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Winner Take All? The Yin and Yang of Negotiating
Sid had done it. He had convinced the IRS agent to forgive the mistake my partner Joel and I had made. He had spent three weeks with the guy, working mornings, golfing with him in the afternoon, and taking him out to dinner.
If the IRS had stuck to their ridiculous position, it would have cost us $10 million. But Sid’s logic and diligence and charm had persuaded one of its bulldogs to do the right thing.
A month later, Sid’s bill crossed my desk. It was for $85,000. “That’s odd,” I thought. “I could have sworn Sid was billing us by the hour.”
Had he done so, the bill would probably not have exceeded $15,000. Still, $85,000 was a small price to pay for the service he had provided. I signed the invoice and sent it on to Joel.
The next day, Joel called me into his office.
“You saw his bill.”
“Yes, I signed it.”
“I saw that. But you know he was supposed to bill us by the hour.”
“Yes, I know. But what he did was worth a lot more than eighty-five grand.”
“Maybe so, but that wasn’t our deal.”
I shrugged.
“We have to bring him in and negotiate the amount.”
“Okay.”
“But we have to plan this thing. We have to rehearse.”
The Power of Trust
My friend “Roy” is a talented businessman and — in most respects — a natural-born entrepreneur. He’s made several fortunes in his life, but he’s lost them too. As I write this, he is starting over again — for the fourth time. “My life has been a roller coaster,” he said to me over a beer the other night. “And I don’t know why.”
I know why. When it comes to building wealth, Roy is missing one key characteristic. That characteristic?
How to Become a “Really” Good Writer
There is nothing good writers like to argue about more than what constitutes good writing.
In my 30+ years in the publishing business I have taken part in my share of arguments about good writing. Many of them were lively. But few, if any, were ever resolved.
Of course you can’t agree on what’s good about anything unless you begin with a definition of “good” that is both mutually agreeable and objective. Put differently, it’s impossible to have a useful discussion of good if by good you mean “It pleases me.”
Three people read Walt Whitman’s I Sing the Body Electric.
One person says it isn’t any good because the meter is awkward and because it does not rhyme. “I like only poetry that is regular and rhymes,” he says.
The second person says the poem is great because it evokes beautiful images. He quotes snippets: “The bodies of men and women engirth me” and “framers bare-armed framing a house.”
The third person says it’s “just okay.” What pleases him about poetry is what Ezra Pound called melopoeia – the emotional impact of the musicality of the language. “I got some of that from the poem,” he says, “but not enough.”
Such conversations are dead from the start because they don’t have an objective measure of “goodness” everyone can agree on.
But most discussions about good writing are worse than that because the participants don’t even articulate their underlying preferences. Indeed, they may not even be aware of them.
The ancient Greeks had similarly volatile discussions about what constitutes good drama. They, too, had lots of strongly held opinions but no objective criteria on which to posit their opinions. In 335 BC, Aristotle solved this problem with history’s greatest essay on literary theory: The Poetics. In that essay he attempted to articulate what made “great” Greek theater great.
Great Leads
“If you are a copywriter intent on improving your skills, don’t read this book … Memorize it.”
This is how Michael Masterson and John Forde begin their groundbreaking book Great Leads: The Six Easiest Ways to Start Any Sales Message.
But, the title doesn’t tell the whole story. Yes, the book is about how you can ratchet up your copywriting by learning the six distinct types of leads and how to write and use them effectively.
But just as important, the book reveals three strategies few copywriters know or understand that you can start using immediately to:
- Become a more effective copywriter
- Write faster with improved results
- Be more in demand
- Earn more money
Here are just some of the secrets and strategies you’ll learn in Great Leads …
- How to decide exactly which kind of sales lead will work best with your specific customer. Knowing just this, you can almost always narrow it down to one or two of the six you’ll find in this book. [Chapters 2 and 3]
- A “super lead” that boosts response for almost any type of promotion. It’s fun to write … and very easy. But, if you use it for the wrong type of promotion, your sale will simply fall flat. [Chapter 9]
- Why “too much of a good thing” will destroy your sale. Companies like Coca Cola, Apple, and McDonald’s understand the power of this secret … but don’t want their competitors to know. [Chapter 1]
- How to harness the success and power of the most direct lead. It’s the easiest you can write. And, use it for the right type of prospect, and you’ll build a lasting, six-figure income quickly. [Chapter 4]
- How the right words will break through your prospect’s apathy, overpower his sales resistance, and ratchet up his excitement … without him even realizing it. [Chapter 8]
These are just a few of the secrets, strategies, and insights you’ll learn in Great Leads: The Six Easiest Ways to Start Any Sales Message.
Copy Logic!
Copy Logic! The New Science of Producing Breakthrough Copy (Without Criticism), written by Michael Masterson and Mike Palmer, will help you write strong, well-balanced copy every single time.
It has the potential to transform you from the copywriter you are today to the copywriter you’ve always wanted to be.
And … if you’re already earning a living as a copywriter (at any level), this e-book will show you how to write stronger copy, write it faster and submit your final package with much more confidence. In short: you’ll be able to earn more for your writing … lots more.
Take a look at some of the secrets included in Copy Logic! …
- The story behind Copy Logic and how it created a $300 million publishing empire.
- How to shorten your learning curve by half. (Using Copy Logic, Mike Palmer has built an elite team of copywriters in record time. What’s more many of them are earning six-figures because of it.)
- How to turbo-charge your copy’s selling power using Mike’s simple CUB technique.
- An easy-to-use, 4-point copy checklist that will have you writing strong, well-balanced copy every single time?
- An innovative way to boost your productivity by avoiding criticism. (This creative alternative delivers results that are far superior to what you may be doing now.)
- A step-by-step formula and examples of the exact system used by one of today’s biggest direct mailers.
Of course, there’s even more you’ll uncover once you sit down with this easy-to-read e-book (just a suggestion – you may want to have your highlighter and notebook at your side because you’ll have some real “A-ha” moments while reading).
The Pledge
An actionable guide for quickly improving one’s wealth, personal development, and happiness
Successful people don’t sit around waiting for everything to be “100%” right or to be “absolutely sure” they will succeed. They don’t need absolute assurance, because they realize life doesn’t provide any. To get what they want out of life, they set specific goals and put together a formal plan to achieve those goals, one step at a time. Successful people know that the cost of failure is modest compared to that of inaction. Failure means they are smarter the next time. Inaction means there is no next time-there’s only a lifetime of regret.
In The Pledge: Your Master Plan for an Abundant Life, author Michael Masterson reveals how to become successful-and not just financially, but in every area of life. The book
- Offers simple tips to making immediate changes and to establishing long-term goals
- Details strategies on becoming more productive at the office and defeating depression
- Explains why simplifying goals into four major ones makes them much easier to achieve
The Pledge teaches readers how to start and finish projects they have been dreaming about for years, boost confidence, strengthen skills, build wealth, and enjoy life.
Changing the Channel
An all-encompassing guide to making the most from multi-channel marketing
Written in a straightforward and accessible style, Changing the Channel offers you a detailed look at twelve of today’s most important marketing channels-explaining how each one works individually as well as in conjunction with each other, leveraging the power of your message for explosive profits.
Page by page, you’ll become familiar with a variety of approaches, including direct online marketing, social media, public relations, radio and television advertising, direct space ads, event marketing, telesales, telemarketing, joint ventures, affiliate marketing, and direct mail.
- Discusses how to create successful marketing campaigns by using a mix of different marketing channels
- Offers some smart ways to track customer buying habits with a database that covers all marketing channels
- Helps you learn how to develop profitable relationships with your customers through frequent contact and by providing free quality content-not just sales pitches
With this book as your guide, you’ll quickly discover how marketing across multiple channels can help develop quality customer relationships and improve the bottom line of your business. Click to order this book today!
Confessions of a Self-Made Multimillionaire
422 Personal Success Secrets, Tricks, and Unconventional Techniques You’ll Never Learn in Any Business School (Your Guide to Personal Success)
When you follow the advice in Michael Masterson’s Confessions of a Self-Made Multimillionaire, it can make the difference…Between retiring with just enough to get by…or with a millionaire’s portfolio…Between having a job you dread going to every day….or the job you’ve always dreamed about…Between going through the motions, keeping up with the Joneses, and wondering every day if this is all there is… or doing the things that would make your life rich and meaningful…
Between living the life you’re living today…and living the life of those leaders and achievers you envy. Michael’s ideas are far more useful and practical than most of what you see in the “self-help” or “business-advice” markets. His advice is powerful because it comes from his own experience…in the trenches, in the board room, and everywhere in between….
When you use the secrets in Confessions of a Self-Made Multimillionaire, for your business, your product, your service — or yourself — you will reap life-changing rewards. Click here to order this book today.
Power and Persuasion
It takes a rare combination of openness and resolution, toughness and compassion, cooperation and competition to become successful in life. In Power and Persuasion, Michael Masterson challenges many of today’s popular notions about success. The leadership, personal growth, and management techniques set forth in Power and Persuasion are effective for anyone who is interested in getting on the fast track to success.
According to Masterson, publisher of the Early to Rise www.earlytorise.com daily e-newsletter, truly successful people must be willing to do the hard thinking, make the tough decisions, and get the job done. They must seek the help of the best people available, without shirking their individual responsibility, to create a compelling vision of what can be and then sell that vision to their employees, their investors, and their customers. Knowing how persuade others that your ideas are worthy is the single most effective way to achieve power. And putting lots of power behind your best ideas, Masterson says, is the fastest and surest way to succeed in life.
The good news is that persuasion, like so many other important skills (communication, negotiation, and analytical thinking), can be learned. In Power and Persuasion, you’ll discover how to develop great ideas and convince other people to value them.
Based on his own experience as a successful businessman and his observations of other, Power and Persuasion will help you identify the essential qualities needed to be successful in your business, social, and personal life. This powerful guide will also show you how to become a more influential person through example and by practicing the most effective techniques of persuasion.
Power and Persuasion breaks new ground in decoding what it takes to be successful by providing examples of leaders who…
-Don’t manipulate better performances out of people
-Don’t become therapists for their employees
-Understand proper teamwork
-Listen as well as talkDon’t try to control everything
-Create a culture of accountability
-Attach deadlines to their goals
-Know when NOT to be competitive
-Understand how to follow
-Do NOT “Look out for Number One”
Filled with in-depth insight and expert advice, Power and Persuasion introduces a new way of understanding success along with powerful and proven techniques for accomplishing everything you want to in life. Click to order.
Seven Years to Seven Figures
“Most popular books on money stress frugality and long-term savings,” observes Michael Masterson, bestselling author of Automatic Wealth and Power and Persuasion. “But most people don’t like to scrimp. And almost nobody is willing to wait forty years for compound interest to work its wonders.”
And that’s exactly why Masterson created Seven Years to Seven Figures: The Fast-Track Plan to Becoming a Millionaire. It’s the perfect book on getting rich for baby boomers who can’t wait long and younger people who just don’t want to.
Why seven years? Admittedly, when Masterson began working on the concept of accelerated wealth, he thought it might be unrealistic. But when he looked at how long it actually took him to make each of the million-dollar fortunes he’s earned, he realized that none of them took longer than seven years. And the same turned out to be true for many other millionaires he knew.
In Seven Years to Seven Figures, this self-made millionaire and renowned wealth coach reveals the steps everyone can take to accumulate seven-figure wealth within seven years—or less. In it you’ll find real-life stories of men and women who built (and even exceeded) a seven-figure net worth within this time frame. Masterson describes their paths to success and explains, step by step, how you can mirror their wealth-building techniques, including:
- How to cut your learning curve in half by finding a great mentor
- How to safely transition from your current job to a six-figure-plus career
- How to become invaluable to your company and turn your new role into equity
- How to find the superstars who will help maximize your business’s profitability
- How to attract customers to your business . . . and keep them coming back for more
- How to create multiple streams of income to double, even triple your net worth
- How to drastically accelerate your returns by investing in real estate
- How to add at least twenty new powerplayer contacts to your Rolodex . . . this year
If you’re willing to get up earlier, work harder, and start a business, Seven Years to Seven Figures will give you the tools to increase your income, get the highest possible returns, save wisely—and secure your financial future faster than you may have dreamed.
Remember, some of the people profiled in this book built up a seven-figure net worth after leaving low paying jobs, after struggling with credit card debt, even after filing for bankruptcy. If they can go from zero to millions in seven years or less, you can too.