Which is best?

Giving something away for free or selling something cheap?

In several previous articles I’ve talked about giving away something for free as a way to attract potential customers and build an email list to which you can sell to.

I’ve also talked about why some people prefer to sell something cheap instead of giving something away for free because it ‘qualifies’ the person who goes onto your email list.

I’ve even talked about combining the two.

That is where you give something away for free and when someone signs up to access your free lead magnet they are instantly met with a cheap follow up offer which complements the free product.

Which is best has been debated by many online marketers for many years. There are pros and cons for all three methods. People prefer different methods for their own reasons.

I am a big fan of the third approach where you give something away for free but you offer up a cheap congruent product as part of the initial email list building process.

Any sales made help pay for any advertising and marketing costs and it gives you a list of buyers which is better to have than a list of non-buyers.

But it also gives you a list of potential buyers who may buy from you later.

Considering how cheap it can be to own an email list and how easy it can be to write an email, I don’t see a reason for not including both buyers and freebie seekers for now… you can always remove non responsive people later.

The reason why some people sell a cheap product first instead of giving away a free lead magnet is that they want to build a list of buyers only instead of a list of freebie seekers.

It makes sense; buyers have already made a financial commitment with you and are far more likely to buy again.

In general, people who have bought from you are always better than those who have claimed something from you for free.

Also, a lot of people who want something for free can be time wasters who don’t have any respect for you or your time.

I was reminded of that this weekend.

A friend of mine was giving away an unused television unit. It was taking up room in his garage and he was fed up of moving it about so he decided to post a picture of it in the local Facebook group saying ‘I’m giving this away, free to anyone who wants it!’

He was immediately contacted by a woman who wanted it. She arranged to pick it up the following Sunday morning at 11. Believing that the unit had found a new home the post was removed from Facebook.

Sunday morning came; the unit was dragged from the garage and placed on the drive ready for collection.

11:15; no one came.

A message was sent asking if they were still coming. It wasn’t read.

After waiting half an hour another message was sent saying that they needed to pop out to go and do what was already arranged for that Sunday and that they would be home at a specific time and that she could pick it up any time after that.

Both messages were read… but there was no reply.

My friend has still not heard anything since that first message arranging to collect the unit on the Sunday morning.

One can only assume that she no longer wants the unit. It would have been nice if she had let my friend know.

It’s not a big problem in the grand scheme of things, you could call it a first world problem… but it is still a problem because time and effort has been wasted getting a unit ready to be collected only for it to be put back again when the person did not bother to collect or contact the unit’s owner.

There is nothing more frustrating than having someone else waste your time and energy, especially when you are doing them a favour and giving them something for free.

At least half an hour of my friend’s time was wasted… and there was no acknowledgment or apology.

That was just from one person.

Giving away multiple items to multiple people could result in a lot of time wasting.

It’s made easier if you have a system.

For example, if you were a publisher or newsagent giving away a free magazine and that the only place people could get it was from your store where you work then it is no extra loss to your time.

Another option could be to send the magazine in the post and only send them out when you go to the post office to send out any paid orders you have.

The other big time wasting issue that you can get from people when giving away something for free is ‘questions’.

Going back to my friend’s television unit; it has a specific height, width and length. People who see large items offered for free on social media want to know whether it will fit in their homes or cars.

Some people can’t get to pick up items themselves and so they ask if the item can be delivered.

Before you know it, you could be spending time answering questions from several people and possibly running around town dropping stuff off.

You may also answer half a dozen questions only to find that at the end of the day, no one wants what you are giving away.

Instead of getting the item and then dealing with it at their end, most people will have you running around like a blue-arsed fly for them… which is very annoying and frustrating when you are giving something away for free.

In the online world, when give something away for free it is set up in a system which you do not need to touch once live.

Receiving emails with questions is probably the worst problem you will get when you give away something for free. Fortunately emails can be managed far easier than having to measure units and drag them out of garages.

Like I say, having a system in place really helps.

Having a document with the answers to anticipated questions can help big time. As soon as a question comes in, simply copy and paste the answer and click send… or even better, add it to the free lead magnet or on the sign-up page.

Unlike giving away items like furniture, clothing or tools on Facebook, when you give something away for free online such as an eBook, report or video, the real purpose is to find a lead and make a sale further down the line.

You are not just getting rid of something to ‘get it out of your way’.

When you remember that, any wasted time is not so bad because it may result in you making money later.

So going back to the question I asked at the beginning.

Which is best?

Giving something away for free or selling something cheap?

For me, currently it’s both together.

Setting up a system where a cheap product is offered right after giving away the free lead magnet is a great idea. It helps recoup any costs and gives you a list of buyers as well as a list of potential buyers.

Unlike giving away free television units on Facebook, anything you give away for free online should be done with future profits in mind.

Any time wasting that happens should be managed with a system and seen as ‘customer service’ which can ultimately turn a potential time waster into a buyer.

To learn the exact process I use to make money online as outlined above, check out:

The Email Secret

Kind Regards

John Harrison

PS… Once your system is in place, it takes very little to write an email a day – or every few days. You do not need to write thousands of words for each email.

Here’s that link again:

The Email Secret

“Oh I don’t know now! I like this one, but I also like that one too.

“And that one sounds tasty; I’d like to try that. That’s my favourite one… but I can have that at anytime, this one is new and could be nice.

“But what if I don’t like it? I’ve wasted my money and missed out on enjoying my favourite. I just don’t know what to do now… I’ll give it a miss this time.”

I remember reading about a little experiment which was performed at a small local fair – or farmers market – with a stall selling jams and pickles.

The experiment was to compare how people behaved when they were subjected to a stall where they had a lot of choice in products and when they were given just a basic choice of products.

They started with a stall which was stocked with a huge range of different flavoured jams and pickles then they removed many flavours and offered only a limited selection.

What they found was that the stall with less choice of flavoured jams and pickles sold more.

It appeared that when given a lot of choice, buyers struggled to make a decision and instead they simply gave up.

Which is what the start of this article was all about… confusion and indecision born from having too much choice.

It’s known as ‘choice overwhelm’, also called ‘decision overwhelm’.

In the experiment buyers decided that it was easier to walk away empty handed than make a buying decision.

Having a stall which has over fifty different varieties and flavours of a product might seem like a great idea, you could say that there is a ‘flavour for everyone’ but having too much choice creates confusion and leads to indecision.

A lot of people simply struggle to make a decision when there is too much choice.

When there is a small range of products to choose from, it makes it easier for the buyer to make a decision.

Choice overwhelm happens a lot when you are faced with a lot of new unknowns.

Take Netflix for example; as you may know, Andi, our techy guy, and his good lady love to settle down most evenings to watch a thrilling drama, but… if they do not already have an idea of what they want to watch… trawling through Netflix’s library of films and programmes always results with Netflix being closed down and both of them muttering the words “I don’t know what to put on.”

It is the same when trawling through websites like Amazon Kindle or Audible when looking for a book to read or listen to.

There is just too much choice.

Categories help to organise and differentiate between products, but even then, they are crammed to the brim with too many similar items to choose between.

When there are too many products to pick from, you develop a kind of ‘snow blindness’ and fail to clearly see half of what is available.

It’s a bit like trying to pick out one person calling your name in a crowd of several hundred football fans all shouting at the top of their lungs… it’s virtually impossible.

The description and photo – called the thumbnail – of each item helps them to stand out against the rest.

Imagine one company using the same logo and packaging on a variety of jams, marmalades and pickles but only the flavour is different… you are likely to ‘not see’ many of them.

On sites like Amazon and Netflix, it is a constant battle to get your attention… which is why it is vital to do separate external advertising and marketing.

You cannot simply rely on people going to your website, sites like Amazon or your stall to choose an item if you have stacks and stacks of similar albeit slightly different products.

There is too much choice and it causes ‘decision overwhelm’.

Going back to the stall at the fair selling a large variety of jams and pickles that was losing money due to ‘choice overwhelm’… there is a workaround.

The solution would be to have multiple stalls selling a smaller selection of products under different names and branding.

As an example; there could be a stall selling ‘Traditional Jams & Marmalades’, a stall selling ‘Exotic & Spicy Jams & Marmalades’, a stall selling ‘Traditional Pickles’, and a stall selling ‘Exotic & Spicy Pickles’.

They may be similar, but they are also quite niche specific and target a specific set of people who automatically have an idea of what the stall is about because of how they have been set up.

Each stall will have a smaller choice of products which is easier to peruse than one stall trying to sell a whole load of jams, marmalades and pickles.

Having more than one stall will mean increased costs for hiring the stalls, but if it helps to prevent loss of sales from ‘decision overwhelm’, it may work out cheaper.

This works well for online niche marketers who make money selling specific products via websites.

They don’t have one website which sells anything and everything; they generally have multiple websites which each focus on one specific niche and/or product.

A website selling specialised yoga equipment would not be selling ice hockey equipment. An ice hockey equipment website is unlikely to sell yoga equipment.

Yet both websites can be owned by the same person.

Yes, some companies like Amazon do sell anything and everything, but Amazon started out selling books and then expanded to incorporate other products… but they also focused heavily on external promotions and ‘grouping’ products together effectively creating a whole load of internal ‘stalls’ within Amazon.

They also developed smart algorithms which groups relevant products together which they show to potential customers as ‘buyers who bought [said item] also bought these…’

If Amazon was a pickle stall at a local fair they would show people who bought a jar of pickle products such as bread, cheese and ham.

A stall selling jams and marmalade would probably sell more if they removed pickles and added a couple of styles of home baked crusty loaves.

The pickle stall would also benefit from cross promoting a couple of different styles of cheese, ham and several styles of home baked crusty bread instead of jam and marmalade.

They may increase the amount of products they sell, but they are still only selling a handful of different pickles and the other products are super relevant to the main product.

Even though there are more things to buy, there is still only a small amount of choice.

People are more likely to spread pickle on bread and cheese than mix it with jam or marmalade.

The change in size and shape of products for sale helps to focus the attention and helps buyers to make a decision.

Having ten same-sized jars of each of the fifty different flavours of jam, marmalade and pickle would mean a buyer seeing a wall of 500 jars which all look the same.

At least with only fifty jars of pickle, twenty packs of cheese and ten loaves of bread, you can easily differentiate between each product and feel less overwhelmed when it comes to making a decision.

So when it comes to starting a business and developing products to sell, less is often more… or should I say… less is best.

Instead of creating hundreds of versions of the same few items, create just a handful and maybe instead create other relevant products which compliment the main product.

If you want to make hundreds of versions of the same few items, brand and promote them differently using different stalls, websites or different size jars and packaging…

Otherwise you run the risk of losing money due to giving people too much choice that they are too overwhelmed to make a decision.

It’s for that reason many people create individual systems to sell their digital products from instead of listing them in a large product menu similar to that of the overstocked stall selling hundreds of different flavoured jams, marmalades and pickles.

Online product menus as seen on many websites do the same thing as the overstocked stall… they give too much choice which leads to indecision and eventually buyers abandon the website and don’t buy anything.

These individual systems are fully automated passive income systems. They sell on autopilot once they are fully set up. You only need to show them to people every now and then.

Creating digital products and setting up fully automated passive income systems from which you can sell digital products, is a lot easier than you may think.

To find out for yourself go to:

www.The30DayTo30KChallenge.com

Kind Regards

John Harrison

PS… People can buy digital products from your fully automated passive income systems at any time of the day. You do not need to do anything other than add more digital products to your system.

There is no ‘manning’ the stall or stalls, these systems do all the work for you.

Here’s that link again:

www.The30DayTo30KChallenge.com

One of the biggest obstacles to making more sales and making more money is not giving the customer enough chances to buy from you.

I was reading a Facebook post by a well respected copywriter and online marketer who said that the best way to increase your income is to ‘ask for the sale’ more often.

At first I thought he was taking the p***, but as I read more I realised what he was saying.

One of the biggest mistakes most people make, especially those who are just starting out, is that they don’t ‘ask for the sale’ enough.

What I mean when I say ‘ask for the sale’ is to give the potential client the opportunity to buy from you with ease. I don’t mean that you personal keep saying ‘so, do you want to buy this?’

A lot of people are afraid of being seen as pushy, spammy and coming across as being aggressive in their approach, but you can ask for the sale without doing any of that.

Asking for the sale is a term which basically means giving the person who is reading your email or article, listening to your podcast or video, the opportunity to spend money with you.

That means having obvious active links at the bottom of your emails, in your articles, in your podcast and video descriptions.

These do not need to be written in any pushy, spammy, or aggressive way.

You could say:

‘Don’t forget, you can buy a copy of my book ‘How To Sell To Strangers’ here.’

Or…

‘Also available on my website, my book ‘How To Sell To Strangers’. It includes the 10 most powerful psychological triggers for selling to complete strangers’.

Even when you share a long post on Facebook, you can add a clear call to action saying something like ‘If you want to learn more or know how I do XYZ, send me a message and let’s book a chat’.

Asking for the sale is making it easy for people to connect with you and buy from you. You have to make it easy for them otherwise a warm lead will go cold.

When you spend a lot of time writing an email or article or recording a video or a podcast, you are creating a lot of strong quality content which is warming people up.

They are listening to what you have to say and they are beginning to trust you and see you as someone who can help them.

To not ask for the sale after they have spent all that time listening to you or reading your content is a wasted opportunity. There should be something which they can ‘click’ or do or somewhere they can go to connect with you more.

Any emails that you send which are not promoting a specific product can also be ‘asking for the sale’ by including a link at the bottom of the email directing people to a specific offer or a page where people can book a chat with you.

Any emails or articles which are not promoting a specific product can end with you telling people to email you with any questions they may have.

Asking for the sale is just as much about opening up conversations with your potential clients as it is about sending them directly to sales pages.

It’s better for someone decide to ignore your links or calls to action than have them wanting to learn more, wanting to buy from you or connect with you but can’t find any way of doing that.

Yes, they can reply to the email if what they are reading is an email, but unless you have clearly stated that they can, most people won’t because they may believe that you are either too busy to answer, don’t want emails or that they email address is one of those ‘no-reply’ email accounts that a lot of businesses use.

Ask for the sale, make it as easy as possible for any potential client to buy from you, to talk to you (or a representative) or connect with you.

Because if a potential client finds it hard.. then you don’t get paid… and that should never be an option.

One of the easiest ways to ask for the sale is to add links to emails. They do not require much more than a line of text and a subtle call to action.

It doesn’t need to spammy or pushy.

To learn how I make thousands of pounds each month writing and sending simple emails, check out:

The Email Secret

Kind Regards

John Harrison

PS… An email a day – or every few days – takes very little to write. You do not need to write thousands of words for each email. If you want to share a long memoir you can also break it up over several emails.

Here’s that link again:

The Email Secret

As you may, or may not know, our techy guy Andi works remotely from home and is currently waiting to move abroad.

He and his good lady are looking forward to three months on the Portuguese island of Madeira.

That’s the official plan but it’s subject to change with ever changing covid rules and Brexit related visa restrictions.

One of the reasons they want to go to Madeira is that Portugal is becoming more and more open to remote workers which means that there is a possibility that three months may turn into a longer stay.

Now that Britain is no longer in the EU, any time spent in any of the 27 European Union countries is restricted to three months only with no return for six months and any longer stays are now annoyingly – but not unexpectedly – governed by independently imposed visas.

Before 2016 we would have been able to go to any country within the EU and stay for as long as we liked… as long as the right authorities were informed.

That was it… that was all you needed to do.

People didn’t need to prove that they were earning a specific amount of money each month or that they had a specific amount of savings before arriving.

Today if you want a longer stay in any of the EU countries, you need to apply for visas for each separate country and prove that you are not going to be a drain on the local economy.

I have to admit, I’m not quite sure what ‘freedoms’ Britain has regained by leaving.

For the younger generations wanting to spread their wings, they have had their wings clipped and have been well and truly caged… which is very sad.

Anyway… that’s beside the point.

The point of this email is ‘working from home’.

The world is changing and I am happy to say that many countries are realising that they need to open their doors to remote workers and digital nomads.

They need people who work from home and who earn their money online no matter what country is the source of their income.

This is fantastic news for people who earn or want to earn money in numerous vocations such as writers, website builders, social media managers, graphic designers, online support, virtual assistants and many more.

There is no reason today that a person has to earn his living by working for a local company alone.

What matters more is what they do with the money they earn.

Take Spain for example:

One of the Spanish rules concerning remote workers and digital nomads who are not EU citizens is that they had to work for a Spanish company.

That is no good for Andi or for thousands of other remote workers who work for companies which are not Spanish.

The last time I checked, Rotherham is in South Yorkshire and not on the Costas.

Fortunately, Spain is now taking steps to change that because they – just like Italy, Croatia, and several other countries – would like to repopulate quiet towns and villages which have seen a population decline over the years where their youngsters have moved to cities to find work.

By allowing remote workers and digital nomads to move to the country and live in these smaller towns and villages, local bars, shops and restaurants will benefit from the money they spend.

Remote workers and digital nomads are now seen as playing a vital role in the revival of dying rural communities.

Spain and Italy are setting up schemes where they will ‘pay’ remote workers to move to these smaller communities as a way to repopulate them.

Similar to the £1 homes scheme as seen in Liverpool a couple of years back, many countries are creating financial incentives and removing barriers in a bid to attract remote and home based workers.

They are hoping that many young remote workers and digital nomads will either bring their young families with them or meet locals or other single remote workers, have children and settle down in the country.

Andi is too old for some of these schemes and is not planning on having any more children, but the fact that they are making moves now to allow remote workers into their countries without the restrictive need to work for a local company is brilliant.

For anyone who wants to travel, or wants to live abroad, even if it is only for a few months at a time – being able to earn money as soon as you land is a must.

It’s a freedom previous generations could only dream of.

Only owners of large established businesses with staff who do the majority of the work could travel while still earning money.

Today, anyone can travel and earn money thanks to the internet.

Andi’s reason for becoming a remote worker was so that he could become a digital nomad and as soon as he landed in another country, he was already working and earning.

He wanted to hit the floor running as they say.

The idea of having to find work locally and take ‘any old job’ that was available horrified him. He didn’t want to spend his time doing ‘any old crappy job!’

He didn’t want to work in bars, pick fruit, or work in a factory.

After spending over twenty years in the building industry, he didn’t fancy finding work as a carpenter on a hot building site or have to start finding clients again.

He wanted to walk into an apartment, plug in his laptop and start working… which he can now do.

Thanks to developing a series of new skills, Andi can travel and earn money in any country which will allow him in for any length of time.

Some countries such as Bermuda have developed special year-long visas for digital nomads but the annual earning requirement is higher than other places.

Requirements vary from country to country.

The number of countries which are welcoming digital nomads is growing now that it is become more and more obvious that local economies can benefit from people who earn money from external sources.

The recent lockdowns have shown that a lot of people can work and earn money from home without causing society to collapse… in fact the opposite happened.

Because so many people were able to carry on working from home, many businesses were able to continue as normal… or at least were able to offer a degree of service to their customers and clients.

Many businesses were saved from a full shut down thanks to many of their workers being able to work online from home.

As I say, this is a changing world and the internet has become completely entwined into the way we work and earn.

The good news is that you do not have to actually ‘work’ to earn money online.

If you wanted to move abroad or enjoy an extended holiday without it costing you an arm and a leg, you can make money online in so many different ways today.

For many countries, the requirements for staying within their borders for any length of time is that you can afford to stay there without being drain on their economy.

Proving that you have a specific income amount each month is often enough to get you a visa.

Countries don’t want outsiders coming in and taking their money so as long as you can show that you are making enough money each month and can ‘pay your way’ without handouts, you should be good.

Making money trading the financial markets is a great way to make money no matter which country you are in.

There are traders in all countries and it is seen as an acceptable and legitimate way to make money.

Our friend Kate Davis makes between £750 and £1,725 each month trading the financial markets… and she makes her money while she works out each morning in her home gym before going to work.

It’s just her and her phone.

This is something anyone can learn to do… and they can do it anywhere as long as the mobile phone app used has a good connection to the internet.

That is all you need… well, that and a small investment to get started with.

If you would like to learn exactly what Kate does to make up to £1,725 each month, go to:

www.TreadmillTrader.co.uk

Kind Regards

John Harrison

PS… Since her first profits during lockdown, Kate has earned over £20,000 (as of September 2021… it’s probably a lot more than that now).

That’s over £1,000 a month.. oh and it’s TAX FREE too.

Here’s that link again:

www.TreadmillTrader.co.uk

The reason why I strongly dislike Multi Level Marketing (MLM) and Network Marketing (NM) systems is that the people who join don’t actually earn anything or benefit from them in any shape or form.

The only people who make any money are those who are at the top of teams.

Ultimately, the only people who win big are those sitting at the top of the pyramid.

In 2019 there were roughly 116 million people globally signed up to either a MLM or a NM business including around 400,000 people in the UK.

Less than 1% of those people actually made any money.

In the documentary Secrets of the Multi-Level Millionaires, (On the BBC iPlayer which I highly recommend watching), BBC investigator journalist Ellie Flynn went undercover to learn more about Younique and Nu Skin, two cosmetic and lifestyle MLM & NM networks aimed mainly at women.

She discovered that out of 1.23 million people who had signed up to Younique, only 0.02% of presenters (the name Younique give to members) achieved top earnings.

That is just 240 people… out of 1.23 million!

She also discovered that in 2017, Nu Skin had 90,079 active distributors (the name Nu kin give to members) across Europe, Africa and the Middle East and that 89.2% of them made no money and only 1.09% made around £870 a month.

If a distributor was working full time that would actually be less than the UK minimum wage.

Only 36 people (0.04%) were earning around the £18K a month which is heavily pushed as an incentive to get people to join the Nu Skin family.

Both networks ‘sell’ their incredibly overpriced products to the team members and all team members then need to sell the company products to the people they recruit.

But selling products is not the way members make money.

The whole focus of these companies is to recruit more members, something which they do not talk about much until they get you inside the network.

The members believe that they are ‘representatives’ of the company and believe that they are ‘building their own business’ within the business.

They see themselves as ‘entrepreneurs’ when in reality, they are actually the ‘customer’.

Why do they think they are entrepreneurs who are building their own business within an established framework similar to a franchise?

Because they are told that!

A lot of the MLM & NM training focuses on mindset and empowerment.

They organise big events where members are encouraged to buy tickets and meet up with thousands of other ‘entrepreneurs’ where speakers on large stages with flashing lights and big video screens encourage members to ditch toxic friends and family who question their decision to join the network.

The three main points these events focus on are:

1. Developing an empowered mindset: Basically they are preventing you from thinking about leaving by insisting that if you are not making money then you are being held back by a negative outlook… which can be changed.
2. Ignore others: They repeatedly tell members that they are on an incredible journey to wealth and that they are entrepreneurs building a business and that they should ditch anyone who questions what they do. Including close friends and family.
3. Recruitment: The main focus of all MLM & NM companies is to get new members and they talk and teach more about that than actually selling the ‘products’. The reason for that is that the network itself is the ‘product’ and the members are the ‘customers’.

There are seminars where you learn useful information…

Then there are seminars which are very reminiscent of the large gatherings for evangelic preachers such as Billy Graham where they request people to ‘hand over money to gain entry to the house of God’.

One clip in the Secrets of the MLM Millionaires documentary had the company founder named alongside Jesus as one of the ‘most important people in history’ at one of their large gatherings!

Interestingly the global capital of MLM businesses is Utah in the USA, the spiritual home of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints aka The Mormons with over 100 MLM businesses founded there.

So what does that tell you?

With MLM and NM, you are not entering the house of God; you are entering a world where you are rich and living a life of freedom… or so they promise.

In reality, people lose a lot of money when they join an MLM or NM business and are left with absolutely nothing when they leave.

The Empower Network (there’s that word again!), a MLM style business that focused on building an internet business collapsed when it hit the point that it was no longer sustainable.

Pyramid and ponzi schemes collapse and imploded when they hit saturation point.

Members paid to join the Empowered Network and for that they got access to internet marketing training which focused heavily on getting new people to join the network.

Members would get a website built on the Empower Networks network with all of the Empower Network graphics.

Basically putting it, people were paying to advertise the Empower Network and they were actively seeking out new members for the Empower Network hoping to make money when really all they were doing was putting more money into the pockets of the two Dave’s who set it up.

Members will always lose out, while they are out there talking about the network, trying to recruit new blood, people who are curious will go and do a quick Google search and what do you think they will find?

They’ll find the main company website which has landed a high ranking position in the search results thanks to its age and all of the other websites pointing back to it.

This means that a lot of people who decide to join will actually join via the main website and side step the recruiters who have been busy trying to persuade people to join.

MLM and NM are completely geared up to make money for the business owner and a select few of people who joined at time of its inception.

What happens when people leave the network and stop paying?

They lose all of the products and services they were using and promoting.

That includes any website they may have had, all of the content they were adding to the website which they shared across the internet.

They are left with nothing!

No business, no website, no content… absolutely nothing!

In the documentary Secrets of the Multi-Level Millionaires one woman was heard saying that she had spent £1,800 and was left with nothing.

She had earned nothing back and had nothing whatsoever to show for her money.

This is why I believe that you should either build your own business, create your own products or look into something which you can do for yourself such as sports trading or trading the markets.

Used correctly, £1,800 would pay for the creation of several fully automated passive income systems that makes sales for you online while you are busy doing other things.

It would build an email list to which you could promote yours or other people’s products where you make money whenever a sale is made.

It would be a decent sized bank for trading football matches or horse races in Betfair.

It would also be a decent sized bank for trading the financial markets.

There is no reason why you cannot take £1,800 and double it within a few short months… maybe less.

You should be able to take £1,800 and use it as a start to make a lot of money… as long as you do not invest it into any MLM or NM business because as we have seen, you will be left with nothing.

Starting with a lot less than £1,800, our friend Kate Davis now makes between £750 and £1,725 each month trading the financial markets.

Strictly no MLM or NM involved here!

She makes the money while she workouts each morning in her home gym before going to work.

It’s just her and her phone.

If you would like to learn exactly what she does, go to:

www.TreadmillTrader.co.uk

Kind Regards

John Harrison

PS… Since her first profits during lockdown, Kate has earned over £20,000 (as of September 2021… it’s probably a lot more than that now).

That’s over £1,000 a month.. oh and it’s TAX FREE too.

Here’s that link again:

www.TreadmillTrader.co.uk

If you have never heard of Call the Midwife – and I’d be surprised if you haven’t, it is a popular long running television series created by the BBC based on the memoirs of Jennifer Worth.

It’s set in the East End of London during the 1950’s and 1960’s where Jennifer worked as a midwife.

Jennifer wrote three books about  her life during that time and what she had experienced and witnessed over the years working as a midwife and nurse.

The television show follows the lives of a small group of NHS midwives who live and work with a group of nuns who were also trained nurses and midwives.

It’s a beautifully made show packed full of nostalgia. It’s full of great uplifting stories, but it also tackles a lot of hard to watch painful themes.

Call The Midwife is well known to lubricate the eye sockets. Every week people are left weeping while watching the show.

On a Sunday evening after the show has ended social media is awash with people saying how much they cried watching the show.

The really sad part of the Call the Midwife story is that Jennifer Worth died the year before the show hit our screens. Unfortunately she never got to watch the show or see how popular it has become.

Another show that is getting rave reviews lately is The Responder starring Martin Freeman.

Martin plays Chris Carson, a police officer in Liverpool, who is spiralling into chaos trying to keep his mind focused on the job while trying to save the life of a girl who stole a big bag of drugs worth hundreds of thousands of pounds from a drug dealer who just happened to be an old friend of Chris’.

Chris is caught between the two worlds of trying to be a good and decent cop while also trying to find the missing drugs for the bad guys to prevent harm coming to him, his family and the young woman who stole them.

Martin Freeman’s performance as the crisis-stricken and morally compromised police officer has been hailed as one of the best with many calling for him to win a BAFTA award.

So why am I telling you this?

The story was written by ex-police officer Tony Schumacher who just like Jennifer Worth, drew on years of personal experiences.

The story is fiction and not an actual series of memoirs but the fact remains, The Responder was based on a series of actual life events.

Another incredibly popular and long running BBC series is Silent Witness. Silent Witness began in 1996 and has been running ever since.

Again, this is a show which was originally based on real life experiences as the creator Nigel McCrery was a former murder squad detective from Nottingham.

Nigel also went on to create New Tricks, another BBC detective series.

Drawing on his knowledge as a murder detective and his time spent working with forensic pathologists; Nigel created a factually accurate show which captured people’s attention and has lasted an incredible 26 years.

You may be wondering where I am going with this.

People’s real life stories and real world experiences are interesting to other people. People love watching true stories and learning about history and other people.

You yourself may have more than enough real life experiences to create a book which could quite easily make you money… and possibly change your life.

If you yourself have not had a career as exciting or varied as a midwife, police officer or murder squad detective, you have eyes and ears to record what is happing in the world around you.

The people I’ve already mentioned above are chroniclers.

They are recorders of history.

They put down on paper the events that are happening around them then they either publish those records as memoirs, social observations or fictitious stories.

Is keeping a daily diary a good idea for you?

A lot of people laugh at the idea of keeping a diary.

They think of books such as The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 ¾, or The Diary of a Wimpy Kid, but the truth is, a diary is a collection of daily records which grow into complete books of history.

A history which you can publish for the world to enjoy.

Some people like to use traditional diaries because it feels more personal and special to them, whereas others prefer to publish their diary entries online as part of a blog.

The bestselling book and popular television series The Secret Diary of a Call Girl is another set of real life memoirs which was originally published online as a diary blog.

Personally I think writing a diary either online as a blog for the world to see or as a collection of Word or Google documents is better because you can work with them better.

If you use a traditional diary, you’ll need to transfer all those pages to the computer if you wish to use them as part of a book or product and that can be a bit of a ball ache.

Keeping with the online theme, your memoirs can be published to a website as blog posts AND they can be used as email content.

Maybe your memoirs can be used as an exclusive email newsletter instead as a way to grow an email list… and as we know, having an email list is a profitable thing to have.

An email list is like having your own personal cash machine. You can promote products and services to the people on your list and earn money when people buy.

Your emails can become your diary entries… and your diary entries become your emails.

You write your diary entry into a Word document, copy it over to your chosen email service and then hit send.

Write one diary entry email a day and you will have 365 entries after one year. That is more than enough content for a book or two… and who knows where that will lead to once they have been published.

If you would like to know more about how to make money using email, go to:

The Email Secret

Kind Regards

John Harrison

PS… An email a day – or every few days – takes very little to write. You do not need to write thousands of words for each email. If you want to share a long memoir you can also break it up over several emails.

Here’s that link again:

The Email Secret

I would like to ask you to de me a favour but before I do, I want to share with you the story of the woman who woke up to find a mural painted on the side of her house.

Nickie Hadley from Hyde in Greater Manchester only realised that she had a mural on the side of her house when she looked out of her window and saw neighbours looking at it.

When they waved at her and shouted ‘we love it’, Ms Hadley decided to investigate.

Ms Hadley lives in an area which has a lot of natural beauty which is also earmarked for 2,000 new homes.

She is part of a group opposing the plans and in a local Facebook group set up to discuss the plans she said that she had a wall which if anyone wanted to place a protest poster on it, they could.

She never expected to find a piece of protest art painted to the wall.

As part of an interview with the Manchester Evening News, Ms Hadley said: “It’s always easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission!”

The artwork depicts a young boy pulling a barrow full of bricks with an aeroplane flying above pulling a “save our green belt” banner.

The artist responsible for the stencil style artwork is known locally as ‘Mr Eggs’.

The reason for sharing this is to talk about perception and reputation.

The artwork by Mr Eggs is – as far as I am aware – worth nothing. There is no monetary value to it.

But, had the artwork been painted by another street artist known as Banksy… it could be worth tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands and possibly millions.

A recent piece of street art which appeared on the wall of an electrical shop in Lowestoft in Sussex was sold to an unnamed buyer here in the UK and the rumour is that it sold for £2 million.

Realising that the artwork was an official Banksy piece and could be worth a fortune, the shop owners, Gary and Nadine Schwartz, had the wall with the artwork removed by a construction engineering contractor.

The buyer didn’t just get a piece of artwork; they now have half of a shop wall, a few paving slabs and a pile of sand.

What is interesting here is that the piece of artwork which appeared on Ms Hadley’s wall in Greater Manchester is just as good, if not better than the Banksy piece which is rumoured to have sold for £2 million.

Banksy is not the only street artist in the world… many would say that he isn’t the best either.

There are many who are just as prolific, just as political and just as thought provoking… but he is the one who has somehow captured the public’s attention.

Many celebrities have admitted to owning artwork by Banksy which has helped grow his credibility.

Banksy clearly has a celebrity status now and has now become a ‘must have’ for many serious art collectors.

The name ‘Banksy’ is all that is needed to open up wallets.

It’s kind of ridiculous that people will hand over tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands and as we have seen, in some cases hand over millions of pounds to own an original piece of art by Banksy when they probably walk past far better street art on a daily basis.

It’s highly likely that many owners of Banksy art would walk past work done by him in public places and not know it had he not signed it with his name.

The piece which sold for £2 million had not been signed but appeared in a video that Banksy had released to social media of the work he had done while doing a tour of that area.

Had he not released the video, people may not have realised that the work was a Banksy. Up to the release of the video, it was just another piece of annoying street art… or as most people would rightly call it… vandalism!

Most people who own pieces of artwork, furniture, photographs or any kind of official celebrity memorabilia, need telling that what they own is what they think it is… otherwise how would they actually know?

They need to be told officially by others in the know that what they have is an original.

Some collectibles come with certificates of authenticity to prove that they are the real thing.

Basically what that means is that people will pay a lot of money to own something which they have been told is real.

It’s kind of ridiculous when you think about it… but it is really good for those who want to make money.

The fact that people will spend money to own something rare or unusual means that people can make good money selling them the items they want to own.

£2 million is a lot of money, it could feed a lot of people, it could erase or ease a lot of problems for a lot or people… yet here is one person who allegedly spent that amount of money to buy a ‘wall’ which had been spray painted.

It’s crazy what people will buy.

What do you actually get for owning a wall with a piece of artwork on it?

Some people buy pieces of art as an investment. They are banking on the fact that what they buy is rare and are going to go up in value.

But as always, that is a bit of a gamble because in a few years time, the love for Banksy may bottom and it’s possible that no one would want to spend over £2 million to buy a wall. If that happens, you have lost money.

Some people buy art and collectibles simply because they want to own a piece of history and to be the one person who owns something specific.

For these people, the collecting of ‘stuff’ is ‘ego’ based and is all about being the one who owns a specific thing.

Whatever the reasons, both types of collectors will spend a lot of money to buy collectible items.

And this is where you can make money… by sourcing collectibles from one person and then selling them onto a person who really wants to own them… for a big fat easy profit.

If you would like to know how to find and buy cheap collectables and memorabilia which you can easily sell for a big profit check out:

Narconomics

Martin Fanshaw, regularly makes profits of thousands of pounds by simply buying an item from one person then selling it to another person for a much higher price than the one he paid.

He doesn’t simply buy an item and then wait for a customer to come along; it’s not your usual business model. He only buys an item when he knows he has someone to sell it too.

The Banksy wall may have only been sold after the shop owner was approached by a collector showing interest.

Martin sits nicely between two people and creams off a large profit for simply organising the transfer of an item from one to the other.

All the items he transfers are easy to handle and can be popped into an envelope or a jiffy bag. No big walls here to take out and deliver! There is very little work to do and yet it can generate huge profits.

Martin once turned a £30,000 profit in just two days… by simply selling items to people who desperately wanted to own them.

Anyway, if you would like to learn how Martin Fanshaw sources collectibles and memorabilia which he sells to people who are desperate to own them while creaming off a nice large profit for doing so, go to:

Narconomics

Kind Regards

John Harrison

PS… Oh yes, that favour I wanted to ask you about… if you find any of my emails or articles useful in anyway, please share them with your friends and if you know someone who is looking for a way to make money or is interested in changing their financial situation for the better, please direct them to my book which I am giving away for free here: John Harrison’s How To Stop Working And Make A Million Pounds Instead.

While following celebrity food author Miguel Barclay’s adventures on Instagram – he films himself doing anything and everything – I saw something rather brilliant.

In one of Miguel’s Instagram Stories, Miguel was walking along a street talking to his phone like he does when he spotted something unusual in the back of a van.

Stopping to take a look, Miguel filmed something he didn’t expect to see.

The sliding side door was open and there in the back of the van was a full on professional barber shop.

Sitting in the barber’s chair was a gentleman being given a short back and sides.

Looking closer you can see the van’s livery says ‘Trim-it’, which is the name of the company set up by twentysomethings Darren Tenkorang and Nana Darko.

Before ‘Trim-It’ was born, Darren had been studying business management at Sussex and was working a one-year placement at a re-insurance firm in London.

It was at University where he met his business partner Nana and also discovered that he struggled with dyslexia.

After being officially diagnosed with dyslexia, Darren had to revaluate his career plans and after stepping out of the train station in Brighton one day and seeing a barber shop that specialised in Afro-Caribbean hair, his future was revealed to him.

Afro-Caribbean hair is different to European hair and very few high street barbers and hairdressers know how to work with it.

Darren realised that there was a lot of potential customers in and around South London and that many of his potential customers are busy business owners and entrepreneurs who struggle to find the time to ‘pop to the barbers’.

Many of them want to ‘cut and go’ and don’t want to spend too long waiting in reception so for them, a mobile barbers which you can order through the app developed by Daniel and Nana is ideal.

The mobile barbers come to you wherever you are.

Darren has fond memories of going to the barbers with his dad when he was young.

“My dad used to take me to the barber’s in the morning and we’d be there for hours,” says Darren. “We’d watch the football, and he would usually sip a pint of Guinness, chilling with his boys.”

As he grew older, Darren became increasingly frustrated with the slow tempo of the experience he once enjoyed as a child.

“I got sick of waiting for an hour at the barber, especially on a Friday or Saturday,” he says.

“Or it would be your turn next in the queue, and then the barber would go to eat, or to pick up a child,” he remembers.

Darren wanted to offer busy entrepreneurs a faster and more exclusively tailored service, and that meant taking the barber out of the shop and onto the road.

Mobile hairdressing itself is nothing new.

For years hairdressers have been visiting mainly women in their homes, and cutting hair in kitchens or lounges using the home owners own chairs.

Hair dressing equipment is thrown into a big bag or suitcase with wheels meaning that the traditional mobile hairdresser is restricted to what they can carry.

When you set yourself up in the back of a van, you can kit it out fully and you can manage any mess far easier. Plus there is no ‘setting up’ or ‘getting ready’. You simply pull up at the arranged destination and throw open the door.

This is a brilliant business model and a perfect way to take your business to your ‘busy’ customers for who time is short.

You are offering a service which makes their busy lives easier. It is convenient and as we know, people pay good money for convenience.

Why do you think there are so many takeaway food outlets around?

Takeaway food means that people do not need to cook and there are very few pots to wash after eating, if any. Takeaway food saves time.

With the barbers in a van concept, people do not need to leave their homes or their place of work, drive several miles across town only to struggle to find a place to park – which can be quite expensive – then having to wait alongside other people in a busy and often hot shop.

The van barber removes all of those problems.

The person who orders a hair cut or a shave, simply steps out of where they are and into the back of the van as soon as it arrives.

I love this idea.

I believe Trim-It currently has three vans doing the rounds in London.

There are many large towns and cities in the UK where this type of service could easily be replicated.

I’m more than certain there are other businesses which could run similar services.

Nail technician in a van?

Massage in a van? (Not that kind of massage! Although saying that, the brothel in Sheffield did try that once!)

Can you think of one?

Read More about Darren, Nana & Trim-It here: The BBC Article

Kind Regards

John Harrison.

PS… If you are looking for a good business idea which might work in the back of a van… or just as a business in general, I can help you with that with my book The Stolen Files.

In the book you will find 133 business ideas to choose from… even if you don’t pick one, they will give you a lot to think about and will help you come up with your own profitable business idea which you may be able to run from the back of a van!

To get your copy go to:

The Stolen Files

I read on one of the socials recently… I think it was that Twitter one where you can only write half a sentence… a woman who was a peripatetic school teacher admitted that the only children she can remember over her 30 year career were those who were either ‘very strange or a proper little shit!’.

And there we have it ladies and gentlemen… the most valuable marketing lesson there is…

To make a lasting impression on the world… you need to be…

Very strange… or a proper little shit!

Being either of those will have you talked about for years to come.

And that explains how people such as Nigel Farage and Piers Morgan are still earning money.

They are unforgettable people.

When papers and news outlets need an opinion, they go to the people who they think of first, and the people they think of first are the ones they remember… 

And they generally happen to be the people who are ‘very strange or proper little shits’.

Okay, before you panic, I am not in any way saying that you need to become a proper little shit or pretend to be strange… but it may pay to say or do the odd strange and shitty thing if you want you or your business to be talked about and remembered over the competition.

Before you go out and start publicly insulting anyone and everyone or strutting through your town centre wearing a suit made from meat like the very strange Lady Gaga, I suggest you carefully think through anything you try because sometimes… it can backfire spectacularly.

Saying the wrong thing can do more harm than good.

Who remembers Gerald Ratner’s little quip about the jewellery he sold in his stores being ‘total crap’?

It’s a memorable moment, but not for the right reasons. His business suffered terribly after that quip was reported across the whole of the UK.

Gerald Ratner who had built the company he inherited from his father into a multi-billion pound empire was forced to resign his position of chairman soon after his ill-fated quip.

I’ve also read about an actor who is now struggling to find work due to sharing his anti covid vaccination views.

So yes; you do need to be careful with what you say, when you say it and to who.

However…

Being strange and shitty can be manufactured.

I recall a true story I once read where a hotel at a ski resort in the United States alluded to the fact that they didn’t allow women to hire the snow bikes.

I’m struggling to find the book which the story was in so forgive me if I’m a bit vague in my retelling of the story.

I believe it was a paid-for marketing ‘review style’ news article written from the perspective of a guest who added towards the end of the article that she or his wife was not allowed to ride a snow bike because she was ‘female’.

It was one simple sentence in the newspaper article.

It blew up and caused outrage across the USA.

Women liberation groups condemned the hotel and gathered to protest outside… which attracted the attention of the television news channels.

As they say ‘there’s no such thing as bad publicity’ (although Gerald Ratner may disagree!).

The publicity brought a lot of national attention on the hotel… it was publicity which cost the hotel nothing.

The hotel released a statement saying that there was no such ruling and never had been and that there must have been some kind of ‘breakdown in communication’ that day and ‘apologised’ for any offence and outrage caused.

Problem solved…

Apology made…

Women libbers go home happy (well, satisfied at getting an apology)…

Hotel is now known across the whole of the USA…

Bookings go up.

The whole episode was a marketing stunt cleverly disguised as a third person review of a failing which was not actually real.

For that brief moment in time, the hotel was seen as being a ‘proper little shit’ towards half of the population of the United States.

And guess what…

I remember that story… albeit a little vaguely.

One of the best ways of managing and manufacturing your ‘strangeness and shittyness’ is through the use of emails.

I would also say social media, but it’s too easy for people to share and jump on you if you get it wrong.

At least with email, if you get it wrong, people are more likely to just unsubscribe from your list.

Writing and sending simple emails is still one of the best ways to make money.

It is a system which you can take with you wherever you go in the world.

There are people who make their money by simply writing and sending just one email a day… the rest of the day is theirs.

To learn more, go to:

The Email Secret

Kind Regards

John Harrison

PS… If you are not sure as to what type of emails to write and send, study the ones that you receive regularly. Study mine too. You will soon see a pattern emerge.

Writing profitable emails is incredibly easy.

Here’s that link again:

The Email Secret

I recently read a very interesting article about the decline in attention spans and the ability to focus.

The writer of the article started by telling us how he honoured a promise he made to his 15 year old godson and took him to Elvis Presley’s home, Graceland.

Apparently his godson was a big Elvis lover when he was nine and asked his godfather if he would take him to Graceland one day.

The trip was not just to honour the promise; it was to help the young boy who was having a few issues. He had dropped out of school and was lost in a world of social media, porn and messaging apps.

For the trip to Graceland there was one condition which was agreed upon by the writer and his godson… phones would not be used during the day.

Unfortunately, the young lad interpreted that as ‘not making phone calls’ during the day, he didn’t think that it applied to sending messages or scrolling through social media.

As soon as they landed in the USA, his phone was out of his pocket and he was busy checking and sending messages.

After observing the behaviour of his godson, and his own behaviour, the writer realised that people are losing the ability to focus on one thing for any length of time.

People struggle to pay attention to one single thing for more than a few minutes at the most.

Very few pay attention to the world around them. They are lost in a world of screens flashing up messages, bite sized stories and videos.

This realisation motivated the writer to travel the world and talk to the experts studying the decline in attention and the scientists who were monitoring the affect modern technology and social media was having on people.

Let’s just say… it’s not looking good.

Studies show that the attention spans and ability to maintain focus has reduced dramatically. One leading French scientist, Prof Barbara Demeneix, declared: “There is no way we can have a normal brain today”.

A small study showed that a group of college students could only focus on any one task for 65 seconds.

Another small study involving office workers found that they could only focus for an average of three minutes.

What is interesting about those two studies are the ages… students are younger than office workers and are more likely to spend more time online chatting to people and watching videos on platforms like Tiktok.

Is the fact the students have an attention and focus span less than half that of the older office workers proof that this is getting worse?

All the experts conclude that the decline in our ability to focus and pay attention for any length of time is not because individually we are becoming weak-willed, it’s because our attention and focus was STOLEN.

The technology has made it way too easy to be distracted by fun and entertaining content.

What’s worse is the fact that all social media platforms are designed to keep you scrolling and prevent you from leaving.

The Dopamine High

With the constant notification of ‘Likes’, ‘Comments’, ‘ Shares’, Loves’ and ‘Retweets’ etc, people’s egos are being stroked… or kicked… and brain chemicals such as dopamine, responsible for feeling pleasure, are being released over and over again throughout the day.

Dopamine release in people is happing far more often than it ever used to.

Dopamine is one of the pleasure chemicals which are released when people take drugs to get high and escape from the harsh realities of the world.

Social media and instant entertainment has replaced chemical drugs.

People are becoming addicts, hooked on the next fix of dopamine.

They are compelled to check their messages and their socials or watch one more cat video so that there is a quick dopamine release and they can feel ‘happy’ again… briefly.

The problem is that this addiction to dopamine release through the constant access to social media and entertainment, is robbing us of our ability to focus and pay attention to anything else for any length of time.

This is not good for people… and it’s most certainly not good for the achievement of success.

Success is the reward for constantly doing specific things consistently… something which is going to be hard to do when your attention and focus is being eroded away by the need for the next dopamine fix!

The downside to addiction is that when you don’t get your fix, you can become irritable, cranky and sometimes even depressed.

You crave more of the ‘good stuff’ and when you don’t get it, you go into withdrawal.

Basically, just like a heroin addict, you get cravings and start ‘clucking’ for the next fix. This is also a state which robs a person of their ability to stay focused and pay attention to what they are doing.

I have said many times that the smartphones and tablets we have at our disposal, and the social media platforms we have free access to are incredibly powerful tools we can use to achieve success and/or financial freedom… but we have to be aware that they can also be responsible for causing people to fail.

They can destroy our chances of success because of the ease of access to entertainment and the way they are designed to keep us ‘stuck’ in a dopamine driven perpetual cycle of scrolling and watching.

To become successful using these incredibly powerful tools, we are now required to develop a stronger discipline and a mindset which helps us to see that they are tools to be use, and to understand that we can get lost in a dopamine fuelled rabbit hole of pointless posts, videos, and conversations if we are not careful.

Retrain Your Brain

The decline in our ability to focus on the job at…er … at… hmmm… what was I doing?

Oh yes! …

The decline in our ability to focus on the job at hand and pay attention to what we are doing and what is going on around us can be prevented and reversed.

If you feel that your ability to focus and pay attention for any length of time is on the decline then you need to retrain your brain.

You need to relearn what you could once do naturally.

And that is done by taking time out from phones and tablets and reducing the amount of distractions around you.

Put your phone or tablet on a shelf and go read a book in another room where you cannot access it without having to get up from your chair and walk a distance to it.

If you are working on one device, whether it is your laptop, phone or tablet, put the others away where you cannot access them without having to walk and get them.

Set a timer and know that you cannot look at any social media platforms until the alarm has sounded.

Start at five minutes – which is two minutes longer than the three minutes the study found to be an average length for office staff – and increase the time as you improve.

Studying and practicing ‘mindfulness’ could be a huge help in increasing your ability to focus and your attention span.

Mindfulness teaches people to pay attention to the moment and to focus on only what you are doing at that time. It is an exercise and like all exercises, the more you do the stronger and better you become.

The modern world is damaging the attention spans and focusing skills of billions of people… but the good news is that it can be repaired.

If you are looking for a great read to help you with your retraining, a book which will teach you a lot more about life… check out Stuart Goldsmith’s Beyond Wealth here:

www.streetwisenews.com/bwealth

Download the book to your favourite device, put all the other devices in another room, turn off the television and radio, make yourself a brew and read… read without distraction. Train your attention muscle and at the same time learn some of the most powerful lessons ever written.

Kind Regards

John Harrison

PS… Reading is one of the best ways to train your attention and your ability to focus because you cannot read without giving it your full attention. It is mindfulness in action.

Here’s that link again:

www.streetwisenews.com/bwealth