The Maverick Marketer Blog

Warning: This is personal (and somewhat long)…

But I truly believe it is essential that you hear the whole story because what I’m about to share with you could literally transform 2006 into your BEST YEAR EVER.

If 2005 was NOT the year you hoped it would be, then you definitely NEED to read every word of this!

 

Dear friend,

I’m on my last trip of the year, at a special weekend retreat with David Garfinkel and David Lakhani in San Francisco (which I’ll have to tell you more about in a minute), and I’m sitting here like grinning idiot, shocked by the breakthrough I just had.

Lots of things just ‘clicked’, things that had eluded me during my years as a struggling entrepreneur trying to provide for my family, things that now come easily.

And I’m excited because my breakthrough can be life changing for YOU in 2006… there’s no need for YOU to take the long journey I did to ‘get it’…

Maybe you can relate to this ‘dark secret’ of mine.

I’m basically a slacker at heart, a happy go lucky guy who would rather hang out with my friends and family and have fun than do any kind of real work.

I’ve always preferred short cuts to following the ‘expected’ path to success.

And, I have to admit, that is been one of the secrets to my success.

By not being ‘employable’ I had to learn how to make it as an entrepreneur… and after a long and winding road, it’s worked out quite nicely for me and my family.

But being a slacker looking for ’short cuts’ and the ‘fast track to wealth’ has also been one of my greatest weaknesses and sources of heartbreak for me (and my family).

• I’ve never wanted to commit to a ‘plan’, prefering to whip up a success at the last minute under pressure.

• I always wanted to do everything my way, on my own, without help from anyone else.

• And, I wanted results FAST, with little effort (even when it just took a little bit more work to actually succeed).

I know, it sounds dumb when I say it out loud like that, but until a few years ago, that was my deal. (Heck, I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that when I’m stuck to this very day it’s because of those very issues).

But… in the last few years, as I’ve learned from mentors and from personal ‘hard knocks,’ I’ve made changes and the more I adopted what worked, the more, and faster, the successes came.

And 2005 was a breakthrough year for me…

I hadn’t fully ‘got that’ until my wife Aimee asked me to give her some ‘highlights’ to put in the ‘year in review’ letter she’s writing that’s going out with her handmade Christmas cards.

It was the best of times in 2005 (but it was the WORST of times in 2001).

Maybe you can relate to going through ‘tough times’.

I don’t know if you are a fan of country music or not, but you surely know the cliche song where a guy is singing about how he lost his job, lost his girl, lost his truck, his dog, his six string, and his favorite pair of cowboy boots…

Well, that’s what happened… (I’ll condense the year from Hell in a few paragraphs and leave out the gory details).

First off, I thought it was going to be a great year in 2001.

I held lots of stock in a rising dot com software company that was paying me silly six figure checks and I was responsible for a $10+ million dollar revenue stream for the North American operations.

I was the golden boy.

And then one day everything slid off a cliff into an abyss…

I know. I know. Everything happens for a reason (But it SUCKED anyway).

We were building a house… it would eventually be 9 months beyond the scheduled completion… which wouldn’t have been a big deal if the house we were leasing hadn’t flooded and grown over with toxic mold.

See, that forced us to lose a minimum 99% of our possessions (except for the clothes we could wash with special mold-killing cleaners). Over $50,000 in losses that the insurance company ultimately never covered.

So, literally, I’m trying to run a multi-million dollar ‘day job’ while living out of hotels, on friend’s couches, and otherwise being homeless for a few months.

My wife and the kids were real sick from the mold with nosebleeds and headaches and chronic coughing.

And I couldn’t think straight with all the ‘brain fog’ you get from breathing in mold spores.

Then came September 11, 2001…

I was flying to Dallas for a morning meeting to close a multi-six figure deal in a high rise office building.

Instead, we watched the tragic World Trade Center attacks on 70" LCD televisions in the boardroom, wondering what the hell would happen next.

In my corner of the world, what happened was the dot com that signed my checks went dot bomb and in October I went from a six figure income to zippo in about two weeks.

I spent my birthday on the 26th in my new house (with the biggest mortgage I ever had) with no earthly idea how to pay for it or support my family.

At one point, I remember being so broke that we stopped at McDonalds to buy some cheap food when the kids were hungry and we had to raid the coins in the cup holder to come up with $5.82 to pay the drive through lady.

It was a low point in my life when she asked if we wanted ‘fries with that’ that I had to actually say NO and just get a plain cheese burger instead of the Quarter Pounder meal so the kids could get fries.

Ah, I know, folks around the world who are starving right now are surely not impressed by this ‘faux crisis’ in American opulence, but it was real to me at the time and deeply embarrasing for the ‘former golden boy’ used to drinking $16-dollar-a-glass single malt scotches and flying first class and meeting with CEO’s of Fortune 500 companies.

Well, before we finally put all the pieces back together, our family minivan blew it’s engine and became an instant oversized paper weight… and if you count all the stress this time period put on my relationship with my wife… it was just like living a country western song.

What’s my point?

I know what it’s like to have life suck pretty bad…

Which will make what I tell you next fit in context.

So, at my wife’s request, today I tallied up the following list of highlights of 2005 (it’s kind of like a country song in reverse…)

I am so grateful for each and every one of these blessings (and more):

• In March after a massive team effort (a very special thanks to Eric Owens, Matt Gill and Kevin Wilke), I launched my ‘list building home study course’ that not only brought in heaps of praise and recognition, but also generated over six figures in about two weeks…and a rockin’ list of over 34,000 subscribers. Many of the contributors to this course are mentioned elsewhere here, but Joshua Shafran, Randy Charach, Randall Blaum, Mike Stewart, Martin Wales, Dearl Miller and Paul Myers, added irreplaceable and tremendous value to the content.

• Encouraged by this success, my wife and I built our dream home outside Austin, Texas, with a huge back yard with trees and a sprawling, high cieling interior wrapped in a beautiful stone and brick exterior. Affectionately, we call it the ‘house that my list built’ and I savor having the entire second floor to myself as a home office.

• I was invited to contribute a chapter on list building to the #1 Best Seller "Online Marketing Superstars", by my friend Mitch Meyerson (thank you!) and it was one of the greatest thrills I had all year to buy a book at Barnes and Noble with my name in it.

• All of this activity led to new speaking engagements at some very special seminars and workshops, including one that cost $5,000 a seat for an intensive weekend. I’d like to thank David Garfinkel, Mike Filsaime, Sean Casey, Pauly Sabol, Carl Galletti, Robert Puddy, Michel Fortin, Frank Garon, Stephen Beck, Dr. Joe Vitale, Ted Ciuba, Barbara Drazga, Alice Seba, Dr. Mike Woo Ming, Ellen Violette, Bryan Ellis, Mark Joyner, Frank Kern, and Len Thurmond, among just a few of the folks who’ve invited me to speak at events or teleseminars…not all were in 2005… and my apologies to any omissions cause I’m writing this fast off the top of my head).

• This led to new JV partners, coaching clients, and subscribers, who I now count as dear friends whom I’ve spent and made money with in larger amounts each month. In addition to many of the people I mention elsewhere here, people like John Reese, Gary Halbert, John Carlton, Stephen Pierce, Jim Edwards, the late Cory Rudl, Ken Evoy, and Paul Myers have contributed, often without knowing it, a great deal to my understanding of marketing’s greatest secrets.

• The testimonials started to pour in and here are some of my favorites… "Over $15,000 in 72 hours from a formerly under responsive list…", "a business growing from around $120k a MONTH to near $300k a month in less than a year", "a breakthrough after two years of struggle and confusion to suddenly getting subscribers and making money".

• Due to the increased demand on my time and documented results, my hourly rate went from $250 to $500 and I had to reign in the one on one coaching and consulting relationships to just a select few. In 2006 I will no longer take on any new relationships where there isn’t a JV profit split on the back end… trading time for money… even at $500 an hour is not what I want to be doing anymore.

• After several amazing fast paced years working with a famous Internet Marketing company, I ‘left the nest’ this past summer, walking away from everything I had built up that was tied to contractual agreement, including a 34,000 + subscriber list and home study course. Despite the initial ‘holy crap’ feeling you get whenever you start over from scratch, I’ve gone on to further success on my own steam and expanded my JV network considerably. Lesson: There’s a time to partner up and work with others and there’s a natural time to set your own course and fly solo (I have to thank many of my friends mentioned elsewhere here for helping and guiding me during this transition).

• In all this, me, my wife and three sons weathered TWO surgeries and a broken arm for our two year old, Hayden. What I was most grateful for was the time I was able to spend with my family while the love and support poured in from my list of friends and having the means to make sure he got the best care available to end up with him being happy and healthy today.

• And, I’ve been blessed to witness amazing success stories among my friends (too numerous to list in any fairness, but Jeff Walker’s recent launch certainly stands out). But I want to acknowledge my incredible Mastermind Group (Bill Hibbler, Dr. Joe Vitale, Jillian Coleman Wheeler, Nerissa Oden and the unstoppable Pat O’Bryan), who have been so instrumental in shaping my year with our weekly in-person lunch meetings, each with a long list of successes to be very proud of…with Joe’s #1 Best Seller "The Attractor Factor" being the best known. If you don’t have a mastermind… you need to get one in 2006.

• To cap off an amazing year, in September Michel Fortin asked me to be his Best Man when he weds the lovely Sylvie Charrier next summer… a date we all look forward to with great joy and anticipation. I tell you this because I’m honored beyond words to be asked and because it symbolizes the greatest reward professionally these past few years to meet and become the closest of personal friends with truly generous, highly accomplished and brilliant people in the ‘infopreneur’ business. To give you a visual that still gives me pause, I now talk on the phone and have drinks with most of the ‘guru’s’ who just a few short years ago I only knew from the pictures on the products of theirs that I bought. Friends and family is where the true gold is in life!

• Also in September, my dear friend Ray McNally bought my previous house and moved to Texas and is not only a friend and business partner, but also now a neighbor and it turns out, an accomplished BBQ chef (which is a lesson to my other friends… MOVE TO TEXAS, it’s better here… LOL).

• Recently, I spent a weekend in San Antonio with my friends Armand Morin and Alex Mandossian at their invaluable AM2 Platinum retreat and realized how unique and special those friendships (and braintrust) are to me, and I look forward to a very bright 2006 with the entire AM2 Gold and Platinum ‘Inner Circle’ (I’ll tell you more about that soon… there is a whole other story there, some of which I’ll be able to share with you next time).

• Finally, this weekend, I’m at an intense session with my dear friends David Garfinkel (who is one of my most treasured mentors and friends) and David Lakhani (you’ll be hearing a lot more about his story soon, too. Deeply brilliant guy.). I’ll tell you about this more after I get home, but suffice it to say, what we’re doing here is precisely what has contributed more to my success than anything else).

So what was my revelation? Why did I list out all that stuff? Why should you care?

(And no, I didn’t make Aimee write all that ‘horn tooting’ stuff in the family letter… this is just for you).

Because my story is not about ME. It’s a public thank you to everyone involved.

I didn’t do ANY of those things alone.

It is a story of transformation from doing things the hard way to quite literally living my dream life because of finally learning some lessons.

In a very real way, change some names and details, and this could easily be YOUR story.

As we approach 2006, it’s time to take stock in your life and ask yourself if you are on track to living YOUR dream life.

Do you believe it’s possible to go from wherever you are now to heights you’ve never experienced before?

Do you believe your dream can come true?

There were times in 2001 when I didn’t, that’s for sure.

The important question to ask is "What Changed?"

I did something different than I had ever done before in my 20+ year quest for success.

After years of working in my home office, staring at my computer screen and reading books, I got out there, met some people doing what I wanted to be doing… and all the studying, all my experience, all my hard work and failures all combined into a new life that was the ‘fast track to wealth’ I always wanted.

The trick was surrendering the fantasy that I could (or even should) do it all by myself and instead reaching out…

The breakthrough was building relationships with everyone I’ve named (and many more equally important that I didn’t name or this would be 100 pages long) and learning and leveraging those relationships by serving each other and creating value for ourselves and our customers.

I want YOU to have that.

It truly is my purpose in life to climb to new levels and at each step of the way to reach back to anyone following the same path to come with me.

I told you my story of disaster and dispair because that (among other stories) taught me to be grateful for every success and blessing I’ve ever had (or will have). And what I’ve learned is that the more I help others, the more life keeps getting better.

It’s like a real life version of "My Name is Earl" (the NBC show starring Jason Lee about a loser who discovers Karma and does good and witnesses miracles… though I’d like to think I wasn’t ever quite as much of a loser in the beginning).

To summarize…

• Have a clear desired outcome for 2006 and focus on THAT (write it down).

• Personal growth is all about the little, incremental changes, not big instant ‘transformations’ so don’t worry about ‘totally changing yourself’ for success. Just point yourself in the right direction.

• Follow in successful footsteps instead of trying to do it yourself. I can’t stress this enough.

• It’s all about the relationships and how you serve others…

• Take action inspite of any fear (you should be scared at least a little or you aren’t breaking through to new levels. Comfort is the death of progress).

Now, I wouldn’t have gone on and on like this if I didn’t have some concrete way you could take action on what I’m sharing with you.

I want you to get a head start on 2006 and I’ve found a FREE opportunity for you to soak up invaluable marketing secrets starting right around the corner on December 29th.

Remember, it’s FREE… and if you’re looking to learn about Internet Marketing from those who are successful, you’ll have to check out the line up of mentors who will be showing you the way.

Did I mention that it’s FREE?

I know, it’s sounds crazy, but I’m inviting you to be a part of a transformational experience that I’m participating in as both mentor and student.

I’m continuing to practice what I preach and I’d like you to join me so you can create whatever life YOU dream of in 2006 by feeding your brain the information you need to make it happen.

Take a minute or two and go check this out… I think you’ll be as excited as I am.

Go to… http://www.maverickmarketer.com/nobrainer

That’s it for now (I know this was a long post… but it’s time to focus on your next year, your life, and where you’re headed, so I thought it was worth a few extra minutes, don’t you?)

Here’s magical part of my revelation: I wrote down what I wanted in 2005 at the end of last year and everything I wanted (and more) came true.

Yes, it amazed me, and I wanted to share that with you in time for us both to have an incredible, record-breaking, 2006 together.

Happy Holidays!

Craig Perrine

P.S. Next time I’ll tell you more about the exciting things I’ve got planned, and am committing to in 2006 so you can be up to speed on what I think are the greatest opportunities to prosper in the coming year… starting with this FREE opportunity that starts on December 29th that you can’t afford to miss.

I sure hit a nerve with my last email about tomorrow’s telecourse I’m doing with David Garfinkel.

(You can sign up for the telecourse here)

Turns out lots of folks are struggling with coming up with a viable infoproduct.

I went to bed last night wondering what the best way to respond would be.

This morning I woke up at 5:47am when Hayden decided that it was time for the day to start.

He was hungry… and all he wanted was a banana and once he had eaten one, he promptly zonked back out with an angelic look on his little face.

Little devil.

I could not get back to sleep and anything before 8:30am is NOT part of my day unless I’m catching a plane.

So there I sat, in a semi-daze, looking a lot like a human version of ‘Bill the Cat’ (which you’ll immediately recognize if you are a fan of Bloom County, Outland or Opus comics).

Even though I LOOKED like my brain was a fried egg, I managed to generate one of those are flood of new ideas for products and promotions that infopreneurs dream of.

I hit the ‘zone’.

I could scarcely write fast enough… and some ideas are really only a couple scribbles that I hope I can decifer later.

Now, here’s what most people do with that kind of experience (I know I have).

1) Immediately start ’spending’ the zillions that the brilliant product idea is surely going to haul in…

2) Declare that “everyone is going to want this…”

3) Start working feverishly on an outline or the actual product itself.

Uh oh.

If you’ve taken these three steps, you’re halfway to hades with a backpack full of positive intentions and a snow ball’s chance of ever getting back out with your entrepreneur’s soul in one piece.

Why?

Because the next steps are…

4) Complete product (or try to) after a lot of effort or emotional investment.

5) Go try to find a way to sell this dandy new product… and this step can last indefinitely.

Yeah, that’s when you discover that it’s not easy to write the copy for this thingie or find affiliates or do pay per click or… any of the actual selling parts of the process.

And if you are a true diehard pain lover you’ll ‘keep at it’ until you make it with this wizbang product idea.

Ah, yes, this is the ‘dead wrong’ way to develop an infoproduct that I was telling you about last time.

(There are limited spaces… register here)

Here’s the problem… you’ll probably run out of money, time, or hope before this ever works out (unless you get lucky).

You’ll wander around in the wilderness of unfulfilled dreams, buying every new course, software, or seminar trying to find a way to resurrect this product that you’ve kept breathing only on ‘life support’… only to discover at some point when you realize it’s time to pull the plug and bury the darn thing.

The way to prevent this vicious cycle is to take a different step right in the beginning so you can quickly kill the dud ideas and focus on the likely winners.

How?

You may have heard that it’s smarter to ‘find out what people want’ and then come up with a product that gives it to them.

Fair enough. I teach that myself.

It’s true.

But… the reason David Garfinkel and I are doing a call tomorrow night is that you can save yourself a whole lot of time, money, and disappointment and put your business on the fast track to massive rewards if you follow a proven template whenever you have a new idea.

We’re going to take an idea (and it could be one that you submit) and run it through this template live on the call so you can see exactly how we do this.

Once you register for the call (and I’d hurry up on that because we are not allowing tons of people on) you will have an opportunity to submit any business idea YOU have for me and David to consider using on the call for a case study.

Whether we pick your idea or not, you will walk away with a simple formula (and possibly much, much more) you can use from now on.

Remember, the call is tomorrow, Wednesday December 7th at 9pm eastern and spaces are limited because we are only sharing this formula with a few people to generate case studies.

Register here…

http://www.world-copywriting-institute.com/realityteleseminar

See you on the call tomorrow night (hopefully Hayden will let us sleep a bit more tonight).

All the best…

Craig

 

First Aimee and I wanted to say how grateful we are for the outpouring of well wishes for Hayden.

Just to update you on his condition, he’s really doing much better now and you’d never know he was operated on just last week by the way he runs around the house now.

Now, I promised that I’d be offering a call on Wednesday night that would reveal a proven step by step formula for creating a killer infoproduct.

Fact is, the way most people try to create a winner is simply dead wrong.

That’s why you see dud products launching all the time and people struggling to figure out what they should do to some up with something that people will actually buy.

So I’ve invited my good friend and mentor David Garfinkel, whose copywriting and strategic consulting has been responsible for millions in sales online and off.

Many think of David as a worldclass copywriter and copycoach because of his hit products like the acclaimed (but limited release) Copywriting Templates.

But I’ve sat down several times with David and hashed out a new business idea in minutes because he’s got a mind that can map out entire projects in minutes.

It’s a wonder to watch him work.

My bet is that because his copy has sold so many products from different industries online and off, David has just developed a deep understanding of what works.

So, in response to requests from subscribers, just like you, David and I are going to follow a proven template to create a killer infoproduct live on an exclusive call Wednesday night at 9pm eastern.

It’ll take about 60 minutes to show you each step for how to develop a killer product from just an idea.

If follow this same formula we’re going to share, you’ll be able to apply this directly to YOUR business or an idea you are considering.

Now, it’s over $15,000 to hire David just to do copywriting and I know for a fact it’s not easy to get into his schedule.

And I’m booked and not accepting any new clients right now at all.

So while I’d like to sit down one on one with the folks who’d been emailing me for help, the fact is neither I nor David could ever hope to work with so many people.

That’s when we decided…

A small group telecourse is the only way we could see offering this step by step training without charging an arm and a leg.

In fact we are charging nothing at all for this call.

http://www.world-copywriting-institute.com/realityteleseminar

Why? After all, it’s easily worth $97 or more per person to attend.

Remember, we’ll be revealing a formula you can use right on the call and using it to develop a killer infoproduct idea right on the call.

So this isn’t just some ‘teleseminar’.

Here’s why we’re doing this…

David and I will be offering a workshop next year to teach this formula so we want to get some folks using it now to so we’ll have more success stories when we announce the event.

Here’s an opportunity for you personally…

If you have an idea for an infobusiness that you want to submit we’re going to give you a chance to tell us.

Then we’ll pick one of the submissions and use for the product idea we develop live on the call.

This way, if we pick your product idea you’ll listen as we apply a proven formula and bring your idea to life right on the call.

If I were to do this for you personally it would cost at least $500 for my hourly rate alone…that’s not counting what it would cost to add David to the bill.

Even if we pick someone else’s idea, you’ll still get to learn the formula right on the call and use it yourself on any new campaign or new business idea.

So, we’ve set up a simple form on a page for you to write in a brief 50 word or less description of your business idea once you register for the call.

Go to…

http://www.world-copywriting-institute.com/realityteleseminar

and register and then you’ll be directed to a page where you can enter in your idea if you want.

Spots on the call are limited because we want to keep the size small for obvious reasons.

I’ll follow up with you tomorrow with more details… but I want to get this out to you by this evening.

All the best,

Craig Perrine

P.S. Remember, we’ll be developing a viable infoproduct using a proven formula right on this call… so make sure you submit your product idea (if you want us to possibly review it LIVE).

Go here to register now…

http://www.world-copywriting-institute.com/realityteleseminar