The biggest UN-kept Secret in the business community is this: Go to your local public library.
I firmly believe that the biggest reason people fail in business … beyond greed (which always goes hand-in-hand with stupidity) … is a lack of understanding of the basic principles of “real” business. They fall for the con-games; again and again, simply because they do not know how “real” business works; so, they accept the hype and b.s. as fact and pay the price for their lack of understanding.
Being a farm boy … son of a sharecropper (you’ve heard that story before) … I learned early in life that you can learn anything you want to know from books – and – since I couldn’t afford to buy books back then, I discovered the local public library. In its quiet spaces, I found the world of business revealed and exposed in all its glory.
Over the years, what I learned sitting in the public library saved me from being conned countless times; simply because I knew from what I had read that “real” business didn’t work the way the con-men told me it did.
Today, my personal library numbers over 6,000 books, booklets, manuals, and manuscripts, on every subject about business you can imagine.
So … to protect yourself from the scam artists, go to your public library and read, Read, READ and read some more.
Learn how real business really works
Learn the jargon of the business community (that alone will let you see the “con” in the words the con-man uses to sell his scam).
Learn to separate the myths and lies from the tried and true.
In the business community, what you don’t know can’t just hurt you, it can kill you.
Of course, one of the most important things you need to learn is …
The difference between an “opportunity” and “information.”
An “opportunity” is a deal whereby your involvement and/or interaction directly with the promoter of the deal is suppose to allow you to make money.
“Information,” on the other hand, is only “information” until YOU turn it into an “opportunity” by using that information to do something you want to do. (I sell “information,” not “opportunities.”)
To keep from being taken by the the con-men selling “opportunities” you need to keep the difference between “information” and “opportunity” uppermost in your mind.
As an example, in my mail recently, I received an “opportunity” mailing from a company inviting me to participate with them in the “Used Equipment” industry. They will teach me how to do it, assist me in finding leads, assist me in selling what I find and even buy and sell for me (splitting the profits, of course).
The deal sounds fantastic. If I hadn’t already been involved in the Used Equipment industry, I might even be tempted to buy their $695 plan, but let’s pretend for a moment that I have no prior knowledge of the industry and am considering buying their “opportunity.”
What would I do?
Before I ever invested in their deal, I would go to the library and read (or at least scan) everything they might have on Used Equipment. Then, instead of calling one of the references provided by the opportunity promoter, I would look in the Telephone Book Yellow Pages under the heading, “Used Equipment,” and physically call on some of the companies involved in the industry. I would take the offer from the opportunity promoter along with me.
At each visit with a Used Equipment dealer, I would ask them what they thought of the deal. Since I know the Used Equipment industry, I can guarantee you that each of them would offer to set up the same kind of buy, sell, split the profit deal for me … FREE!
When there seems to be tons, upon tons, of information on the net about a subject, you can just about bet your bippy that the vast majority of it is hype and b.s. because if the subject has that much interest, every petty con-man in the world jumps on the bandwagon with their rendition of what they themselves have read; in order to sell their useless “opportunities” or valueless
“information.”
Books by J.F. (Jim) Straw
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