With a few thoughts about the online Mafiosi – and how to make money the old-fashioned way
On Friday I whacked out an email offering a £600 discount off the last www.eadim.com I plan to run.
Maybe you saw it and pressed the delete button with relief.
Maybe you never saw it at all. So just in case …
Perhaps I have reached my sell-by date anyhow, because my long-time partner Mike pointed out that I got the price wrong on the website.
Thank God I had already confessed that the programme is wildly inaccurate – with five months to go the details aren’t finished.
But if you’re still with me, this year I shall focus largely – but not entirely – on two things that seem important to me – and maybe you, too.
They certainly are if you plan to survive the next few years without being a) ripped off by the online Mafiosi or b) finding it impossible to sell whatever makes you a living.
Let’s take the baddies first.
They’re surprisingly like the original – having little get togethers where they cook up new schemes, forever introducing you to “my good friend” who will have making money forever without working.
Only later do you discover the real cost.
Who wouldn’t want to get money without doing anything? The magic phrase is passive income.
Just to see if it really works my colleagues and I have been working at it for quite a few months now and will reveal all in October.
The surprising thing is, we’re having a fair amount of success
Someone asked me on Friday what exactly we would cover in this area.
I replied more or less as follows:
“We have taken several products and services, and been selling them successfully on line.
The process is continuing and we are learning new things every day – like what goes wrong when everything seems plain sailing, and how to fix it – which is why this sort of thing can NEVER be totally passive.
One of the first cases was my own How to Write seminars which we have built into a series.
In other cases it has been stuff our clients were selling – like a photography course we thought could do well – and is indeed doing so.
In another case it was just sheer pique on my part.
A client, in my view, screwed us and I was livid. So we went into competition, and are doing a lot better than they were.
In yet others it has just been clients who said they’d like to work with us.
This past week these various activities – still in their relative infancy – pulled in a satisfactory four figure sum, so you may find what we have learned interesting.”
The bad news is that it isn’t entirely passive. But it does almost run on auto-pilot once you”ve got it right.
The other subject we’re going to focus on is selling.
Selling your ideas. Persuading people to do what you want. Squeezing a little extra money from them. Overcoming their objections. Doing better presentations.
Why is this the right time to master this, if you haven’t?
Because I don’t believe for a second that times are going to get better. I think they are going to get worse.
So you need to make money the old-fashioned way.
This was well put by Thomas J. Watson Jnr of IBM: “Nothing happens in business until something gets sold.”
Most of us are lamentable at this.
I watch other presentations at the various events I speak at. Most are appalling. Hardly any have a clue about things like powerpoint – even those who speak well.
Accordingly I am inviting two (and I hope three) of the best people I know to reveal their sales secrets.
They have between them worked with – I mean run training for – some of the biggest names in business anywhere.
Names you will instantly recognise.
One has written two best-selling books on the subject – and actually taught me.
One specialises in selling professional services.
The third I am still talking to.
If you think better selling will help you, they will show you how it’s done. And if you don’t – well, I don’t know what to suggest.
If you’re interested you can save £600 off the event and get easy terms.
There are, as usual, only 40 places
Just email me, Drayton@draytonBird.com, with the word: “Swansong” and we’ll arrange everything.
I’m always happy to answer any questions, too – in writing, or on the phone.
Best,
Drayton
Want to do better? Go to askdrayton.com
