When I escaped the Dilbert cube a month and a day after September 11, 2001, everything in the world hand ground to a HALT. Nothin’ was going on. Everyone was in a state of suspended animation. I remember going to a trade show a few days after the towers went down and all the attendees were milling around in a daze.

But there’s always a few people who aren’t sleepwalking, and they have to keep the trains running on time. So I got a consulting gig and soon after landed a couple more.

Consulting Client #5 was a catalog company in the industrial space and once we got familiar with each other, we came up with a “quarterly bonus based on growth” in addition to my monthly retainer.

Basically what it said was, every percentage point the company achieves that’s better than 15% per year, the consultant gets more dinero.

We hunkered down and a year later, those quarterly bonus checks hit a $15,000 stride.

Suddenly Laura and I were making more money than we’d ever made before.

And everybody liked each other. (An extra $15000 check every three months has a funny way of making your spouse happy.)

Had I been really smart, I’d have gunned for a tiny piece of equity in the company too. It’s been sold a couple of times since then, and I would’ve made out like a bandit.

Perry Marshall

About the Author

Perry Marshall has launched two revolutions in sales and marketing. In Pay-Per-Click advertising, he pioneered best practices and wrote the world's best selling book on Google advertising. And he's driven the 80/20 Principle deeper than any other author, creating a new movement in business.

He is referenced across the Internet and by Harvard Business Review, The New York Times, INC and Forbes Magazine.