I received this email the other day from my friend and mentor, Perry Marshall. This message really resonated with me because it reminded me that it is a good idea to fire some of your clients periodically. The truth is you earn 80% of your income from 20% of your clients so it’s good to fire some of your low end clients so you can focus your attention on your best clients.

Be honest with me. Don’t you have some clients that always balk at your rates and constantly call you and complain about something? They always take the cheapest option even though you explain that the cheapest is rarely the best option. They suck the life out of you and prevent you from spending more time with your best clients, who gladly pay your top rates and value the work you do for them.

Here’s Perry’s email. By the way, Perry is launching a really affordable Advanced Adwords Coaching program for only $29.95 a month which I highly recommend. I’m currently paying over $1000 a month to be in his Roundtable Coaching program so you should jump on this incredible offer before Perry realizes what a mistake he’s making! Click here to check it out.

Ted,

Yesterday I got this email from a very upset person:

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Hi Perry,

I’ve been getting your newsletters for a long time now.

I’ve been listening and mostly gaining respect for what you have to say.

This morning I checked out your video http://www.perrymarshall.com/renaissance/menfromboys.htm, and the link to Pay Per Click Classroom.

I’ve really got to say this: if that’s the sort of thing you’re pushing, you’ve lost 95% of your credibility with me instantly.

The other 5% may be lost depending on how you respond to this message.

That page is typical of the get rich schemes, the ridiculous promises of overnight success, that the internet is full of.

Quite frankly: if Amit is really earning $2million a year, then why the hell does he have to try to sell his “system”?  And, if he really wanted to sell it to be philanthropic, then he wouldn’t have to push it so hard with all those ridiculous claims.

Even the page format screams: “this is crap”. There are about 5 gazillion websites that look just like that.  Everything form selling “the sure-fire path to internet millions” to “the latest metal that will solve global warming (buy the company’s stock)”.

Is that what the great Perry Marshall is really all about?

Anyway, I thought I’d give you some feedback after all this time.

Unfortunately, it looks like it’s not positive.

This may be “bye”, forever.

regards,
Russell

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Russell,

Amit is for real as is his program and his income. I have known him for about a year and a half. He holds a degree in physics from MIT and he applies the same rigor to affiliate marketing as he used to apply to his work in the MIT Lincoln Research laboratory, which was his last job before striking out on his own.

He is also a student of what sells on the Internet and exactly how to sell it. Not everyone may like his sales format, but it works and his product is 100% legitimate.

Amit does not promise overnight success in my opinion. The demeaning tone of your email is unwarranted and disrespectful. I have removed you from all our email lists.

Sincerely,

Perry Marshall

~~

Now there’s a few other things I’d like to add, that I did not tell this guy in my email to him.

To the question: “If Amit is really making $2 million a year, why the hell does he have to try to sell his system?”

I did not feel this guy deserved an answer.  But this is the answer:

Because Amit wants to make 3 million this year instead of 2 million.  (After all, he’s gonna have to do something to reckon with Obama’s new tax plan, right?) As I understand, this week’s product launch which Amit and his partner executed superbly, might just about get him there. My hat’s off to him.

It’s not like when a guy gets to $2M he suddenly kicks back and says, “OK, I don’t deserve to make anymore money now.” No, he sets his eyes on bigger prizes. As well he should.

One of my coaches, Sunny Hills, after seeing Amit’s upsell process, said, “Perry, is this guy one of your students? He’s definitely got the concept of selling the ‘premium-priced cappuccino machine’ down.”

Yup, he is, and yes he does. Nice work on applying 80/20, Amit.

Now…. much of the time when people sell how-to systems, they’re disguising things that don’t really work to look as though they do. This is not the case with Amit.

Of course you can be sure, if you’re gonna make $2M a year, you’re gonna need a very sharp pencil and your hair is going to be blowing back from the wind speed. Only top students make that kind of Dinero.  But it does happen and not by accident.

Just because dishonest people use persuasion well doesn’t men legitimate people shouldn’t. Just because Amit is following the conventions of a good sales pitch, doesn’t make him a snake oil salesman.

Some thoughts about the guy who sent me this email…

If he’s been reading my newsletters for a long time and he’s beginning to trust me, it sounds like he hasn’t implemented anything I taught him or he already would trust me.

Russell seems to be waiting for me to apologize for somehow failing to recognize what he thought was obvious, but having done no investigation of his own.

I have little tolerance for people who jump to hasty conclusions and then choose to be rude and insulting in their emails to me or my staff. I told Denise to remove him from our email list. (We call that ‘firing a customer’ around here.) I prefer to cultivate a respectful community of Google advertisers. You wanna bitch, go waste someone else’s time on some discussion forum. That’s what public forums are for… but that’s not what my community is for.

Finally let me address something that has always been a fine line for me – which might be the heart of the issue of what Russell was unhappy about.

There are two kinds of people in the business world:

Doers and Wannabes.

I have both kinds on my list.

I cater heavily to the doers. I don’t have much patience for the dreamers.

However, in the SHORT term, if you’re in the information business, you make the most money catering to the dreamers. Because that’s what 80% of the people out there are. They are people who will talk and brag and dream but never accomplish.

But they do buy stuff.

I have no doubt that most of the people who have purchased Amit’s system are wannabes and the hypish aspect of his sales pitch pushes their buttons.

He could have used a more modest message and it would have been more acceptable to Russell. It also would have sold fewer units.

To me it doesn’t really matter because, either way, Amit is legit. The material works the way he says it does. Amit has fulfilled his responsibility.

And there’s some percentage of wannabes or newbies who do get serious and they do make the transition from dreamer to doer and Amit’s got every right to persuade them to invest in his course.

A year or two or three from now you will hear about them, and their success. The seeds have now been planted.

How about this question: Where will *Russell* be 3 years from now?

Depends on whether he decides he wants to be an armchair critic, or if he wants to be a guy who is serious about researching and implementing effective ideas.

I hope you decide to be the latter.

I would encourage you to study Amit’s sales funnel – it was built by some really smart guys:

http://ppc.adwordsadvertising.com/

To your success,

Perry Marshall

P.S.: I checked Russell’s customer record. He’s been on my email list for 2 1/2 years. Hasn’t bought a single thing. (Just beginning to trust me???)

No great loss.

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Go ahead and see what how much you’re worst clients are spending with you, especially during this severe downturn in the economy. Get rid of them now!! Obviously you have nothing to lose except the time they suck from you complaining about your high rates!

To your online success,

Ted