I spent plenty o’ years drinking the business opportunity pink koolaid, buying tapes and books and going to seminars that just sent me around and around the failure merry-go-round.
After about 6 years of that I’d become *extremely* jaded and cynical. And very cautious.
I was on my upline’s “Tape Of The Week” program (~$50 per month) and even after I knew in my heart it wasn’t doing me any good, I stayed on it about 2 years longer.
Why didn’t I stop?
Because I was AFRAID of what my upline would think of me when I dropped out. (They would all say, “Perry’s a Quitter, Perry’s a Loser,” yada yada yada.)
Meanwhile I joined the absolute cheapest Inner Circle membership that Dan Kennedy offered at the time, a lowball drop-down subscription. It was the one they sent you after you’d ignored all the other offers. It cost twelve dollars and thirty-eight cents per month.
For that I got his No BS newsletter, occasional call-in days and even a members-only seminar (not unlike what I delivered to my Mastermind Club members this past weekend in Austin).
The MLM pink koolaid didn’t work at all. The Direct Marketing principles I learned from Dan worked very reliably.
I KNEW this. From experience. And from my commission checks.
So why was I giving my upline $50 per month and only giving Dan $12.38?
Because I’m an irrational, emotionally driven, easily manipulated human being, just like everyone else is.
My wife knew this too. In fact a couple years later I said, “Hey there’s a seminar I really want to go to but it’s $1500.”
She immediately replied, “GO.”
I was surprised she said that. But she knew the MLM stuff wasn’t working long before I did, and she knew my Guerilla Marketing education was working.
(I think women are emotionally “quicker” than men. In fact I may be first shrewd observer in the course of humanity to have ever noticed this.)
I hung on to that $12.38 subscription for about 4 years. Then I quit my job, became a marketing consultant and suddenly I realized I needed as much mojo as I could get.
Suddenly I was a ‘player’. I invested accordingly with Laura’s full consent. My investment in personal education shot up to about $500 per month in a span of a few months.
It took time for me to become a good customer. But that’s OK, because in time I eventually became a very good customer, trust me.
I’ve not been one to be reckless about my education dollars. I don’t like buying things and just sticking them on the shelf. If you’re at all typical of Planet Perry members, you don’t either. You prefer to be intentional about what you choose to learn and how you apply it.
And, I hope, you’re not afraid to make the investment when you need to.
I love seeing people take their investment (whether it’s $40 per month or $1000+) and build small fortunes with it. It’s one of the most satisfying things I do.
I also hope you’re paying attention to whose courses just gave you a dose of ‘feel good’ and an adrenaline rush when you clicked the “buy” button – vs. whose products actually made you money.
I invite you to go through a mental inventory of what you’ve bought in the last 2 years, what’s paid off and what’s been a waste. And rather than impulsively yielding to the next product launch that shows up… go to the fountain that’s given you the best tasting water.
Perry Marshall
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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.
37 Comments on “How I weaned myself off the Pink Koolaid & became a Player”
Good article. I have only done one MLM and it succeeded although I it was through luck. MLM is hard and I think only works when you have a niche product unlike anything else that serves a small population so none of the big companies will go after it. The experience did help you understand what you don’t want to do then it lead you here and that is a good thing.
You nailed my experience with MLM. I’m off the MLM koolaid. You give me hope that I can move to player status.
“November 26,2010
Perry @ 10:51 pm
You don’t know what you’re not getting by not being a customer.”
So everybody that buys from you has no clue about what they´re buying?
You have to give yourself and your potential customers more credit than that, Perry.
Perry,
Your emails are the gold nuggets among the sand that is the bulk of other emails that I receive. Your advice and information is always well thought-out and rock-solid, which is one of the reasons I always welcome them in my in-box.
Thank you.
Ben
Hey Paul,
Dan does offer a drop down membership below his Gold level.
To get it join his Gold membership then a month later ask to unsubscribe/cancel. You will be offerd the Silver membership. How do I know? That is what happened to me recently.
Good Luck with that.
Will
.
Hi Perry,
I did not even know that you were involved in MLM prior to your online business.
I can’t belive it, you were not that successful in MLM, but now you are widely successful in direct marketing.
Also, I know a lot of famous net-workers, who started in direct marketing, failed and then started MLM, and become successful in MLM…
Why is this?
MLM is hot right now because the economy is bad. Which means it’s growing which makes it easier to recruit.
When the economy starts to speed up, MLM will slow down and a lot of downlines will implode.
I’m always wary of any deal where you make money by teaching people to teach people to make money. That’s true online or off.
MLM is a great rite of passage for all kinds of people trying to improve their sales chops. I’m not sure that trying to become a “how to make money” expert is any easier online than it is offline.
“…cheapest Inner Circle membership that Dan Kennedy offered…” Shame Dan doesn’t have the same offer available today – I sure could use it. Much of what you say in this post Perry resonates with me – I’m around 4 years in and very jaded. Thanks for the uplift.
Paul.
Perry I’ve been slowly unsubscribing from the noise coming into my email, but yours(is not noise) will continue to stay on my safe list. Thanks for the email it was a good read.
Perry,
Excellent article!
There are several streams I’ve dipped my toes into over the past two years on reflection. I go back to these streams from time to time because the water quality is high and the freshness is too.
There are also some smaller pools of water I’ve found that I’ve continued to go back to, one of which looks like it has the potential to be a well for me.
And in my travels I’ve found 3 sources of water that did indeed turn out to be wells that I am now drinking from on an almost daily basis. These wells produce top notch water (aka content) and it’s helped my business, in fact it’s set my business on a new directing heading into 2011.
The wells are:
Ken McCarthy and the System Seminar (Where we met this year.)
Dan Kennedy’s No BS Newsletter
And of course your free newsletters, your book, the Bobsled Run, and in time your other clubs and in person seminars.
Keep up the great work.
I’ve been searching for years for a solid direction in my business and believe I’ve now found it. Looking forward to another year of being a customer of yours in some way shape or form and to making 2011 a year of implementation and profits!
The inner head demons are dangerous. The darn lizard brain will squash your hope and paralyze you if you let him.
There comes a time when you have to take the jump and stop thinking so much. Or forget about building a business all together and watch “Dancing With The Stars” on TV.
Perry,
I must be on some lists, because my inbox is over-flowing with offers from new names – people I’ve never heard of. Some of them may be very good.
But through it all, Perry, your emails are the ones I always read.
I hope to become a good customer someday.
Keep it coming!
What a fabulous post! I couldn’t agree with Perry more. How true it is that fear can keep you doing illogical things for months or years. Thankfully, there are those like Perry who offer awesome insight. Sometimes we need to be reminded of these things. Thank you for the insight and reminders.
The beauty of the Internet for low life marketers (in most cases “low life” and marketers are synonymous), is that the average consumer doesn’t know what they don’t know. And, most of us REFUSE to find out. So, we buy in to 1/2 truths (otherwise known as information products), put our heads in the sand, and subscribe to 3,765 email lists( 3,766, if you count Perry’s). Perry is one of the very,very,very few good people who sell the “sizzle” online. He must have had a kool-aid stand when he was a kid!
Happy Thanksgiving Perry et al!
Hello Perry…
You are the Greatest!!! not being a smartass! you
speak from wisdom and experence,and it is very much
needed these days everywhere.I sell Gold mining deals,actual Gold development projects.35-years in
Alaska, Try selling a Gold-Mine,You really want to
meet some whacko’s, try doing what i do…
Best to you.Bob Flounders
I recently interviewed an Australian millionaire property investor who started with nothing.
She had to leave home at 15 and make her own way in life. There were times she rode the buses all night long or took shelter in the laudromant just to have a place to sleep for the night.
Her advice was to invest in one course (be it self development, or market trading, or property investment) and stick with it until it paid for itself; only THEN, move on.
Basically, we all want it now, the moment we click the “submit” button after entering our credit card details there is an expectation we suddenly become overnight successes.
Stop and ask, what have I done to improve myself today. Remember, it takes two to tango.
Lorwai,
Now THAT is sound advice and I believe that is the essence of what Perry is saying.
Definitely excellent stuff. I’m an entrepreneur in the wings. Glad to have made a great connection like Perry but no idea to market. Stuck in my cubicle, as it were.
Very true Perry.
Dan Kenedy’s stuff has worked for me too – very well.
Actually it opened a whole new world for me. One of real results and no “shiny object of the month” nonsense.
Very true Perry :)
I didn’t go that deep in the MLM world but I can relate. Fortunately at the time I was a starving college student and too broke to buy the tapes membership. However, my upline guy paid the membership for me and I kept drinking the pink kool aid for a few more months. I still feel a twinge of embarrassment(ten year later) for bothering my friends, family and acquaintances with “the plan.”
Using the information from the Definitive Guide to Adwords I was able to save Bestfilters about 8k per month for the last 48 months. Pretty good for a $50.00 purchase! ..and I’m only scratching the surface!
Actionable Information without Hyperbole – love it!
Love your stuff Perry – you are a Rock Star to me!
Noah
I’ve done that, many times in my career and I probably still “waist” money on things I shouldn’t. It’s kind of hard not to because you never know when that one little thing might make all of the difference in the world. So, those that are still struggling would hate to pass up on something that may just help them. You never know where you’ll find that missing key/link.
Perry,
Thanks for sharing this email. I and many others have been suffering from “inbox fatigue” of late. Offer after offer, launch after launch, magic bullet after magic bullet, all coming through our inbox.
It was refreshing to see an industry leader talk about “the lean years”… the years that most of us are still all too familiar with.
It was enlightening to have an industry leader reveal what didn’t work… and what did… even at a high level.
I’m being reminded more and more that patience, perseverance,and sticking to a proven plan given to you by a trusted mentor, are the path to success in Internet Marketing.
Hopefully more and more newbies will learn this lesson more and more quickly… forcing the snake oil salesmen feeding off of newbie naivete to actually create value and not just an adrenaline rush.
Thanks for the post, Perry.
I bought nothing. I do read newsletters.
If you know how to read between the lines and manage to understand where all the smartness in the newsletters comes from (experience) and you do work in marketing yourself, you can get almost everything from just the newsletter.
If I’d actually lived in the USA, I probably would spend more. Sorry Perry, you didn’t make much money of me, but your newsletters are very much appreciated.
Peter,
If you were to come to events and mastermind groups – or if you were to just subscribe to Renaissance Club or Mastermind Club – you’d find the rabbit hole goes FAR deeper than what you get from my emails :^>
I know. But you don’t know how much I get from your emails. I can “see” (in my mind) how all your emails work together.
I bought (like 4 or 5 years ago) your Adwords book. I learned the basics from that book, but what’s more important, I learned the right way of thinking from that book. After that it was just extrapolating from the basics.
I also received a free book from you once. Also very helpful.
Any time somebody asks about Adwords, I refer them to your website. You do get something in return: referals!
Great post Perry.
I don’t even have to look on my shelf to know that your stuff has made me more money than anything else on the shelf, and I haven’t even spent that much money with you. But unlike the home schooling guy you had speaking in Austin, I understand that I am a great customer. I will continue to study every single offer you make, will pass on most of them, but will definitely be buying too, and for a long time to come.
Great seminar in Austin. Thanks for putting it together.
Neil
Mastermind Member
Excellent post. I also appreciate getting an email that isn’t trying to sell me something. Thanks.
You haven’t understood Perry’s system yet. :)
Neither have you, Peter :^>
Don’t worry. I’m fine.
Ha! Good stuff Perry…wonder how many people got it.
lol. If I ever got something from you that wasn’t trying to sell something one way or another I wouldn’t read your emails anymore.
And not everyone is going to get this either.
A recent review of my Amazon book by a college student (which had also been a homework assignment for his class) criticized my book for being too self promotional.
The guy didn’t seem to understand that you can’t learn sales and marketing from a person who refuses to sell or market. You got it Jordan, I’m selling all the time.
So what was it that I didn’t get Perry?
You don’t know what you’re not getting by not being a customer.
I agree with what you are saying, however, I believe the reason most MLM’s don’t work, is not their business model… well, sort of, let me explain…
I have also been in several MLM’s and made some good money in some of them, but what I found was that MLM’s have a serious “retailing” problem.. If you can’t retail the product honestly, reliably and at least a good price (doesn’t have to be the lowest), but it can’t be obnoxiously over priced compared to it’s value.
And that is precisely where MLM’s go wrong. Because of the costs involved with production, and delivery, there just isn’t enough money in most products to be able to sell it at a reasonable price, so all the emphasis goes on recruiting..which is how MLM gets a bad rap.
I always thought if you could ever get a digital MLM product, THEN you could retail it, THEN when people saw that they could actually sell it and make money without recruiting a single soul…THEN you would have it…
I actually found it… but if I listed it here, you would think it was a blatant spam… so I won’t.
So I just feel like MLM gets a well deserved bad rap, but that doesn’t mean one can’t come along once in a while and really be good.
When you combine good copywriting skills with a viral type opportunity…you get something like the good ol days “Dead Doctors Don’t Lie” LOL that was awesome!
Anyway, as always, I appreciate the post.
Kevin Mask
Authentic Internet Marketing
[ Hey I just noticed you took that one guys suggestion and unchecked the free mini course checkbox ]