He strolled through my library surveyed my 1,000+ books. He examined some of the titles and saw they weren’t your typical collection of Tom Clancy novels. He said, “Your library is valuable. It’s probably worth five thousand, maybe even ten thousand dollars!”

He wasn’t a “Planet Perry” guy, he had been referred by a friend. He wasn’t a reader. So to him, books were things you bought and sold by the pound.

“Sam,” I said, “The value of my library isn’t its resale value on Amazon. The value is in how much of that information makes it from the books to my brain. It’s not worth ten thousand bucks – it’s worth ten million.”

I don’t know whether he truly ‘got’ what I was saying. But I have a suspicion that YOU do.

If you merely skim a book, absorb 5% of it and get one great idea, it’s not worth $20, it’s worth a thousand.

If you go to a 3-day seminar, get ONE seriously actionable strategy out of it, it’s not worth $2,000, it’s worth $200,000.

The most valuable thing you can ever possess in business is WISDOM. The amazing thing is, people pour out lifetimes of wisdom in books and courses. Why do they do that? Often it’s just so they can feel they’ve made a contribution. Then you can buy their wisdom for 1/100th their actual value.

No matter what problem you currently face, some person, some book, some presentation, some gathering of people holds the answer you seek. Never forget that.

Perry Marshall

Then chop 10%.

Same thing you do when you’re whittling a tweet down to 140 characters, only less onerous.

It’s the 10% rule of great writing.

Chop words. Chop sentences. Nix dull colorless passive verbs like have, had, is and been – and replace them with active verbs like possess, exude, act and prove.

The “Signal to Noise” ratio of your writing will go UP.

Perry Marshall

P.S.: Always check the reading level of the subject line. Below age 12, please.

Word count: 106

Reading level: Grade 3.5 – Age 8.5

Many times there would be 30-40 people in a meeting. The man in the V-neck would always be at every one of them. He never said a word, he just quietly sat on the edge of the room and took notes.

Since John made it a point to know the names of every single person at every meeting, he began to wonder who this guy was.

He inquired. Found out his name was Lester. Lester worked in the middle of a vast cubicle farm in building #19. A white steel beam pierced the center of his 6×6 office.

All day he worked with back of his chair chafing against that steel post as he faithfully performed his job on a desk the size of a TV tray.

John’s boss, Liz, said, “Don’t waste your time with that guy. He has no purchasing authority.”

John takes Lester to lunch. In direct defiance of orders.

“Lester, you must talk to a lot of vendors.”

“Yes, I do.”

“What’s your job here?”

“I’m Logistical Support. My job is to keep track of where the equipment is, who’s in charge of it, who owns it, the spending profile, what programs it’s associated with, whose budget it’s under.”

“Wow Lester, that sounds like a big job.”

“A few months ago, one of our suppliers shipped a fifty dollar part 72 hours late. I reported it to the purchasing department and it cost them a $4.7 million contract.”

“You must know the inner workings of everything.”

“Yeah. I’m in charge of taking the printouts off of the VAX mainframe computer and scouring them for inconsistencies. When I find a problem, I notify the affected departments.”

“Wow, that’s an important job,” John says.

Lester says, “When we get back to Building 19, I’ll show you how I do it.”

They go back to Building 19 and Lester shows him a gleaming new DEC VAX mainframe. He produces a report on the tractor-feed printer and shows it to John. Then he walks John around the computer room showing John every VAX, each model, the entire configuration, the peripherals, everything.

A few weeks later, Liz fires John for spending time with low-lifes like Lester. She had instructed John to only work with “Decision Makers.”

John takes a job at a new supplier, one that also sells to this same Fortune 500 company. John starts taking Lester to lunch every week.

Lester’s information on all the equipment in the office frankly isn’t all that useful. But Lester also has a list of all the program managers and all the players. Lester gives him the names of all the young up-and-comers in the organization. He does profiles on probably 50 guys for John.

He even gave John copies of the interdepartmental newsletter. Against company policy, I’m sure.

But here’s the thing: John was the only man in on earth who acknowledged the importance of Lester’s job. Even though Lester had no official power whatsoever, he knew where all the bones were buried, all the cogs in the machine.

So when John finally got the $20 million contract to sell 944 computers to Lester’s company, how important did those lunches turn out to be?

If you sell complex stuff to complex organizations, there’s probably a Lester somewhere, with a proverbial steel beam piercing the center of his 6×6 office. There’s even a possibility of having a John in your life who talks to the Lesters – and negotiates with the “Decision Makers.”

John is doing a 1-day Rapid-Fire Intensive in Chicago, Saturday May 18. He’s going to tear apart 10 businesses and put them back together. If you meet John’s qualifications, one of those businesses can be yours:

http://www.perrymarshall.com/demolitionman/

Perry Marshall

“…And the company that’ll bring it to you: AT&T”

Well, AT&T did help transport the 1′s and 0′s on their fiber optic lines.

But… AT&T didn’t bring us these things.

They didn’t cash in. They imploded.

Google, Motorola, Skype, Paypal and Apple brought us these things, and cashed in.

QUESTION FOR YOU:

What technologies are we going to have in 2033?

Do you think they will be brought to us by… Google, Motorola, Skype, Paypal and Apple?

Or will it be a new crop of companies nobody’s ever heard of?

Post your comment below.

At the time, when I wrote it, Google was pulling into the lead. I said: The reason is, Google makes 10% more from every click. And in the real world, 10% = 30%. That’s because paying 10% more for your traffic doesn’t get you 10% more traffic, it gets you 30% more.

And the upward spiral only continues to get better.

Same with the death spiral. MINUS 10% equals MINUS 30%.

My friend, it is JUST AS TRUE FOR YOU as it is for Google. Nothing you do is ever as small as you think it is.

A 10% improvement in your landing page will get you 30% more customers when all is said and done.

Nothing in marketing is ever linear. It’s always exponential. It’s why the winners win BIG and the loser’s life is dreary and boring.

It’s far easier to be #1 in your market than to be #4 or #5. Ridiculously so.

You just have to ruthlessly commit to being a student of CONVERSION.

Perry Marshall