Moaning Minnies and mollycoddling... plus a naked and uncensored million-groat tip

Every now and then I get an email from some Moaning Minnie or other complaining about the fact I don’t give him enough “meat” in my free email tips.

Hmmm.

Methinks they’re actually a bit slow on the uptake and are the kind of people who really wants a mollycoddling rather than educating, but I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt.

So, today, here’s a tip I gave to my Inner Circle yesterday. Here it is — the whole thing, naked, unabridged, undiluted and uncensored.

Just a bit of context: the fellow asking the question is pondering the wisdom of dropping $5,500 on a six-month stint with a “business coach” because he’s just not getting round to implementing the marketing stuff he’s currently getting from the guy.

The idea is the “one on one” coaching will make him get his arse into gear.

Here’s my answer:

The price itself isn’t the issue, in my book. I’ve paid someone $6,000 for 3 hours phone time (and used only one hour of it), and it paid for itself more than 3 times over inside 21 days.

But that was because I took action. And to my way of thinking, that’s what you’re lacking: action. Certainly as a part of this group and then a part of the other group, you ain’t short on knowing.

You’re short on DOING.

So here’s an idea:

1. Write out a plan and post it here. There are over 60 very smart people here to help you with every possible aspect of your marketing you can imagine.
2. Then write a cheque for €1,000 to your LEAST favourite politician’s campaign and send it to me.
3. I’ll keep it for 6 months and if you haven’t stuck to the plan, I’ll send it to them; if you have, I’ll send it back to you.

That way, if you don’t stick to your plan, you’ll lose only €1,000. But if you DO stick to it, it won’t have cost you a penny, let alone $5,500.

No kidding: the thought of your public commitment to this group AND that €1,000 going to someone you don’t like will spur you on like nothing else.

Now, this is a tip you can take straight to the bank.

Just one important thing, though: the beneficiary of the cheque has GOT to be someone or some cause you really can’t stand, and you’ll do well to make the deal very public.

So, why does it work?

Because most of us can drop $5,500 on a “guru” or a progamme, do nothing and then justify it in some way.

We’ve probably all done it. I have, I know.

But none of us could easily stomach (very publicly) giving €1,000 to some person or cause we revile. As a species, we HATE to look foolish (apparently the only punishment the Eskimos had for theft and other crimes was for the whole tribe to point at the perp and just.… laugh at him).

And here’s the thing: if you’re procrastinating, prevaricating and dilly-dallying and not getting round to implementation, implementation, implementation, and yet you resist putting this tip to work for you right now… then the reason is you KNOW you’re simply not going to “do the doings”… which in turn should also tell you the $5,500 option is almost certainly going to be a big waste of money.

And $5,500 will get you over 7 years’ membership of my Inner Circle, just for a bit of perspective.

Of course, you might not like my answer.

I mean, I’m not showing a lot of empathy or tree-huggery.

Maybe you’d prefer it if I drew some fancy charts and did some NLP jigger-pokery to validate your feelings and find out if you were bullied by your neighbour’s chinchilla as a child.

But that’s my style, and while it’s what the Inner Circle love me for, it ain’t to everyone’s taste, to be sure.

You either love the Evil Bald Genius or you hate him (and there are two kinds of people in the world: people who love me, and people with poor taste)

Hey, no worries, though: if I’m not to your taste, then there are loads of greedy, unscrupulous and incompetent (to quote another member) “gurus” out there who’ll tell you what you want to hear… just so long as you keep handing over your dough.

But if you like a bit of “tough love” and straight talk, then Baldy’s yer man.

So grab my free tips.

Do it now.

You know you want to.

Tagged as: direct response marketing, entrepreneurship, irish business, positioning, small business marketing