I’ve got a strange question for you…
WHERE does more money actually come from?
I’m not talking about what whiz-bang scheme you could pursue, which market to chose, or which project to go after…
But what’s the actual ORIGIN of money flowing your way?
NOTE: Before you read further you might want to take a few moments to reflect on this and/or write down your answer. HINT: Figuring out the real origin should help you earn more money…
Got your answer? OK! Here’s my personal insight. I hope you find it useful:
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In the mid 90s I started a (now defunct) association with a friend called “The Association for Money Mind Studies.” Our goal was to research and educate the public about the link between money and personality. In the process I read a lot of books and learned a lot of things about what money actually is, where it comes from, and how to get more of it…
What really stuck with me is the fact that money is only an idea which works only because people believe in it. If you doubt this, consider the fact the U.S. debt is many times larger than all the US currency currently in circulation, and that there’s actually more Monopoly money in print than real money.
The interesting thing about this is that, like other ideas, people get obsessed with money in ways very congruent with their personality. For example:
- To some money is “MOMMA”: A big fat security blanket which (at least in fantasy) will be there to nurture them no matter what happens…
- To others it’s FREEDOM. They don’t want to purchase anything in particular, they just don’t want anyone telling them what to do. (That’s why we have phrases like “F.U. Money”, etc.)…
- To still others it’s POWER. Money is the ability to wield influence over others.
- And sometimes it’s just ACHIEVEMENT… a way to keep score. “If I can net a million per year then I’ll finally know I’m a winner!”
What’s really interesting is that it’s impossible to describe your desire for money without reference to RELATIONSHIPS and your place in society…
Money gives you freedom FROM being bossed around…
Or power OVER other people…
Or a sense of achievement IN COMPARISON TO others…
Or the security that they’ll be taken care of EVEN IF MOMMA ABANDONS YOU…
Money is integrally tied up with other people…
And every dime you’re going to make from here on out is going to come from other people too…
MONEY IS ACTUALLY THE STORED UP ENERGY OF OTHER PEOPLE. If you want more money, connect with more (and more powerful) people.
Sounds simple, right? That might sound obvious, but because money has become removed from it’s source in our society (think complex derivatives electronically traded in the billions)… this simple insight gets lost.
Geeks-Like-Us spend weeks, months, and years pushing electrons around the internet hoping they’ll wind up as dollars in our bank accounts…
And we forget that in order to do that, we need those electrons to connect with other PEOPLE.
You can even hear it in the language we marketers use…
- MARKETING SPEAK: I need more qualified traffic.
HUMAN TRANSLATION: I need more real people who are trying to solve the problem I address to look at what I have to say about how I can help them. - MARKETING SPEAK: It converts at 1.02%
HUMAN TRANSLATION: I can get about one out of a hundred people to believe in me enough to trade some of their stored energy for my solution.
Nobody understands the value of abstraction better than me (you can use symbolic logic, mathematics, and statistical reasoning much more effectively) but when all is said and done, money still comes from other people…
And when you forget that, you’re prone to create a business not only progressively more isolated from your customer, but progressively more isolated from the OTHER PEOPLE who can supercharge your success…
You start believing you should be able to do it as a lone wolf, sitting behind your computer…
Maybe periodically getting together to laugh about how clever your latest traffic or conversion “trick” was…
But living life as a cowboy with no real need for others.
God knows, I’m guilty of indulging this fantasy too…
When I first was recovering from my two million dollar loss (thankfully more than 10 years ago now) I just wanted to crawl up under the sheets with a few boxes of pizza, chocolate, and donuts. I really didn’t want anything to do with anyone… I was so totally burned out from the constant barrage of creditors, dealing with the 20 employees whom I eventually had to let go, and vendors whom I could no longer get credit with.
But when I trace back my recovery and eventually “Phoenix rising from the ashes”, what I discovered was a CRITICAL role played by joint venture partners.
- I convinced Perry Marshall (a very prominent figure in the internet marketing industry with almost a half million followers) to promote literally EVERY project I ever asked him to—year after year—for almost a decade! This resulted not only in tremendous profit, but enough fame in this lucrative industry to support me for the rest of my life if I so chose…
- My wife and I JV’d with a former executive to sell more than a million dollars of consulting services to a Fortune 500 company we were having trouble cracking ourselves…
- I created, built, and sold a 21 person internet marketing agency with a JV partner who managed ALL the clients and labor so I could focus on sales…
- Another partner pays me a hefty percentage of the VERY high hourly business coaching rates for clients I send him, with virtually NO supervision required on my part…
- Then there’s the guy who provides a unique marketing research service to my clients with very little hand-holding (I retain a healthy percentage of profits there too)…
- And the partner who gifted me twenty percent equity in his new business and paid my wife $10,000/mo in consulting income from the $400,000 he raised in just a few months thereafter…
- I’ve got thousands in ongoing monthly passive income from joint venturing to promote other people’s continuity programs…
- I could go on and on and on…
But here’s the real kicker…
As the PPC advertising space has become progressively more competitive, it requires progressively more resources (capital, time, energy, and labor) to reach profitability in a market. In the old days I could launch almost any new market based solely on my research systems and conversion expertise.
Those days are unfortunately gone. If you want to get into a competitive market you still need to rely on the market intelligence and conversion expertise… in fact more than ever.
But the price of advertising is so high and the competition so stiff, that you really do need enough capital to sustain at least several months of initial testing and tweaking…
And where does that come from?
Joint Ventures.
I suppose if I wanted to keep marketing tiny little niches this might not be true.
But when I look back on things, I don’t think it would have been possible for me to compete on the level I am presently in the paid advertising systems if it weren’t for all the joint ventures above.
Which is why Terry Dean and I are releasing “Joint Venture Fast Track” this Friday. It’s a comprehensive foray into what it takes to create evergreen, lucrative, and stress free joint ventures. And how to profit from our mistakes along the way! You can read about it here, but the cart doesn’t open until Friday, so watch your inbox please.
Onwards and Upwards,
The Glenn 🙂
PS – What do you think about the origin of money? I’m really curious. (I’d also appreciate you sharing this particular post on Facebook to get a discussion going below)