The ANTI Manifesto for Internet Wannabees...OR, do you really want to walk around in

[GordonJ]

body armor?


Rich Schefren has brought out his FINAL CHAPTER of the Internet Business Manifesto, and it is a great read, and you should read it (hey it's FREE).

In just a moment I'm going to explain why MOST of us should consider the ANTI Manifesto...not all, but most of us. But first,

in yesterday's Akron Beacon Journal was a story about Benjamin Suarez and his MILLION dollar contribution to the University of Akron, where a "marketing lab" will bear his and his wife Nancy's name.

In my mind that makes it practically OFFICIAL that Akron U. is now the PLACE to learn DIRECT marketing. Thanks to another MILLION dollar contribution from Gary Taylor a local direct marketer...the U of Akron is the place to be if you want a college education in direct marketing.

When I worked for Ben Suarez, one of our guys was teaching a class at Akron U. in direct marketing using Ben’s book; 7 Steps to Financial Freedom II as the textbook.

I was helping put together the Remote Direct Marketing Homestudy Course, for which I did the video introduction, which was wrapped around a seminar Suarez Corporation Industries (SCI) did at Walsh University where Ben recruited me from the stage to come work with him.

NOW, you won’t find a more comprehensive marketing book, in fact, MOST people think it’s too comprehensive, much too involved. And complicated. Gosh, there are formulas and math and all that.

As I am typing this I’m looking at a copy of one of the NPGS Update Hotline newsletters, this one, issue 5930 on LIFETIME VALUE.

OK. In his FINAL CHAPTER, Rich gives us a shorthand version of the secrets he discovered at a 400 year old French castle. He says the two most important metrics to growing your business are:

Cost per acquiring a customer.
Lifetime customer value.

Ben Suarez built a 125 million dollar a year company (when I was there), and his brother Rick broke out and built his own 100 million dollar a year company, Fitness Quest, and his former COO, Rod Napier broke out of SCI and is on his way to building a 100 million dollar a year company, Universal Syndications.

And there are scores of small timers (like me) who have taken what they learned at SCI and did our own thing, NOT WANTING TO BECOME A MAJOR CORPORATION.

NOT everyone wants to build a huge company. Make no mistake, Rich Schefren plays with the big boys. Agora publishing is one of those big guys.

But you can take what he offers in the FINAL CHAPTER and use it to grow a spectacularly small organization using the same principles...now here’s the rub.

Agora, SCI, Fitness Quest and Uni-Syn just to name a few of the big players in Direct Marketing, all have people on their staff who actually UNDERSTAND the metrics.

And USE them.

At SCI, Ben Suarez keeps 30 years of promotions, not only his own, but also those of anybody who is anybody in direct marketing. In this issue of his newsletter I’m looking at shows a package from Publisher’s Clearing House, where two different promotions arrived at the same house on the same day, one was addressed to the maiden name and the other to the married name, and so SCI is able to discern which is the control and which is the test.

Probably 20 to 50 people working there bring mail in every day.

MY POINT????? Rich’s MANIFESTO has one clear message in it (in MY opinion)...and that is on page 56 where he states:


“Remember, in the online world, this stuff is advanced marketing, offline this is direct marketing 101.”

So, I think most people don’t stand a chance of becoming WILDY successful (like an Agora or SCI), and it doesn’t matter which guru they follow or which products they buy, because they aren’t grounded in the basics of Marketing 101.

IF you do nothing else but study Rich’s FINAL CHAPTER, you’ll have at least a good idea of how a small business (30 million) can rapidly grow (to 300 million)...IF you want to become a big business.

I’m not interested, my goals are somewhere between Entrepreneur and Opportunist as Schefren describes the two...and there are plenty of role models to find.

IF you don’t belong to Bill Myers site, you are doing yourself a disservice, he provides one of the finest EXAMPLES of a Lifestyle business that MOST of us really aspire too. And YES, this is my affiliate link, so go now and pay the 9.95 to access some of the very best real world how to information available. OR, go ahead and build your 100 million dollar business like Ben Suarez did, and you too may have to have an ARMY (ok, he calls it a security force) to protect you, your family and your assets from the bad guys. I wish Ben, Rod, Rick, Rich, Will and Bill et al (You too) nothing but great success if you want to become a NAME Entrepreneur.

I’m just saying that not everyone wants to have a 100 million dollar company as a goal, or even a 30 million dollar one.

But there are people who are doing very nicely that us small potatoes folk might be better attuned to, and Bill Myers is at the top of the list.

Bill Myers Online

Gordon Jay Alexander

PS. If anyone is interested, I have the NPGS Update Hotline newsletters, that is, my PERSONAL copy, and I'm about to put it up on eBay. Let me know via email (don't post here) [email protected] if you have any interest in them.

[GordonJ]

all my creative babies that haven't seen the light of day.

Do you too have "stuff" that is laying around, I mean the creative stuff? The babies that came out of your head?

ebooks started not finished?
web sites almost ready to go?
hotsheets?

Poems, plays or scripts for the big screen?

Like most so called 'creative' people, I too have a lot of things taking up space on my computer. Good thing MOST of it never got finished, I'd have been rich, we wouldn't want that to happen now would we?

Is there an eBay for Intellectual Property aborning? Give your ideas away and they are perceived as worthless.

Sell them for thousands of dollars, you are a genius (or a perceived one and your bank account doesn't suffer either).

But some, you do for yourself. For your heart. For your soul.

Not much of my poetry has seen much sunshine. And that is OK with me.

Not many of my fiction stories have been read. OK too.

NONE of my scripts have been submitted. One about a Vietnam seasoned nurse in Subic Bay PI during the late 60's who became a guardian angel to the 100,000 prostitutes needed to service American GI's...(it's my FAV)...sits awaiting an envelope.

And only a handful of stories, turned into posts here, there and in the WAY BACK machine have been "published", even virtually.

And I bet I'm NOT alone am I? This little marketing lake of the Internet is dwarfed by the Oceans and Great Lakes of other preoccupations.

So, what do you do with your "stuff", that stuff you can't carry, the stuff without boundaries, borders or barriers?

Do you leave them for the cedarchest?

I was just wondering. The "marketing" making money stuff is easy to find a place for...

But what do you do with all that ethereal, ephemeral and evanescent stuff that has a place in your heart, but not in your hard drive any more?

Gordon Jay Alexander

PS. Don't really expect an answer, but if you have any wistful comments, feel free to express them. Oh, and as to the marketing stuff I did find a place for it, you can see that eBay at 220039829596 listing.

Gordon, you're not alone in collecting misc writings you've done. I had file cabinets (yes, plural) full of them until I had a brainstorm one day. All those little 'what do I do with this' stuff turned into welcomed gifts for children at the holidays or birthdays. Just type out nicely on colored paper, add some stickers for decoration, or use a template or stationary with designs, bind with ribbon or (leather laces for the guys) and you have a nice little gift. So much for my travel, kids poetry, and simple stories.

Now, what to do with all the rest? Wish I knew! Anyone want to co-op on some great story beginnings with plot and ending...but no middle? I have a ton of them left after throwing jillions out.

Nature and floods took care of some of my priceless? childhood writings. Sigh. Some of them would've come in handy for a current long-term project. Dang!

An idea to thin the piles: sort them into 'keep because...just because.', I'm not sure but maybe...and it just doesn't matter any more. Discard the doesn't matter pile, set the not sure aside for six months then review again, and set up a filing system for the keepers.

The filing system is important...by topic, even if it's fiction, because I've often found that bits and pieces of them can be combined and become commercially viable writings or added to mini-hotsheets to help sell some of that chattel.

Sandi Bowman