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

Hi-Def Deception In The Single Speaker Showroom

Mel,   Back when I was in junior high I'd hop a bus downtown to visit all the stereo shops and soak up every scrap of knowledge I could.   I'm sure the sales people hated me.   I'd materialize once every month or so... monopolize an hour of their time... pummel them with questions about speakers, amplifiers, tape decks, turntables and decibels—then vanish without spending a single thin dime.   One of these patient souls once advised me, "You should read everything you can get your hands on."   I took that quite literally. Instead of clothes, most of the drawers in my dresser in my bedroom were stuffed with audio literature, brochures and catalogs.   Much later on, I discovered a dirty little secret:   95% of the products I was drooling over were COMMODITIES.   Vendors in the audio industry are among the very best, of any industry out there, at jukking and jiving their way around the fact that the things they sell sound and perform *exactly* the same as their competitors.   One of the most brilliant of these dance moves was from Linn, a high-end audio manufacturer in Scotland.   Every stereo shop has a special room for the high end equipment.   And the top lines carried by that dealer compete fiercely for attention in that room.   One day someone at Linn figured out a sneaky way to nab the primo  positioning in those rooms: "The Single Speaker Demonstration."   The shtick goes like this:   The existence of any other speaker in a room corrupts the sound and the listener experience.   Even a telephone, by its very presence, will distort the sound and make the listener's judgment suspect and unnatural.   Therefore only one speaker can be demonstrated at any one time; if you switch speakers, you must lug the old ones out of the room before new ones are brought in.   So they went out to all their dealers and showed this to them.   They would put a pair of speakers in the room and play them – then they'd bring a telephone in and out of the room.   Steve the Linn rep says, "Mark, can you hear the difference the presence of this little telephone makes?"   Mark thinks for a minute and says "Play that again, would you?"   So they do another trial. "Yeah, Steve, now I hear exactly what you're talking about. The midrange is muddier with the telephone in the room. Wow, that's amazing!"   The factory guy has successfully done a bit of psycho-manipulation on the dealer, who will in turn do this to many dozens of unsuspecting customers.   Next the factory guy pulls a sticker out of his notebook—it's a "Single Speaker Demonstration" sticker—and affixes it to the front door of the retail store.   Now this dealer is certified as a "Single Speaker Demonstration Room" dealer, and Linn's speakers are, of course, always the default speakers in this special room.   Linn then goes on to publish a list of dealers who conform to this now-higher standard of demonstrating audio equipment—and run ads promoting those dealers.   Fact check:   Does having another pair of speakers in the room change the sound?   Yes, it theoretically does.   However, the difference is microscopically small (especially compared to the rattling drywall, the air conditioner, and whatever else is going on).   Here's what's important though: It is now literally impossible for the customer to make a side-by-side comparison.   Your hearing is extremely susceptible to suggestion.   And the salesman, convinced by Linn's "single speaker" pitch, can now tell customers what he wants them to hear, instead of flipping a switch from A to B and letting them hear it for themselves.   Linn has deftly shoved the competition out of the way.   Now to be clear, what Linn did here isn't exactly ethical.   But the principle is one any business should heed:   The way to escape the "commodity trap" is to make it impossible for your customers to compare you 1-to-1 with anyone else.   An excellent way to do this is to create a "buyer's guide" for your market that lays out the questions customers should ask when choosing who to work with.   By encouraging your customers to ask questions that highlight your USP, you eliminate your competition without firing a shot.   Hey, nobody said this was going to be a fair fight!   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: 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

Replay is Up: How I Added $14K in 5 Minutes

Mel,   Earlier today, Jack Born introduced Planet Perry to “Evergreen Deadline Funnels.”   What is an evergreen deadline?   Well, you’ve heard the term “evergreen” right? That’s the old make-money-while-you-sleep idea.   Problem is that most evergreen sales funnels are pretty darn quiet unless you wake up and drive lots of expensive traffic to them. If you sleep on them, they fall asleep too.   And you’ve heard the term “deadline” right? That’s the old sense-of-urgency idea. Run a promotion or launch with an expiration date and a countdown clock. It pumps a lot of cash into your coffers as the deadline approaches. But, after the deadline…you’re back to flat sales again.   Oh, and it’s a TON of work.   Until now, you had to pick one. And both kinda suck.   So, Jack Born put those two ideas together and created Evergreen Deadline Funnels.   It does not suck.   In about 30 minutes of work per product or promotion, you can add an evergreen component to your deadline promotions…and add a deadline component to your evergreen promotions!   Now all your sales funnels are both urgent and evergreen.   How much does it not suck?   Well, we plugged Jack’s tool into one of our evergreen products and reeled in an extra $14k in just a week.   With no new traffic.   And only about 5 minutes of work.   Sound like something that could help you?   Watch the free presentation here.     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