ETR: Dreamers and Doers

Issue No. 16 - $1.91	Saturday, November 14, 2009
Maybe the economy kept the "dreamers" away from this year's Info-Marketing Bootcamp. Or maybe it was the caliber of the presenters. But this year's crowd seemed more serious. They were doers. They'd paid a lot of money to be there. And they were going to make it worth their while. They looked like they were going to take action on what they learned. That included the first-timers looking for start-up help. And established businesspeople looking to move online... or get past some obstacles that were impeding growth. It was probably the best group of attendees we've ever had. And I'm confident we'll be hearing success stories from several of them in the future. I'll keep you posted. If you can sell stock in your company to finance growth, some financial advisors would urge you do so. If you are creditworthy, bankers will tell you to borrow what you need. Using other people's money (OPM) -- whether it comes from financial institutions or investors -- is a great way to build a business, because what you give up is usually modest in comparison to what you get. That's the conventional wisdom. And for some of the businesspeople I know, debt- and/or equity-based growth has been a godsend. One of my main competitors took his direct-marketing company from nothing to $300 million that way. A friend of mine used that method to develop the most successful investment newsletter in history. But for every business owner I know who has used OPM to finance growth, I know two or three who have done so and regretted it. The most obvious reason: If your great idea bombs (yes, it might), you are still the same-sized company as you were before. But now you have a load of debt or a gang of angry investors. But that's not the real problem with OPM. OPM feels less real than your own. When you are planning a project with OPM, you allocate money to this and that, spending what you think is "reasonable." Meanwhile, in your heart of hearts, you know that you would never spend that kind of money on that kind of thing if the money were your own. OPM is like play money. You get it, you spend it, and you see what happens. If it works, great. If it doesn't... well, it's OPM. I'm not saying this exactly right. I don't mean to imply that everyone who uses OPM doesn't care about the investor or doesn't work hard to make the project work. What I'm saying is that there is something in the process of using OPM -- the initial budgeting, decision-making process -- that makes a difference. It makes you a bit too optimistic, a shard less scared, a tad too visionary. It allows you to spend money on things like focus groups, marketing surveys, and consultants that you'd never bother with if the dollars were coming out of your own pocket. One of my best friends has started four businesses in the past 20 years. He was wildly successful three of those four times. The one time he failed was the one time he had none of his own money in it. One day -- years after he closed that business -- he told me he thought that although he had worked hard on it, he never worked "as hard" as he had on the other three. "If we ever do something together," he advised me, "make sure I have my money in it." From what I've read, Hewlett-Packard has had a long-standing policy of rejecting debt. HP's people were told that any new projects and developments (even acquisitions) had to be paid for with available cash. This "pay-as-you-go" policy was supposedly the lynchpin of their growth. Lean and efficient was everyone's style. Innovation came from bootstrapping. Rather than being limited by money, ideas were enhanced and strengthened by the lack of it. Have you made health one of your top priorities? To accomplish your other goals, you need a healthy body and an alert mind. You have to be able to get up early and apply yourself with vigor and intelligence throughout the day. You have to be able to enjoy life and have fun, spread some cheer in dreary places, and build a business. It takes a well-running machine of a body to do all that. If you have any doubts about the importance of health, you'll change your mind the first time you get seriously ill. Health comes from living right. You must put an emphasis on preventing disease through exercise, diet, and taking natural supplements. Avoid toxic behaviors, people, and places. And don't trust the government, Big Pharma, or mainstream medicine to keep you healthy or cure you when you get sick. If this sounds right to you, check out our sister publication, Total Health Breakthroughs. One of the best -- and easiest -- things you can do for your health is breathing exercises. Try this. It's something I learned from Total Health Breakthroughs' Dr. Sears several years ago: Lie flat on your back and focus on your breath. Breathe slowly and deeply. Be aware of your abdomen -- feeling it softly rise as you inhale and fall as you exhale. Keep your mouth closed, drawing in the air through your nostrils. Just breathe deeply into your abdomen, all the way down into your pelvis. Find the rhythm that is fluid, smooth, and relaxing for your body. There are two things almost all people like to do: 1. talk about themselves 2. talk about something they know a lot about You can put this to work for you in a big and powerful way. The idea is to identify people you want to meet and ask them questions. You can do it in person, by phone, or by mail. But whatever medium of communication you choose, do it with a smile. (You convey a smile on the phone simply by smiling. You smile in writing by opening with a cheerful sentence and ending with an exclamation point.) A smile lets your target know that you like him. A smile buys you enough time to ask the first question. If it's the right question, the rest will be easy. The other day, I was sitting in my office working on some disagreeable problem when the door cracked open and the head of a man I'd never seen before popped through. My first reaction was alarm and annoyance. Then he gave me a big smile, and I felt compelled to smile back. "I've come to ask you a question," he said, and stepped inside. I suspected he was up to something, but I couldn't resist. "What is that?" I responded. He said that he'd heard I was a marketing genius and was hoping I could give him some quick advice on a marketing decision he was trying to make. "I'm kind of busy right now," I said. "A minute of your time is all I'm asking," he replied. He looked at his watch and added, "I'll time it." How could I say no? "Go ahead," I consented. "Ask your question." He sat down. "How does a person know if he has any talent for marketing?" he said. It was, in retrospect, a devilishly clever question. On the one hand, it was too big to answer in an hour, let alone a minute. On the other hand, it was flattering -- and so I was hooked. We ended up spending an hour together, at the end of which he left with: a list of three potential employers he could contact specific recommendations for improving his marketing skills an invitation to call me anytime he needed help Not a bad accomplishment for someone I normally wouldn't have given the time of day. So, do this: Make a list of six people you'd like to get to know. (Not President Obama or Madonna. Be realistic.) Phone them, write to them, or go to speak with them personally. Remember to lead with a smile. Then ask a question that allows them to talk about (1) themselves and (2) something they know. This is just one of the career-building strategies in my book Power and Persuasion. You can check it out here. The Economist magazine recently reported that $1.25 trillion in credit card lines of credit have already been cut. And another $1.5 trillion will vanish by the end of 2010. IDE's Andrew Gordon has a bad feeling about this. He says the little growth we have right now is from stimulus spending. Take it away and we're right back in the throes of a bad recession fed by falling demand. The government is going to be mightily tempted to hand us another stimulus-spending "lifeline." In the short-run, it'll keep demand from falling off a cliff, Andy says. But our nearly $12 trillion debt is getting bigger and bigger. It's too early to declare the death of the dollar. The dollar could conceivably be saved by the lack of a viable alternative. But it's not too early to buy gold. Our economic policies lack backbone, are misdirected, and are overly geared to short-term objectives. We're stuck with bad government and bad policies. And gold knows it. It feeds on bad government. That's why you can expect the price of gold to continue to go up. All the Way from Encinitas, CA We don't regularly get "snail mail" here at Early to Rise. I guess it's no surprise for an Internet-based company. So it was nice to get a letter -- on hand-made paper no less -- from Veronika. The sentiment she expressed was even better: "I want to thank you for issuing ETR. I enjoy reading the articles every day. It's one of the few e-zines I read religiously. My inbox is always full, but ETR is always at the top of my list to read. It's insightful, funny, and actionable. "I'm a B2B copywriter who has been freelancing for 28 months. What I learn from your e-zine I apply weekly to my work and life. "Keep those articles coming!" [Ed. Note: Michael Masterson welcomes your questions and comments. Send him a message at AskMichael@ETRFeedback.com.]
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