Dear subscriber,
In 2019…
Jeff Bezos sat his rich arse down and was interviewed by Charlie Rose of 60 Minutes (the amount of time it takes Bezos to make 8 million dollars. True.)
Below is an insightful snippet from that little tete-a-tete.
Rose: Jeff, what was Amazon’s riskiest move?
Bezos: The riskiest moment for Amazon, Charlie, was at the very, very beginning. I needed to raise one million dollars at a certain point, and I ended up giving away 20% of the company for one million dollars.
Rose: Hell of a deal for somebody!
Bezos: (chuckles) A lot of people did very well on that deal, but they also took a risk, so they deserved to do very well on that deal. But I had to take sixty meetings to raise one million dollars. And I raised it from twenty-two people at approximately $50,000 a person. And it was nip and tuck whether I was able to raise that money. So… the whole thing could have ended before it even started! That was 1995, and the first question every single investor asked me was… “What’s the internet?”
***
How ’bout that?
Now, to give you a real taste of how primitive the internet was back in 95, check out this interview with Bill Gates on The Dave Letterman Show – aired on the 27th of November 1995
Letterman: “I keep hearing about this internet thing. What the hell is the internet exactly?”
Gates: “It’s a place where people can publish information. They can have their own homepage, companies are there, the latest information. It’s wild what’s going on.”
***
Ah, the good ol’ days of ’95, eh?
Seems silly now, but back in ’95, if you dared mention making money on the internet, you might as well have been wearing a tinfoil hat and shouting about alien abductions.
So, when investors asked Bezos what the internet was, they weren’t skeptical, they were clueless, like the rest of the world at that time.
So it begs the question:
How in God’s name did Bezos sweet-talk investors into backing an internet-based business when most folks were still scratching their heads about what the internet even was?
How did he get them to willingly throw in their dough on something that sounded riskier than a mortgaged-backed security? (I’m not exactly sure what a mortgage-backed security is, but it sounded good, didn’t it? I just remember hearing about them in the movie The Big Short.)
What was Bezos’s pitch? What angle did he work? What kind of smooth sales techniques did he deploy?
Hold on a sec!
Those are all valid questions, but they might be missing the bullseye. Let me rephrase that: they ARE missing the bullseye!
You see, Bezos could’ve given his spiel to a thousand other entrepreneurs or dealmakers, and chances are, they’d have crashed and burned.
Why’s that, you ask?
It’s a great question.
And guess what? I give a great answer inside the April issue.
It’s a great question because once you truly grasp the answer revealed on page 2 of the April issue, you won’t be easily hoodwinked, tricked, or duped by online marketing gurus (yes, that even includes me, Papa Maverick) claiming they’ve got a “proven” and “foolproof” strategy or sales methodology.
In business (in the real world), there’s no such thing!
You see, what works for one guy might be a total flop for the next.
In truth, when it comes to determining results, the strategy, and the methodology are just the tip of the iceberg. It’s what lies beneath the surface that truly determines the outcome.
Inside the April issue, I’m unveiling something you’ve probably heard before, but hopefully, the way I say it will make a difference. It’s this underlying factor, lurking beneath the surface, that holds the key to unlocking results you never thought possible.
Now, I won’t sugarcoat it – it’s not a quick fix.
It takes ambition, discipline, and a whole lot of grit.
But let me tell you, if you’ve got what it takes, you’ll become practically unstoppable.
Sounds like this issue has some value, Kelvin.
Ha!
To say this issue has some value is like saying Jeff Bezos has some money!
Whatever.
If you’d like to see how to access this monthly premium content, do your due diligence here: https://kelvindorsey.com/mavericks-inner-circle/
Your friend,
Kelvin
Email marketing Maverick
