by Dale Armin Miller
(Excerpt from WealthBooster Magazine -- Issue #2 -- December 21, 2000)
I was just watching a movie about one of the co-founders of America. I don't mean Thomas Jefferson or any of those guys. Perhaps I should have said a co-founder of American *culture.*
Phineas Taylor Barnum.
("Why? Did he invent something I don't know about? What did he ever do?" Well, here's the last two lines of the movie; you have to picture Burt Lancaster -- the actor portraying P.T. Barnum -- saying this: "Why, I invented the audience. I invented ... you.")
An event in the movie provides an example of something that can change your life:
Jenny Lind was a singer, very famous in Europe. She was so beloved in London that audience members tried to unhitch her horses so they themselves might have the honor of pulling her carriage. Yet, when she finally made her first visit to America, she happily allowed Barnum to keep 70% of all proceeds.
Why?
Because she realized how important is publicity, advertising, public relations, marketing.
I took over a company that sold business trusts. By the seventh month, the company had more income in one MONTH than it had in its previous 12 YEARS COMBINED! What do I know about trusts?
Well, I can spell it.
But I know some things about marketing!
I don't know much about life insurance, either; I've never even had a life-insurance policy. But I did help popularize something now called Universal Life Insurance. Out of what insurance companies paid me, I had to pay tiers of District Managing Agents, General Agents, Agents, and sub-Agents. Yet, I still had enough left over to make me wealthy. Why? Because for every policy sold, the insurance company paid me an amount equal to almost 15 months of premium payments -- in advance!
Why? Because they realize that marketing is everything.
People have successfully sold the most plentiful items on Earth: * Stones -- the Pet Rock, for example. * Air -- I had a friend whose machines successfully sell compressed air at gas stations. * Water -- you may have bought some yourself at the grocery store recently.
The Coca Cola Company spent $1,200,000,000 (no, I don't have too many zeros!) on marketing. Why? It's not easy keeping most of the world convinced that flavored water adds more zest to life.
Salesmen of leisure-suits proved that you can successfully market things that shouldn't even be allowed to exist. Con artists prove that you can successfully market things that don't exist in the first place.
I am not saying that what is being marketed is unimportant. I'm saying that what *you* are marketing is irrelevant until *you* are so good at marketing that it doesn't matter what the product is.
Once you are so good at marketing that it doesn't matter what the product is, THEN go out and find or invent a product or service -- the best damn one you can! I promise you that there are already far more excellent products and services than there are good marketers.
Don't waste your time trying to make a few, quick bucks on chain letters or whatever the craze is this week. Instead, LEARN TO MARKET ON THE INTERNET.
... then if (as it seems) the world is being Internet-ized, YOU'LL NEVER WANT FOR MONEY AGAIN.
-- Dale Armin Miller
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