The Education of Millionaires - Michael Ellsberg [59]
His grandfather’s message of self-employment hadn’t fully sunk in during high school (he had been too busy partying and trying to be a rock star), but now he was ready for the message. All of this study and mentee-ship with his self-made grandfather started making its mark. “I finally saw that there was another way. I saw that there were men and women out there who did not have jobs—they were businesspeople, making a lot of money and doing a lot of good in the world, without working for a boss. When I got to meet a lot of his connections, very few of them had ever followed the traditional path of getting a college degree and then getting a job. That’s when I became a true believer in my current belief, which is that the way to go is to own your own business. Period. Once I had that belief instilled, I knew there was no other way for me.”
Frank began rooting around for different businesses he could start. Eventually, he found his way to the writings of Dan Kennedy. And something happened to Frank, which also happened to me, and pretty much everyone else who finds their way there: everything changes after you first encounter Dan Kennedy.
Dan Kennedy graduated from Revere High School in the early seventies, and then took a job in sales, while he began to teach himself direct-response copywriting. He is now one of the world’s highest-paid copywriters, routinely earning $100,000 or more for a sales letter, plus royalties on sales. He is widely considered one of the greatest living geniuses in direct-response marketing, both as a practitioner and as a teacher, and pretty much everyone in the field looks up to him and has learned from him. He writes: “I am a 100% self-educated direct marketing expert. No college, no apprenticeship. Just a study of everything I could get my hands on and diligent application.”1
At some point, if you’re interested in money, and the making of it, you should immerse yourself in the work of Kennedy (http://www.dankennedy.com). He will piss you off, infuriate you, make you shake your fist, make you slam down his book at some point, but still, you need to read him.
What you will get from Kennedy, if you open yourself to his message, is the Gospel of Marketing. At some point while reading him, it will click for you—as it did for me, and for Frank—and you will just “get it.” In particular you will get that, if you’re serious about financial results in your life—whatever business you’re in, however large or small, and whether you’re an employee or an entrepreneur—you need to become a lifelong student of marketing. Period.
In Kennedy’s words: “The breakthrough realization for you is that you are in the marketing business. You are not in the dry cleaning or restaurant or widget manufacturing or wedding planning or industrial chemicals business. You are in the business of marketing dry cleaning services or restaurants or widgets or wedding planning or chemicals. When you embrace this, it makes perfect sense to set your sights on marketing mastery. If you are going to make something your life’s work and chief activity and responsibility, why not do it exceptionally well?”2
So what is marketing, anyway? Self-educated millionaire Cameron Johnson, another avid student of marketing in general and of Dan Kennedy in particular (among other teachers I mention here), offers a clear perspective.
Whenever Cameron Johnson has started one of his dozen-plus profitable businesses, many of which he’s sold for nice payoffs, he asks a few simple questions: “What do people in this industry need? What’s bothering them, hassling them, costing them money, keeping them from getting what they want? . . . [C]ustomers with needs come along every single day. There are always people and niches with unfulfilled needs. With this approach to business, you don’t need to rely on luck, timing, or the fickleness of fads and crazes—just on your own ability to observe and create. Choose a niche, find a need, and then see what could help those people do their job better.