I have always believed that the easiest way to survive commerce, and have some fun en route, is to make sure that you are adding more value than you are costing. Mostly, that works. Now and then the cost of adding that value exceeds the income you are getting, but as long as you are adding enough value, it all seems to come right in the end, even if you have to share a few drinks with your local sheriff along the way
On the way there will always be a few fine folk who want to pay you far more than the value you think you are adding. That’s a lot of the fun. And there will always be a few folk who don’t want to pay you at all. That’s where much of the learning comes in.
While it’s tempting to think that the folk who get really rich are doing something sly, I think that they have just worked out how to add a lot more value to a lot more people with a lot less effort at a lot less cost. Of course, because they are so “lucky”, it makes sense to demand that they pay more tax than the rest of us. (I fear I might have been watching too much BBC and Labour.)
The Internet makes all of this so much easier. For instance, for the cost of just one live seminar tour (three events hosting about 250 people in total) the Web allows me to host 1000 people in 12 events each day for the next 20 years.
I will be in South Africa from next week, for six weeks, for a superb break and three live seminars. And a bunch of impromptu gatherings wherever a good bottle of red rears its head. PetesWeekly on Twitter makes that very easy to arrange. And if you want a little more formality, PetesWeekly on Facebook allows us to plan ahead – by at least a few hours.
Last week was quiet, what with SA on holiday, again. A good time to relook at what we are doing. We have just re-opened Marketing Motor which uses the same tools we do at Sales Motor to get your business onto the front page of Google, but instead of using our time, uses yours. One of our key reasons for doing this was to help those folk in business arenas without enough traffic to justify a full service (and the costs thereof).
When I started teaching the Crashproof ideas back in 1995 I always said that if I was able to share this knowledge gratis, I would. And webinars cost pretty close to nothing to host.
When I return to Norway, we will launch a gratis daily business training channel – a live Q&A webinar each day about issues of business, ownership, survival, and success. Of course, the recordings can be downloaded if you can’t make the live show. The first month will be a beta run to see if we can make it a better run.
I’m not sure that I’m the right person to do it, but since I have spent more than 27 years gainfully unemployed, dealing with the daily challenges we all face, it makes sense to share a little of that. As Forrest Gump’s mother said, life’s a box of chocolates. I doubt she was a sugar-challenged. I am, so life is better seen as a canteen of minestrone. And like all things edible, it is a lot more fun when shared.
We still have Early Bird seats at the live seminars next month. Use the codes: CPTEARLYBIRD, DBNEARLYBIRD, or JHBEARLYBIRD. Just click here if you’d like to join me on the night.