Best ‘Selling’ Author
I read the first half of the 4 hour work week… I put it down before finishing. The book could’ve been written on a 10 page presentation – startup blog view.
Tim Ferris currently the best selling Author on the New York Times list. The words here are very important: He’s the best selling author, not best writing author.
Tim Ferris knows how to sell. He’s got a couple of great ideas which are absolute gold. He’s sold them in guru style. Power to him.
Title: 4 hour work week – he got the title name from doing a Google ad word experiment to see which title got the most clicks.
The Cover – cubicle dwellers dream of this lifestyle. Create a visual.
Outsourcing your life: Possible for those with a large existential stream of income.
Vicarious living: Most how to books never actually get implemented, it’s about the dream. Readers rarely implement, so concepts don’t get questioned.
The brand: Tim is the brand. He knows how to work a system.
Bottom line: The idea works and he works it.
The truth: He worked his butt off first, got massive cashflow, then scaled down. I challenge anyone to not answer their phone, email and live in another country and do it all in four hours a weekand ‘become’ wealthy. Not possible, unless you’ve already done what Tim did.
Like any book – we take the bits that work for us and ignore the stuff which doesn’t apply.
Sometimes you could build a company or a business on a simple idea. His idea is outsourcing. But it’s the way he sold it which makes him a world beater.
All entrpreneurs ought take a lesson from Tim on how to bundle things up to sell.
Exit strategies – best yet
I was emailed this exit strategy, the best I’ve heard yet.
“My exit strategy is death”
Craig Newmark – Craiglist.
Cut through v3.0
Driving in the city I noticed these. They caught my eye. I stopped to investigate.
Turns out it’s the ACMI (Australian Centre for the Moving Image) ‘Game On’ exhibition where you can play your way through the history of arcade and video games. I’m a sucker for retro video games and so I’m on it big time.
I never watch free to air TV – where they’ve been advertising. Without this piece of cool outdoor, with great cut through, I’d never have known.
People find us in different ways. We must know how to find your our people.
Career promises
Often corporations make hollow promises to actual and prospective employees about their career. People worry about career prosepects at employers, when all they need to remember is this:
People have careers,
Companies have jobs.
Availability
An entrprepreneur works at my local cafe. Well, he’s a musician in a band – selling music. Which is what we do, in different categories.
I asked him how his band was going – (incidently called ‘Bedford’) and a few seconds later he brought me their CD and put it on the table. It looked cool.
When I paid for the coffee, I also asked how much for the CD? He responded $20 and so I paid for 2 coffees and 1 CD. This could only have happened because it was available. He had it on hand.
Do you bring your stuff with you? Your widget? Do you have cards / flyers on you all the time to give to people? We need to make our stuff available – because selling always begins with a conversation.
Fact is I might love the CD – who knows? If I do I’ll spread it. At a minimum I’ve bought an entrepreneur $20 of encouragement, which I’m happy to do.
You can check them out here.
Great Quote
“I cannot control how I am perceived, I can only control how I am presented.”
This quote came from (of all places) Tim Gunn’s guide to style TV show. (it was on in the background while I was working… honest)
It’s the same for our brands and websites. Do what we can and ignore the uncontrollables.
Quirky fact 9.0
While chatting with Duncan Riley over espresso I found out:
Web 2.0 bible techcrunch has more page views than the Sydney Morning Herald and The Melbourne Age combined.
The question is which one will drive our web start up further?
Daily taste test
Gordon Ramsey walks into a restaurant he’s doing one of his shows with, I don’t know which one it is, because I’m telling this story second hand (Don’t worry, it’s worth it).
He’s there to help a struggling restaurant and asks the chef to serve him his signature dish.
Gordon sits down to taste some kind of Oyster dish. On the first mouthful he almost gags, and proceeds to spit it out. The oysters were off.
He says these are disgusting, and asks the chef when was the last time he served them up, or tasted them himself… The Chef shrugs.
Sometimes things look good, but are rotten at the core. Sometimes we haven’t tested something in a while which is truly broken. We’ve got to keep an eye on our entire value chain. Make sure it’s all in order before we wonder why customers are disappearing, not coming or never came.
When was the last time you did a “taste test” of your own service?
More often than occassionaly we should taste our own medicine – every day.
More than just sizzle – Abundant Media
There is no shortage of television shows about holidays.
Let’s call it Holiday Porn… Lot’s of visuals, quite stimulating, high end holidays with locations and activities which are largely out of reach for most people. Who can really afford to drive a Ferrari down the Amalfi coast?
A lot of sizzle, not much sausage. So they generally leave you feeling a little unsatisfied.
Australian media start up Abundant Media have done a nice piece of game changing with their new TV show Holidaysforsale.tv
A simple concept: Everything you see on the show is for sale – You can watch the show, then jump on line and book the exact same holiday. The exact stuff you see and they do. No tricks.
This Australian media startup has in a very short time proven that there is room for innovation even in a crowded market space.
And here’s the bit I love the most, they are so focused on doing, that they’ve sold in their TV show to channel 9, produced it and aired it, and they haven’t even built their own corporate website yet! – Check it here: http://www.abundantmedia.com.au/ Bootstrapping Gold.
Yep – they’re focused on making it happen, not stuff which is nice to do.
