Michael Ross's Challenge

Hi Duane, Richard and everyone....

The TV show Richard mentioned is "The Money Game".... To find my earlier posts on this, here is the first post, then the links to parts 2, 3, and 4 are at the bottom of that post....

What Richard said is correct, these people did do (to some degree) what they knew.... But, having said that, I learned some very valuable lessons....

Like these....



1. The winner of "The Money Game," Cameron Fisher, not only made the most money but also did the least work. How can that be?

He employed others to do a lot of the work for him.... alternatively, you can outsource the work, or "share the wealth"....

When you have others working for you, it means you can achieve MUCH more. And that could mean greater profits....

You don't have to have employees to have others working for you too -- outsourcing is another way to have others working for you, use their services!

2. Having said that, they knew what services were available. Cameron Fisher knew how to contact telemarketers, celebrities, and so on.... The others knew how to contact other services....

Knowing what kind of services are available for you to make use of is very powerful knowledge!

Learning this lesson caused me to really study my Yellow Pages.... I flipped through it, to familiarize myself with the categories, and what services are available to me. Many others also get Yellow Pages from other cities, so they have them available....

(They're available online too, but I find it easier to flip through the paper version....)

3. The power of name recognition.... "Crazy" Ron Bakir and Pamela Noon to an extent used their own name recognition.... Cameron Fisher didn't have any name recognition of his own, but he ended up making the most money? How?

He used *other people's* name recognition.... He hired local celebrities to speak at the dinner and the business luncheon which he organized....

So, even if you're not famous yourself, and you don't want to be famous, you can use the name recognition of other people (for a fee).... This gives your project instant appeal and credibility.

Producers of those late-night infomercials know this very well....

4. The power of being able to sell something before you have to pay for it. Cameron Fisher, again, used this principle to great effect....

He held an auction of sports memorabilia, where he had an arrangement that he didn't have to pay for any of it unless it sold.

Another way he used this approach was he sold tickets for his business luncheon to be held in two weeks time, but he got the money up front.

This is a very powerful principle, I think, because it gives you a lot of leverage. Some of the top companies use this principle.... Dell Computers, for example, don't have any computers put together until they have your money in their pocket (and I think they outsource putting your customized computer together too).

5. Have more than one profit source. Everyone on the show had plans for more than one profit source for what they did....

Pamela Noon had sponsors for her TV show, and planned to sell the show too (though this latter plan didn't work out in time)....

"Crazy" Ron Bakir had sponsors too, and also sold tickets to his party....

Cameron Fisher sold tickets to his dinner, and also had a sports memorabilia auction as another profit source....

With more than one source of profits in your project, you reduce your risk and also increase the potential profit you can make....



So while Richard's points are valid, there were other more general lessons I felt I learned from the show.... And I thought they were quite powerful lessons too, which I summarized above....

Dien Rice