"Profit: How to Grow a Fatter Bottom Line With Almost No Math Skills At All" by David Garfinkel
As we Americans prepare for a day of edible abundance, it's good to think about the currency that puts the food on the table -- financial abundance.
Not just money. Profit.
I bring this up because yesterday I was talking with a client who is has over a quarter-billion dollars' worth of sales to his credit. He's savvy. But he's starting a new business, and he's in learning mode about the Web.
I asked him if he knew about Direct Marketing Math. You don't need graduate degrees in statistics to understand this. You don't even need to have finished high school.
Direct Marketing Math is very simple... and yet it is basis for fortunes. Countless millionaires; maybe even some billionaires.
It works like this:
You put a dollar in, and you get more than a dollar back. You've made a profit.
Systematize that. Scale it up. Keep control of your costs and watch the profitability of each ad like a hawk.
And that's all there is to it.
Now, while it's simple, it's not necessarily easy. But it's a heck of a lot easier than textbook accounting.
And, if you like direct marketing, I think it's easier - or at least more enjoyable - than other ways of making a living and accumulating a nest egg or two.
What I find amazing is not that my client grasped this instantly - as a natural-born businessman, he found it right in line with all his experience -- but what I find amazing is how few other people can grasp this at all.
I blame the school system, the media, Wall Street and the pervasive need for looking good over getting results.
I have yet to find a school that teaches entrepreneurship that has anything to do with the entrepreneur I am, the ones I know as friends and peers, and the ones I mentor and write copy for.
The only places where Direct Marketing Math is discussed with any degree of fluency and practicality is in private newsletters, high-end seminars, and non-institutional blogs and Web sites.
Wall Street has undoubtedly created the underpinnings of the greatest economy in the history of the world. But there are no instances I'm aware of where The Street has promoted the understanding of, and proficiency in, Direct Marketing Math.
Looking good? I won't blame Elizabeth Arden or Giorgio Armani. They're the effect, not the cause. If you have any ideas why the vast majority of people would rather look good than get measurable results they can put in the bank or take to Hawaii, please leave a comment. I'd really like to know.
Now's a good time for me to express thanks to the people, some of them, anyway, who have helped me learn Direct Marketing Math:
Dan Kennedy
Denny Hatch
Perry Marshall
Jay Abraham
Gary Halbert
Ted Nicholas
Mark Joyner
Jim Edwards
I have a confession to make: Though I got 782 on my Math SATs, I have never been able to pass an accounting course (a traditional one) -- and I've tried almost a dozen times.
I'm starting to wonder if it wasn't a blessing that traditional accounting doesn't compute.
However, as a Direct Marketer, I have learned (to steal a line from a Wall Street Journal ad), "to teach nickels to become quarters."
And, I have one of the world's best accountants, H.M. of Hollywood, Florida, to help me figure out how to allocate those quarters.
Happy Thanksgiving. Don't give money another thought, until it's time to make your next marketing investment. Then, remember Direct Marketing Math.
David Garfinkel is one of the best copywriters on the internet and was a speaker at Armand Morin's Big Seminar Series and Carl Galletti's Internet Marketing Super Conference. You can learn more about his books and training courses by clicking the links below.
David Garfinkel is founder of the World Copywriting institute and is considered by many people to be the best teacher of copywriting in the world. The stated mission of the World Copywriting Institute is to “eradicate copywriting illiteracy in the world.” Jay Conrad Levinson, author of the world’s best selling series of marketing books, Guerrilla Marketing, says, “David Garfinkel is the best copywriter I know.” Sign up for David’s free World Copywriting Newsletter. and you get a free one-hour downloadable teleseminar on copywriting. Also visit David’s World Copywriting Blog:
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