Probably the best self-help book ever written is ‘How To Win Friends And Influence People’, by Dale Carnegie. It was the forerunner to so many other books, courses and tape programmes, and although the language used now seems a little archaic, its underlying messages are as relevant today as they ever were. 

If you haven’t read it, do it now. You won’t be disappointed.

Anyway, one of the quotations that always sticks in my mind from the book, comes from Al Capone (that gives you some idea how long ago it was written) when he says:

“I have spent the best years of my life giving people the lighter pleasures, helping them have a good time, and all I get is abuse, the existence of a hunted man.”

Yes, that’s the notorious Chicago gangster, Al Capone – the man responsible for more murder and mayhem than anyone else in his era. And yet he didn’t condemn or blame himself for anything. In fact, he saw himself as a public benefactor – somebody doing good for his fellow man, and not being appreciated for it ~ someone wronged and misunderstood.

For some reason, I found myself thinking about Al Capone as I watched Heather Mills descend the steps following the close of her divorce case with Paul McCartney. She proceeded to present a version of events that was completely at variance with the facts as they were revealed in the full report on the judgement, which was published the next day.

And you just knew that despite all the evidence to the contrary, she believed that she was ‘in the right’. Like Capone, she believed herself to be someone wronged and misunderstood. And no amount of exposure to the bare facts would sway her from that view.

And to a greater or lesser extent, most of us are like Mills and Capone. We have a high capacity for self-justification, and are remarkably resistant to evidence or persuasion that we are wrong, or in some way to blame for events.

You may have noticed that I spend quite a lot of time, attempting to dissuade you from one course of action, and move you towards another. In the course of that, I’m being critical of what you’re currently doing and laying the blame (if indeed there’s anything for you to be blamed for) right at your door.

Now I know you’re resistant to any suggestions I might make, and I also know you’re defensive in the face of criticism. But it’s for your own good, for goodness sake! And that’s why I do it.

But…and here’s the thing…

If I was trying to sell you something, it would be foolish of me to point out your shortcomings, your failings and your errors. It would be silly of me to point out that in all likelihood, if you have problems that need solutions, it’s your own fault. You’re to blame.

Why? Because you’d reject my criticism, and reject what I’m offering at the same time. I don’t mind you rejecting what I say in this book (other than for the fact that I’m right, and you’d do well to listen!) because it doesn’t cost me anything, but if you reject what I say in an advertisement or sales letter, you reject my product.

You miss out on a great product and I miss out on the purchase price!

And it’s exactly the same for you…

Your customer doesn’t believe he’s to blame for anything, so why antagonise him by suggesting that he is? He believes he’s been misunderstood, unlucky, misinformed, exploited, conned, tricked and misled in the past. He takes comfort in the fact that it wasn’t his fault. So why swim against the tide?

Agree with him, sympathise with him, and then move on to explain how what you’re selling will solve the problem he’s now facing. That way, you get him on your side from the start, rather than raising his hackles and switching him off.

Isn’t this a little manipulative?

Maybe, but it brings the ideal end result of a win-win situation that much closer, so it’s certainly justifiable. A little manipulation can be justified, I think, just so long as it benefits both parties rather than one at the expense of the other…Or maybe that’s just me doing a Capone-Mills!

I’ll leave you to decide for yourself.

 John Harrison

PUBLISHERS NOTICE 

Visit: www.streetwisenews.com/simple

I’m sitting here staring at a letter I just received from a bloke whose been a customer of ours since 1999, and I really don’t know what to make of it. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry ~ whether to applaud his honesty, decry his sloth, or just be so damned disappointed for him.

The letter came with a request for a refund on a product he ordered from us a couple of weeks ago. Anyway, here’s what he said after asking for a refund:

“I would like to say that there is nothing wrong with Property Trading Genius. In fact it is probably the best business opportunity I have ever bought from you. It is simple and realistic, and it is the reality that has made me aware that I don’t have the gumption and get-up-and-go to put the effort in and make it work.

It’s no good me making excuses about being at work all day and not having the time – I know that wouldn’t wash with you. 

The truth is that I am lazy and want easy money. It has finally dawned on me after all these years that I certainly don’t want to work for it.”

It would be so easy to rip this guy to pieces, but I’m not going to. I’ve been working with would-be ‘entrepreneurs’ for many years now, and I know that a great many of them would write a very similar letter if they were being really honest. It’s not easy admitting something like that to yourself, let alone someone else. But it doesn’t make it any the less true ~ or uncommon.

If you’ve found yourself making business plans that never quite come to fruition, or investigating opportunities that you never quite follow through on because you don’t have enough time/money/experience/ skills/whatever ~ then I’d urge you to be really honest with yourself…

Are there genuine reasons why things haven’t worked out as you’d hoped? Or could you – in a totally candid moment – have very easily written that letter.

The answer will tell you an enormous amount about yourself, and may save you a lot of time, trouble, and heartache in the future. There’s plenty of comfort in self-delusion, but rarely any profit. 
 

 John Harrison

PUBLISHERS NOTICE 

Here’s Game Changing Information If You Ever
Dreamed of Making a Risk Free Second Income
From Your Armchair…

“I Make An Extra £170 to £200 a Week Messing
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Visit: www.streetwisenews.com/simple

It’s difficult to say which was my worst subject at school. There was so much competition.

In a previous post, I told you how my artistic skills never developed at all beyond the infant school, and woodwork was another area where I excelled for all the wrong reasons.

Somewhere in our office, is a coffee table that I made for my CSE woodwork project. It’s not the best coffee table you’ve ever seen, but at least you can tell that it’s supposed to be a table. Except it isn’t.

You’re probably too young to remember this, but in the 1970s, room dividers constructed from wood and doubling as shelves, were quite fashionable. Well that’s what I designed and set out to make. But it kept going wrong, and I kept having to throw bits away, cut bits off, and re-plane edges that for some reason, refused to go square. The end result was that my room divider became a coffee table. I didn’t have enough wood left to make anything else, and no money to buy any more.

I seem to remember that the examiner was reasonably happy with the table, but totally bemused when he tried to relate it to the original plans. Even ‘thickies’ usually pass woodwork. I failed.

The sad thing is that I was only doing woodwork at all because of French. Now that was something I really couldn’t get to grips with. Not sure whether I didn’t have an aptitude, or whether I couldn’t see the point (because I didn’t know any French people) but I was just hopeless. I still have the scathing school report from Miss Bentley (written after I’d scored 21% in the end of term exam) recommending that I: “try something else instead next year ~ like woodwork”. Shows what she knew.

Anyway, I was thinking about French and other languages this morning. My daughter is learning French at the moment, and I was surprised how much I remember (despite being so crap at it). I can tell you the words for most foods and household objects. I can tell you my name, how old I am, what time it is, and even that there’s a cabbage on the table.

And it’s all totally useless.

You see, the moment a French person starts talking, they might just as well be speaking Swahili for all the sense I can make of it. I’m sure I’m not the only one. In fact, I know several people with an A level in a language, who can’t hold a conversation in that language.

What’s going on here?

Well it’s all to do with the difference between theory and practice. When you’re learning a language, everything is done slowly and correctly. You get to work at your own pace and in perfect conditions. But when you do it for real, it’s completely different. You don’t control the pace – it’s much faster than you’re used to. And they don’t do it by the book either. They use slang, dialect, and verbal shorthand in their communications. The end result is that it has little in common with what you’ve learned.

And of course, this isn’t confined to languages…

When I started in business, I had a degree in the subject. I thought I spoke the ‘language’. But like an A level student marooned in Toulouse, I quickly found that what I knew was of little use in a world where everything was faster paced and rarely followed the textbook. I had to learn the slang, dialect and shorthand, and to develop an ‘ear’ for what was really happening. The formal training helped a little – but in my experience, a week ‘on the ground’ is worth a year in the classroom.

Whatever, you want to achieve, my advice would be to get exposure at the coal face rather than the book face. There seems to be a growing trend for employees to be pressured into studying for degrees. In the corporate environment this may be a necessary precursor to getting promotion, but I would question the practical value for most people.

If your goals are entrepreneurial rather than employment focussed, forget trying to get a few letters after your name, and get stuck into something ‘real’ instead. That way, you’ll start picking up practical ‘language skills’ straight away. Others may be better qualified and look better on paper, but you’ll be the one getting things done and reaping the rewards.  

 John Harrison

PUBLISHERS NOTICE

Dear Streetwise Customer, 

“OMG, Ludlow 3:45…two horses to back. Bott N Brown WON at 25/1 !!! Average odds taken on Betfair exchange 80/1. I backed for £12 winning me £960. Can you please thank Bill for me.” G.B – 6th February 2020

“Many thanks. Thursday OMG Newcastle 5:30. Special Lady WON 50/1. Won £500.” G B – 7th February 2020 

A couple of weeks ago we wrote to you about The Hermes Strategy, a unique approach to horse racing created by Bill Burrows. I’ve reproduced word for word, two emails I received recently from one of our customers who tried the strategy for the first time just a few days ago.

He just won £1,460 in two days! 

Needless to say, he’s pleased!

Now we don’t get 80-1 and 50-1 winners every day (although it looks like we do at the moment!) but because this strategy looks at the whole thing from a VERY unusual angle, long odds winners come along pretty regularly alongside more mundane wins.

It all adds up to a great second income for anyone able to spend 7-10 minutes a day putting the strategy to work. For full details visit… 

www.streetwisenews.com/herm  

You could very easily be up and running and copying Bill within a few hours of reading about this. Everything you need is at your fingertips.

Kind Regards

John Harrison
 Streetwise Publications

P.S. If you can find 7 minutes a day, you can do this for yourself. 

www.streetwisenews.com/herm 

One weekend, I sent out an email to our customers, promoting an excellent DVD comprising interviews with 12 property entrepreneurs who have bought and sold over a billion pounds worth of property between them. Amongst the replies, was one that I must have seen a thousand times over the years – or at least something very much like it. Here’s what it said:

“Can you please explain why you don’t take the advice of these people yourself and make your money, rather than selling DVDs at £50 a time. Sorry to be a sceptic, but this seems obvious.”

Now as I said, I’ve seen this sort of thing so many times, and I really shouldn’t be surprised. But I always am. I mean, would you ask the publishers of Jamie Oliver’s books why they don’t become chefs rather than selling books on how to cook? Would you ask the managing director of Haynes (the people who publish car repair manuals) why he doesn’t make his cash repairing 1988 Ford Escorts rather than selling manuals on how to do it?

I doubt it.

Now as it happens, I do make a lot of money in property, as well as publishing information on the subject. So I make money from both the business and the information. But that isn’t the case with everything that we sell. The clue is in our company name. We are publishers. It’s what we do for a living. It would be a pretty strange (and limited) business if we restricted ourselves to what interests me personally.

We sell some absolutely world-class products in the field of financial trading for example. Customers are making some very impressive incomes from it, but it doesn’t really interest me personally. I don’t get involved. But there are millions of people who do have a rabid interest (and would probably feel the same way about property as I do about trading) and we cater for that demand.

I’ve never made any secret of the fact that publishing is a very lucrative business, but it’s an ethical one too. If I happen to make £200,000 from selling information on financial trading, and you ‘only’ make £20,000 from the programme I sold you for £500, is that wrong or immoral?

I hope you’d say no…but if not, we definitely don’t understand each other! To me it’s a classic win-win situation. Simple as that.

The purpose of this article…aside from explaining why I don’t always practice what I preach…is to alert you to the opportunity you have to share your own knowledge and make a fortune. Most of us have information and knowledge that would be valuable to other people. Sell that information to enough people, and it can often earn you far more cash than the knowledge itself earned you in the first place.

It’s the power of multiplication at work.

For some reason, a lot of people seem to have a tough time understanding this, and I really don’t know why. If you have any comments or observations, I’d love to hear them. It might help me explain this better, the next time I’m asked the “Why don’t you…” question.

 John Harrison

PUBLISHERS NOTICE 

Dear Streetwise Customer, 

“OMG, Ludlow 3:45…two horses to back. Bott N Brown WON at 25/1 !!! Average odds taken on Betfair exchange 80/1. I backed for £12 winning me £960. Can you please thank Bill for me.” G.B – 6th February 2020

“Many thanks. Thursday OMG Newcastle 5:30. Special Lady WON 50/1. Won £500.” G B – 7th February 2020 

A couple of weeks ago we wrote to you about The Hermes Strategy, a unique approach to horse racing created by Bill Burrows. I’ve reproduced word for word, two emails I received recently from one of our customers who tried the strategy for the first time just a few days ago.

He just won £1,460 in two days! 

Needless to say, he’s pleased!

Now we don’t get 80-1 and 50-1 winners every day (although it looks like we do at the moment!) but because this strategy looks at the whole thing from a VERY unusual angle, long odds winners come along pretty regularly alongside more mundane wins.

It all adds up to a great second income for anyone able to spend 7-10 minutes a day putting the strategy to work. For full details visit… 

www.streetwisenews.com/herm  

You could very easily be up and running and copying Bill within a few hours of reading about this. Everything you need is at your fingertips.

Kind Regards

John Harrison
 Streetwise Publications

P.S. If you can find 7 minutes a day, you can do this for yourself. 

www.streetwisenews.com/herm 

I’ve just read the first couple of chapters of Duncan Bannatyne’s autobiography, and he tells a story there that reveals much about the roots and foundation of success.

When he was a kid, Bannatyne’s family were very poor. There was scarcely enough money for food and clothing, let alone luxuries. So when the young Duncan wanted a bike, it was little surprise that there was no money available to buy one.

Undeterred, he resolved to get a paper round and buy one himself. But when he went into his local newsagent to ask for a job, the lady owner took one look at the scruffy urchin in front of her, and told him there was no work. Duncan suspected this wasn’t true ~ that the owner was put off by his appearance ~ but rather than argue, he did something that not one in a thousand others would.

He set about knocking on doors in the area where he lived, and asked householders whether they would like a newspaper delivered. Over the course of a day or two, he built up a list of around 100 new customers, and then went back to the newsagent with a ready-made round. What could she say? She had to give him a job, and he got his bike.

Despite showing such great entrepreneurial flare, Bannatyne now says this represented his first big mistake in business. That list of 100 new customers was valuable, and he should have sold it to the newsagent, rather than giving it away in exchange for a job!

No matter. What he did showed astonishing enterprise at such a young age.

Reading about that got me thinking about my own childhood. We weren’t well-off either ~ not quite as poverty-stricken as the Bannatynes, but there was certainly no money available for ‘fun stuff’ aside from Christmas and birthdays. So between the ages of about nine and 13, I earned most of my own money on the golf course ~ not by playing golf, but by selling second-hand balls to the players.

Now you might think this is a mundane activity with not much to be learned, but take it from me, many of the elements necessary for success in any business, were present in that early enterprise. I learned about stock, sourcing, pricing, marketing, wholesaling, profit margins, discounts, special offers, negotiation, customer relations, up-selling, win-win deals…and a whole lot more.

Of course I didn’t attach those labels to what I was doing at the time. I was just trying to find and flog as many balls as I could, for as much money as I could get. But when I look back, many of the things I now take to be common knowledge were grounded in that seemingly simple enterprise. Much of what I’ve done subsequently, is just the same stuff, scaled up and adapted.

And I’d have never learned any of that stuff if we’d been ‘comfortable’ and I didn’t need the money.

When I was young, there were times when I bemoaned the fact that I wasn’t born ‘into money’. Watching my own children take advantage of opportunities that I didn’t even realise existed as a child, has given me cause to wonder what it would have been like too. But I now realise that I’d have missed out on so many experiences as well…

And what I’d have gained on the swings, I’d have almost certainly lost on the roundabouts.

I think that’s the same for all of us – irrespective of our backgrounds. Where we start out is important but it’s just that, a starting point. What’s far more important is how we use the positive aspects of where we start out, to get to where we ultimately want to be.

 John Harrison

PUBLISHERS NOTICE

Hello.     

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Let us show you everything about this when you click the link below:

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Best Wishes  

John Harrison