Notesale: Turn your study into money

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This ebook is a free gift to you from FREE SELF HELP

Making Your
First Million
A Practical Guide to PrincipleCentered Prosperity
Copyright © 1999 George Parry
Edited by Martin Franzen
http://SiteSelling
...


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Making Your First Million

A special note from the publisher:
I first discovered this amazing book by George Parry a couple of years ago, and to this
day it's still one of the finest guides to success I've ever read
...
It's an
extremely valuable resource, and George has generously agreed to let me share it with
you for free
...
It can be of tremendous value to
those who seek success in all areas of life
...
(Note: it cannot be sold, only given away as a
free gift
...
They'll thank you for it!
Enjoy!
Martin Franzen
Author of The Internet Marketing Master Plan: "How To Turn Your
Passion or Hobby Into a $100,000 a Year Business on the Internet"

This publication is distributed with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering legal,
accounting, or other professional advice
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SiteSelling
...

What's It All About Anyway?
The Ultimate Wealth Secret

'We shall not cease from exploration
Until the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time'
T
...
Eliot, 'Little Gidding'

SiteSelling
...
I'd
never seen one before so I asked him to explain the system and his likelihood of winning
...
Just pick 6 numbers out of 44 in any order and you win a
million
...
I've been spending ten bucks a week for the last 15 years
...
"

I looked more closely at the form
...
Hmm
...
"Look Doug, I think your chances of winning a million bucks on
Lotto are pretty remote
...
The way I see it you've got an even money chance of winning the
Lotto if you bought 40 tickets a week for the next 1,500 years
...


"When did you win Lotto?"

"That's just a figure of speech Doug
...
"

For once he was speechless which, if you know Doug, is saying something
...
The only ones who get rich
out of gambling are the promoters
...
Blue chip, whatever, it
doesn't matter
...
com

5

Making Your First Million
investor you've been
...
The rent (10% to 12% net) on this will repay the bank loan and interest in
another ten years
...
"

"What? You mean it'll take me twenty years to make money? I think I'll stick to Lotto
...
"

"Doug, you've already invested 15 years and ten thousand dollars into Lotto tickets and
you're still broke
...
You can be enormously successful in this life and you don't have
to gamble or wait twenty years
...
Fortunately
for you, most people are feckless
...
Put in even a modest effort into outsmarting the
game, by reading this book for example, and you're already ahead of 97% of the other
players
...
You have one of the greatest home-side
advantages you can ever get: player apathy
...
When I set out in business twenty years ago, and I must
admit I was lucky, I made 5 years take-home pay in the first 2 months
...


To understand how to tip the odds in your favour you're going to have to understand
...
com

6

Making Your First Million

Chapter 2 - The Principles of
Abundance
Almost forty years ago an international conference of the world's leading economists, the
Club of Rome, set out to produce the seminal text on the future, which they entitled The
Limits to Growth
...
It was no 'Nostradamus Predicts'
...
In 1960 it was apparent that by the 1990's the world would be plunged into
chaos
...
We would
have run out of oil and strategic materials
...
Death and destruction would be the normal order of the day
...


Yet what happened? Today, as we enter the new millennium the only thing still in short
supply is love and goodwill
...
Commodities have never been
cheaper or more abundant
...
We have an over-abundance
of food, enough food in fact, if evenly distributed to eliminate hunger and poverty
...
When I was a teenager it cost the equivalent in today's
dollars of $20,000 for a television set and $50,000 for a return airfare to London
...
New technologies have opened up whole worlds of opportunity not foreseeable in
1960
...
" They point to the fact that we're
dependent on finite fossil fuels and once that deck of cards tumbles we'll definitely all be
rooned
...


The problem with that kind of thinking is nobody can foretell the future
...
We think the only guide we have to where we're going
is where we've been
...
Tomorrow will be completely
different from today
...
It may be considerably worse
...
Look at the changes since 1960
...
I drove past the house I grew up in recently
...
I don't even recognize the suburb I grew up in
...
The creek has been piped and built over
...
The ice man has stopped calling
...
The working poor have
become the working rich and moved on and have been replaced, and in another
generation the cycle will repeat itself
...
Not

SiteSelling
...
Even the poorest subsistence farmers eking out a mean
and thrifty existence are using genetically engineered hybrid grains or artificial fertilizers
and drinking Coca-Cola
...


In the face of an unpredictable future we have two choices: we can fear it or we can
embrace it
...
But just because our future is unpredictable
and outside of our power to control it is no reason to be a'feared
...


What are these principles? Let me tell you about Adam at 17
...
This is the mental picture I have of him: "Why can't I? It's not fair! Why can't I do
what I want? Why can't I drink and drive? Why can't I drive as fast as I want? Why can't I
have what I want? It's not fair
...
But you'll
have to accept whatever the consequence is
...
There's nobody to
stop us
...
The consequence is always larger than
the initial action and it accumulates
...
It's not 'them' or the cops who stop us
...
If we want to do stuff
with negative consequences that's fine
...
But let me tell you from hard,
personal experience, if we want to be a real winner in life we need to do stuff with
positive consequences
...

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose
...
The trouble is, the consequences accumulate
...
As Zig Ziglar
says: "The single most important determinant of success is the willingness to defer
gratification
...
"

SiteSelling
...
How are you?"

"Oh, fine
...


"Yes, there's a spare in the boot
...
"

"Why do you need another one?"

"Well, oh you wouldn't believe it Mum
...
"

"Okay
...
Then take off the other flat and take it to
Beaurepaires
...


"Well, it's worse than that Mum
...
"

"How on earth did you do that? Never mind
...
I don't think I want to know
...
Get $200 out
of the auto-bank, get a taxi to take you there and buy a couple of wheels for an 87 Toyota
Corolla
...
"

The instructions were getting a little more than Adam could process
...
I've lost the keys
...
"

"Well, oh you wouldn't believe my bad luck
...
Well the people in the other
car got out to help and you wouldn't believe it, they were cops
...
Can you believe it?"

SiteSelling
...
How did you lose your keys?"

"Oh
...
The cops took them off me
...
They can't do that can they? I
dunno
...
They put the bag on me Mum
...
They took my license off me too
...
I've got a
criminal record Mum!"

And on it went
...


We spin our wheels with the Yes but's and the If only's and the Why me's and the Why
don't they's trying to override the laws of nature, complaining that it's them
...

If only they would stop picking on me and give me a fair go
...
We fight and kick and protest that we're
different, we're special and that they don't apply to us, but there is an inexorable
steamroller of truth, a spectral, unkillable terminator which eventually tracks us down and
obliterates us when we choose to ignore them
...
I prefer to call them
...
Our natural fearful human nature focuses on games of 'you lose, I win'
...
But the First Principle of Abundance tells us that you
get what you give, and the Second Principle says you get more than you give
...
The more we help others achieve their goals, the more we
create wealth in this world
...


SiteSelling
...
We can choose to greedily accumulate, to chase down our goals, ride
roughshod over everyone and never give an inch
...
If you have
failed to date, if all your efforts have come to nothing, if you are looking for outrageous
success in your life I want to suggest you make a quantum change in your thinking
process and take on board the principles I am outlining here
...
They work
...


Understand the power of the idea
...
To achieve, we need
vision
...
' To succeed in life,
we need to understand the ideas and principles that drive it, focusing on them, rather than
the day to day minutiae that otherwise would crowd out our lives and ensure our
mediocrity
...
It's hard work
...
You
can feed your ego or feed your family
...


Understand that there is money and there is wealth
...
Wealth is completely different
...
Wealth is
freedom, happiness, the ability to do and go and be whatever and wherever we choose
...
We need to focus on
abundance rather than shortage, on love rather than fear, on giving rather than getting
...
If we are
focused on lack, shortage, 'you win, I lose' thinking we are controlled by the state of
entropy where everything tends to go from order to disorder
...
Compulsion, coercion, control, communism
...
As Kennedy said: "The police state will find it cannot command
the grain to grow
...
Does this presently describe you when you get up in the morning?
You may need to change
...
Our
education system encourages us to be selfish, individualistic, competitive and aggressive
...
com

11

Making Your First Million
George, we know all that but we live in the real world
...
It's how they measure if we're doing a good job
...
They operate at the
expedient, base-level, punitive Stage 1 of Kohlberg's Stages of Moral Development, a far
simpler approach than focusing on love, for which read patience, tolerance, forgiveness,
compassion, having a sense of humor about yourself and not taking yourself too
seriously
...


This is a real hurdle to overcome
...
Just as each General is
superbly equipped to fight the last war, so our education system is superbly equipped to
produce citizens for the fifties and sixties
...
For one, it doesn't work, note the disparity between the skills required
for job vacancies and the skills of job-seekers, and for another it is actively corrosive to
the attitudes and values I'm suggesting are needed to achieve personal success in the new
millennium
...
To you
...
Read on and
prosper
...
We all have to some
degree
...
Understand that you can't afford
this luxury
...
Indulge this if you will but it will rob you of success
...
To achieve great things we need to focus on love to drive
out all fear
...
To change our luck (and to change our life) we need to let go of cynicism,
competitiveness and negativity and tap into actions and thought processes with positive
outcomes not for ourselves, but for those around us
...
The more we work for the benefit of others, the better the outcome
for us
...
As the thought creates the action, the action
creates the habit, the habit creates the life, the life creates the character and the character
creates the destiny so by changing the way we think and see the world we radically alter
our destiny
...
com

12

Making Your First Million

Summary
•

We cannot know or control the future
...
com

13

Making Your First Million

Chapter 3 - Playing Soccer in the Rain
I have a confession to make and I need to get it off my chest right now
...
I've been too much of a risk-taker
...
It's been an expensive learning
curve, dreaming big dreams and losing millions in the process
...
I've made a lot of
money over the years but I look like a poorly shaved wombat in a suit and I doubt any
professor of business studies would ever ask me to address his students
...
I knew I was going to have to do something extraordinary to overcome
my antagonism to conformity and traditional thinking
...
Play hard
...
" These
were meaningless to me
...
I was happy to work hard on my own ideas but
there was no way I was going to conform or do what anyone else told me
...
I was unemployable
...
I would
rather think than conform
...
I'm at school playing soccer
...
It's raining
...

The rest of third grade are chasing the ball like bees around a migrating queen, immune
to the cold
...
" Now this is the point where you
have a choice of sneaking off to the weather shed reading Phantom comics or doing some
lateral thinking
...
And I think
...
No matter how assiduously the mob follows the ball it inevitably
squirts away from the mob every minute or so and comes out into the open
...
Anyway, I reason that if I
position myself anywhere on the field away from the mob I stand a significantly better
chance of scoring a goal with no opponents to block me
...
This
vision has been with me all my life
...
Nonconformity
...

There is always a better way than following the mob
...
It could change your life
...
I fell into teaching after dropping
out of university as the easiest, no-effort option with 2 years of full-board and pay and
minimal work
...
30 to 3
...
They'd tried everything,
transfers, warnings, counseling, but I knew they were closing in on me
...
com

14

Making Your First Million
reluctant, resentful
...
I had yet to discover that there is fun and happiness in work
...


As part of my minimal-effort policy at the time, I ended up teaching deaf children
because the training course gave me a year off on full pay and I found myself swanning
around playing checkers with kids I couldn't communicate with, feeling increasingly
frustrated
...
We had a little math drill computer and I began looking for a computer
with drawing and animation capability that I could program
...


Somebody smarter than me said: "Business is easy
...
" I'd found a
need
...

The September 1977 issue of Scientific American provided the key
...
The Apple II
...
Here at last was the vehicle that could translate my dream into reality
...
I couldn't sleep
...
It was exactly what I was looking for
...
Where could I get one? Not
available in Australia yet
...
In September 78 I
marched into Electronic Concepts in Clarence St and bought the eleventh Apple sold in
the country
...
This was one
...
I had joined the money
roller coaster
...
I was having fun
...
But there's a clue here
...
For years I'd got by on minimal
energy output, miserable, depressed, working at a job I hated to survive a life I resented
...


The key is enthusiasm
...

Optimistic, excited, happy for the first time in my life
...
Up to this turning point life was to
be endured
...
My enthusiasm
gave me the energy to go on, to work, to push, to put in the long hours and build a multimillion dollar computer mail-order company which continues to this day
...
com

15

Making Your First Million

Each of us can achieve unlimited success in life, I believe, if we tap into this power
source of enthusiasm
...
It will make you rich but more importantly,
it will make you happy
...
If you're battling, struggling,
devoid of enthusiasm and joy in your life, stop, walk to the sidelines and analyse your
position
...
For the fearful or unimaginative, the radical reaction is often doing a
geographical, running away, drinking, drugging, sliding into depression or perhaps
sulking and shifting to a few acres in the bush, but I would like to propose an even more
radical change
...
Again
...
He could have succumbed
...
Do something meaningful
...
Some called it false pride
...
Even when all
around him were mocking he dared to dream big dreams
...


Carl had enormous goals
...
He had
creativity combined with an unstoppable belief in himself and an unquenchable
determination to succeed
...
From nothing but an idea conceived in the
kind of material poverty that would have driven anyone else to give up and sell their time
for wages, he brought forth a billion dollar, multi-national ferry project that will
revolutionize short-haul ocean transport
...
Like the fleas in a flea circus we
allow non-existent barriers to limit our lives
...

Are you flopping about at the bottom of the ocean, breathing mud with all the others
who've lost hope? You don't have to
...
You don't have to line
up for a skinny paycheck at the dole or the office or the factory
...


But how do you exercise that choice? This is where we get really radical
...

Stop doing what you're doing
...
Pay attention here
...
Pick up your folding chair and go sit on the sidelines
...
Most people
never, ever think
...
They'd much rather yahoo around, go fishing

SiteSelling
...
Avoid such people and if you are one, stop
...
As Zig
Ziglar says: "The good news is: If you don't like who you are, you can change
...
If you want to make serious, radical changes in your life and not just score a
million bucks so you can slob out, then you have to do some serious strategic thinking
...
You can
do it
...
The more you use it the stronger it gets
...
com

17

Making Your First Million

Summary
•

You have to out-think the game

•

Think big
...


•

The key is enthusiasm
...
If we want to change, we
can

SiteSelling
...
When I first met him he was importing cheap and
cheerful Chinese junk: roller blades, fake watches, computer clones etc
...
He would find out what was available and what people wanted to buy, presell, then import a container-load
...
He
worked from his garage, which I remember had that distinctive Taiwan smell of
mouldering cardboard and towers of boxes containing extras of whatever his customers
had ordered surrounded his desk
...
He was not in any particular industry, not bound by
preconceived ideas of expanding into similar product lines
...
Everything
was fair game
...
When I first met him he was living in a small flat in Oakburn
South and a month or two later had bought a house in Toorak
...
And all the while he drove a battered old Toyota
...
Quick, nervous, a high-flying risk-taker but dash
back to the safety of the knot hole as soon as you've got your prize
...
His only business asset
(which was his real wealth) was the knowledge he had in his head
...
He shared with me the purpose of his trip
...


I don't think Adrian got past 3rd year high school
...
He was simply too busy having a ball, making money
...
As
an inquisitive lad he wondered where golf balls came from and asked his Dad who told
him he was too busy and to go ask his Mum
...
This was his turning point
...
They had to come from somewhere
...


SiteSelling
...
He cut to the chase pretty quickly
...
No office, no staff,
a phone, fax, telex
...
He took risks, but
they were calculated risks
...
He was
proactive
...
He started from where he was and created a business
from filling the needs of others
...
Inflatable boats?
Printer ribbons? Garden tools? Computers? Circuit boards? Doorbells? He became
known as the man who could get it for you
...
Starting from nothing, but buzzing around like Road Runner he
created enormous wealth
...
He wasn't
interested in drawing attention to his cleverness through conspicuous consumption
...
He didn't take expensive holidays
(He was travelling enough sourcing products
...
Tapping into the Principles
of Abundance he gave away products that people wanted at prices they couldn't refuse
...
Adrian would ring me up and offer me a truckload of Apple circuit
boards at a fifth of the price I'd been used to paying
...
Everybody wins!

Adrian taught me everything I needed to know: 'Always leave enough in the deal for the
next guy
...
Whatever else happens, make the sale
...
Get in and get out quickly
...
If it still doesn't sell, give it away as a gift with other
orders
...
Charge whatever the traffic will
bear then give friend-of-the-family discounts on bulk purchases
...
Be generous
...
Give him what he wants and you've
got him for life
...
Take cautious risks on new products
...
Question everything and avoid complacency
...
Buy and sell for
cash and reinvest in stock
...
Invest excess profits in
income-producing real estate
...
' What a mouthful! Condense most
of this book and you have this paragraph
...


He invested his profits in income-producing real estate and he became outrageously
wealthy
...
In his first year importing he made $300,000 profit
...


SiteSelling
...
You're looking for a turning point,
something that's going to radically turn your life around, give you a new direction, and
hopefully score you a few million in the process
...
Yes, I know I showed Dougie how to make $150,000 on ten bucks a
week out of storeman's wages, and I can point to a few real estate millionaires who've
worked for low wages all their lives
...
Cautious, careful and
slow
...


Scary stuff
...
Take a risk? Yes
...
It looks impossible but when you know the technique and
practice it, you're a winner
...
And for that you need to put your brain into gear and think
...
Every day, if your brain is as scatty and unhinged as mine, you are
overwhelmed with possibilities for starting a business
...
Babysitting, mail-order garden furniture, home air-conditioner servicing,
small-scale manufacturing, desktop publishing, lawn-mowing, car washing, home
security, property maintenance, setting up a home nursery, plant hire, fish-farming,
marriage guidance, concreting, mobile phone selling, craft and jewelry making etc
...
We get bowled over by the number of choices and sit dribbling and
mumbling in the corner
...
You need to exercise
your brain
...
Thinking includes getting
out and asking questions, researching, listening with your ears open, researching both
sides of the street
...
Listen to the seller and halve it, listen to the
buyer and double it
...
And the tougher the problem the more unpredictable and out-of-left-field the
solution
...


What do you want? Do you want to buy yourself a job? Plenty of dissatisfied business
owners wanting to sell out
...
Business is about finding
a need and filling it, but entrepreneurship is about seeing an opportunity and grabbing it
...
com

21

Making Your First Million
Anyone can go into business
...
The question is: Which business?

So many people jump into business on the basis that they're good at what they do, surely
there must be a profit in it
...
He was so convinced
the general public would pay for his teaching skills he talked his Dad into guaranteeing a
$100,000 loan so he could outfit his new business
...
Within five weeks his partner landed in the divorce court thereby
quarantining his guarantees and the father had to sell his home to meet the son's debts
...
I've seen and made some stupid mistakes in
my time but I've yet to see the equal of this for blind insanity
...
He didn't create his
business on the basis of filling the needs of others, but on filling his own needs
...
Most people go into
business out of personal necessity
...
They have to do something to
stay alive and feed their family, so they set up or purchase a 'business'
...
"Yeah, I used to work on a truck delivering flour to
bakeries and I like cooking so I decided to set up a bakery
...


Usually the result is disappointment and the owner makes little better than wages
...
Upbeat little ads promising
great returns with little effort
...
Rubbish! The
owner is sick all right
...
Run with the mob and you'll be trampled
...
That word again
...
There are no free
lunches
...
A universal truth, only the scale and the camouflage
varies
...
Avoid franchises or multi-level marketing
...

They paint a rosy picture and lure you in with the carrot of greed, and generally the
money goes the wrong way, to the promoter rather than the worker
...
You will work yourself to a standstill to enrich the people above you
...
Use it
...
Like
the battery chicken, you are assured of a regular feed, but at what cost to your
independence and ability to make serious wealth? Be independent
...
com

22

Making Your First Million
of making something from nothing
...
Use your brains to create
your own money machine, not someone else's
...
Multi-level marketing is promoted almost to the level of a
cult religion, and participants are whipped up into a fervor of zealotry
...
The top 2% make all the cash by exhorting the remaining
98% to give it to them, lying through painted smiles that they too can make it big time
...
It's just bait
with a hook in it, trying to catch you with your own greed
...

Greed is bad
...
You may desire wealth and power and influence but greed is not the vehicle
that will get you there
...


On the Sunday morning of Independence Day weekend in Nashville, wandering through
the 37 acres of the Opryland Hotel, I came across a vast church gathering in the 3 acre
ballroom
...
The preacher then
continued with exhortations to the emerald and diamond sales people to 'come on down'
and the audience erupted in spontaneous applause
...
Thousands of
family members had gathered for reunions on this holiday weekend and they'd even
organized T-shirts so they could recognize one another
...
It was network
marketing bringing people together in artificial, greed-constructed families
...
To make serious money you're going to need to change your
mindset, get focused on looking for opportunities instead of security
...
There's no security
in that
...
Do you see what I'm trying to tell
you? There's being in business, and there's making money and the two are not
synonymous
...
70% of business owners can
tell you that from personal experience
...

You've got to be focused on the business of making (and keeping) money
...


The good entrepreneur is a customer-focused opportunist
...
Run on opportunity alone and you're going to have to

SiteSelling
...
That
doesn't mean you're going to have to travel to the edge of the known world and create a
totally new kind of business such as writing a user-friendly, plain language interface to
the Internet (a project, incidentally which will materially enrich the first programmer who
does it)
...

Whichever way you jump you're still going to have to use your brain
...
How are you going to differentiate it from its competition? Take a look at the
competition and come up with something different or better
...
A poor immigrant in outback Queensland, all he knew
was cutting hair
...
News of this spread through the bush and inquisitive locals came to see the idiot
who cut hair for free
...
And paid for it
...
From cutting hair! His philosophy? The heart that gives is the heart
that gathers
...
The more
commonplace your business concept, the more efficient and customer friendly you're
going to have to be to make a success of it, and conversely, the more off the wall and
different your business concept the less efficient and more customer clumsy you can be
...
However, if, like me, efficiency is not
your strong suit you'll need to come up with something different and original, highly
profitable and far removed from competition
...
Not bad for a backyard show
...


To make money, we need to sell something, and to do so effectively we need to position
ourselves or our businesses so that sales happen automatically or inevitably
...
These 'ambush points' rarely occur naturally and
usually have to be created, and this is where good business sense comes into play
...
We can create ambush points by
taking a range of products that the customer needs and pricing them so low that he has
little option but to buy
...
If the competition doesn't
beat you, low profitability will
...


SiteSelling
...
We need either a product that a large number of people want, or
a product that is critical to a few people
...
The more limited the availability for our
goods and services, and the greater the need, the greater the likelihood that we will make
the sale
...


We need to tap into the natural inclinations of the customer and create a sand trap that she
will fall into nine times out of ten
...
Telstra is a government telephone
service which has recently privatized and is looking to make profits for its shareholders
...
Telstra
sought to apply a $0
...


How did Telstra respond? They created a new Direct Connect service which dialed the
number for you (for a fee of course)
...
People became lazy, they used Directory Assistance
instead of the phone book, and the natural extension was to dial the number for them
...
g
...


I liken starting a business to going fishing
...
To
determine what business to go into I tend to advocate the latter approach
...
Sincere, but wrong
...
The customer is always right
...

There's no harm in making mistakes
...
We learn
by trial and error
...
If I've
invested huge energy into winning a contract I'll keep some energy in reserve for a
completely different approach such as making a strategic investment in an emerging
company or spending time seeking out Internet opportunities
...

You can take this approach when you're starting out and jump ship if it starts to sink
(Sorry about mixing metaphors) or you can build in some redundancy by putting out half
a dozen fishing lines
...
com

25

Making Your First Million
So often in life I find my own predictions and hunches prove wrong
...
I am reminded of the story of the customer who took a roll
of film to a processing shop:

"Could you process this film please?" she asked
...
"That'll cost $19
...
95 across the street and they give me two for one!" she spluttered
...
But we sure have a good quality print here
...
"Look, give me that film back
...
"

"Here you are, ma'am
...
"Sorry we couldn't be of service
...


A customer who had been listening to this conversation remarked: "It must be hard
competing against such low prices
...
"

"Doesn't that make you mad?" enquired the customer, curious at the shopkeeper's
seeming indifference to lost business
...
"

SiteSelling
...
Everything else is window dressing

•

A good entrepreneur is a customer-focused opportunist

•

An entrepreneur needs to be different

•

We need to create 'ambush places' which impel customers to buy from us

•

Take out some insurance with a number of different sales approaches and let the
market dictate your success

SiteSelling
...
Not a good
long-term prospect unless you intend to employ lots of other people to do the work for
you, but a great place to start in order to get your bank together so you can do some
serious entrepreneurial activity
...
Jodee Rich, a friend with assets now in the hundreds
of millions started out while he was still in school hiring fish-tanks to businesses
...
You have to start somewhere
...
One of the coolest entrepreneurs I've met, and it's just a step up from
washing windscreens at traffic lights, was a guy who accosted drivers as they entered a
city parking lot asking if they wanted their car washed
...
All cash
...
You don't have to be flash to earn cash
...
And I guess
too, you need to have the confidence to just do it
...
You've got to front up at work or the dole
office, why not front up for ten times the money? Another exceedingly cool dude was the
guy who imported a whole bunch of (probably pirate) Simpsons and Daffy Duck style
socks and ties and flogged them door to door
...
Cost $2
...
All cash
...


Set your sights high
...
If you're going to be a
successful entrepreneur you have to believe in yourself with a deep, unshakable faith
...
Stephen, my mate Bernie's
brother-in-law is a well-known sculptor, having been commissioned to produce a million
dollar sculpture in Sydney as well as various half million dollar municipal projects in
regional cities
...
They'd invited us over to meet Stephen
and his family before they went back to Tasmania
...
He'd hitch-hiked around the world, paying for his family's
passage by doing crayon portraits
...
Bereft, in fact, of
the 30c to make a phone call
...
com

28

Making Your First Million
So the three families got together for a takeaway pizza washed down with chateau
cardboard and Stephen regaled us with his adventures
...


"Sure", I said, with the expansive magnanimity of the man with cash in his pocket, "Give
us a look"
...
They were good
...
None of that impressionist garbage
...
Seals
...
It was good and I got
carried away with excitement and generosity and selected 6 works
...
" said Stephen
...
No trace of a
smirk
...
"Yeah, three
grand each
...
" He wasn't joking
...
He was serious
...
"Get outta here
...


Five months later we're in Tasmania doing the tourist thing and we end up in a gallery in
Richmond
...
Stephen's
...
I looked
closer
...
Five grand
...
And I looked again
...
Red sticker
...
All sold
...
The way things are now is not the way they'll always be
...


Keep your eyes open, stay close to the action and look for opportunities
...
His first reaction was "Not my thing", but
he did something that only one in a thousand do
...
He took his folding chair
and went to the sideline and looked at the game he was playing and considered his
choices
...
And he decided to grab this opportunity
...
Today he's out of cars and into superseded PC's
...
His clients fax orders from Eastern Europe, the Pacific Islands, South
America, Tasmania (Sorry, Stephen
...
That last bit's not true)
...
Adding value to the equation he began sourcing
new replacement PC's for the companies updating
...
He did a deal
through his mate Brian to arrange leasing
...


SiteSelling
...
The companies
selling services to my company, the mailing house, printer, courier etc had to work
extraordinarily hard in an enormously competitive environment to make as much as I did
advertising and sitting back taking orders
...
Like the shark they had to keep swimming to stay
alive and they were constantly chasing debtors and investing in new technology to stay in
front
...
This will work for a little while, but one of two things will happen: you'll get
competitors, or the technology will change and you'll feel obliged to spend all your profit
and more on these new toys to stay in front
...


If you want to make a million this year you're going to have to charge a thousand dollars
an hour for your time
...
I have a friend with a large service
chain both here and overseas that has taken him 20 years to put together, and at lunch
recently he declared his ambition was to make a million dollars after tax
...
Sell product and
you're selling someone else's time, and that's unlimited
...
He set up a tent at our
local service station a couple of months before Christmas and sat there for 6 weeks till
he'd sold it all
...
All cash
...
Or find an opportunity and grab it
...
Crunchie Bars no
...

Wassamatta? They were a great product, they lasted 8 times longer and they cost a sixth
as much to run
...
But a couple of years later I'm in
Hong Kong and I see an ad for a compact fluoro maker
...
Where
are you?", and after scrambling over boxes and up a flight of stairs we come to a 'factory'
on the 8th floor making these new high-tech lights
...
I see the exact
same product being sold today in the discount chain stores in Australia for $26
...
95 each!"
That could be you
...
He was also part of a consortium setting up the first commercial tv

SiteSelling
...
The country was (and still is) falling apart
...
I gave Adam a
drawerful of US$1 bills and told him to keep his eyes open
...
You have real money
in one pocket and $1 bills in the other for tips
...
Months later, after he'd exhausted himself in the flesh-pots of Irkutsk, with $5 to
his name, on the day before returning home, remembering my injunction to go forth and
buy something, he went to a local market to see what turned him on
...
Russian
dolls
...
Nothing
...

Cashmere, double layered with ear muffs
...
600 beanies
...


On his return to Australia, Adam gave hundreds of beanies away to all and sundry to the
point where people greeted him with: "Stop
...
I don't
want any more
...
"Yes, I'll pay $20 for them
...

"Great!" thought Adam
...
I've quadrupled my investment" And Peter proceeded
to write out a check for $1200
...
We need to open our eyes and look at things not
from our point of view, but from the point of view of a potential customer
...
The only difference is the perspective
...
If you're my mate Ken
you see opportunity
...
Common as bulldust out here
...
A grand a day for playing with a chainsaw
...


What do people want? If you can work that out you'll make millions
...
But it all requires thought,
creativity, lateral thinking
...
What does he want?
Everywhere there's opportunities
...
(Don't you love the subtle colonization of
our language) and I noticed a row of potted figs standardised into topiary balls
...
com

31

Making Your First Million
of them
...
Even
in bulk they'd have to cost over $50 each
...
There's a business right there
...
City
living, smaller gardens, baby boomers retiring, courtyards, café society
...
Call it the Sculptured Garden
...
Buy the moulds for expensive pots and statuary and
make your own in fake sandstone
...


SiteSelling
...
Selling product is unlimited

•

Don't undersell yourself
...
Don't overlook the simple things

•

Think laterally
...
Go for the main chance

SiteSelling
...
And I don't mean transient fashions
...
I mean the deep, underlying groundswell of change that most
people miss because they're totally focused on the now
...
Most people don't think or plan or reason at
all
...
They are by and large the
mindless consumers of whatever pap is fed them
...
Yes, thinking is hard
...

And you must out-think the game if you're to succeed
...
Soon the entire surface of the earth will be GPS-coded
on CD)

•

emphasis moving from molecules to electrons, from hardware to software, from
goods and products to information, from physical possessions to knowledge, from
the material to the spiritual

•

exponentially increasing rate of change with shorter systems and information halflife with need for ongoing learning and reskilling

•

higher skill, flexibility, heuristic reasoning and intelligence requirements at the
top end and elimination of lower skilled jobs at the bottom end

•

longer working hours for those in work, with husband and wife both working

•

low or zero inflation with the prospect for deflation, ending 50 years of inflation

SiteSelling
...
6 to 2
...


If you know what's happening now and what's likely to happen in the future you can
position yourself to ride the emerging wave rather than engage in the random paddling of
the mob
...
com

35

Making Your First Million

•

mail order

•

Internet selling

•

reskilling services

•

specialty retailing such as fishing, computers and executive gifts

•

commoditizing services such as stock-broking, wills, conveyancing, private
schools, welfare broking, private jails etc
...


The tendency when thinking about the future is to think it's all bad
...

Opportunity can only occur with change, and we are living through times of dramatic
change
...
While there may be scary, radical
reconstructions at times and a heavy price payable in environmental stress, history
demonstrates that we will survive and thrive regardless of change
...

Look at China
...
Nobody, not even Microsoft, McDonalds or Coca-Cola
can capture 100% of the market
...
All you need is a good idea
...
The market will move over and endlessly resegment for you if you have a
good idea
...
You're as good as anyone
...
We can too easily fall into the trap of thinking we're not
good enough or that the only ones who succeed are people who inherit money and
privilege
...
You have a brain and more importantly, you have common sense
...
"Nonsense", said Ford "Give me any problem and I'll
find the person on my staff to solve it today
...
He employed people smarter than himself but he
pocketed the cash
...
I
employ dozens of them
...
com

36

Making Your First Million

Summary
•

Look at the deep, underlying change happening in society

•

Look for an opportunity which takes advantage of the groundswell of change

•

You are good enough
...


SiteSelling
...
Don't make the mistake of being too
focused
...
They burn out
...
It takes more than determination to succeed
...
Disengage your brain and let it float free
...
Listen to Obewan Kenobe
...
Have you ever watched ants in the grass? The moment
you look at them you can't see them
...
It's like that in business
...

Relax, and use your peripheral vision, taking in the big picture, and it all becomes clear
...
Playfully mix metaphors and materials
...
An
ashtray becomes a flak helmet for a flat-headed pygmy
...
Words become
playfully mangled
...
Reality becomes optional
...
Go big
...
Life is short
...
What are your thoughts? "I wish I'd taken more risks"?
The only time you have is now
...
If
you don't dream big dreams for yourself who will? Your mother? She can't make it
happen for you
...


We all live with self-defeating, self-limiting beliefs
...
We like to think of them as 'common sense'
...
Fear of change, fear of failure, fear of rejection,
fear of the unknown, fear of pain
...
When we experience
these fears our delicate psyches throw up wheel-spinning dust-storms of "I can't
...
It won't work
...
I really didn't want to do it
...
The grapes are probably sour anyway
...


To dream big dreams and bring them to fruition in the face of not just the mockery of
others but also the termites in our own heads is nearly impossible
...
How do we do it, particularly in the face of our past poor
performance? We need to re-examine what we describe as failure
...
His response gives us a clue: "I have not failed
...
com

38

Making Your First Million
now know 10,000 ways of developing an electric light-bulb that don't work
...
We need to do likewise
...
They are the training exercises, the muscle, experience and wisdombuilding exercises I needed to do to get where I currently am
...
If they did, they may turn out to be a
hothouse bloom that withers the moment they encounter hardship
...
Hardship, failure, rejection are the necessary prerequisites for your
success
...
They are the
best things that can happen to you, not the worst
...
Jonas Salk,
Winston Churchill, Marie Curie, Crick and Watson, Abraham Lincoln, Columbus,
Galileo all experienced failure, rejection, ridicule and self-doubt yet used their failures
and hardships as opportunities rather than obstacles
...
We need to change the
way we perceive reality
...
We are where we are
...
We're changing how we look at it and that will make all the difference
...
One sees mud, the other stars
...


How does that work? Try this experiment
...
Twist your face into a wide
grimace, as if you are smiling
...
Now open your mouth slightly
and breathe out a long "Yeeeesssss"
...

Jig on the spot
...
You
won't feel like doing it
...
But the physical act of doing it will confuse your brain
...
Your autonomic system automatically and with no way you
can prevent it, overrides your free will and the brain starts secreting Serotonin
...
You actually now
have to work hard against your brain to maintain your state of depression
...
Fake it till you make it
...
All

SiteSelling
...
To overcome the downs we need to have enough ongoing forward
momentum to bring us back up
...
Positive mental attitude is the jet thrust of synergy that lifts us to the
stratosphere
...
There is substance to self-talk
...
You can do it
...
Your past actions may have failed to produce the desired outcomes but
you now have one more arrow in your armory
...
I know not to do that
again
...
And of course we
get what we expect
...
It sifts
through the chaff to the dominant thought or emotion, and wishing to please its master, it
obliges by clearing a path so the dominant thought can be realized
...
Sadly, I now need to disabuse you of your misapprehension
...
Your subconscious is
...
It's rather like the relationship
between Sir Humphrey and Jim Hacker in "Yes, Minister"
...
Try this: Go to the pool and make the conscious decision that
you're going to topple stiffly off the diving board with your hands by your side
...
You've steeled yourself for the fall
...
You close your eyes and allow your body to fall
...
You see, the autonomic system
takes over and says "What are you doing you fool? I'm going to have to take charge here
to stop you killing us both
...


We can use our autonomic system to advantage
...

Achieving our goals becomes the dominant thought and emotion and creates a furrow in
the mind for all future actions to travel down, rather like playing golf on a sand green
...
If you condition your subconscious to
only visualize success and refuse to accept failure as anything other than a pop-up
signpost telling you where not to go next time, you have enlisted the aid of your most
powerful ally and you have no other choice but to reach your goal
...
The catch-cry of the subconscious is "There is nothing
so powerful as an idea whose time has come
...
"

SiteSelling
...
You don't snap the pencil each time you
come to a dead end and say: "I'll never do it
...
That's good
...
" You get excited each time you eliminate a blind alley because
it means you're that much closer to your goal
...
The good player becomes intuitive about the game itself, using a positive
self-image to eliminate irrelevant distractions of personal adequacy to focus on the logic
and the flow of the game
...
Look
for synergies everywhere
...
This is not the doing of
engineers or number crunchers, though these people implemented the concepts
...
Smaller, lighter, roomier,
more fuel-efficient, cheaper, safer
...
If it ain't broke, don't fix it
...
Genius asks: "Why not?" Genius always wants to do more, to achieve more with
less, to create elegant, simple solutions to complex, dynamic problems
...
It's not a gift
...
You don't believe me? It's
true
...
We use less than
10% of our brain
...
Why is it we respond to music or
poetry? Why do our emotions jump to full alert when exposed to a film or book that
strikes just the right chord? We are born with resonance to genius and what resonates can
be turned to create its own song so it too can 'dance beneath the diamond sky with one
hand waving free, silhouetted by the sea, circled by the circus sands, with all memory and
fate driven deep beneath the waves just to forget about today until tomorrow'
...
We all have our dreaming
...
All things are
connected
...
Move
over Yahoo Serious
...
You're going to need it because you're
going to need to hold apparent contradiction in your head and not panic
...
You
won't have the luxury of procrastination
...
You won't have the luxury of certainty
...
All you'll have is your intuition
...
com

41

Making Your First Million
decisions in the face of blatant, unresolvable contradictions and you'll get sick of hearing
yourself say: "I don't know
...
Indeed, if we only ever made decisions whose outcomes were known we would
do nothing
...

If you lack that streak of heuristic fuzziness, that jolt of unpredictability, you're dead
...
Be a little crazy for your
health's sake
...
My dogs
chewed it up years ago and I haven't found it since, even on the Internet, but the gist of it
was this Swiss guy wanted to write a book on the principles of business
...
I can't remember them all but it was
things like: If you're not worried you're not risking enough, When you think you've got it
all worked out you definitely haven't, When the ship starts to sink don't pray, jump, Put
all your eggs in one basket and watch the basket, Always sell too soon and so on
...
Without the science you're cactus, but without the art
you're ordinary
...

There is some logic, but it's mostly gut instinct
...
Look at the reality, not the presentation
...
Oftentimes, the less real it is, the slicker the presentation
...
Run on instinct and if you haven't got any, develop it
...
Spreadsheets and projections can be consumed by the flames of
change as quickly as the paper they're printed on
...
All things are possible
...
You have
to have the courage to front up when the world mocks and sniggers
...
If you follow the advice of the
majority you'll end up like them
...
It's common
sense
...
Do not listen to those who sagely spout common sense and wallow
in their mediocrity
...
I don't pay you to tell me what I already know
...
com

42

Making Your First Million
delighted that at last they can rest, secure in the knowledge that it can't be done
...
He sees them not as stop signs
but as opportunities to change to a better direction to achieve his goal
...


The cynicism of the 'realist' is the cheapest form of advice and the most expensive form
of blueprint
...
You can do it
...
If we stopped for every dog that barked we'd never get home
...
Map it out for yourself and play your cards close to your chest
...


Everything is changing so quickly that the mental map of the world we acquired in
childhood from our parents and our social environment is not only largely wrong or
irrelevant, in many instances it's counterproductive
...
Question everything
...
You're unique
...
Take a different route home each day, randomly pick up
hitchhikers and go out of your way to talk to strangers
...
Give yourself away
...
You get what you give
away and you'll never know when it'll return to you
...
Two
years later the stranger is a friend and has entrusted $24 million to his care
...

It will be right for you
...
The big opportunities are
discovered by those of a whimsical bent who are not put off by worldly wisdom
counseling caution
...
I find I
have to rely on "How does this feel in my guts?" for my big decision making
...
Does it feel
right? If it feels right for me then chances are it'll feel right for potential buyers of the
development
...
Don't be afraid to say no
...
If you're tangled up with the merely good you'll miss the best
...

Wait
...
Be real
...
People respond to people
...
Focus on the goal alone and you'll be driven and miserable
...
Don't be a sleazy salesman painting a smile on
your face because it's good for business
...
Go the extra mile as a
matter of course
...
Ask: "What can I give rather than what can I get?" and
life will be easy
...
If you want money you must give
value and service
...
Avoid cynicism
...

Greed may get you to your goal, but it's love that makes it palatable
...
com

43

Making Your First Million

Develop the ability to see beyond how things are now to how they might be
...
There is no lack, no shortage in this world, no insuperable problems,
just opportunities
...
Learn to ignore fear
...
Fears rarely eventuate and never happen the
way we expect, so learn to avoid the wasted energy of worry
...
Respect reality but keep it in balance
...

Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof
...

With a little creative thought that worthless chunk of over-priced swampy land that's been
on the market for 8 years can become a prestige development with a central lake
...
The greatest asset you have is your
imagination
...
If you lack
imagination, develop it
...
Whatever you lack, intuition, wisdom, integrity,
courage, imagination, creativity you can develop with practice
...


"How long have they been there?"

"Always since I start ten years
...
"

Within 2 years a friend of Tony's had a contract with the Taiwan government to recycle
cardboard, opening up a huge business opportunity
...
The ash
is a disposal problem
...
Chris, an expatriate
Englishman in Hong Kong, who financed Adam's publishing venture, now has a contract
to ship ash to Siberia, returning with lumber to San Francisco
...


How are you going to nurture and develop this belief in yourself? How are you going to
feel confident in your ability when all you've experienced in the past is rejection and
failure? Let me give you a suggestion
...
Again, take your folding chair and
go sit on the sidelines
...
Look at all the others chasing the
ball
...
Ask
yourself: "Is it my technique that's wrong or am I playing on the wrong field?" That's an
important question
...
When I left school I enrolled in Engineering at
Sydney University for no other reason than I knew it would please my family
...
com

44

Making Your First Million
story with the bald-faced truth) and my broad brush stroke approach of near enough is
good enough runs totally counter to the prim, anally retentive certitude of The Engineer He Who Possesses Empirical Truth
...


What's it to be? Wrong technique or wrong game
...
Not
bluster it through or panic it through
...
Be patient
...
When I decided I'd had enough of going in the wrong direction, I walked away
from my computer company and sat quietly for 7 months
...

Opportunities arose and I rejected them
...
I didn't waste my time
on meaningless, make-work, activity
...
I got involved in
the things I'm good at, counseling, helping, talking to others, sharing my experience
...
And the best came
along, far better than anything I could have imagined
...


Don't be panicked by your seeming failure and the pressures of time moving on without a
result
...
This is your game plan
...
And ask yourself the big questions
...
Do something
...
You're either ruled by the rudder
or ruled by the rocks
...


SiteSelling
...
com

46

Making Your First Million

Chapter 8 - Where do I start?
I hadn't seen my old friend Ernie for 8 years
...
Last I'd seen him he was
living in a rented shack on a busy road flogging concrete pots for $12 cash
...
I met him again a year ago
...


"What happened to you? I haven't seen you for 8 years and now you're spending up like
Imelda Marcos with a month to live
...
I just fell into it
...
Anyway, I'm teaching this group from a government department and
they say 'How about helping us with our software?' So I go over there and throw a few
MS Word keyboard macros into their custom package and they fall all over me telling me
how smart I am and can I go to their other offices and help them
...
So I
rang the author in Melbourne and went to see him and he told me he was heading off to
Bahrain for a few years and I could have the package for a couple of grand! So I bought it
and started selling it but the department wanted me to provide telephone support for the
program users and asked my price
...
a day?" and quick as a flash I said "Yes
...
"

I'll leave it there
...
And on
...
Two years on Ernie's income is in the top
thousand Australian money earners
...
What made the
difference? What was the crucial spark that shot him from the very bottom to the absolute
top? Selling his time he was just another wage slave
...
He took a small risk and
reaped a huge reward
...
For $3000 he had been offered the distribution rights in Australia
...
He didn't, much to his amusement now
...
He had a secure job
...


SiteSelling
...
I'd been importing software and
consumables for 3 or 4 years and been trading comfortably at around a million a year
with 3 people
...
Would I be interested in buying his disks? Yes, if the price was right
...
Okay, I'm going to take a risk here
...
They did, and I did
...
We bought 500,000 disks every 6 weeks
...
90 to $2 a disk we sold 16,000 disks and later when we dropped the
price from $1
...
It was insanity
...
And each time a container came in I negotiated a lower price
...
If you want another order for half a million disks I want the price to drop from
69c to 57c"
...
"And I want the 57c price to apply to the container that
landed yesterday
...


"Who's paying for lunch?"

"Me
...
Done
...
We had many such lunches until the axe fell and the
head office CEO came across to shut the party down
...
No more credit
...
5 million before we go broke
...
The CEO, incidentally was the one who
told me: "Business is simple
...
Sell high
...
Pay late
...
We're losing money doing business with you George
...

Look
...
Look at emerging trends here and overseas
...
Focus on one thing at a time
...
But the mass is made up of individuals
...
"
Concentrate your focus on each individual possibility
...
Eliminate the Tamagochi and Mutant Ninja Turtle fads
unless you've already got money behind you
...

Subscribe to product sourcing journals from Asia and the US
...
For as
long as I can remember he's been repeating his quarter page ad in every monthly garden
magazine in Australia
...
"Solve your bird problems with my bird
scarer
...
" Year after year
...
com

48

Making Your First Million
plastic gadget selling for $30 plus $4 p&h
...
The other difference is the price, one
$30, the other $28
...
You see the
ad for $30 plus $4 p&h, then you see the ad for $28 no delivery charge
...
Better get in and buy for $28 before he wakes up! Hoohah! Or the bloke with
the deep watering garden wand
...
Originally homemade but now looking a little more professional
...
Mail-orders
at $44
...
Every month
...
A thousand manufacturers represented there
...
How about a $3 plant moisture detector with a bird that sings when the pot-plant
needs watering
...
Or a standalone solar garden light for $8
...

Or a solar street number which illuminates at night for $4
...

Vietnam, Mexico, Romania, Thailand, Fiji, China
...
How about jewelry and semi-precious
stones, local carved items
...


Most people go round with their eyes closed
...
Leave me alone
...
" We make our own luck by actively getting involved in life and
seeing if there's a better way of doing things
...
Engage your power of curiosity
...
There's always a better
way, and by definition a more efficient and profitable way
...
Try to get to where the action is
...
Take an
interest
...
Look hard enough and you'll find a need that can profitably be
filled by you
...
Now in his late twenties his
business is enormous
...
This time you take in planning is crucial to your future success
...


Continue each day to add ideas to your list of possibilities
...
Try to harness the power of your imagination to
anticipate into the future how your business would evolve
...
Make
your plans concrete by writing them down with budgets and timetables
...
What you're
doing is disciplining your mind, getting into the swing of being in business
...
Like the fledgling bird on the cliff ledge you're getting ready

SiteSelling
...


As you continue to run your ideas through your mental and emotional sieve, one idea will
emerge on top
...
The important thing is
it's an idea that takes hold in you
...
Yes, I'm going to start a
home delivery service for elderly shut-ins
...
Or, Yes, I'm going to
apply for a license to breed Silver Perch fingerlings in my garage and sell them to the
emerging aquaculture industry
...
And for this you'll need to
make detailed plans
...
Most people don't plan, they daydream
...
The difference between a plan and a pipe-dream is the plan has a staircase
that stretches from the goal all the way down to your feet
...
All a pipe-dream offers you to step on
is excuses and smoke
...
The key phrase of the pipe dreamer is "If only
...
This inevitably happens
to some degree and it should not be a stick to beat yourself up with
...
The rules of the game emerge as
we play it
...
Reminds me of the
time I was hauling a tractor on a trailer driving downhill into a sharp left turn and the
trailer started to fishtail violently
...
Remaining focused and flexible is the business equivalent of
braking and accelerating simultaneously
...


SiteSelling
...
Learn to recognize real opportunities

•

Harness imagination but don't daydream

•

Make plans not pipe-dreams
...
You may need to change course but keep your goals firmly in mind

SiteSelling
...
Where do you start? At this
point most proud new venturers look for premises, plant and stock
...

You're way too far ahead of yourself
...
The prime, and essentially
only consideration for your new business is making sales
...
"Of course people
will buy
...
All I need to do is advertise and
customers will fall over themselves to push cash into my hand
...
But you might
do worse than test the market first
...
These were
movement sensors that alarmed if the computer was moved and the power turned off
...
I was convinced these would sell like Mars Bars
over the back fence of a fat farm and devised a full-page ad touting the benefits at $59
each
...
Notwithstanding, figuring I was making nearly 90% profit I repeated the
$1000 ad
...
Something was drastically wrong
...
After 7 years of hard slog I finally shifted the last of them back to one
of Brad's original customers
...
Not only was I stuck with a
painfully unsaleable item (There was nothing wrong with the product
...
It's just that nobody wanted it
...
Look before you leap
...
Just because I like something
doesn't mean my customers will
...
(Now there's an idea
...
) I know
...
I've had to learn the humility to be teachable and turn my
whole business focus around from what I want, to what my customers want
...


Take the product or service you want to sell, and before you launch yourself body and
soul into it, take the time to test market it
...
The day that Jurassic

SiteSelling
...
I intuitively disliked multi-level marketing but felt that if we
were the originators who controlled it, it would be okay
...
And nothing happened
...

Disappeared, taking 15% of our sales with it
...


A very painful lesson, but one we've learnt well now
...

And that doesn't mean running it past Mum to see what she thinks
...
All ads are coded and the response is
carefully vetted
...
Not subjective 'like it or
don't like it' surveys, but hard factual 'who purchased what' data
...
If it
doesn't we can it
...
When the cash starts rolling in you'll start
feeling 8 foot tall and bullet proof
...
Make way for a successful
business owner
...
That worked
...
Come back to earth
...
Turnover is not income and income is
not available for your discretionary spending
...
Many start-up entrepreneurs confuse turnover with spending
money and crash and burn almost immediately
...
You've got a long way to go before you're safe to
fly this business solo
...


SiteSelling
...
You're not infallible
...
Learn from your mistakes
...
com

54

Making Your First Million

Chapter 10 - How Do I Sell?
"Good Morning
...
I can tell
...
Look, I knew you were a salesman the minute I clapped eyes on
you
...
Just shove off
...
And you can use 'em to take kids for rides
...
Whyncha buy one, huh?"

"That's ridiculous
...
"

"Two grand
...
"

"Look get outta here will ya?"

"These are my last two
...
You'll be missing out on the
bargain of a lifetime
...
"

SiteSelling
...
Nothing happens without
sales
...

Sales people almost always look at the selling process from the perspective of their own
needs, focusing on profit margin and commission and so on, and rarely enter into the
mind of the customer
...


On our last trip to Hong Kong, Pauline and I bumped into Kathleen, a friend who lives a
few streets away
...
I figured this was sacred women's
business so I kept a respectful distance and when they went into the shop I stood outside
in the doorway ogling the passing parade and keeping out of the rain
...
Are you looking to
purchase some tailored clothing?"

"Ah, no mate
...
" I announced in
my best, dismissive Aussie tourist tone of voice, and fixed my gaze elsewhere
...


"I could make you a beautiful shirt in this material sir
...
I have to wait here
...
" I was becoming a little
peeved but he seemed not to notice and draped a bolt of blue material over my right
shoulder
...
You may not have known that our shirts are renowned throughout the
world for fit and elegance
...
But I can
see you are dubious
...
I will make you six shirts for $30
each
...
If you like them I
will make you a suit of your choice for free
...
Well
...
I was
in the door and a bevy of lackeys were taping me up
...
com

56

Making Your First Million
"Which suit material do you prefer? That one
...
By the way, my
name is Prakash
...
Your name is? Thank you Mr Parry
...
Yes, I can do that
...
I
would like to personally offer you two more suits for $180 each
...
Thank you
...
We will keep your details on file and at
any time in the future you can fax us an order
...
On my return for a 'fitting' he
continued to upsell
...
Each time I came back to
collect my clothing there was always a little alteration needed, which presented him with
a further opportunity to sell me more
...
Seven thousand
dollars lighter
...
He regards protestations as the normal smokescreen of
selling, ignoring them, and focusing on what the customer wants
...
He smiles, knowing that 'No' simply means 'Not yet'
...
Nothing flusters
him
...
But he does persist with just
the right seasoning of humor and intelligence
...
What does he want? What does any
of us want? Recognition, respect certainly
...
We need to be
drawn into this dance of seduction where we are parted from our cash and each leaves
smiling
...
Focus on your prospective customer
...
Selling is understanding the wants and desires of the
customer
...
And he knew he had a limited opportunity to overcome these
barriers by getting in close enough to hit me between the eyes with an offer I couldn't
refuse
...


This is an important concept
...


Okay, it's time to make some sales
...
You're focused
...
You've tested the water and it's safe
...
Where to from here?

SiteSelling
...
There's a million other possible choices but it's a real enough
example
...
It could just as easily be
cheap and cheerful pub-size pool tables from China, replica steam engines from India,
fake watches from Bangkok, plastic irrigation fittings from Taiwan, batik clothes from
Bali
...
I'm being pragmatic
here rather than essaying on the politics of economic colonialism
...


We're taking the opportunity route rather than the "What do people want to buy?" route
and while it's going to be harder to make sales, your margin will be so high it will
override and forgive all your impertinence
...
95 a piece
...


As it's such a small percentage of the selling price, you can pretty much ignore the cost of
the product and focus on marketing
...
Take a good look now at the pros in this
game
...
"This delightful, limited edition, collector's item can be yours for $49
...
What you probably didn't
realise till now is how little the product costs at source
...
I bought a couple
of model car kits there recently as presents for my friends' children
...

And they normally retail for $39
...
As consumers we've largely been shielded from the
huge price differentials that occur as you travel down the chain from manufacturer,
taxman, importer, taxman, distributor, taxman, retailer and consumer
...
45)
...


So, Vietnamese dolls house furniture
...
You've identified the factory through research and talking with agents
...

They make do with 5% from you and screw the suppliers for more
...
You've faxed off
...
You've
done the ritual haggle
...
They fax you back a P
...
(ProForma Invoice)
...
T
...
com

58

Making Your First Million
L
...
(at sight irrevocable letter of credit which is paid out by your bank here when the
goods land) if you don't trust them
...
T
...
L
...
I clearly recall a colleague's
angst at losing US$77,000 which he'd T
...
They went belly up at the time his cash came in and they scarpered
...
At this point he will look pained and launch into a lengthy and boring explanation
of his costs and margins
...
" He won't
say this because he is too polite to offend you, but I have no such reservations
...
That's one of those quaint
Western customs where suppliers enjoy double digit margins
...
You can do it
yourself, but like everything bureaucratic you need a PhD in loopholes to get through the
maze
...
You'll get away with it
for the first half dozen shipments and then you'll get a stern letter from Customs asking
you to come and clear your order through the proper channels
...
You'll need to order at least $5,000 worth to amortize the oncosts
...
You can do this
by creating a web-site and seeking to market to the world
...
This product is an
ideal subject for selling on the Internet, which I'll explain in Chapter 12, but let's assume
for now that you've blown your entire budget getting the stuff here and you've decided to
sell wholesale, going door-to-door to craft and gift galleries
...
But you can't
sell it in its present state
...
If you were a big operator you'd vacuum
mould special presentation packaging and hype up the box with waffle about heirlooms
and increasing in value and little children in bonnets and gingham pinafores but you
haven't got to that elevated state yet so you're going to have to take the cheap but
dignified route
...
12, wholesale price $18
...
30 ea for 20, final retail price
$29
...
Verily I say unto you, Bob is your uncle, or at the very least a close
approximation of avuncular similitude
...


SiteSelling
...
At this point most of us fall into fond reveries
of comfortable jobs where we looked out the window and passed the time sharpening
pencils, gossiping and making cuppas
...
You're not doing it because it's your job
...

Effectively, you're going around saying to people: "Hey, give me 50 bucks and I'll trade
you this little $5 memento of your gift
...
But I figure you're a bit of a
sentimentalist at heart and I'm sure you or your customers will like them
...


SiteSelling
...
com

61

Making Your First Million

Chapter 11 - What Else Can I Sell?
The key to profits is to find something which you can acquire cheaply and sell at a higher
price
...
What you have to do is carve out some territory where you'll get
some bottom line profit
...
This is not easy, and is the reason why most businesses fail
...
Why fight your competitors selling me-too
products on price? The only winner is the customer, which is okay for them but you have
to eat
...
Advertise
...
Push
...
Remember, advertising is the engine of your ship
...


The best product is the one that costs little or nothing, is in unlimited supply, can be sold
for a high price, is unique to you, and is in great demand, or has the potential for demand
to be created
...
Sadly, nothing lasts,
and my unique position was overtaken by competitors on all counts
...
You can attempt to protect your market as in the case of newsagents and the
Wool Corporation but market forces will break any protective cartel
...
The only security is to keep
moving, changing with each tide
...
New technologies bring new solutions to problems
...
The demand can be created by the
product itself, ensuring an explosion of future sales for a minimal outlay
...
com

62

Making Your First Million
I'm not proposing you go into the movies or the entertainment business as I've done both
to my shame and financial detriment
...
One of the projects Adam took on
in Russia was to establish an English language "Dolly" magazine entitled "Djevushka"
...
The project withered for lack of resources before one issue was
produced, but on return to Australia, Adam began producing suburban throwaway
newspapers
...
A two-man team, Adam producing the A3 tabloid on a Mac, John selling the
ads
...
Hmmm
...


Knowledge is power
...
The market endlessly segments to make
room for good ideas
...
The
lawyer sells his knowledge
...
Consider the sale of information itself as a business
...
Useful information on schools, hospitals, libraries, government departments
...
He collates it, puts it together into usable form, and sells it
...
$600
...
What
I can tell you is the raw cost in making a sale to me once he'd amortized his costs was
zero
...


Graeme's information may have had a limited demand
...
You have already paid the cost of finding out this information
yourself, so why not sell it to others? One of the most successful publishing ventures of
this century has been the Lonely Planet guides to backpacking around the world
...
Who'd a'thought it? You are unique
...
It is entirely possible your
knowledge would be of immense value to a vast number of people on this planet
...
It took 3 weeks
writing to commit a lifetime's experience to paper
...
To date it has sold
over 50,000 copies in Australia and a similar number overseas
...
It won't make her rich but it will provide a small income for many
years
...


SiteSelling
...
Maybe like
Albert Facey you know hardship
...
Maybe like Don Burke you know about gardening, or like Jan Somers you
know about real estate
...

One of the most intriguing ads I've ever seen is the size of a postage stamp
...
It's clearly some form of gambling system
...


Information, software, entertainment, the raw cost on these, once the production costs
have been amortized is essentially zero
...
I rang an American magazine, Interface
Age:

"Hi, this is George Parry here
...
"

"Oh, that's fine sir
...
"

I choked
...
I'm ringing from Australia
...
"

I went silent again
...
I have to level with you
...
"

It was her turn to go silent
...
But you'll have to repeat it at least twice
...
Would you like me to dictate the ad?" I was getting the hang of this
now
...
Go right ahead
...
Send $55 to MicroEducational Park Rd Garden Suburb Australia
...
"

SiteSelling
...
"

"You've run out of space
...
"

"Okay," I said, "Let's run with that
...


Two months later the magazine appeared
...
About the size of the tiniest postage
stamp
...
I'd wasted $200
...
Enclosed were a US$50 bill
and a 5
...
I hastily copied the disk on my single disk drive, inserted it into the
photocopied documentation, into a padded bag, put it into the basket of my push-bike and
rode to Charlestown post office
...
On the Tuesday there were 3 orders
...
And it grew from
there
...
I was selling information that people wanted and was
about to be swamped with money
...

And it kept getting better
...
'They' haven't got it all sewn up
...
You just have to
position yourself to be where the market is moving to, to find that magic something,
product, information, service that taps into the mother lode of cash that's there
...
Find something that
isn't being done and do it, or find something that's being done badly (and isn't there some
scope here!) and do it better
...
com

65

Making Your First Million

Chapter 12 - How Do I Get Into The
Internet?
** Note: This book is an ongoing project
...
Since writing this chapter, I have discovered for myself the
incredible power of the Internet to dramatically, immediately and explosively change
your financial circumstances for the better
...
You can discover this unique information which I have called the Ultimate
Wealth Secret at the end of this book
...
I want you to read the whole book
before I will reveal the secret to you
...
It is unique
...
Contain yourself now, read on
...
Ride the Internet wave
...
Research it
...
It has already
revolutionized many industries
...
Stock broking will rapidly become exclusively Internet-driven
...
The technology is cumbersome at present, but it is
clear that once the teething problems of speed, security, intelligence and specificity are
sorted out the Internet will roar into prominence
...
Snuggle up
very close even if it's prickly at present
...
The Internet is a global market, making time and geography irrelevant
...
Indeed the Internet is the very antithesis of the homogenized "mall"
...
No doubt the
homogenizers will have their way with part of it, but happily the technology is too
democratic to be controlled
...
If I am looking for something generic like
video retailers or carpet cleaners I would do better by referring to my local phone book,
but if I am looking for something specific like Tibetan nose flutes or a valuation on a
1916 Rudge Whitworth ladies' penny-halfpenny then I know exactly where to turn
...
com

66

Making Your First Million

The Internet has the same pivotal relationship to the information revolution as the internal
combustion engine had to the industrial revolution
...


Get back to basics
...
Think
...
It says in a seductive voice: "You've got
mail
...
Doting
...
Still a
little bewildered
...
And so
quick
...
We all want to be needed, wanted and loved
...
The Internet offers it to us and to our potential
customers
...
That's how many lose money on the
net
...
"I dunno nuthin about it but I
know I gotta be there
...
Be a follower if you must, but at least do the
research
...
Most potential web merchants adopt mass marketing
methods to reach them, spamming email, blanket advertising, banners, buttons, even
advertising their website on other media
...
Even amazon
...
Despite hundreds of
millions spent in promotion, largely garnered from its optimistically-priced shares, it has
failed to register a profit
...


What's the answer? Well, if you haven't already got a spare million or so to box the web's
ears to make it sit up and take notice, I suggest you refer back to the Principles of
Prosperity
...
Be daring
...
When I first started out in mail-order in1979 I needed to get noticed so I
approached the user groups and computer retailers and offered them my software in
exchange for their mail lists
...
They had something I needed
...
Don't sell it
...
If it costs you nothing to
reproduce the material then give it freely
...
What
you are buying is goodwill, mind-space
...
Prepare the soil
...
Do the opposite
...
You are

SiteSelling
...
When you earn trust, people will then trust you with their money
...
Be scrupulous
...
I received a well-produced package with
glossy literature and an audio tape, but I only got as far as the testimonial letter
...
Its hyperventilating tone established for me that
the promoter had a room temperature IQ and that my $995 would be a questionable
investment
...
Establish intimacy with fellow web users
...
Whisper
...
Don't abuse it
...
What's it to be? "G'Day Fred
...
" OR: "Hi there! How y'all doin? Take a look at
this!" The latter is for mass media, the former for the net
...
You no longer have
to yell or over-promise
...
But do so intelligently
...

Whatever, Mamma's Andalusian Paella recipe
...
How to get
better mileage out of your Winnebago
...
Think up (or
plagiarize) hundreds of freebies you can put on your web-site and approach the interest
groups
...
That way you
pre-qualify them
...


What are the best Internet businesses? Our own web-site http://www
...
com
...
The
products are me-too products and so the web-site simply complements the existing
catalog business
...


The best options for starting up an Internet-only business are automatic information
downloads, low-cost service delivery or unique mail-order products
...
The customer keys in his
details, the computer verifies and processes the money transaction, and then allows the
customer to have limited access to the file for a one-off download
...

You may either create it yourself or license it
...
It contains the distilled experience of $70 million in mail-order and Internet

SiteSelling
...
(A
bloke is a guy!)

I am currently trialling 1) Giving it all away free
...
95 b) $6
...
95 for the complete download, and 3) Adding the
option to purchase a signed, published copy for $16
...
The main benefit to me in giving
it away free is self-promotion for my services as a business speaker
...
Obvious line extensions include selling other similar e-books under license
...

As the information evolves it can be instantly altered
...


Selling physical items, however, is a little trickier
...
You sell
unique products unavailable elsewhere such as the Vietnamese Dolls House furniture in
Chapter 10
...
The market for these products, compared to the market for
bread, milk and tv sets is comparatively small
...
To break into the mass market takes a
million dollars to get the tiniest fraction of a huge number
...

Unique is the way to go
...
Establish yourself as the world expert and only
source of left-handed grommet wrenches and you'll make a comfortable living
...


My friend Mike is a real-estate agent on the east coast of Australia who decided to stop
competing with his 20,000 competitors
...
His
customers come almost exclusively from the other motel-owners upgrading or expanding
their holdings
...
It's almost a closed loop
...


The Internet allows you to find and hold your future loyal customer base from the billions
of potential customers
...


SiteSelling
...
I noticed this week TV's
Gardening Australia promoting its magazine on the show, suggesting customers ring a
1900 number and leave their name and address to go in the draw to win 10 free
subscriptions
...
At 50c a call (half goes to the promoter, half to the service
provider) they'd be looking at $7500 a week income for a total cost of less than $200, a
break-even point of 800 callers, and a promotional benefit to the magazine of many
thousands of dollars
...
So many hopefuls dial in, often hundreds of times each, hoping to get on the
show that it pays for itself many times over
...
We see
this particularly in finance-broking or bringing together buyers and sellers
...
You know a prospective buyer or seller
...
Real estate
agents are a common form of this consultant
...
As a facilitator you need to understand the
psychology of the protagonists, oversell the buyer and undersell the seller to bring an
amicable conclusion and allow you to pocket from 1% to 25% of the transaction
...


Here's a consultancy business which comes to mind: From August 1, 1998 Australia's
largest telecoms carrier, Telstra initiated the Customer Service Guarantee
...
In essence, it says if you have to wait for service we'll
pay you forty bucks a day for each day you have to wait
...
They pay if you know about your
entitlements and complain
...


Can you see a business opportunity here? Find a way of locating the people due CSG
payments and find a way of getting it to them
...
As a consultant you could comfortably charge 25% as a success
fee
...
By the time this book is published, even on the
Internet, the window may well be closed
...

More than likely an ex-Telstra employee
...
com

70

Making Your First Million

Summary
•

Information is the ultimate low-cost, high-margin product

•

You can replicate your knowledge through publishing and selling books, tapes or
newsletters

•

Utilise new technology, Internet and 1900 numbers

•

If selling information as a consultant, charge a success fee rather than an hourly
rate

SiteSelling
...
Once you
decide what you're going to sell it's relatively simple to advertise it on the net and in a
specialist magazine and ship it out when orders start rolling in
...

And as with all simple theories it's much more complex in practice
...
You can start from home
as I did and you can start out cheap and cheerful
...
You don't
need to report in to a boss
...
I started by selling a range of Apple software and peripherals,
and as there were no specialist Australian magazines in 1979 I simply started collecting
names and addresses of Apple owners from the two Apple User Groups and the two
computer stores in Australia
...
I collected 200 names and addresses and
using a Gestetner duplicator I'd co-opted from school I produced a 4 page cut-and-paste
'brochure' outlining the small range of products I was selling: Dan Paymar lower case
adapter, subLogic Flight Simulator, MicroSoft's CP/M Z80 card, Classroom Computer
Package, Roger Keating's Conflict, Verbatim disks, Harry Harper's Vision 80 card
...
It is still entirely possible to repeat
this process
...
These were scientific instruments that he had imported from
the US, having recently left a similar large company and decided to go out on his own
...
I was
impressed with the prospects for his business and offered to buy into his company
...

He didn't want a partner
...
I figured at the time, temporarily ignoring
the First Principle of Abundance (nobody's perfect), that the information I had on mail
order was too valuable at any price other than equity in his company and declined
...


How do you start? Gather information
...
Research
your topic
...
15 cu m and less than 16Kg)

•

High demand (people have to want to buy it)

SiteSelling
...
g
...
I started out in computer consumables,
and while this is now a mature and highly competitive market, we still see the occasional
resegmenting with a new player entering the market, specializing in particular areas such
as networking, toner, mice etc
...

Fortunately, in our times of rapid, overnight change, there are such opportunities
everywhere
...

Avoid such easy fixes
...


Product areas that come to mind are books and reports on specialist areas, fishing and
boating accessories, crafts and hobbies, jewelry, ornaments, prints and paintings,
specialist clothing, safety equipment, camping and hiking gear, signs and badges, home
security, car accessories, gardening accessories and plants, collectibles, executive gifts,
specialist stationery, individualized stationery and products, home entertainment, Internet
services
...


SiteSelling
...
com

74

Making Your First Million

Chapter 14 - How Do I Source
Products for Mail-order?
Firstly, take a look around you
...
Read specialist magazines
...

Tell them you're looking to go into a mail-order business
...
What's their
hottest-selling new product? What product do they find hard to source, that keeps running
out? Is there a manufacturer who is looking for extra outlets? (What a silly question!)
Find the absent-minded professor types with the good idea
...
Peruse the net
...
Email or phone the local embassies,
China, Vietnam, Thailand, US
...
) We tend to think that 'they' have got it all locked up
...
They haven't
...
Nobody gets 100%
...
Here
...
Get up on
board
...
Like any complex activity it's
simply a long series of simple steps
...
The main thing you need to remember is you're dealing with people
...


Our consumer culture has encouraged us to revere and iconize the power of the brand
...
We've been programmed to respond
with awe and respect to corporate and political imagery as if they were what we were
dealing with
...
In every instance, and in spite of the efforts of individuals
employed by the company to hide behind its skirts, we deal with human beings
...
It is the invisible glass ceiling that prevents creativity
and stifles thought
...
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75

Making Your First Million
Japanese cultures) leavens this reverence but it's still there and it's a handicap that needs
to be overcome
...
It's a matter of balance
...
Always question
...
It could just be a feeble old fool pulling the levers
behind the smoke and mirror façade intoning: "Who dares to question the authority of the
great and mighty Wizard of Oz
...
We were staying with friends, he an Engineer, she a Physiotherapist, in their
mobile holiday home overlooking Ulswater in the Lakes District
...
When we returned to
Bradford they asked how we'd enjoyed staying in the van
...
It was great
...
"You did what?"

"Yeah, we booked into the Sharrow Bay
...
It was
great
...
"

"You stayed at the Sharrow Bay Hotel?"

"Yeah
...


"We've been going to Ulswater for 17 years
...
That's not for the likes of us
...
"

"Well, we didn't notice anything
...
We had a great
time
...
We'd go back there tomorrow
...
"

"Didn't you notice the cars? Didn't you see from the way the other guests spoke or
dressed you were out of place?"

"No, I mean, we're Aussies
...
com

76

Making Your First Million

The unspoken, dead hand of mutually understood and immovable laws of social position
deal instant death to creativity to all but the Richard Bransons strong enough to withstand
its grip
...
Their wages are the same as ours but their
standard of living is a third of ours
...
And one of those beliefs is: "I'm only me
...
" You can
...
When you come to realise that City Hall or
'they' are just composed of individuals like you, with your frailties and humanness you
will come to realise that you can do anything that they can do
...
They may be focused on making a sale for their
company and making profits, but before anything else they are people like you and me
...

To do good business you'll need to create relationships with the people
...

Let them take you out to dinner and spoil you rotten
...
The busboy at the restaurant will have gone home by the time you emerge and
his instructions as to where the car is parked will be sufficiently vague to prompt you all
to get cabs home and find the car next week
...
Learn to play MahJong
and pick up the cool bits of the language
...
Be real
...
Essentially you are selling yourself to these people
...
Do they want to do business with you? If so, at what level?
At what discount structure? 'Yecch! Don't like him
...
' It's not so
true of the States but in Asia you deal with people and the quality of your interaction will
determine the quality of the deal
...
If they like you they'll treat you like their best friend
...
Check out alternative suppliers' pricing to make sure you're not
being taken for an expensive ride
...
They know the rules
...


SiteSelling
...
You are good enough
...


SiteSelling
...
It's another thing altogether to sell
...
We've been doing
it from early childhood
...
You buy what you
want, pleasing you, and you give cash to the seller, pleasing him
...
Or is it? The variables remain the same but you're now on the other side of the
equation
...
And to do that well you have to swap perspectives and look at it from his
point of view
...
From the buyer's
perspective, he's buying a hole
...
And you need to sell the benefits, not the product
...

He's not a charitable giver, buying your bits of scrap metal to help you out, though I've
seen many sellers whose marketing seems to take that tack
...
It doesn't work that way
...
This is the key
...
You want to sell it by mail-order
...
" Selling the features of the product
...
Or we could try to get into the mindset of the customer who might want to buy
gnomes
...
What kind of person buys these tiresome
gargoyles? A fruitcake? Sometimes
...
A gardener? Possibly
...
A nostalgia freak? Yes
...


The advantage of getting into the head of the potential purchaser is you'll not only come
up with a better sales approach you'll also greatly narrow down the range of media you
advertise the product in
...
Why? To amuse, to surprise, to shock
...
Your garden gnome
purchaser is buying with someone else in mind
...
That wore off in the first 30 seconds
...
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79

Making Your First Million
every time he sees it
...


How did the "Your Garden" advertiser approach it? He took the easy way out and
advertised it under a press release title "A bit cheeky" with a wholesale telephone
number
...
My approach? I'd sell the benefits
...
Caption: "If
you've always wanted to do this
...
And every month I'd import or commission more and within a year I'd
have 120 gnomes and a database of 30,000 manic customers hanging out for the next
ratbag offering
...
Hand me the Serepax
...

The main features are near-invisible line-drawings of flowers and vegetables on a dark
blue background, unpronounceable 'scientific' product names, and the name of the
manufacturer repeated 4 times in 18 point type on a bold red background
...
I think I'll rush out and fall asleep
...
"At last!
No more black spot
...
You
work all year and coming into Summer when your roses should be the pride of the
neighborhood what happens? Black Spot! Listen to Fred Nurk, head gardener at the
Sydney Botanical Gardens Rosarium: "We had awful problems for years with black spot
and fungal wilt until we came across Plonkolube
...
I was at
my wits' end
...
They don't have the humidity or fungal strains we have here
...
I fell over myself to
get to the phone and ordered a sample
...
I want to thank
SidRayGeorge for Plonkolube
...
Oh, and the roses look good
too
...
Make it real in real language
...
Once you've got her, you've got her for the next 1500 words
...
At last, hallelujah, here's the answer to all my problems with my roses
...
Begone
...
Ask a question
...
Introduce real-life
testimonials then suggest a solution
...
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Making Your First Million

The art of advertising copy-writing, salesmanship in print, would occupy a large book in
its own right
...
Whether you're advertising in a magazine or mailing an offer these principles
are as follows:
•

Capture attention in the headline

•

Spell out the benefits to the customer

•

Provide clear, specific, comprehensive photos and visuals

•

Include people in the graphics

•

Include testimonials (please)

•

Include a money-back guarantee

•

Provide a means of instant response

Notice I didn't talk about mentioning the technical features of the product
...
You could give a list of dimensions or you could just
say "handy pocket-sized"
...
It's
atrocious
...
On the front is their glossy high-tech spaceship
image with the brand name covering a third of the page and a jet or spaceship zooming
off the page with some mindless pap like 'taking you into the next millennium'
...
Who gives a
...
They've actually shot themselves in the foot, the knee,
the belly and the head
...
Dumb
...
You're reading this book for a start
...
Read any of David Ogilvie's material
...
One of the reasons the gnome advertiser used the press
release area is it doesn't look like an ad
...
Use editorial if you can, but if you can't, create your own
editorial by quoting the testimonials of satisfied (hopefully ecstatically delighted,
deliriously, wonderfully satisfied) customers
...
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Making Your First Million

If you've caught her attention, engaged her self-interest, spelt out benefits and quoted
recommenders, it's time to look at closing the sale before she loses interest
...
You need to make a trial or assumptive close by essentially
saying: "Look, I know you're thinking seriously about buying this product
...
) Now, let's suppose you've done that, you get the product home
and, heaven forbid, you're not happy for some reason with it
...
How clever of you
...
"Well,
look, I know it's really unlikely because we've sold thousands of these hobgoblets and
everyone's been delighted with the benefits of owning them, they've even taken the time
to write telling how delighted they are
...
I've been caught before
...
How's that?" And you get her
nodding
...
That sounds good
...
Where do I
sign?

And you grab her
...
in a tear-off
bottom right-hand coupon or a fist-sized web page button
...
It'll cost up to 4 times the price but it should
return at least 10 times the response
...
Why do outside back covers work? Most people never do more
than glance at a magazine
...
When you're sitting eating a bowl of WeetBix at the coffee table, idly watching
Good Morning Australia, chances are you'll use the Sunday paper's tv guide as a place
mat
...
And you'll think: "That's
interesting
...
Fancy that! Hmmm
...
45 firing days
...
" And before you know it you're
transported into the kind of alpha state the copywriters are paid serious money to inflict
on you
...
A free-call number
...
Oh, these people are
saints
...
"

You can be a saint too
...
To understand how to do it study the
professionals
...


SiteSelling
...
When you analyse a good mail-order ad you come to
realise that nothing has been left to chance
...
The visuals reinforce the headline
...
Sub Headings scattered
through the body copy carry the message in bold shorthand, quickly reassuring you that
you're not wasting your time, encouraging you to go back and delve into the body copy
...


Everything flows in a continuous swoop from top left to bottom right
...
No yes but's are permitted
...
You'll Love This New Breakthrough
...
Buy One, Get One
FREE!! You'll Be The Envy of Your Neighbors
...

And on it goes
...


SiteSelling
...
com

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Making Your First Million

Chapter 16 - Who Do I Sell To By
Mail-order?
There's a school of thought which says who you sell to is more significant to your profits
than what you sell or how you sell
...
You can produce a
wonderful ad or brochure that meets all the criteria I've mentioned and it could fail
abysmally
...
The difference
is who you market it to
...
Equally if you mailed out an ad for a hunting knife you would
get a far better response from a list of 4-wheel drive owners than from a list of Mills &
Boon book-list subscribers
...


It's crucially important, therefore, to carefully define and specify who you sell to
...
Whatever you choose to sell, there is a target
magazine, Internet user group or mail-list available
...
When
I was at school I can remember you could count the number of Australian magazines
available on your fingers
...
There was no such thing as a separate newsagency
...
Today,
there are literally thousands, certainly more than a thousand Australian titles available
regularly, and many thousands more foreign mags
...
Which introduces its own problems
...
The broader
the appeal of your product the more generalist, and therefore expensive, the advertising
you need to do and the lower the response per dollar, while the more targeted the product
the more you will have to use specific, narrow bandwidth, high-response magazines
...
What's the answer? Database marketing

The secret lies in creating your own 'magazine'
...
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85

Making Your First Million
your own standalone advertising, possibly in the form of a catalog or newsletter, which
you mail and email to your own database of customers and potential customers
...
You'll get at least 6 times the response advertising to people who've
previously bought from you as your past customers already know you, they've taken the
risk of purchasing from you and they've self-selected themselves as consumers of your
particular product
...


My own business started with a small ad in Interface Age from which I made enormous
sales
...
I mailed to these people at enormous cost and failed to make a single sale
...
Then I
realized that those people who were going to take a $55 risk on an Australian mail-order
company already had
...
The people who filled in reader response
cards were a totally different animal
...
It didn't take long to realise that the
majority of 'reader responses' were in fact morons who'd coloured in the whole card
...


If I was going to grow my business (and by this time I'd had to dump my own software
product as it was hopelessly flaky) I was going to need to cut my advertising costs down
to a bearable amount
...
It worked
...
The
response rate was (and you have to now put a Billy Connolly accent and emphasis on this
word:) brilliant
...
Roger worked for
Strategic Simulations in the US and had access to the latest goodies
...
I hand-wrote the address on the envelope and roneoed a single page letter full
of breathless praise (if not deathless prose) for this new program, advising they could prepurchase now for delivery in 6 weeks
...
A hundred and two percent response! At a cost of $20 and sale
price of $60 I'd made $4000 for ten minutes work
...
In the early days, pretty much all you
had to do was write with any offer to a computer owner and you'd be swamped with
orders
...
I was even invited to a Federal Government think-tank in
Canberra complete with chauffeured pickup and delivery to the airport
...


SiteSelling
...
Two hundred, a thousand, ten thousand, twenty, fifty, a
hundred
...
In the very early days almost everyone with an Apple
computer (This was well before IBM entered the PC scene) was automatically a
customer
...
People wouldn't buy from me
...
New outlets opened
...
Seahorse
...
I didn't have it all to
myself any more
...
How dare they, after all I'd done
for them
...
The only time you'll get 100% of
the sales is when you're the only seller
...


And I recalled the ChopLifter episode
...
I started regularly mailing to the top 20% of my customers and my sales
accelerated
...
Sales rose
again
...

Later on I was to add primary schools, and still later I purchased collated lists and added
in the missing bits
...
I used it to
grow my business
...
My database includes purchase history as well as such critical information as
email address and fax numbers enabling me to infinitely target my advertising
...
Equally, by including twinned discount vouchers,
one for you, one for a friend, and offering twinned sweepstake prizes, one for you, one
for a friend my sales continued rising
...
This now accounts for nearly all sales
and costs nothing
...


On the order forms I would always print a space asking for customers to write or fax back
with their response to our service
...
Testimonials work
...
Once a customer hadn't
purchased for a couple of years they were downgraded to the irregular large mail-shot
...
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87

Making Your First Million
The lifecycle of the customer is like the lifecycle of a product
...

Nothing I can do about it but accept and adapt to it
...
com

88

Making Your First Million

Summary
•

Who you sell to is the most important variable

•

Target through special interest publications

•

Build your database
...
com

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Making Your First Million

Chapter 17 - Now I'm in Business How
Do I Grow?
If you survive the weaning period you'll battle on, get an office, some staff, a flash car
and settle down to the comfort zone of running a small business
...

Profits will accumulate
...
But then, you'll find something odd will happen
...
No matter what you do, you'll find your head hitting
up against a glass ceiling
...
But you won't
be able to break through
...
You'll have to break through
this ceiling
...
Take the
following two puzzles:

O

O

O

O

O

O

O

O

O

Puzzle 1: Join the dots with 4 continuous straight lines without lifting your pen from the
paper
...


I recall doing these puzzles at school, presumably the teacher wanted to go out for a
smoke and wanted to keep us occupied for some time
...
This only served to challenge us to try harder and
some of us became obsessive about it, while others simply gave up in disgust
...
com

90

Making Your First Million

The following Friday he drew the puzzles on the board again, took the chalk and did the
following:

O

O

O

O

O

O

O

O

O

Puzzle 1, he said could only be solved by thinking outside the square, while Puzzle 2, he
confessed was simply insoluble
...


Working definition of insanity: To continue to do the same things expecting a different
result

Why have I told you this? So often we persist in doing things the same way hoping for a
different result
...
We are driven by circumstance
rather than driving it
...
Consider Covey's activity quadrant:

URGENT

NOT URGENT

IMPORTANT

NOT IMPORTANT

SiteSelling
...
Once we've handled the pressing matters what do most of us then do? We play
...
Rarely do we spend enough time in the NU/I quadrant, strategic
planning
...
Covey's model, from
'The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People' lays it out simply so you and I can understand
...


Last month I was asked to take over the roster for a volunteer social welfare office
...
We had a desk, a phone and a computer for producing handbills and we were
staffing it on a rotating roster
...
We'd reduced the
hours to 10 till 2 and still it was hard to get volunteers
...
But I said "No
...
" I looked at the operation and asked questions
...
Almost all phone calls
came in at night
...
The message read: "Our office is presently unattended
...
" No wonder nobody wanted to man the office
...
We wanted them there because we had an 'office' and if you have an
office then logically you've got to have an office person
...
We were thinking from the point of view of the proprietor, not the customer
...
What we needed was an office that was
manned 24 hours a day, seven days a week
...
Ten dollars a month, incoming calls only with keypad locked
...
We have a queue of people waiting to take turns carrying the
batphone around
...
You had it last week
...
We're dealing with volunteers here
...
It is always answered by a
live, though not necessarily wide-awake, person
...


So often we say: "If only I try harder I'm bound to succeed
...
More's gotta be
better
...
The harder we try, generally speaking, the

SiteSelling
...
Persistence is deified as the key to business success and in most
instances it is
...
Talent will not; nothing is more common than
unsuccessful men with talent
...

Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts
...
"

But I'm not sure if the slogan 'press on' has solved and always will solve the problems of
the human race
...
What if the key information, such as 'Think outside the square', or
'Stop now, the problem's insoluble' is missing? Then we will reach a point of diminishing
returns where working harder does not produce results and we hit the glass ceiling of
frustration and depression and we'll start thinking about selling out of this hopeless
business we're in
...
If you like, it's the business equivalent
of the Peter Principle where we get promoted to the level of our incompetence
...


Are you doing the right thing, or just doing things right? Work hard on your business and
you're doing things right
...
If you want to go somewhere you've
never been you're going to have to take a road you've never traveled
...

Your customer
...
That's all good stuff but I'm not trying to talk you into having
the "world's best" anything
...
What you do need is to think outside the
square
...
I like what I sell
...
I've got a good customer base, good
location, good products etc
...
We offer good
service, home delivery
...
"

Yes, but what brings them there? What prompts them to open their check books?

SiteSelling
...
We have helpful staff
...
We're quality assured"
...
Tell me about your customers
...

What I am about to tell you will give you the solution to unlocking the millions of dollars
NOT being spent at your place of business
...


Of the 18 million people in my country (Australia) perhaps five or ten thousand will be
your customers, and of these perhaps twenty per cent are regular customers and perhaps a
hundred will account for 10% of your turnover
...
And you ask yourself: "How can I increase my sales?" What are
you going to do? You can take out an ad in the local paper offering 10% off which costs
you $600, accounts for maybe $1300 in sales at 30% instead of 40% margins and you’ve
lost money
...
Hmmm
...
And the results are the same or worse
...
Most new business owners fall into the trap of neglecting their
customers in favour of trying to drum up new business
...


SiteSelling
...
com

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Making Your First Million

Chapter 18 - How Do I Look After My
Customers?
Your existing customers are your untapped gold-mine
...
Which gets me back to my original question:
"Why do your customers buy from you?" Let's think outside the square
...
I rang a new hotel to make
a booking
...
You've done an excellent job
...
But I'm still trying to buy what you're
selling
...
"

And of course, I'm still waiting
...
She was role oriented, but she was not goal oriented
...
But there
was a nice little touch of irony 2 years later
...
This is Leslie from the Hotel 5 star
...
"

"Pardon
...


"I'm not calling about that Mr Parry
...
" Customers want service
...


SiteSelling
...
She doesn't want to
buy the goods and services you've so artfully displayed
...
She
doesn't want that at all
...
I want to go somewhere that's more attractive than what I have at home and
feel envious enough to want to do something about it
...
We live in a harsh society where fear of neighbor has
destroyed the sense of community
...
You could
spend your whole life with nothing but shopping malls, fast food and TV
...
We each need to be recognised, accepted, needed,
wanted and loved and if we don't get it we shrivel and die
...
I like to
feel I belong and that people would miss me if I weren't there
...
Let's finish the hotel story
...
I went to my favorite hotel in the centre of
Sydney, the place I call my Sydney home:

"Good morning Mr Parry
...
He knows my
name
...
(I knew his name because he has a name badge and I'd spoken
with him many times before
...
) I'll need the car
...
"

"I'll look after it for you sir
...

Enjoy your stay
...
I like these people) The doors swing open: "Good
morning Sir, Madam
...
) We front the reception desk which is busy
...
In fourteen
years we've never had to wait or queue to check in or out
...
Who wouldn't
go back? Over the years we've had flat tires changed, left luggage personally delivered to
our farm near Cessnock, thank you letters, invitations to openings etc
...


SiteSelling
...
"Inside the square" thinking at this point would
focus on attracting customers
...
Think of your new business
as a sink with the plug out
...
To increase sales, the advertising agency advice is to
turn the tap on harder
...


Why do customers choose not to return? They won't tell you they're not coming back,
they'll just stop coming
...
There's a new outfit started up taking my
business
...
" And so on
...


More than two-thirds of customers switch allegiance
due to the perceived indifference of the retailer to their needs
...
Do you provide this? How easy,
friendly and inviting is your phone reception? Are you focused more on your business
than your customer? Does the customer come away feeling: "What a wonderful bunch of
people! They really care
...
You don't have to
...
And whatever you do, don't leave
the computer to care for the customer
...
It's only customer-intolerant
organizations like Telstra and Centrelink that can afford to alienate customers with
answering systems instead of smiling receptionists and even those behemoths are
changing
...
Your customer's goal is a positive and rewarding
experience
...
To double your
sales all you'll need is for your existing customers to spend a little more and to come back
a little more often
...


You'll need to advertise heavily but don't waste your money
...
We verified this in our business over the last
few years by belatedly coding all our advertising material with a prefix and tracking
every sale
...
To my utter shame and embarrassment it

SiteSelling
...
All the time we'd been advertising heavily in magazines or
attending trade shows, taking radio and tv time, it all cost more than it returned
...
The
result: Cost $6,000
...
Net loss $4300
...
Magazines
were little better
...
Total outlay: $10,000
...
Net
loss $5800
...
Compare that with the return from our catalog sent to our
list of existing customers: Total outlay $73,000
...
Net $450,000
...
The solution put to rest Lord Leverhulme's adage:
"Half my advertising is wasted but I don't know which half
...
Incidentally, the reason mass-marketing failed for us is we are a
specialty mail-order company
...
It's only testing that can
determine it
...
We already knew the
theory, the loyalty ladder, but for a long time it remained words on paper
...
Prospects are people who haven't yet purchased but
have made an inquiry
...
Clients have made one or
more repeat purchase
...
Obviously the numbers shrink as you move up the
ladder and herein lies the problem
...
This will usually at best pay for itself in the first
few months with the profit coming from repeat purchases
...
com

99

Making Your First Million

Cost/benefit
...

It's costing you $100 to achieve each sale
...
The trouble is you only have 4000 prospects
...
At the point where you're getting exponentially higher
returns on the dollar you're conversely getting exponential reduction in numbers of
people you can advertise to
...


Who are your customers? If you don't know, you're in real trouble
...
To find out who your customers are, invite them to
leave their name and address details in a jar or on a pad, and routinely enter them in your
computer
...
This is the low-cost,
homegrown basis of a massive financial forward surge in your business
...
But remember the
loyalty ladder: 80% of your sales will come from the top 20% of your customers
...
Some years ago, in the very early days of
computerization I was approached by a man who had been running a craft mail-order
company for help in managing his unwieldy database which by now had 17,000 entries
...


"I just mail to all of them
...
17,000 pieces of mail, 4 times a year
...


SiteSelling
...


"Show me how and I'll kiss you!" I showed him how but politely demurred on the kiss
...
" He did and it worked
...
Treat them
like the friend-of-the-family they really are, and they'll keep you in the lap of sybaritic
luxury for the remainder of your days
...
Don't do it
...
"

Jump outside the square again
...
A nice cheery greeting, lots of helpful advice as we wander around, free coffee and
biscuits for when my legs give out, help with taking purchases to the car and so on, and
of course we get those $2 vouchers which we occasionally redeem and I guess we'd
spend $120 each time we go, which without any promotion is probably 5 times a year
...
Canny marketers
...


So my wife and I potter about at the nursery when there's nothing much happening and
we spend a small amount of money
...
You remember the Rodeo Drive scene in "Pretty Woman"? It's the
syndrome: "How much do you love me?
...
These are the times when we open our wallets and weep
...
If you're not
getting it it's because you're not asking and you're not asking because in the customer's
terms you're a total dunce
...
All you know is she's just
bought a plant that you've made $8 on, it's totally unsuitable but with any luck it will curl
up and die and she'll have to come back and buy something else
...
We live in difficult, competitive times
...
It's a dog-eatdog climate
...
We

SiteSelling
...
You don't have to get big or get out
...
Understand your customer
...
Whenever
I travel I take my top 500 customers mail list and in the boring times I write them a
postcard
...
I sent a postcard to my top customer purporting the photo to be
a view from the farm
...
Poetic license
...
Why don't you come and see for
yourself?" He came for lunch the following week with his family and the week after that
spent $27,000 with me
...
Get to know her
...
A man tends not to shop
...
To get close you will need information
...
I am amazed at what people will tell you when you ask
...
You will need a database and I find if you give
people something for nothing or even the chance to win $25,000 (the chance to win a $1
scratch lottery ticket
...


To build your database you'll need the following information: 1) Her first name
...
6) Phone and/or fax
#
...
9) Partner's birthdate 10) Wedding
anniversary 11) The names and addresses of friends with similar interests etc
...
From this it is easy to send her a letter targeted to her needs
and interests
...
We could automatically fax or email birthday greetings or discount
vouchers
...
She was in Ballina
and her Canberra staff had rung her to tell her she had received a birthday voucher from
my company
...
She's my sister so I thought I'd better come clean
...
One of the fringe benefits of
computerizing your business is it makes it more efficient
...
One
of the most successful strategies is the VIP club membership card which automatically
prints a small discount voucher on the receipt valid for the next purchase with a 2 month
expiry date
...
Powerful,
compelling and totally automated
...
If it isn't easy you won't do it
...


SiteSelling
...
I can select those customers who haven't been in for 3 months and send them a
special offer
...
I can find husbands whose wives' birthdays are coming up and
whisper an offer they can't refuse
...


If doubling your turnover in a year sounds like hype, think again
...
The same for a local hairdresser
...
Once you set the system up it
works automatically
...


SiteSelling
...
Learn to target customers

•

Remember the 80/20 rule
...
Remember birthdays
...
com

104

Making Your First Million

Chapter 19 - How Do I Promote my
Business Without Spending More
Than I Get?
In my computer mail-order business of 20 years I started out mailing simple brochures
which I roneoed on the school's duplicator
...
It was easy in
those early days
...
The return on the dollars spent started
diminishing as the competition got smarter
...
Some brochures cost more than they
returned
...
Adding unique codes
to each brochure meant I could see what worked and what didn't
...
Most broadcast advertising didn't
...
Even when my sales peaked in the late 80's I only had 36
products but one product, the 5
...
Brochures
were fine for this
...


But the market started changing
...
Discounting no longer worked
...
What my customers wanted was a range of products, so I
dramatically expanded our product range and our brochures began to grow in size
...
This first 64 page catalog returned $3
...
50
...
But catalogs outpull all our other advertising
...
Think of sale brochures as artificial fertilizer and a catalog
as organic fertilizer
...


SiteSelling
...
If someone sends you a 256 page
catalog on products you're interested in, you're very unlikely to bin it
...
It's a bit like phone books
...
You keep
it as a reference work
...
Include in your
catalog reference tables, handy web addresses, even a street directory or map of your
town
...
But I'm probably running
ahead of myself
...
Let's look at some proven techniques for increasing your
sales
...
What
this means is you need to focus on your better customers, write to them, fax them
birthday vouchers etc
...
Try this as an experiment: Ring up your business
pretending to be a customer, and document your experience
...
Your telephone is your business' shop window and too often it is spoilt by
sloppy and indifferent telephone service
...
It will cost you nothing but it could easily double your sales
...
After waiting on for 43 rings I
got the receptionist: "Good morning XYZ Company!" she snapped in a harsh nasal tone
which expressed her exasperation at being so overworked
...
This is George Parry from D
...
Could I speak
with the managing director?" After a little telephone tag I spoke with the M
...
and told
him that his receptionist was ruining his business and that if he didn't train her in phone
skills she was going to cost him millions
...
Answer the phone on the third ring
2
...
Say: "Good morning XYZ Company
...
Adopt an attitude of helpfulness

SiteSelling
...
In our
office there is no receptionist
...
Nothing is more
important than serving your customer
...


We apply the same concept to serving at the counter
...
We are not
the railways or the post office
...
When a
customer comes into the shop and fronts the counter one of our staff goes up to them and
says: "G'day!" This is deliberate
...
The customer is
there for a reason and if you can make her feel comfortable and unthreatened she will
relax and open her purse for you
...
The key to it is to look at things from the point of view of your
customer
...
A
...
This is a powerful technique for converting customers to clients and is well
worth experimenting with
...
This technique alone now generates $3 in
profit for each dollar of cost
...
You don't have to wait 9 months to get
a result
...


Outbound telemarketing is powerful and immediate
...
We tried this using existing staff in quiet times
and it doesn't work
...
Dogged, determined, placid and focussed
...
They do not cannibalize our
existing client base as they have no access to our computer system or our customer
database
...

We often overlook these as they are seemingly trivial but many thriving businesses are
built solely on repeat classifieds
...
com

107

Making Your First Million
times the cost of a classified and a classified can pull as well as a full page ad you start to
realise the value they represent

SiteSelling
...
It works

•

Use cheap classifieds
...
com

109

Making Your First Million

Chapter 20 - How do I Change an
Already-Established Business?
Rod is a friend of mine who owns a repair shop in the outer suburbs
...
He owns the building in partnership with a tire retailer
...
Business is extremely ordinary and he wants to
improve
...
Can he do it? Yes
...
What business is he in? Remember that everything changes
...
Last century the big
entrepreneurs in the US were in the railroads but their real business was land
development
...
When they'd sold the land
they settled down to try to make a living from the railroad but as modes of transport
changed this century they failed to adapt
...
They thought they were in the railroad business but really they were in the
transport business
...
McDonalds operate two businesses
...


Angus & Robertson, a major bookseller in Newcastle, recently reappraised what business
they were in, and discovered they were not in the book-selling business
...
They wanted to sell books
...
But they applied
lateral thought to their business and considered the business from the perspective of the
customer
...
They came to browse, to fill in time
...

What do I do when I'm in bored tourist mode? I fill in time browsing through bookshops
...
I never go in to find a specific book! Last month I
was in Canberra staying in a hotel while Pauline attended a conference
...
I didn't go there to buy books
...
And I spent the most at the shop with the lounge chair
...
People never go into
bookshops in groups or if they do they immediately split up and browse
...
A&R recognised this and reorganized their store to incorporate
a coffee shop
...
To keep the customer in-store

SiteSelling
...
They have recently added live music three mornings a week,
which I believe may be taking the theory too far
...
To change direction he now needs to identify the real,
underlying business he is in, and in the process, start to see the opportunities for dramatic
change and improvement
...
What am I doing? The hardware
salesman may think he's selling a drill bit, but the customer is buying a hole
...
Rod is in the
reliable transport business
...
It's always there and it never causes me any anxiety
...
I own a car for prestige,
convenience and reliability but I am also focussed on economy
...


How does this help Rod? Understanding what business he is in helps him focus on where
the real profit lies
...
He is a reliable transport facilitator
and his focus starts to shift from the problem to the solution
...
He starts to interact with the customer rather than the machinery,
looking to provide reliable transport solutions for the person who will give him his first
million this year: his customer
...
We are not dressing up a
cabbage and calling it a cos lettuce
...
Rod is
no longer a mechanic
...


Now that he's in the reliable transport business, Rod can start to look at ways of helping
his customer get what she wants and in the process, find ways to radically or gradually
alter his business to tap into emerging trends that will let him use synergy and the
momentum of gravitational change to make more money than he can spend in a lifetime
...
Easy if you change your thinking
...
He now needs to look at what he does and undergo radical surgery to chop off
the unproductive and stimulate the productive activities
...
Do not be
afraid to take major risks
...
And if
you're wrong, change sooner rather than later
...
His business provides him with a wage and

SiteSelling
...
He can take the kaizen
approach of gradual, incremental improvement to lift his bottom line, and in the absence
of any obvious new growth path, this is usually the best solution
...


LPG conversions are a small part of his business
...
In Victoria,
25% of cars run on gas due to its wide availability and low price
...
This differential, however, is a function of supply and demand and may
disappear if the demand increases
...
He has a ground floor opportunity to specialize in gas
conversions and establish an unassailable reputation as the gas conversion specialist on
the Central Coast
...
Strengths include his long
reputation for good service, his staff, part-ownership of the building and the ability to
offer half-price motoring for customers
...
Opportunities include sales to fleet customers, lack of competition,
ecological awareness
...


Rod has a real opportunity to alter and expand his business
...
It will limit his growth
...

There is no concrete hardpan
...
He has the choice of
spending $100,000 tarting up the place or moving to purpose-built premises
...


It is all too easy to become sentimental about the past and fearful of change
...
The more you have behind you, the more you have
to lose
...
For the three years preceding
my going broke for the third time, I watched powerless as my assets dwindled to nothing,
unable and unwilling to take the hard decision to cut and run
...
Life is short
...
Often it's a necessary experience to give you the casehardening needed to do things better next time
...
com

112

Making Your First Million
Rod decides to take the risk, approaching a property developer who builds him a
$400,000 factory which is onsold to a Sydney investor at 10
...

This commits Rod to a $900 a week outlay but the new premises offer far higher
visibility and traffic flows, and are not so far from his old premises that he'll lose any
existing customers
...


To re-establish his business as a specialist LPG installer rather than a generalist
mechanic, Rod now needs to focus on his USP, his Unique Selling Proposition
...
He can do it in 24 hours
...
LPG will pay for itself in less than a year
...
And
so on
...
He has to find a unique
proposition he can put to his customers
...
It can be simply better service
...
I'd just bought my wife a beautiful old iridescent blue Mercedes
450SEL from the wreckers for $4000 and was in the process of respraying and doing it
up
...
The
first place was recommended to me by Trevor, the retailer I'd bought the car from
...
The first
time I rang they were engaged
...
" The second place was recommended to me by my rev-head
son Bryson as the only place in Newcastle to go to: "Ah, no sorry mate
...
We're flat strap at the moment
...
Sorry mate
...
There's no money in it
...
I was starting to feel
that I'd bought a lemon
...
No problems George
...
When do you want it done?" A refreshing breath of fresh air
...


Good service goes a long way
...
But let's look a little harder and see if we
can find a phenomenal USP for Rod
...
What turns you
off car service people? Uncertain cost, always more than you expect
...

Nowhere to wait
...
Not knowing
who's in charge
...
Everyone calling you mate
...
Not knowing when the car will be ready to pick up
...

These are my personal turnoffs
...
Having somewhere clean to
wait if it's a while-you-wait operation such as tires, with a coffee machine, tv or papers
...


SiteSelling
...

And if they drove me back to my office and came to pick me up in the car when it was
finished I would think I was in heaven
...
Whether we are gardeners,
mechanics, teachers, or business people, we all sell
...


The customer makes the difference between failure and outrageous success
...
This is the business we're in, finding out what our
customers really want, and providing it for them
...
They're what we're good at but they are not what
the customer wants
...
What do customers want? To be recognised
...
And to be treated like a friend of the family who has come
in for special treatment
...
But if we look after her as if she were a rich aunt who might leave us a
million next year, you get the idea of how she needs to be treated
...
We need to encourage them to place the
emphasis on looking after customers as if they were rich, ailing aunts, because, in
essence, they are
...
Share part of your profit with your staff and you have all the incentive they need
to become committed to excellent service
...

Performing to specifications is fine and is all part of good customer service
...
The difference between ordinary service, which produces
ordinary results, and extraordinary service, which produces wildly, outrageously,
extravagant results is training
...


Train your staff thoroughly and give those who perform 10% to 15% of your profits on
top of award wages, but don't give it to everyone just yet
...
You will need to properly document performance criteria
...
They may adopt a bovine, unionist approach, refusing to adapt to
what they may perceive as a lah-de-dah, poncy approach
...
This is real stuff
...


SiteSelling
...
Send them to customer service
training seminars
...
Remember, anyone
can do the job well
...
Encourage your
customers to nominate staff for excellent service awards
...
Just
this one thing will radically improve your sales
...
It might be just marketing but we
won't go anywhere else
...
Anyone who won't or can't go the
extra mile, pay award wages till you can either turn them around or get rid of them
...


How will Rod go? It's early days yet
...
He has a great product, well
priced, that's good for the pocket and the environment and he's developed an information
pack that draws the customer through the purchasing decision in a gentle selling process
...
He never stands still
...
He has employed a factory and office manager so he can focus on
customer and staff liaison as well as new customer acquisition
...
His volume buying has allowed him to offer
the most competitive after-market pricing and he is now getting inquiries from the
Sydney market
...

He is also working on larger deals with fleet leasing companies and has established good
personal contacts with the biggest of these
...
It is possible
...


SiteSelling
...
com

116

Making Your First Million

Chapter 21 - How Do I Keep
Expanding?
By now the entrepreneurial spirit will be well-developed and burning strongly in you and
you'll be reveling in this new life of wealth and comfort and ease
...
But don't forget where you've come from
...
If you forget the early lessons of childhood you could pay a heavy
price
...
Pride comes before a fall
...
These all have value regardless of your bank
balance but they are crucially important here
...
Expansion
...
Pretty much a bell curve for each product
...
If you're a one product company your fortunes will trace
the curve of that product
...
Once a product or service has peaked add another and
another
...
When you start
running out of products or you start getting diminishing returns for your efforts start
culling the bottom 30%
...
To fine tune your business you'll need
to constantly cull the bottom 30%
...
Your company's future is at stake
...
Advertise
heavily and track your response
...
Just because you know
everything about your company's goods and services doesn't mean the public do
...


"Well", said the boss "We're on this train heading for Atlanta
...
What do you suppose would happen if we
disconnected the engine?" Advertising is the engine that drives your business
...


I read an interesting survey supporting this in Time magazine in 1992 which tracked the
top 20 products sold through Coles supermarkets as recorded on their barcode readouts
...
375 ml can Coke,

SiteSelling
...
2l bottle Coke,
3
...
25l bottle Coke,
4
...
Mars Bar,
6
...
Tally-Ho cigarette papers (because of dope),
8
...
)

It wasn't till you hit 12th place that you came across a food item
...
Never overestimate the caliber of the general public
...
You can
picture it
...
Filthy habit
...
" as he rides home in his chauffeur-driven Benz
...
I remember Joe's store and advertising campaign
...
He ran a
tiny electrical goods store in the inner suburbs and his friend, looking over the books of
his ailing business said: "Sure I'll help you out
...
"

"Sure
...
"

In those days this was unheard of
...
Ten percent was
insanity
...
The public will never wear it
...
"

SiteSelling
...
Before long he was taking out full-page
spreads in the city newspaper
...
And as
sales rose he was obliged to take 10% and do even more advertising
...
And it was impossible to get in
...
And he had to open his shop till midnight seven days
...
We
can't cope
...
" said his friend, "Keep going
...

Joe went to his friend again
...
Customers can't get in
...
We need
to move to bigger premises
...
You move to bigger premises and I'm out
...


What's the lesson? Live a little on the edge
...
Push yourself
and your staff
...

Remember the diving board principle
...
Nothing
in between
...
The Chinese are great at
this
...
Pretty soon it is
...
com

119

Making Your First Million

Summary
•

Cut off the bottom 30% of products, customers and staff

•

Continue to advertise heavily

•

Create a feeding frenzy

SiteSelling
...
New house,
car, extension, more staff, higher pay
...
He reveled all summer
while the ant stored up grain for the winter and come the winter he died
...
It's how much you save
...


"$7
...
I earn $220 a week and pay $75 rent
...
"

"You mean more?" she queried
...
If you earned more you'd spend more
...
"

She screwed up her face and in exasperation did a Pauline Hanson: "Please explain!"

"Well, it doesn't matter how much you earn
...
Let's say
your wages rose to $250 a week
...
Cause to go out and celebrate
...
com

121

Making Your First Million
"And you'd just spend the extra money
...
"

"I'm with you so far, but how can earning less help?"

"Okay
...
"

"Right so far
...
"

"Okay
...
You're earning $198 a week
...
Your take-home has been reduced by $22 a week because
you've just been slugged with a 10% future tax
...
You want to have a good future so you have to tax your earnings today and tithe it
to your future
...
It means no matter what you earn you pay yourself 10% of it first and put it away
for your future
...
Put the tithing thing into
action, save $22 a week and come to me when you're 23
...
"

Catherine came to me on her 23rd birthday
...
"

"Great
...
com

122

Making Your First Million

"Have a holiday in Bali
...
Look, I tell you what, I'll give you a choice
...
"

"Yeah, Okay
...
"

"That's great Catherine
...
"

"That's okay Dad
...
" A year later Catherine bought her first
house with a $10,000 deposit
...


It's not what you earn it's what you save
...
Money is made flat
to stack
...
If you're a spendthrift then spend it on assets
you can sell when you need to
...
Sock it
away into small parcels of income-producing real estate
...
Businesses are like products
...

Remember that, when you're next cruising the boulevards in your Ferrari, dreaming your
master of the universe dreams and make a decision to squirrel ten percent away into the
odd hollow log
...
Let your business fund its own
expansion
...
No-one else is going to do it
...


You will be tempted to take on partners
...
You
will be tempted to expand into new business ventures you don't understand
...
You will be tempted to
consolidate everything you own into one big venture
...
I have done most
of the above
...
Some didn't
...


Remember that nothing lasts forever, not even your business
...
The greater the reward, the
greater the risk and to manage that risk you'll need to do the numbers
...


SiteSelling
...
We were due to get a huge tax bill as usual and at the time there
were a number of promoters hawking tax minimization schemes through the Australian
Film Commission
...
The carrot was the 120% tax deduction now
...
But I was a little concerned about timing
...
We didn't have to pay
our tax till at least October
...
So in spite
of our effusive enthusiasm for the scheme at first sight I sat down with Lyndon at my
kitchen table and said: "Look, just to satisfy me
...
"

We mapped it side by side
...
Month by month for
seven years
...
When we factored in
opportunity costs we realized that we would be $700,000 better off not running with the
film
...
They may surprise you
...
After all, you've got this far
...
Question your judgement
...
Run the numbers
...
You assumed
that people went into Coles supermarkets to buy food
...
Run
the numbers
...


Take the time in your business to question your assumptions
...

When the ship starts to sink, don't pray, jump
...
If you're going the wrong
way change course sooner rather than later
...
Take
inventory of yourself
...
One of
our greatest threats in business is habit
...
Remember the Boiling Frog Principle
...
Not much worse than a minute
ago
...
Jump
...
Get in and get out with minimal exposure
...
Wake up a little bit richer every day
...
Take
risks, certainly, but keep control
...
And look at the possibilities for losing control
...
com

124

Making Your First Million
Richard is a business colleague and friend who makes a living from the share market
...
Coming up to the crash of 87 he was readying to flee to cash
when his wife decided to divorce him
...
But it did
...
And the
October crash wiped him (and her) out
...


Focus on fine tuning your by now mature business to squeak the last bit of profit out of it
and squirrel ten percent away
...
Ten percent
...

That's the only way you'll get ahead
...
That way, even if the ground opens up and swallows all your business empire, or
your business just declines gracefully of old age, you will have kept the cream
...
com

125

Making Your First Million

Summary
•

Expand carefully but advertise heavily

•

Run the numbers

•

Question your assumptions

•

Abandon failures early and use SWOT analysis to find new pathways

•

Remember to hang onto 10% and invest in real estate

SiteSelling
...
You may well be looking to
go the full monty
...
Life, after all, is short
...
They reason that you can't expect the company to continue to
grow by 40 to 100% every year and they content themselves with single-digit growth or
just not going backward
...
Year after year
...


Life is like a blank sheet of paper
...
What are your best choices? With a
strong income stream coming in you could buy shares or real estate, and this would be an
eminently praiseworthy choice, but you're already allocating 10% of your income to safe
investments
...
Passive investments in the
share market or real estate will give you a 5% to 15% return
...
The only way you'll double
your net worth in the share market is by taking big risks
...
Passive investment is speculation on future capital gain and this is
to a large extent manipulated by forces outside your control
...
Why be a victim? You've taken control of the market in your business
...
Think
...
Is there a
need? Can you employ the power of synergy to create something significant out of
something which is undervalued? Resist the temptation to think small
...
If
you engage in passive speculation you play someone else's game
...


Your business is your cash cow
...
At this point many business people look at acquiring their competitors or
suppliers, and while this is potentially synergistic, it can also have the effect of tying you
to less profitable offshoots as well as tying you deeper into that industry, and therefore

SiteSelling
...
There may
be compelling reasons of synergy or business expertise that warrant you taking that
course, but in general, it's better to play safe
...
When the opportunity arose for us to acquire the
freehold in the building she occupied, one of the criteria that tipped us into doing it was
the fact that the building was a duplex and the other tenant was a physician
...


The exercise of acquiring her premises is a good lesson in wealth creation
...
The
rent paid everything from that point, all outgoings, interest and principal repayments and
at the end of the 9 years we sold our half back to the other partner for $145,000
...
At present, in 1999 investment
loans cost 7%, commercial rents return 11% and capital gains yield 5%+
...


Why would you not do it? The answer is risk
...

There is the risk of the tenant falling over
...
There is the
risk that hidden costs of ownership will eat into your return
...
You can control risks in your investments just as you have controlled risks in
your business to date
...
I live in the Hunter Valley on the rapidlygrowing east coast of Australia, so I can quote what's happening here
...
All along the track of the F3 I see new
developments, residential, industrial and commercial development at Tuggerah,
Ourimbah, Morisset, Minmi and Thornton
...


Develop cheap land alongside new, high-speed access routes, cheap new buildings,
purpose-designed with rents less than half comparable in the congested west or central
coast and you have a very high level of control
...
5% nett
...
Twenty-five
percent deposit, borrowings at 7% and falling, rents at 10
...
New building
...


Yes, there are still risks
...

Certainly
...
com

128

Making Your First Million
shares, in real estate or buried in a tin in the backyard
...

We may suffer inflation again as we did in the 70's or we may see the deflation of the
30's
...
If all you have is cash in the bank, then
you'll go out backwards
...
Our safest position is to spread our investments across real estate, shares,
cash management funds and higher-risk ventures, which we actively manage
...
You have to do something with your money
...


Take charge of your investments and avoid salesmen
...
Look closely and you
will see behind the fancy spreadsheets a maze of up-front fees that only benefit the
salesman
...
Caveat emptor
...


Understand too, the cyclical nature of the market
...
Real estate becomes attractive with
low interest rates and prices start to rise
...
The share market peaks and profit takers move their money from the share
market into real estate
...
Excess cash causes interest rates to fall and
repeat the whole cycle again
...


After the market crash of 87 real estate in Australia boomed through till 89 when rising
interest rates caused the recession of 91
...

Interest rates are at a 30 year low
...


There is always change happening
...
Look
and question
...
Why? Clearly the advertiser was seeking to
tap into casual Sydney money
...
I see these ads on a smaller scale each
week in the weekend papers
...
A rocky
waterfront headland with almost no level land becomes The Anchorage, a five star resort
built over the water
...
com

129

Making Your First Million
envisioning the possible
...
Billy-goat
country purchased for $200 a hectare becomes a $200 a night resort with unrestricted
views, 2 hours drive from Sydney
...


These opportunities are everywhere you look
...
A business associate recently purchased an old house on a large
block for $92,000
...

His net profit was around $50,000, but considering he'd started out with a deposit of only
$20,000, his real net profit was 150% and he had the benefit of living 12 months rent
free
...
The back block was subdividable with a value of $95,000
...
Why not?

You can make money buying property with lowball offers, rather than developing, but
I'm uncomfortable with it
...
He goes to the children squabbling over deceased
estates, or partners squabbling over divorce settlements and waves a thick bundle of
hundred dollar bills under their noses
...
Here's the contract
...
Like Don Juan's prospective conquests, 99 out of 100 will say no, but if you ask
enough people you can make a lot of money
...
I'm not overly fussed myself on lowball offers
...

More importantly it starts to run contrary to the Principles of Abundance and will
inevitably come back and bite you
...


It can be a fine line
...
Axel, a large property developer, to whom we sold our half of the industrial
estate, recently purchased from the receiver, a company which tenanted one of his
buildings, for a dollar
...
7 million
...
He saw an opportunity to develop an
undervalued asset and took it
...
com

130

Making Your First Million
The balance point is intent
...
Just
...
You
won't have any moral dilemmas then
...
We often see this, too, in merchant bankers who wait patiently until
the very last moment offering a small amount of cash to bring a project to fruition,
demanding exorbitant equity share in the new project, knowing the victim by then has no
option
...
Technically legal but morally indefensible
...
Just because everyone else is doing it, or we can hide behind
'standard operating procedure', is no reason for us to run contrary to conscience
...


Buy quality in real estate
...
These are all powerful
factors
...
Inner-city
terraces, new and renovated city apartments, ocean views and houses under 5k to the city
have increased up to five-fold
...
Buy undervalued property
or property in an area that is undergoing a renaissance of popularity such as inner-city exslum or ex-industrial property
...
Bet
with your head, not your heart
...


Real estate is not as hard as it looks
...
We
recently purchased a 4 Ha block for $205,000 with the intention of subdividing it into
four 1 Ha blocks at a development cost of $150,000
...
By the time the block is developed (we sold it on for a profit as
we couldn't afford to hold and develop it) the price per hectare will rise to $225,000
...


SiteSelling
...
Recently we were in
property acquisition mode and were presented with an 8 Ha block for industrial
subdivision for $330,000
...
Five miles
away, on the F3 freeway was a 45 Ha industrial block for $720,000, a much bigger
project, but the numbers stood up very well and we bit the bullet
...


The advantage of property development is it's self-funding
...
We purchased the 4 Ha on a borrowed deposit and
vendor finance then turned around and onsold to a developer for a handsome profit
...


One project we took to completion involved the purchase of two adjoining 1
...
The dearer block had a house
on it which we subdivided and sold for $145,000 so the total cost of the remaining 3Ha
was $275,000 which was borrowed from the bank against the security of the land
...
Sales
off the plan of 9 of the best blocks meant the $430,000 was repaid in the first fortnight!
The sale of the next 4 blocks repaid the remainder of the borrowings and over the next 3
years we sold the rest of the less desirable blocks at the rate of 4 a year
...
Total income over 4 years: $1,120,000
...


While this was a small, slow-moving project with a modest profit margin of around 36%,
remember, at no time did we have any of our own money in the project
...
If you have
a separate cash-flow to underpin loan repayments while waiting for sales to come in, you
can do it today
...
As often as not all the development
you need to do is envision the result and sell this vision to the next guy
...


The key is to make a profit, and the sooner the better
...
Stephen, a colleague and friend of my partner, recently spent many
months in protracted negotiation in order to sell a timber concession in Noumea to a
Malaysian syndicate who onsold it an hour later to a Japanese group for 6 times the price!

SiteSelling
...
If you want to make real money you'll
need to cultivate your instincts, your global knowledge of the market, and your instincts
for people
...


Always leave enough in the deal for the next person
...
Seek a balance
...
It's okay to make a profit but keep on the right side
of the line
...
Along came
a shark from amongst their own people:

"I will help you develop this land" said the shark
...


"What does that matter? You and I can make a lot of money
...
"We'll
borrow as much as we can on the land and you give it to me
...
And I'll buy you a new car
...

And the group will prosper
...
Avoid it or you will carry
the albatross of guilt always
...
If you take the 200 wealthiest people in
this country and look at how they made it, you'll find it was either through real estate or
through share trading
...

Today, through intelligent share trading he's worth fifteen times that
...
The share market is less tangible
...


The purpose of a share market is to allow business owners to raise money from the
general public by selling part of their business
...
The share market allows you and me to own part
of a number of different companies and to share in their profits and their capital growth
...
a
...
The real profits are to be found in capital growth
...
com

133

Making Your First Million
particular share are created by complex variables such as mob psychology, marketing
push, takeover rumors, company earnings, write-offs and so on
...
Greed pushes up the price
...


To make money you simply need to out-think the game
...
Plan long term
...
Think for yourself
...
Long term it rises and outpaces most other
investments including real estate
...
Examine each company carefully
...
Seek advice from successful traders and
develop your own judgement
...


At present, for example, we see a great rush to the telecommunications industry
...
A year after floating, Telstra shares
had doubled in value, and they continue to rise
...
Key smaller players such as
One
...
Vodaphone look set
to float this year
...
We stand at the edge of a telecommunications
explosion
...


The key is knowledge
...
The world's most successful share market trader, Warren Buffett,
simply reads as much as he can about a company from newspapers, magazines and
company reports, makes a decision based on his own opinion, buys and holds
...
If you've made a sound investment decision, allow time
and synergy to compound its value
...


Understand also, that the market is cyclical but its overall trend is up
...
Play long term
...
Use them
...
The majority of trades are less than 24
hours old
...
Short term you're in there taking a profit, selling
too soon, essentially gambling
...
Short term players start every third sentence with "If only
...
com

134

Making Your First Million
You can make a living out of daily share trading but it will become a full-time business
and will take over your life
...


SiteSelling
...
com

136

Making Your First Million

Chapter 24 - How Do I Go Beyond
Filthy Rich to Get Real Wealth?
"Well if that's all there is my friend let's keep on dancing, let's break out the booze, let's
have a ball, if that's all there is
...
You're not satisfied with getting to be filthy
rich
...
Okay
...
But I have to warn you: What
I'm about to tell you will radically change your life
...


If you've followed me this far you may have inferred from my breathless enthusiasm that
money is it
...
Money is simply the fuel for the journey
...
Most people confuse money with wealth
...
When you start to understand wealth you
begin to unleash the power of synergy and love that will allow you to acquire as a
byproduct, more money than you will ever be able to spend in a lifetime
...


What is wealth? Money is the ability to spend but wealth is the ability to create
...
Wealth makes us producers
...
Wealth gives
us satisfaction
...
You can
have one without the other
...
I know
...


One of the things we create when we start to employ our wealth, is money
...
Wealth includes
knowledge, real estate, contacts, shares, career, experience, optimism, risk-taking
opportunism, contentment, health
...
Wealth, in fact, may not
even include money
...


How is that possible? How is it possible for a person with negligible cash assets to start
from zero and achieve assets in the millions in two, three, five years? And if it is truly
possible, how can I do it? Let me tell you, it is possible
...
As Will Rogers said: "Most folks are too busy making a living to get

SiteSelling
...
" I hope what I am showing you in this book will teach you how to make greater
wealth and more money than you can spend in a lifetime, even when you have none to
start with
...
It's your central vision, your
purpose, that which drives you at your central core
...
Like the high-jumper who reached his limit and couldn't get any
higher, we need to take the coach's advice: "Get the heart right
...
" There's a secret here
...
I am telling you the winning Lotto numbers before they're
drawn
...
And you
won't even have to buy a ticket
...
The more we apply the
principles, the smoother our life runs
...
What do we do with it? We create more
opportunities to give
...
We create resources for our community
...

We build housing and factories and land subdivisions and retirement homes and shops
and holiday resorts and power stations and transport facilities
...
Why? For
ourselves? So we can stuff our face with more cream cakes? So we can make money to
show off and brag to others about our vast possessions and put them down? No
...
We create wealth for others, out of love
...
You only get to keep what you willingly give
away
...
The pendulum of colonialism has in recent years swung in their
favour and the government has, as a salve to our collective conscience, legislated to
compensate for past wrongs by opening their check books and giving them money
...
But we haven't helped them to turn that money
into wealth, and without good stewardship this largesse will be dissipated
...
" And the rednecks will say: "I told you
so"
...
It's not original, but I believe it to be true: If you took all the money in
the world and evenly distributed it, within 24 hours it would start to go back to the way it
was, and within 5 years you would hardly notice any difference to the way it always was
...
If you have the attitude of wealth then money
accumulates
...
This is often expressed as: "To he that has, more will be

SiteSelling
...
To he that has not, even what little he does have will be taken from him
...
Almost all end up as broke as they were before they won
it
...
If you know the difference between money
and wealth you'll not only keep it, you'll add to it
...
He and his brother had come from circumstances of
poverty and neglect and were adopted by a middle class couple who brought them to live
in Australia
...
Revenues were in the billions
...
All 600 of them
...
Rory and his brother
at 18, along with each of the other community members came into an income of
$100,000 a year, increasing at 10% per annum compound
...


What did this do? It destroyed the community
...
Nobody had taken the time to teach the people the
difference between the money that you take shopping, and the money that you use to
create wealth for others
...
So many
people, when they get money, greedily spend it on themselves
...
Yum, yum
...
They may pay lip-service to others: 'Yes, I'm
helping others
...
They greedily push others aside in the rush to serve themselves first, and they enlist
the self-interested, hypocritical complicity of those alongside them in their anxiety to
keep the gravy train running
...
We see hypocrisy, laziness and self-justification
...
Self
serving will never give us what we are looking for
...
We were constantly short of cash and asking the
congregation for more
...
One of the committee devised a drama
which explained to me why: A young girl came on stage with a cake
...
He knew he would be
served for that was the church's purpose for existence
...


"No," came the reply
...
"

'Electricity' came along: "Can I have a slice?"

SiteSelling
...
"

"Yum" said 'Electricity'
...


"No
...
"

'Wages' trotted up
...
You've been a good boy
...
"

"What about me?" wailed 'Outreach', his tone becoming a little strangled and desperate,
putting the audience in mind of a child urgently needing to pee
...
Be patient!" Cake Girl was starting to lose it with him
...


"What about me? When's it my turn?" sobbed little 'Outreach'
...
It's all gone" exclaimed Cake Girl
...


The moral of the drama was: "If only we had a bigger cake!" Have you heard that
complaint before somewhere? 'No, look, sorry
...
We don't have the resources
...
While we serve ourselves first, and
resent and blame those we serve, the cake will never be big enough to go round
...
This is shorthand for jobs for the boys and
conferences in the Maldives
...


How many pious politicians bluster about their concern for the people, bleating
plaintively about hospital waiting lists, and refuse to deny themselves chauffeur-driven
cars and million dollar pension schemes payable after two terms in office? We may rush

SiteSelling
...
Spend yourself first on others
...
Use your God-given talents to give everyone you meet a helping hand
and you will tap into the unstoppable steamroller of love and synergy
...
Wealth does not come from ripping people off and hoarding bank-notes like a
miser but from helping people out and giving bank-notes like a lover
...
He was living the high life on the Gold Coast and he invited us up to
sample the high-roller lifestyle
...
I
...
all the way
...
30, nightclub
till 3
...
Stretch limo, Krug champagne
...


Five-thirty a
...
we're in the private gaming room of Jupiters casino
...
I'm
in bored tourist mode focused more on bed than gambling when my gaze falls upon a
solitary elderly blackjack player
...


We went upstairs to bed and the following evening went to Nicholsons for dinner, so
pukkah they speak to you in French
...
Named Jack
...
Dining alone
...

$1500 a bottle
...
As the night wore on it was plain Jack was the
loneliest person on the planet
...
Trying to
enlist our complicity
...
We were
preparing to leave when a liveried servant hurried to steady Jack and separate him from
his chair
...
The chauffeur had stood in respectful silence all night
and now was his time to act
...

We helped
...
We had a week-old Jaguar Sovereign, midnight blue
...
Half a million dollars worth of motor car
...

We followed down the drive out onto Cavill Avenue
...
And he hasn't got a thing
...
"

SiteSelling
...
They remain focused on the dream: "If only I had that, then I'd
be happy
...
As you
may gather from this book so far, I was burdened with that rare affliction of being too
clever by half and thus, too easily achieving my goals
...
Just prior to going broke the first time, I spoke with a client, Barry, a man
who has subsequently gone on to achieve a modest empire in spite of his fervent efforts at
immodesty
...
"

"Yes, okay, but what about when you've made ten million?"

"I'll go for twenty
...
How about a hundred million?"

"I'll go for two hundred
...
It's not
an end in itself
...
"

I've thought about that a lot over the years
...
Ten days later I met up with him
at a conference
...


"I made a decent drink
...
" was his reply

"That's great
...
We've raised a quarter million so far, how about kicking the tin
...
"

SiteSelling
...


"I'm the only charity I give money to George
...
I had been told
...
It took me some years to discover
that it's a fringe benefit, not the whole game, but by then an awful lot of things had
happened
...
com

143

Making Your First Million

Summary
•

Real wealth comes from helping others

•

It's easy to become seduced by money

•

Money is not the barometer of how well you're doing

SiteSelling
...

In childhood I was quiet and introverted, a timid observer of life rather than a full
participant
...

No matter how well I performed I never felt I belonged
...
I felt that life was happening somewhere else
...
I worked harder at
school and did better but that only served to distance me further from my contemporaries
...
I took my stamp collection
and gave a page to each of the kids I wanted to be friends with
...


I developed a level of quiet determination to 'show them'
...
This was the beginning of my obsession to prove
I was smarter, the furnace that forged the conscious decision to outsmart the game and to
apply creative lateral thinking to seemingly insoluble problems
...


From school I went on to a short stint at university where my aloneness was absolute, a
little factory work, a couple of years at teachers college where I cultivated the bohemian
outsider look and on to marriage to the first girl I had had the courage to kiss (true love at
last)
...
I had to do something to earn money to eat but I little
understood my incapacity for the detail and organisation needed to entertain, let alone
educate three dozen mixed-age ankle biters
...


I had idealized teaching yet the reality hurt
...
Lonely and isolated, unhappily
married, it was little wonder I turned to the anesthesia of drinking and I began to turn in
on myself, shunning outside contact, contenting myself with the closed corridors of my
own mind
...
Babies came along inspiring a mix of prepackaged
sentimentalism and detached curiosity
...
To
avoid being hurt by life I had affected an intellectual disdain of things mundane and this
encompassed most aspects of daily life from hair curlers to happiness
...
com

145

Making Your First Million

As each day passed I built this wall of pride and disdain higher
...
Had I not, after all, been a dutiful son and scholar? I had
...
They said: "Do well at
school and you'll be happy
...
They said: "Get a good, safe job and
you'll find satisfaction
...
They said: "Marry and have children and your
life will take on new meaning
...
It wasn't fair
...
In my mind at least I became Lone Wolf McQuade, riding
the range, righting wrongs
...
Suddenly life was exciting
...
Heaven on a stick!
My greatest joy was the first day back at school in 1980 when my colleagues returned to
work but I didn't
...
At last my life had joy and meaning
...
Over the next few years I explored greater and greater excess,
delighting in the sense of freedom and power I had
...
I could
have whatever I wanted and I made sure I wanted for nothing
...
Sold
...
Sold
...
Sold
...
Sold
...

Sold
...
Yet I found myself wanting more
...
Then I'd be happy, popular, admired and
so on
...
Come on, somebody, jump
out of the cake and yell 'Surprise!'
...
" And once again, my old
feelings of self-mockery arose
...
You don't belong here and
no matter how much you pay, you'll never be good enough
...
Money continued to pour through
the mailbox, daily mocking my misery and self-doubt
...
If money
couldn't make me happy what hope was there? Life truly was a fraud after all
...
I would wake at 9
...
I would answer the phone and pack orders till midday at which happy hour I
gave myself permission to go to Bernie's place and settle in to some serious drinking over
lunch
...
30 and I would return home to a stony faced wife who
would remain silent till she retired at 9
...
At this point I gave myself permission to
retrieve the 5 litre cask of moselle in the boot of the car which generally took till 1
...
My overfull bladder would wake

SiteSelling
...
30 am, and as I walked past the cask I would pour the remainder into a schooner
glass, slug it down and then feel my way down the hall to bed
...
My wife became increasingly resentful and would seek out my stash of alcohol and
pour it away
...
One day, however, a change occurred in the ritual
...
We never spoke of course as that would spoil the game, but I was intrigued
...
And I noticed, too, she had stopped dumping my wine down the
sink
...


"Al-Anon
...


"What's that?" I was equally effusive
...
"

I burst out laughing
...
You are
...
"Come off it! Yes, I drink a bit
...
That's a low act!"

"Come along and see for yourself
...


I was stuck
...
"Okay then," I blustered, "I will
...
When I
arrived I was astounded to discover there were blokes there
...
And I was even more surprised to discover that nobody bitched about the
'alcoholic'
...
This was one
strange group
...
com

147

Making Your First Million

Bob introduced himself and asked if I'd like to visit an AA
...
If I pretended to be an alcoholic I could polish up my
halo, win my wife's affections and still drink
...
"You bet!" I
blurted out, then realizing I may have sounded overly eager, added absent-mindedly: "I
wouldn't mind finding out if I'm really an alcoholic or not
...
A real bunch of losers, but it
didn't matter
...
It'll get better
...
Who is this loser? Leave me alone
...
" Another dude
I'd never seen before introduced himself as Ernie (the garden gnome) and said: "If you
don't pick up the first drink you can't get drunk
...
But I hung in there
...
I had, after all
developed a cool and tough exterior
...
I was not about to let anyone break through
...
My pride kept me sober
...
On the fifth of October Bernie arrived to take me to lunch
...
The ideal place,
now that Lloyds had been blown down in a storm, for masters of the universe to voice
their dreams
...


"Why are you going to AA
...
I mean, look at yourself,
you don't even drink as much as me!"

"That's true
...
He's a very perceptive person and I began to wonder if he
could see through my scheme
...


I grinned sheepishly
...
Yeah
...
I've always said it's better to ask forgiveness than permission so I'm

SiteSelling
...
But keep it to yourself okay
...
But look, we both know you're not an alcoholic
...
You know it
...
We'll split a bottle of wine between us
...
This
was one
...
And we
both knew no matter how long I remained sober it wouldn't prove a thing
...
We ordered a bottle of Houghtons White Burgundy to go with our fish and
chips
...


And then Bernie said: "I could go another glass
...
" I was beginning to feel expansive
...


At five o'clock we were still there
...
The
experiment had gone horribly wrong somewhere
...
And I was going to die
...
But now I'd had seven weeks of relative sobriety I no longer wanted to die
...
And I didn't know what to do
...
We both worked in the computer
industry at the time it was growing exponentially, and drunk or not, if you threw any kind
of net out you'd end up with a boatful of fish
...


On one occasion we'd flown to Canberra to talk with Peter Mogg about missile guidance
systems
...
At 5
...
I attempted to complain to the maitre d' but he smiled
and apologized for closing early and told me he'd taken the liberty of calling us a cab
...
Giffsanardrink
...
com

149

Making Your First Million

"I'm sorry sir, the bar is closed
...
Drinksararnd
...
I am the maitre d'
...
Wossit teryoo
...
Do not attempt to book
into this restaurant again
...
The cabbie helped us out at Rydges Lakeside, and like likely lads about town
we sauntered into the bar
...
His task of
ushering us out the door we'd just entered was made more cumbersome with Bernie
having to stop and hitch up his trousers and with us safely on the pavement, tucking our
shirts in I took the opportunity to yell some timely, if not exactly cuttingly humorous
abuse in the vein of "Oh yeah, so you think you're tough?" Something like that
...
"

"You're barred!"

We must have hailed a cab to the airport and continued drinking at the bar, as the next
thing I recall is being seriously accosted and shaken by a uniformed gentleman: "Are you
George Parry?"

"Yes" I was now clearly too drunk to do anything wittier than tell the truth
...
com

150

Making Your First Million
"Where's Mr Carter?" The shaking subsided slightly
...
Arlgogerrim
...
I'll go get him
...

As we were frog-marched past the bar, the pilot muttering oaths and obscenities, Bernie
did a particularly balletic thing, which to this day amazes us both
...
A master's touch
...
In total
darkness and to the roar of the engines we took off, Bernie and I endeavoring to push a
cork each into the bottle with our little fingers
...


The Canberra to Newcastle run takes an hour and a half in a single pilot, 9 passenger
plane, little bigger than a Ford Fairlane
...
I was in the process of doing this socially responsible thing when the
pilot yelled at us using quite graphic and specific obscenities to sit down
...


At the terminal at midnight our hilarious retelling of this episode was met with
inexplicable disinterest from the rapidly retreating passengers but equally inexplicable
interest from the two security guards who hadn't even been on the plane, and who, at a
suitable pause in the narrative said: "What's your names?" Slightly taken aback by their
abysmally poor listening skills we could do nothing but stop mid-sentence and tell them
...
Do not attempt to book a ticket in future
...
" And they walked off leaving us devoid of our only
audience
...
To be barred from two pubs a
restaurant and an airline, it's all in a day's work for a drunk
...
When the

SiteSelling
...
And home has particular advantages
...


I was drinking again and I was going to die
...
But I knew the end
result of my drinking was death
...
Previously I hadn't
wanted to stop
...
Now I was on the merry-go-round again and I knew I couldn't
get off until I was dead
...
I tried to drown the rat in my head but it
had learnt to swim
...
As always I was the last to leave, unable to find the
car, much less the keys, but the barmaid had called me a cab and I went home
...
I'm going to
die
...
", when a voice came into my head: "Try prayer
...
There's no God
...
And the voice said: "Just as you
knew you were not an alcoholic
...
I'm going to die
...
" And the voice came again: "Try prayer
...
I was pretty drunk
...
I'm going to die
...
"

I had no answer
...
I knew it was all mumbo jumbo to keep the
peasants in order but I had no answer, no relief from the rat in my head and I said: "Okay
...
I'll try anything once
...
There's no God
...
" And I lay there and said: "Okay God, if you're there, Cool Hand George here
...
Master of my own destiny
...
If she wasn't happy I'd buy her a new car
...
I ran
on raw energy and had a tightly wound spring of aggression and 'never-say-die' inside
me
...
" That was as far as I
got
...
And I was at peace
...
And the voice said: "You've taken the first step
...
"

Now I know I was drunk and that this episode may have simply been self-delusionary
...
The obsession to drink was taken from
me and has never returned
...
Up until this point I was the
master of the universe
...
I could have anything I
wanted
...
I acknowledged only that which I could
see or buy or hold in my hand
...
com

152

Making Your First Million
comfort or security
...
But fortunately my journey had only just begun
...
From here my material world
descended into anarchy
...
What remained
was a critically ill business, a lot of debt and a quiet knowledge that there is a world
outside of our five senses, that there is a power outside of myself which many call God,
which has my best interests at heart
...
I had a new perspective on life and my life was about to take off
...


It was all downhill from October
...
"Either you leave or I will" she repeated, so reluctantly,
thinking she'd call me back at any moment, I rented an apartment by the day
...
She'd changed the
locks
...
And discovered she was going out with another
bloke
...
I must have been more absent-minded than usual as I picked up two speeding tickets
and in frustration I returned to the house and rang my sponsor in AA: "Mick, you know
where this Jorgen character lives
...
30 in the morning
...
"

And I went over to Mick's and we sat outside on the porch drinking coffee
...
It's finished
...
If you can't accept what is, you'll go crazy
...
Yes
...
His advice saved my life
...
Accept what you can't
change and get on and change what you can
...


I couldn't change other people
...
They weren't
responsible for mine
...
I became a vagabond, travelling in AA, staying
with friends, renting a serviced apartment by the day when I was in town
...
At Christmas time I found myself in Brisbane staying with AA friends
...
com

153

Making Your First Million
meeting in Annerley I was to hear something I needed at that stage of my growth
...
If you cut to the chase, there's love and there's fear and one drives out the
other
...
Fear is judgement, manipulation, blaming,
trying to control outcomes, resentment, hostility, self-pity and keeping score
...
You let someone get up your nose they end up living rent-free in your head
...
It put the whole intangible side of
life, stuff that I'd avoided as soft and wussy, down into hard bite-size chunks
...

Understandable
...


We need to focus on love because without it we shrivel and die
...
I'll go out of my way to help you get well, but you pick up a drink and you
pick up the consequences of the drink
...
I'm doing
it for Lyle and Selma and Darcy and Shirl and the people at Goodooga and Toomelah
...
We rescue them one at a time
...
"

Love gives us a name and fear a number
...
Love liberates
...
Today I am discovering that we get what we give
...
If I give kindness and
compassion it comes back to me
...
They were sissy, girly concepts, not fit for red-blooded carnivores
...


My drinking and hard-nosed, profit-driven, business style had alienated me from people
...
Sure, I was a financial
success, but that's all I had
...
Half-hearted attempts at a normal
social life were met with shocked surprise from those I approached
...
When I got sober
and surrendered, I discovered the world is full of people only too happy to be your friend
...


I discovered the remarkable truth: You get what you give away
...
Drive a Lamborghini and you send the message of
personal insecurity, driving others away, not as we may suspect from envy, but from an
unwillingness to engage with a person who is sending the clear message: "Keep away
...
" The shallower and lonelier our life, the more we advertise it through

SiteSelling
...
I tell you this from personal experience
...
Materialism
alone is insufficient, indeed materialism alone is a fraud
...
The lot of the very successful entrepreneur, however, is often
depression when he comes to the conclusion: That's all there is
...
I recall the artificial and expensive merriment
of the dinner party organized recently to celebrate the wedding anniversary of a
particularly wealthy couple we have known for 20 years
...
Only 22
...

My wife and I, and one other couple, were the only non-employees
...
He, himself,
would never be bankrupt as he had wealth of the kind that could not be taken by bailiffs
...
Each of us happily contributed
$26 to cover the cost
...
The evening
overflowed with love
...
Give out fear, regardless of the
enormity of your bank balance, and it comes back, reinforcing your belief that the world
is a hostile place
...
Put no
conditions on love, for to do so is simply fear dressed up
...
Give boldly, extravagantly, with
no hooks or strings, and life will reward you even more outrageously
...
That's the only selfishness we need
...
Think for a while
...
Not money
...
If you want real wealth you'll have to give it first, and money is not real
wealth
...
Real wealth is a life lived without fear
...
Look for an
opportunity to be of real value to someone nearby
...
Mother
Teresa was interviewed on a Phoenix radio station and at the conclusion, the interviewer
asked if there was anything the listeners could do
...
" was her response
...
Surely they could help
...
com

155

Making Your First Million

"I assure you, we have no need of money
...
"

The interviewer persisted and finally, Mother Teresa told him: "There is something you
can do
...
Get up
and put on your oldest clothes
...
And I want you to convince them otherwise
...
We build a wall around ourselves thinking we can
keep the hurt out
...
And the bricks are wealth,
prestige, cynicism, talent, degrees, arrogance, jobs, health, appearance, family, children,
clothes, cars, houses
...
It's only a façade but it keeps us
safe from the hurt out there
...
It separates the real you from the real
me
...
We've built such an elaborate brick wall of pride and selfsufficiency it becomes our prison
...
The truth is, the
hurt is not out there but in here
...
But our pride won't let us
...


Whenever Ken came in off a binge he'd put on his best brown suit, his yellow shirt and
his red tie
...
And I'd come in and
say:

"Ken you look great
...
You look just like Frank Sinatra
...
I think I'm gonna make it this time
...
"

"I hope so Ken
...
The last time I saw Ken was a Sunday night meeting
...
"

"Yeah, see ya George
...
The following week I asked Grant:

SiteSelling
...
After they'd finished the
wine, Ken wandered off
...
He'd taken off his jacket,
rolled it up, put it on the railway lines as a pillow and went to sleep
...
These are the results of never letting go, never admitting defeat
...
Facing a superior opponent in a Florida prison yard,
surrounded by other inmates, he squared up, punched the air and was smashed down
...
He got up, wiped the blood from his nose, shaped up and Drag-line landed
a hammer blow to the side of his face
...
The crowd erupted in
admiration: "Kill him!" Luke rose again and the same thing happened
...
The mood of the crowd began to change from elation to cautious silence
...
" Luke rose unsteadily and took another smashing blow
...
He's bigger than you
...
" As he rose to his elbows Luke
looked through the arc of leg-chains tethering Drag-line's legs and the old anger surged in
him again
...
I don't want to hurt you any more!"

"You're gonna have to kill me
...


In the final scene, caught in the glare of the bosses' spotlight, caught with no escape but
to go quietly, he stood in the window and smiled that old Luke smile: "What we have
here is a failure to communicate
...

I see so much of Luke in myself and in the people I deal with
...

Travelling a path of lonely, prideful self-destruction, blaming others
...
There is a
better way
...
I knew what to expect, the sour smell
of week-old sweat and stale beer, the missing teeth, the obligatory LOVE and HATE
tattoos on his knuckles
...
He was as pleased as
a puppy to get a lift and proceeded to tell us how he'd got there
...
com

157

Making Your First Million
thanks for the lift again, do you want to see a photo of my wife and kids?, six of em,
aren't they beautiful
...
"We'll drop you at Palmer's Road
...


The hail started a couple of miles before Palmers Road and I looked at Lyndon
...
"We'll drop you at the station
...
At
Morisset the 6
...
Darren and I stood
awkwardly, an oddly matched pair, as streams of people, some of whom I knew, swirled
past us
...
"There you go Darren
...
" Darren fingered the ticket, silent
...
His voice started to tremble
...
" A tear escaped down his cheek
...
I'm 25 years old
...
Lived rough all me life
...
: His voice trailed
away
...
"Good on you, Darren
...
" And left
...
I met W Mitchell at the Sydney Convention Centre
...
W was for Wonderful
...
At an intersection he collided with a milktruck and the truck toppled onto the bike
...
His thoughts were interrupted by a whoomph as the fuel
ignited and his body began to be incinerated
...
But a check revealed there was still a pulse and they rushed him to the burns unit at
the hospital in Crested Butte, expecting him to die in the morning
...

For the next three months he lay comatose, his dreadful burns attended to with love and
care by hospital staff who daily expected him to die
...
After many
months he recovered and on the day his bandages were removed Mitchell stood before
the mirror and surveyed the damage
...
His face was burnt off
and unrecognizable either as him or as a face
...
He wanted to
die and went into a deep depression
...


And Mitchell went into business in real estate
...
And then in the later part of his life he
bought a twin-engine Cessna which he used to ferry his customers to view real estate
...
com

158

Making Your First Million
his plane to the tarmac
...
Get
out!" And they got out
...
He'd broken his back
...


And he told us the story of sitting on the terrace of the hospital angry and suicidal and
cursing God
...
And what good am I
now? Look at me
...
"

And a voice came to him: "There are still hundreds of things you can do
...
Yes
...
He could still talk and laugh
...
In great excitement he wheeled around to find the
matron
...
I'm not useless
...
"

And the matron told him: "You will be of great value here
...
And within minutes he was laughing, thinking
"I may be dying but at least I'm not as bad as him
...
People with debilitating or
terminal diseases, depressed, feeling valueless
...
And each one was thinking:
"At least I'm not as bad as him
...
Armed with nothing but his story, his face and his
wheelchair he began visiting hospitals in the Mid-West, turning people's lives around
...
' And he became a speaker in Rotary and finally a speaker on
the international motivational speakers' circuit which was where I met him
...
It's not what happens that matters
...
You can wallow in the manure pit of life or you can pick up a shovel and use it to
compost your trees and grow fruit with it
...
His liver was shot, his face a bright
yellow, his eyes bloodshot and yellow, shaking, foul-smelling, filthy, unshaven and
unable to do other than mumble and shuffle
...
Cherie understood
him
...
And she came over to Colin and put her arm around his
shoulders
...
Right up the front
...
"

"Wha yessay? No good no more
...
com

159

Making Your First Million
"We need you
...
And we'll tell all the newcomers if you keep drinking you'll end up like him
...
Not no good no more
...
You stop
drinken an you won't en up like me! And he got well
...


Why are we here? To sit in splendid isolation like Jack, surrounded by all his mates at
5
...
Materialism for its
own sake is a fraud
...
I'd had a glimpse of it when I'd let go and asked for help, childlike and
desperate, and I'd come to experience the healing power of love and letting go of fear in
my life and the lives of people I was now meeting
...
I had no
certainty other than the path I had been heading down was the wrong one for me
...


I stopped drinking and got on with my life with the shy knowledge that there is a power
outside of myself that I could tap into through prayer
...
All that mattered was that it worked
...
I was happy, sober and back on the path of getting rich
...
A million, two, three, four, five
...
Money was coming in faster
than ever
...
My bank manager
took me to lunch and gave me a gold card with a quarter million limit
...
We succumbed to them all
...
We sought out thousand dollar a night palaces
...
I
knew it would never be enough
...

"There is a God," she said
...
"

"Maybe we should go to church
...


"Maybe
...
But if they burn incense and chant in Latin I'm outta there
...
I rang a friend
...


We arrived on time, joined our friends, and climbed to the mezzanine level of a vast
building, holding a thousand people
...
A four year-old boy was on stage playing a cello as big as himself and his

SiteSelling
...
" I glanced at Pauline
...
A young, lanky preacher stood up and said: "Anyone who is 6 years old or
younger and loves Jesus, would you please stand
...

"Anyone under 13 who loves Jesus, please stand
...
"Anyone under 21
...
"Anyone under a hundred and fifteen!" The crowd rose
...
" A lone violinist struck up "Yes, yes I love Jesus
...
Pauline and I broke into tears
...


There is a power outside of ourselves that can break down our wall of self-sufficiency
and restore us to sanity
...
I can only tell
you what happened for me
...

Pride, ego, self-sufficiency all conspire to isolate and alienate us from one another and
from the healing power of love
...
We each need to feel we belong,
to be accepted, recognised, needed, wanted and loved
...
We need to have this pride broken
...
I knew Irene well
...
When I
heard of the baby it all fell into place
...
In
those days it was a horrific thing to happen and she was sent away to another state before
she began to show
...
It was felt it would be better if she
neither saw, nor held, nor nursed the baby
...
And for the next 21 years it was a deep, dark secret which was never mentioned
...
I could not approach her or offer her any comfort
...
A month later I was invited to tell my story at a church
service in Broadbeach
...
I spoke of my experience of ego and selfsufficiency and I spoke of the wall I had built and how I had finally surrendered
...
And I invited the audience to let go through the process I call
Open Heart Surgery
...
I don't know what it is and I don't need to know
...
It doesn't matter what it was because we always do the same thing
...
Cool, tough,
clever
...
I want you to go back to the incident and
bring it into the present
...
And as you're rerunning it I want you to do something silly
...
Relive the

SiteSelling
...
Now, hold out your hands and say: "Okay God,
whoever you are, if you're there, I want you to take this hurt and irritation from me just
for today
...
"

Okay, let's go a stage further
...
I don't know what it is, don't need
to know, nor does anyone else
...
Whatever it was, the result is always the same
...
Time to pull it back into the present and look at it again
...
How could they? How could they? And as you feel the emotions of
shame, revulsion, anger, hopelessness, pick up the imaginary pen again and write it
quickly so nobody can see
...
I can't hold onto it any longer
...
Just
for today
...
Something happened in your
life that hurts so much, you say: "It's okay, it's nothing
...
" Or you've
allowed the black mist of amnesia to take away the pain
...
This is the one that stands in the way of our total capitulation
...
I'll
never talk about that
...
If you have the courage pick up
your scalpel now and drive it deep into your heart and open it up and look at this one
...
Yes
...
"This is it, God
...
Quick
...
It happened
...
I did
...
Take it
...
"

I didn't see Irene that day but I met her again when I returned to Brisbane a few years
later
...
At lunch she broke down into silent tears
...
She broke down and told the story she'd kept hidden
for over 20 years
...
"

"Well where is he? I want to meet him!"

SiteSelling
...
I don't know anything about him, whether he's alive or dead
...
"

"Who would know?"

"Nanna
...
"

Michelle stood beside Nanna who by this stage was speechless with tears
...

Where's my brother?" Nanna couldn't speak and Michelle raised her voice: "Nanna
where's my brother?"

Through her tears Nanna said: "He was adopted by this particular family
...
They have a son
about that age
...
Three hours
later Michelle walked up the pathway to a house she'd never seen before and knocked on
the door
...


"You're my brother
...
"I want you to come home with me now and meet the
rest of your family
...
" And there was a great healing that took
place when this wall finally came tumbling down
...
" We lie and pretend
and say "Everything's fine
...
Something is wrong, but what? I've tried
everything but it doesn't work out
...
Tough, cool, clever, strong
...
You're never gonna keep me down
...


Eric was born in the East End of London
...
He served in Malaya and came to Australia
in the sixties, marrying an aboriginal girl and living in Redfern
...
Eric
took to drinking in Belmore Park and withdrew within himself, remaining an elective
mute for 8 years
...
For 8 years he neither shaved nor had a haircut
...
com

163

Making Your First Million
he became known as the Wolfman of Belmore Park
...
When Eric
was safely comatose Trevor would gather him up and take him to the Salvation Army
mission
...
On each occasion, the matron would sit by his bed and
say: "I don't even know you're name
...
But I know you
...
You think your only friend in
the world is alcohol
...
God loves you
...
"

And of course, all Eric wanted was to get back out on the street and get off his face
...
No matter how much alcohol or drugs he took in, they didn't work
...
And in desperation, on his final detox, he opened his mouth
to speak for the first time in 8 years: "God, come into my heart and take away the pain
...
He is a different man, sober many years
...


The example Eric sets for me, is no matter how elevated, and no matter how far down we
go in life, there is a power outside of ourselves that can reach us
...
What is
our purpose here? Are we simply meaningless protoplasm? I don't believe we are but I
can't answer for you
...
All I can do is tell
you my story
...
This
was one of our many failures and ran directly contrary to my own advice to myself:
"Stick to your knitting
...
Anyway it was
the 4th of July and we had a few hours to kill before returning to Nashville
...
We slid sideways off the freeway,
Blues Brothers fashion, (You're allowed to do that in a rented Cadillac) at a store selling
fireworks and headed deep into the hills
...
Happily, though, the deeper in we got, the friendlier the folks seemed
...
Past a country bar, complete
with Dolly and Kenny and pickups and hound dogs and shotgun racks (Barbecue Jack's,
whole hog, deep pit, hickory fired barbecue
...
95
...
It was a graveyard
...
They were all identical except for the inscriptions
...
It had the person's name, when they were born,

SiteSelling
...
I stopped, confused and couldn't work it out
...
And I worked out what it meant
...

It blew me away
...

For I think of the empty grave, and the promise it holds there for me
...
Set me free from the grave set me free
...
com

165

Making Your First Million

Not just me there are others, go look down the columns, I'm not the only one waiting in
fear
Here, look Jonah Huckaby 1943 still alive, another here's one over here
There's comfort in numbers in Tennessee sunshine, comfort in company waiting in line
Not just me, not just me, there are others still waiting, names on the tombstone and still
feeling fine
...
Get ready to part
...
Your soul is required
...
"
I fell on my face in Murfreesboro, face down in the dirt, I offered a prayer
To the Lord of my life, "Lord hold me, Lord keep me, keep me from dying this time's come
too soon
...
Then you can enter my
promise renewed
...


He who dies with the most toys wins? That's the logical conclusion of the materialist
...
Just today I read the obituary of a man I knew
...
He'd taken offence and complained loudly that he had intended to spend
$10,000 that day and now he'd never step foot inside my store again, so there
...
What if it's true? What if there is something there? Too late when your heart

SiteSelling
...
Your brain's already shut down
...
Take
the risk now
...
com

167

Making Your First Million

Chapter 26 - What's It All About
Anyway?
So often we say: "I need to try harder
...
Oh,
if only I could just somehow make it
...
And we can gird our loins and pretend
even harder
...
We can wheedle and
pressure others into conforming, and they will to keep the peace, sometimes
...
There's always some - mongrel comes along to foul things up
...
We can look at
their casual happiness and wish 'If only
...
And we can try harder, knowing that at least we
did our best
...
It's just those snakes in the
grass who
...
And we try harder and
we ensure our reputation and appearance is spotless and at least we're not like them, I
mean, the garden
...
And no matter how hard we try, I mean, it
isn't fair
...
Even that
which we had is taken from us
...
And the happiness of others
is a scourge to our backs and we try harder and develop a core of anger beneath our shell
of success
...
How dare they? I'm as good as any of you! Better! I'm
the one who's putting in all the effort and what thanks do I get? And we become lonely
and angry and hurt and we turn our backs on them and decide to show them
...


If this describes you, as it once described me, I may have something of value for you
from my own story
...
Our fearful
human nature would have us build walls that exclude others and elevate us by repressing
others
...
There is a better way
...


SiteSelling
...
As
Zig Ziglar says: "You can have everything you want in life if you'll just help enough
other people get what they want
...
In my business, long before I knew what I know now, I published the
following mission statement:

1
...

2
...

3
...


By tapping into the natural synergy of love I was swept up in the current of mutual selfinterest and found that business was easy
...
The opposite emotions of compulsion,
coercion, control and suspicion would have had the opposite effect
...
And to do this we need to trust
...
We need to believe that there is an unseen
power, like gravity or electricity, guiding, directing, accepting, forgiving, coaching,
praising and loving us
...
If all we have is fear and negativity, that's all we can give and that's all we'll get in
return
...
Learn to trust
...
This is God talking to you
...
Instead, focus on floating
...
Let go and hang on at the same time
...
In all your ways
acknowledge Him and He will make straight your path
...
If we give conditionally, focusing on material goals, pretending to
love unconditionally we'll always be disappointed
...

Abandon yourself to the healing power of love in the universe
...
It works
...
Give love and it comes back a thousand-fold
...
" We're not here to
stuff our faces and line our pockets and purses and drawers with gold and jewels
...
" We're here to
enjoy life by loving all around us and in the process finding joy and contentment
...
" And hopefully in the process find meaning

SiteSelling
...
"Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and
all the rest will be added to you
...
And when we finally have the
courage to do this, life will amaze us
...
com

170

Making Your First Million

Postscript
The stories in this book come from my own experiences and have been the basis of my
public speaking engagements
...

The experiences behind it took a thousand times as long to collate and didn't flow easily
at all
...
What I have tried to do in this book is to help you in your
journey
...
I love the story of the '92
Barcelona Special Olympics
...
In the middle of the race
one of the runners fell heavily and painfully, and one by one, each runner stopped and
returned to aid their winded running mate
...
Eight winners
...
I am here to be of value to you, to help you
reach the finish line a winner
...
You can contact me personally on Int'l +61
418 494 194, or by writing to: George Parry, Locked Bag 2050, Newcastle 2300 NSW
Australia

Email me at: george@georgeparry
...
au

SiteSelling
...
I'm now going to reveal the secret to
unlimited wealth that the Internet provides you
...
But there is
a problem
...
The secret will be revealed
to you shortly
...
It is your treasure
map
...

Remember too, that this information is unique
...
It will cost you nothing to
implement and it will provide you with incredible wealth almost immediately
...
There are no banners or MLM or affiliate
programs
...
I spent four
months searching the Net before I hit upon this concept
...
I've searched for months and been ripped off, cheated and disillusioned and was at
the point of giving up, fed up with the greed and cynicism of the sharks that cruise the
Net tearing chunks off unwitting victims when this concept struck me
...


When I explain this technique you'll say to yourself: "Oh, yes
...
" And of course the
reason nobody thought of it is they were focused on greed
...
The Ultimate Wealth Secret, which I am about
to tell you is focused on giving, rather than getting, on love rather than fear
...
And do you know what? It works! Far
better than anyone could imagine
...
But I can tell you, it works
...
I do not cast my pearls of wisdom willy-nilly
...
Don't believe me? You may not be ready to take this challenge
...
georgeparry
...
au/ultimatesecret

SiteSelling
...
Now he's generously
agreed to give you a free copy that reveals some of his most powerful secrets
...
Make as much money as you need to support your ideal lifestyle
2
...
Be free to work with something you love, something that truly inspires you
If you want complete freedom in life, then this is exactly what you've been looking for!

Click here to claim your FREE copy of this new $197 e-course
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Please feel free to send this valuable ebook to your friends, share it
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...


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---