reveal on Tuesday… A plan for “Death of the Web” How the iPhone throws a wrench into the best-laid plans of mice and marketers How branding and direct response have finally merged, after 120 years of bitter rivalry The new paradigm that threatens to replace A/B Split Testing Big Brother in the 21st Century: How entrepreneurs and paradigm shifters MUST deal with the somnambulant bureaucracy (picture yourself waltzing into Bank of America and asking the teller for a small business loan) Eminent doom for the short-sighted crack addict This is a preview of the new age of online marketing. A couple years from now this will be standard stuff… but it’s not now. If you wanna stay ahead of the curve…rather than get pitched into raging cold waters of the sea where you die of hypothermia in 12 minutes…this is the place to be.    Register for the free presentation here.   Carpe Diem,   Perry Marshall       ***NOTE: This email address isn't monitored! If you need help, please email:   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:  Opt-Out of Email Communications   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

Q: What Do You Call $1,500 An Hour? A: "A Good Start"

Mel,   In February a few years back I fled frigid Chicago to meet with Roundtable members in Fort Myers Beach, Florida. (Minus 5 degrees F to 70 and sunny? Yes, please!)   One member took the hot seat and explained that he'd grown his business more than 10X in the last year and was looking for a breakthrough to take it to the next level.   At the time he was spending much of his time interacting directly with customers and talking to them on the phone. I asked him how much he thought he was making, per hour, selling to those customers.   "$1,500 an hour, I think."   Not bad for an hour's work, eh?   I said, "OK, now you spent a lot of time last year improving your marketing so you'd have these people to talk to. How much do you think that time earned you—doing marketing instead of talking to customers?"   He thought awhile and said, "Maybe $2,500 per hour."   $2,500 an hour is definitely better than $1,500 per hour, isn't it?   But it doesn't stop there.   If you spend an hour on the phone and make $1,500, you've got a high hourly rate but no leverage, no scalability.   The time he spends on marketing will continue to become more and more valuable because it pays dividends month after month.   If I asked him the question next year he might find the marketing efforts paid $4,000 an hour not $2,500.   I asked him if there was any way he could get somebody else to do that phone selling so he could spend his time on marketing instead.   He was concerned they wouldn't be as effective as he was, which is probably going to be true.   But we tossed around some numbers and figured out that no matter how he slices it, he can make a lot more money if he stops selling on the phone and works on his marketing.   He went home and did it. He implemented this with total dedication, hiring a company to take the calls and spending more and more time on marketing development.   Income Doubles, Again   Oh, and it turns out the other team is selling better than he was. (Not that this is normal, but it's always nice when it happens that way!)   I asked him how he felt about this new role. He said, "It's weird! I'm not yakking on the phone all day anymore, in fact the phone isn't even ringing. It's quiet in here and I have time to study, plan and implement all these new strategies I'm learning."   Then he told me how he and his son both had a serious case of bronchitis the previous week and had to spend some time in the hospital. Because he had put these things in place, his business ran uninterrupted with record sales the whole time.   It doesn't make the bronchitis go away, but it sure is nice to not be worried about the biz when you have to be away, isn't it?   Carpe Diem,   Perry Marshall   P.S. Roundtable is full for 2016, but I've decided to open a second group this year. This is serious help and accountability for established businesses. If you feel you may be qualified to participate, email josh@perrymarshall.com and he'll get your application started.             ***NOTE: This email address isn't monitored! If you need help, please email:   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: Opt-Out of Email Communications   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

Zuckerberg’s Plot to Destroy Email Forever (Live, Free Presentation)

5 Lessons I Learned from Getting Banned by Facebook Free Presentation February 23, 11AM Eastern Register Here   Mel,   About a year ago, the guy who wrote the bestselling book on Facebook advertising got banned from Facebook. (That would me.)    The reason I got banned was for making promises.    You know…like we do in direct marketing.   I posted an ad that promised to “double your sales without adding new customers.”   Too direct market-y, I guess.   (Even though Facebook has been doing exactly that for a number of years now – doubling their sales without adding new customers.)   Got slapped…thrown over the railing into the chilling cold waters of the North Atlantic …even though Facebook had become one of my best sources of hot fresh new leads.   Perhaps you know that when leads dry up, the sales people who make money selling to those leads get itchy. Boy, did I hear from my sales team. It was like that scene out of Glengarry Glen Ross, “The leads are weak, Perry, we want the Facebook leads!”    Tense times.    And I’m not talking a week or two. We were off for most of 2015.    Eventually, we got back in.    It was a rough ride… but it turned out to be a blessing in disguise.    Because it forced me to get a graduate level education in marketing on the web in the Post-Internet Marketer era.   The good old days of tossing up an eyeball-grabbing direct response ad, sending them to an easy-squeezy landing page, and then working my benevolent autoresponder Chinese water torture until they bought and bought and bought again…well, those days are deader than a mouse getting a hug from a python. He ain’t dead yet, but he’s gonna be soon.    Nope, the times they are a-changin’.   And I had the scars to prove it.     Listen up, Marketing Maven:   Two years from now, that “old school” direct marketing paradigm will be utterly replaced by a whole new mousetrap.    And you better start learning how to build that sucker NOW.    Register for the free presentation here.   Carpe Diem,   Perry Marshall       ***NOTE: This email address isn't monitored! If you need help, please email:   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:  Opt-Out of Email Communications   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

True & False Regrets

Mel,   Ever heard the old proverb? “Nobody on their death bed ever said, I wish I’d spent more time in the office.”   It’s guilt-inducement for people who “work too hard.” Often by people who don’t work hard enough.   So you’ll go to more soccer games and stuff like that.   My dad died when I was 17. It was cancer, so there was plenty of time for frank conversations and reflection and all that.   What did HE regret?   Not saving up money so his kids could go to college. He was REALLY bugged that he hadn’t done that, and now at age 44 knew he couldn’t solve it.   Him not fixing that problem didn’t score “dad’s a failure” in MY book. It wasn’t that big of a deal to me. I did get through college OK, and in fact I’m making my kids pay for most of their college. (My 19 year old is taking school a LOT more seriously cuz she’s paying more than half the freight.)   But the point is, dads (and moms) have a lot more heartache about not being able to provide special experiences for their families, than missing soccer games.   A year ago we went to China and adopted ZJ. Costly trip, taking the whole family halfway ‘round the world and then bringing an extra kid back.   Big family. Three weeks. Two hotel rooms. It took time at the office to buy the plane tix and dinners and pay the Chinese officials. It also took a certain degree of excellence and expertise.   I have ZERO regrets about that. It’s a permanent memory, a shared experience etched in stone. I bet they’ll have pics of that trip flashing across the video screen at my wake.   So if guilt is making you ambivalent about being EXCELLENT at what you do - and getting paid WELL - so you can do things other people don’t get to do - (come on, admit it - that’s the reward) then it’s time to jettison that shag bag of guilt. And get on with the real job of earning some dinero.   When the charity is 12% short of their goal and they can’t do the project, who do they go to?   The entrepreneurs who earned some dinero. That’s who.   Solomon said, “Do you see a man skilled at his work? He will not stand before obscure men. He will stand before kings.”   The privilege of being an entrepreneur is, there’s no upper limit. If you want money and time freedom, there ain’t many other options. Which means you can’t be even slightly ambivalent about delivering the goods and paying the price to succeed.   What does it take to be excellent?   Don’t come back from your next coffee break until you’ve made up your mind.   Perry Marshall             ***NOTE: This email address isn't monitored! If you need help, please email:   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: Opt-Out of Email Communications   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

Hydroponics, Guru Chants And the Amazing Miraculous Goldmine

Mel,   I used to have a couple of Roundtable members who catered to the biz-op marketplace.   Now I knew these guys well enough to know they would overwhelmingly prefer for their customers to stick around.   To learn things, implement what they've been taught, move up the ladder of success and continue to buy and learn and grow in an ever-rising cycle of prosperity.   But what they often found is that sometimes after a few months the customers lose interest and they're on to something else.   For those people, they're addicted to the rush of STARTING.   Über sales strategist John Paul Mendocha defines this process as a simple, 3-step cycle:   1. Idealization: "This is the absolute best, most perfect opportunity. I can't believe I had the spectacular fortune of stumbling upon this amazing, miraculous goldmine!"   2. Demoralization: "Dang, this sure is hard. Maybe I don't have the skills to pull this off. I'm dazed and confused."   3. Frustration: "I can't get anything to work. This is hopeless. Business doesn't work. Life sucks and then you die. Maybe I should just find a tall building and jump off."   Step three leads directly back to step one, except it's yet another amazing, miraculous goldmine.   It's selling subscriptions to Grit magazine... then it's space-age polymers... then it's hydroponics... a flirtation with noni juice... a chance to own 500 mini-malls of your very own on the "World Wide Internet"... then it's affiliate programs... then it's 99 million email addresses for just $99...   The conversation-inside-the-head that fuels and perpetuates this normally goes something like this:   "If I could only just get on the leading edge of a huge trend, early on, I could ride its coat tails to success and Susan and I could have our very own motor coach and we would drive around the country and tell other people that they can do it too."   There's also usually a whole bunch of chants and mantras, stuff like:   "Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve."   and   "The moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way..."   and   "You just need to confess the positive and focus on your dream..."   (Hint: Any time you're in some business that you bought from somebody else and the solution to a problem is some mantra, this is a fairly reliable indicator that the person who sold it to you has no idea how to fix said problem. The happy jingoisms are just his preferred way to buy time and string you along.)   In my business I get people from every conceivable part of the spectrum. From established serial entrepreneurs and Roundtable members whose incomes are 7 figures and net worth is 8 figures, all the way to the guy who got off the Gullibility Express at one o'clock this afternoon.   And like it or not, ALL of them, all of us, you and me included, have had our trip around the Idealization / Demoralization / Frustration circle.   The difference between the failures and the successes is what we choose to do when we come back around to the top.   Will you throw away everything you've worked for and chase the latest shiny bauble?   Or will you bare your teeth...   Drive your stake into the ground...   And put the world on notice that you'll do whatever it takes to make ONE dollar?   Reality usually doesn't look anything like a "goldmine."   But it sure beats another trip round on the Ferris Wheel O' Frustration.   Carpe Diem,   Perry Marshall               ***NOTE: This email address isn't monitored! If you need help, please email:   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: Opt-Out of Email Communications   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

Expires TONIGHT

Mel,   Hey--a quick friendly reminder about tonight's deadline...  If you've been hitting the "snooze button" for a few days and haven't picked up your license of Deadline Funnel yet...    Now is your last chance to SAVE $405 and get more than half off the software. Plus get 2 extra bonuses...  9 email templates you can put to use right away in your next Deadline Funnel campaign  1 "Marketing Critique" you can use at any time in the next 6 months to have Jack review a marketing piece you choose  But this offer expires at 11:59PM PST TONIGHT (Sunday Feb. 14th).  If you're ready to finally add AUTHENTIC deadlines to your marketing, then Deadline Funnel is what you want.   That's why I use Deadline Funnel with my promotions.   So pick up a risk-free copy before the price more than doubles at midnight:  https://deadlinefunnel.com/special/perry  Sincerely,   Perry Marshall       ***NOTE: This email address isn't monitored! If you need help, please email:   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