Lie #6:

‘Winners never quit, and quitters never win.’

~~~

Dear Kevin,

I can directly attribute this lie to five solid years of misery and failure in my own life.

In my early 20’s, I was a network

marketing junkie, and I was hearing this one every day.  And I believed it passionately.

But eventually, slowly, I began to realize that this statement was nothing more than a way of manipulating me (via guilt) into sticking around for yet-another-month of doing something that absolutely was not working at all.

Let’s get something straight:  Some businesses don’t work.  Some enterprises aren’t worth doing.  Some products are so weak that nothing can save them.  Some ventures are doomed from the start, and even if they *appear* to be worthwhile.

Even if some people are capable of making them

*look* successful, you must submit them to rigorous testing (as I discussed yesterday) and find out if they’re fundamentally profitable or not.

When you figure out that it ain’t going to work, DITCH IT and move on!  That’s quitting out of STRENGTH.

Here’s the REAL issue:

Are you quitting out of STRENGTH, or are you quitting out of WEAKNESS?

If you quit because you’re just lazy or not willing to learn, then you’re quitting out of weakness.  Too bad for you.

If you quit because you’ve determined that you’re headed in the wrong direction, then you’re quitting out of strength.  And you should quit as fast as you possibly can, so that you can WIN at something else.

So here’s the REAL truth:

Winners never quit out of weakness, and quitters never even get far enough to quit out of strength.

Just like everything else I’ve been

talking about this week, shrewd marketing uses real numbers and results to judge winning and losing propositions and get down to the real truth.

Back to my life in M L M: I bought a toolkit from Dan Kennedy and thankfully started using direct marketing to build that business.  Actually, that approach DID work.

BUT – I also discovered that the cost of acquiring a customer was way too high and the return took so long.  Simply put, there were many other businesses where the numbers were vastly superior, and required far less ‘manual labor.’

When I was building that business via shoe leather, the true cost was hidden from me, and I thought it would be worthwhile in the end.

But… when I reduced the acquisition of a new customer to a *dollar figure*, though, it became obvious that I was making a mistake.

I quit. Out of strength.

After that, my next adventure was

actually in a traditional corporate job

in a small company.  It was a lot of

fun, and eventually, very profitable.

Tomorrow I’ll attack Lie #7:

‘People need to see your advertisement

6-12 times before they’ll remember it.’

Peace.

Perry Marshall

http://www.perrymarshall.com/renaissance