Of all the points Altucher makes the one he discusses last stands out to me which quite simply put is "don't be a hater". There are probably allot of life lessons that Ms. Blakely could provide to all us which is why she should be celebrated. People should be happy for her success and the very smart people will study her and determine how to make themselves better because of her success. In laymen terms call it studying from the greats. What great people do you follow?
Via Altucher post here
- Stay motivated. She was reading self-help books (specifically Wayne Dyer’s earlier books) and motivational books since she was sixteen years old. What’s a self-help book do? It tells you that part of the world around you exists because you “think” it to exist.
- She was amazingly good at sales. People shy away from the word “salesman”. They think the process of selling is “dirty” in some way. But the only way to get anywhere is to come up with ideas and then have a strong ability to sell them.
- She solved a huge problem for women. If you want to create $1 billion in value you need to find a problem that nobody solved. Right now, this second, there are about one million problems where if you solve it, someone else will say, “holy shit! That’s so easy. Why didn’t I think about that?” And yet, these problems right now remain unsolved.
- Prepare. How did she do it? She had never done anything in fashion before. So she spent every day at the library and the hosiery stores. She had a full time job but at night she researched every patent. She bought every type of pantyhose. She knew the entire industry. To succeed at something:
- Know every product in the industry
- Know every patent
- Try out all the products
- Understand how the products are made
- Make a product that YOU would use every single day. You can’t sell it if you, personally, don’t LOVE it.
- Cold Call. She wanted a connection in because she was afraid to cold call. But almost all sales are done through cold calling. If there’s a need, people will love to meet you. Cold call right now! She cold-called the number one place to sell her stuff – Neiman Marcus, and they loved her product and took it right away.
- It doesn’t cost much to make a billion. She started with $5,000. That’s it. She never took investors. She never borrowed money. Now her revenues are hundreds of millions a year. If you have an idea: don’t focus on the money. Don’t focus on how you will make a living. Do this:
- Build your product
- Sell it to a customer
- Start shipping
- Then quit your job.
- Never ask Permission, Ask for Forgiveness Later. Nobody questions anything if you have confidence, intelligence, and you are proud of your product. So she just did it. To hell with the ramifications. What else did she do? She sent Spanx to Oprah Winfrey’s stylist.
- Take advantage of all publicity. “if you don’t promote yourself, nobody else will.” She promoted herself down every avenue. That’s what you have to do to succeed. You can’t have any shame. I see in myself that I have a lot of shame in promoting myself that I have to get over. She had no shame.
- Looks. I’m not saying good looks or bad looks. But YOU are the best promoter of your product. Again, you don’t have to be great looking. I’m a weird, geekish looking guy. Who better to sell a website? Or website services in the 90s like I used to. If I looked like a J. Crew model I might’ve failed. Instead I had the look of a dirty computer genius (even though I was thrown out of computer science grad school) and I can tell you – that look worked for me.
- Good for her. Don’t be a hater! 99% of people are haters. If you want to be successful, you need to study success, not hate it or be envious of it. If you are envious, then you will distance yourself from success and make it that much harder to get there. Never be jealous. Never think someone is “lucky”. Luck is created by the prepared. Never think that someone is undeserving of the money they have. That only puts you one more step removed from the freedom you aspire to. I can tell right away when someone is so envious and jealous that they will never get the freedom they want and will spend the rest of their life trying.
- It’s not about the money. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t think about money. But it does mean if YOU ARE thinking too much about money while building your business then either you are not very passionate about the business or you aren’t helping people with your business. What a pleasure that is when you experience it and it doesn’t matter if you are rich or poor. It doesn’t matter because you are not even thinking about the money. You KNOW you are creating value. The money is just a side effect of passion.
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