Hi Richie,

Thanks, that's a great post!

It really illustrates that sometimes, it's best to keep things simple.... The company you worked for clearly tried to make things more complicated than was really necessary!

I've been reading about this as one of the principles in Robert Ringer's book, "Million Dollar Habits". (Thanks to Erik Lukas for recommending the book to me - it's a great book!)

One thing I've realized is that some of the best money-making systems are actually quite simple. However, people often don't believe it can be so simple....

It's true, some money-making systems are complicated too - but some are amazingly simple. Robert Ringer tells the story of a guy who made his fortune simply from one store. He kept his prices high, and aimed for the "high end" of the market. When your prices are high (and you're aiming for the top end of the market), your profit per sale is that much greater. Something as simple as this can be enough to make a fortune with....

However, most people when they first get into business, make the opposite mistake, and think the way to make a lot of money is by selling with low prices, low margins, yet aiming for high volume. (Most dot-coms/dot-bombs did this, as you'll probably remember....)

This is actually the more complicated way to do things.... That's because, to get high volume you often need to advertise heavily. Spending a lot of money on advertising when you have slim margins makes it easy to go bust! It's much easier to have money to spend on advertising when your margins are reasonable.... If you like, you can think of it as a matter of survival.

Einstein said,

"Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler."

I think old Einstein was on to something when he said that! :)

Thanks - this IS a good thread.... :)

- Dien

> Yes, I do think this would fly. I spent
> three and a half years at a dot-com that
> ultimately didn't make it....after they were
> funded, they spent boatloads of cash on
> consultants, contract programmers etc to
> build 'the system of all systems'. Most of
> it never worked or increased sales at all.

> Absolutely none of it was as effective as a
> simple perl script they had developed in
> their first six months of business called
> the 'Profiler'. Total investment: about
> $300.00 I believe...

> The script was interactive and asked the
> prospect/customer questions and then, based
> on their answers, directed them to an
> appropriate follow up page. The questions
> were crafted to both qualify their needs and
> raise and overcome objections. In the end, a
> customized, personalized offer with a buy-it
> now button was presented to the prospect.
> Very effective and very easy to
> accomplish...

> Wishing you success,

> Richie