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Originally Posted by GordonJ
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I KNOW a couple of you have this suitcase in your man caves, because we've talked about it. Pull it down and go through it again.
I regard it as one of the best info products ever, on my top 10 list along with Harvey Brody's "TOLL POSITION" course (
How to Become Financially and Personally Independent) and Melvin Powers' Mail Order Course and others.
In the infomercial I've linked to, Cossman talks about SONY and VW and after WWII they could have been brought into USA for a song. And those who did, well, they live in the Mansions On The Hill.
Today, I'll start with missed opportunities. We've all had them.
My fav is Jim Straw telling the Steves (Jobs & Woz) that no one would ever want a computer in their homes and what did Apple have to do with it? POOR old Jim, missed out on owning 10% of Apple Computer...YIKES!!
But Jim just laughed about it, told me it wasn't his only miss, he had many of them.
In dealing with all these guys, a funny thing happened, (this from an assignment from Ben Suarez in 1996) when I reached out and talked to them. I always felt like they were club members, and had a secret handshake.
You know what? That whole Mail Order and Remote Direct Marketing industry was not some happy club of rich men, but there was a lot of pettiness and jealously out there too. This guy doubted if that one was the real thing. Over there thought this one over here was a phoney baloney.
It blew my mind, at the time. Today we see it every single day when a guy who is a WINNER, thinks that there is NO ONE else worthy of an opinion other than his.
In spite of the pettiness, there were groups of successful Entrepreneurs who worked together, but another surprise to me was how many crossed the line, went over the line in fact. We know Ben Suarez and Gary Halbert both spent time in club Fed, but so many others were FINED, shut down, regulated, and brought the house down on themselves with their slim shady behavior.
But, even the scoundrels had some winners along the way.
Maybe, we'll get into that in the near future. Today it is MISSED opportunities.
Mine were Tiger Balm and importing from Asia in the 70's after making contacts in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore and Japan. It was part of my Navy master plan to do so. I could have had exclusive area deals for HONDA, alas, a guy named Rick Case pulled the trigger on that, first with Motorcycles and then with cars.
And in 1977 I was offered the opportunity to develop Taco Bell in Northeast, OH. Even had an investor lined up. But kept running into, "Sure they sell in CA, but who in Ohio wants to eat a taco?" HA, HA. Today Ohio has over 300 Taco Bell locations. Missed that one too.
Missed out on franchising PAPA FELICE'S PIZZA when it was a real opportunity, and at the time only Pizza Hut had any national footprint.
Missed out on taking my Golf Shop to a franchise situation due to being trustworthy (read naive) and taking on partners.
I could go on and on, there have been, and still are some terrific opportunities that I have missed out on. And not all ancient either, in the last 20 years, we've showcased some of the hottest and newest tech right here at SowPub, and maybe a few of you seized the opportunity to ride the wave.
I'm sure that almost everyone reading this has one or two fish stories of the Whale that got away for what ever reason (Excuse??).
But mostly we miss out because we don't act. And we don't act because we don't THINK it through. We don't pencil it out. We don't have a clear view from the rooftop, nor a plan.
Cossman says he had over 20 winners, a winner to him was one that sold at least a million units. TWENTY million products sold. And of those only two were his own creations. Only 2.
18 were ACQUIRED, and most were either distressed, undervalued, under marketed or unknown.
75 years ago there were people who took the risk of importing goods from Japan and Germany the LOSERS in the war. 50 years ago people were creating, inventing and acquiring products for the BOOMER generation, the so-called pig in the python.
20 years ago, the www and Internet were shiny new things loaded with opportunity.
TODAY? Forget about it. It's over and done. NO more opportunity exists.
Right?
Well, that seems to be some of the attitude I've heard from a few of you fellow old farts.
You may be in the 4th quarter of your life, and maybe behind in the score, but you can have a comeback...and even win the game, unless you quit.
And all you need to do is reacquaint yourself with OPPORTUNITY, which is everywhere around you, and follow through.
Old guys, old courses still have a lot of wisdom, knowledge and experience you can call upon and make use of. Even their failures and misses.
Cossman talks about a lot of these in this 33 year old sales pitch for what was one of the best courses ever. Today, if Harvey Brody and Sherman Hunter did a one day seminar on TOLL positions, they would sell out of $25,000.00 seats in minutes and have a standing room only crowd.
Even Frank Kern would attend. ha!
Gordon