A little while ago, a number of newspapers, radio stations and TV programmes reported the result of some research which I found pretty astonishing…

Apparently, people who speak with a Yorkshire accent are perceived to be the most intelligent – beating even those using Received Pronunciation…the Queen’s English.

Now I said that I found this astonishing. You see I’m the proud owner of a Yorkshire accent and I have to say that my experience is not that it conveys an impression of great intelligence to the world at large. In America – for reasons that I don’t understand – it gets you identified as an Australian. In most of Europe, it gets you stared at blankly. But in England…

Well it gets you treated as a little bit thick…

And if not thick, simply fair game for reference to every regional stereotype under the sun from cloth caps, to whippets, to tripe and onions – none of which I have worn, owned or eaten. 

I don’t want you to think I’m complaining though, because I don’t mind any of this one little bit. It’s all harmless fun, and being underestimated can have distinct advantages. I only mention it because of the research reported in the media, that doesn’t fit with my experience. 

Anyway, this morning on the way to work, my local radio station ran an interview with the academic who carried out the research, and he was asked how he’d arrived at his conclusions. Here’s what he did:

He got a photograph of a 20-year-old girl and then showed it to respondents. At the same time, he played a tape of ‘the girl’ speaking a prepared script. Respondents were all shown the same photograph, and heard the same words, but they were spoken by people with different accents: Received Pronunciation, Yorkshire and Birmingham. As a control, one group of respondents was just shown the photograph with no voice.

They were all then asked to make an estimate the girl’s intelligence based on what they saw and heard, by giving a mark out of ten. The result was that the ‘Yorkshire girl’ was seen as most intelligent, followed by the girl using Received Pronunciation. The silent girl was considered more intelligent than the Brummie!

Suddenly it all became clear. The headline summary – the Yorkshire accent is perceived as the most intelligent – came from this very flimsy research survey, which I’m sure the average 10-year-old could pick enormous holes in. Very briefly… 

1.     It only tested three accents.

2.     It only tested reaction to a young girl’s accent

3.     There are dozens of different ‘Yorkshire accents’.

4.     Voices have an impact, as well as accents. It’s perfectly possible to find someone who sounds intelligent or stupid with exactly the same accent.

I could go on, but the purpose of this isn’t to criticise the research. It’s to demonstrate how easy it is to get the results of some research or a survey, into the mainstream media – provided the subject matter is interesting enough.

The media weren’t really interested in the methodology. They were simply interested in a result that flew in the face of conventional thinking. If RP had come out in front, I doubt anyone would have reported it.

The lesson for you and I, is that if we can come up with a unique piece of research connected to our business, which throws up some interesting results, there’s a good chance of getting it reported in the media. No scientific or research knowledge required.

The key, I think, is that the results need to be both interesting and surprising. If you manufacture toothpaste and find that 7 out of 10 people prefer your brand to a rival, that’s hardly newsworthy. It’s not interesting and it’s not particularly surprising.

But if you found out that 7 out of 10 respondents to your survey had used someone else’s toothbrush without telling them, then I can see that getting some coverage. It would be surprising and interesting because of the human angle, which anyone could relate to. It’s all about asking the right questions, or testing the right things, in the first place.

This is definitely worth thinking about. It’s cheap and easy to do. All it takes to get a big publicity pay-off, is a little imagination.

 Kind Regards 

John Harrison  

PUBLISHERS NOTICE  

         
Dear

Streetwise Customer,

This is not illegal. Perfectly legitimate. It’s all perfectly above-board. 

Why isn’t everyone doing this? 

I have no idea. Anyone can. You just need to be bothered. Anyone could, but most people don’t, because they either aren’t motivated, or don’t know how, or are too sceptical by nature to believe it’s possible.

If you find yourself having to live and work a little more remotely in the coming weeks and months then now is the time to take a look.

Available now for the first time as a fast digital download.

For more information on something that’s simple, and easy to use from the comfort of your own home CLICK HERE.

Dear Streetwise Customer, 

P.S. This comes with a 100% cast iron money back guarantee. There is absolutely no risk to you to take a look. 

http://www.streetwisenews.com/nardl/

If it’s a clear night tonight, and you look up towards Orion, you’ll see a star at the foot of the constellation called Rigel. Rigel is the sixth brightest star in the sky with a luminosity roughly 40,000 times that of our sun.

It has a mass of 17 solar masses, a surface temperature of 11,000 Kelvin and a solar radius of 70. It’s surrounded by a shell of expelled gas, which was either shed by its pulsations or came about as a result of stellar wind. 

Rigel isn’t the furthest star by any means, but it’s not what you’d call ‘on the doorstep’ either. It’s around 765 light years away. Now, light travels at 186,282 miles per second.

So every second since around about the time that King John signed the Magna Carta, light has been travelling through space at that speed from Rigel to Earth. And the bit you’re looking at tonight only just got here. 

I don’t know about you, but I find this sort of thing fascinating and mind-boggling ~ literally mind-boggling. Like a lot of people I suspect, I attempted to read ‘A Brief History Of Time’ (which is supposed to simplify all this stuff) and got about as far as page 26.

My brain just doesn’t seem to work in that way, and I’m constantly amazed and impressed that there are people who can work out all this detailed information about something further away than I can properly imagine. It’s beyond my comprehension… 

And yet…and yet…many of these same people would struggle to put up a shelf, find their way to the next town, run a hot dog van ~ or a hundred and one other things which other folk find easy. 

You see, we all have things we’re good at and things we do badly. It’s very easy to become intimidated by what we perceive to be great intelligence. The truth though, is that most of us have great ‘intelligence’ – just not necessarily the sort that we traditionally associate with the word.

Einstein has a lot to answer for.

Mention the word genius, and his is the name that comes to most minds first. Because of this, mathematics and science seem to have hijacked intelligence, with the result that the rest of us end up feeling…well, a little bit thick. The knock-on effect is that we somehow feel that the sort of intelligence that can unlock the secrets of the universe, is what really matters.

The reality though, is that other types of intelligence are just as important – maybe more so if your goal is to succeed financially or in business. As impressive as the ability to calculate the mass of a distant star is, there’s not a lot of money in it!

If you haven’t already done so, I’d urge you to firmly nail down exactly where your peak intelligence and predispositions lie – and then to stop worrying about what you can’t do, and focus all your efforts on what you do best. When you combine a strong predisposition with something you enjoy, you have a massive head start on the competition.

You might not be able to explain the stars ~ but that doesn’t mean you can’t reach for them.

 Kind Regards 

John Harrison  

PUBLISHERS NOTICE  

Dear Streetwise Customer, 

Imagine this…you load up an amazing piece of software on your PC or Laptop. It takes about 10 minutes. And then you wait.

Every now and again – perhaps two or three times a week – an icon flashes up on the screen, and when it does, that’s your signal to collect £100. Simple. No rush. No dramas. 

Sound interesting?

You’re probably in a significant minority!

Believe it or not 99% of readers will pass up on this because it’s doesn’t sound like it makes enough money. It’s hard to resist the promise of tens of thousands of pounds. But give me five minutes now, and I’ll show you how these small ‘hidden’ amounts can really add up. 

  Matt Shaw, the guy who discovered this reveals HERE.

P.S. This comes with a 100% cast iron money back guarantee. There is absolutely no risk to you to take a look. 

 www.new-report.com

I read an interesting story about actor, Brian Blessed, that made me review how I’m currently thinking about things. Maybe it will do the same for you. 

Blessed tells the story of how in 1980 he was appearing in a production of Macbeth at the Old Vic. Peter O’Toole was in the title role and had taken a hammering from the critics. One night, Blessed found O’Toole on his knees in his dressing room, crying out in anguish, “destroyed in heart and soul.”

Blessed intimated that he shouldn’t go on – that the audience were only there to see him make a fool of himself. O’Toole rejected the advice, and went on anyway.  

To quote Blessed: “I have never…never…seen courage like that.”  

Now here was a man (Blessed) who originated from my part of the world. In those days in particular, it was an area where you didn’t have to wait long to see acts of REAL courage ~ where men put their lives on the line to save stricken colleagues in mining and industrial accidents.

He would have seen men going to work in horrible and dangerous conditions where they were exposed to health-wrecking noise, fumes, dust, machinery and work practices on a daily basis. He would have seen men horribly disabled and handicapped for life, but being forced to carry on… 

And yet he had become so immersed in the world he now inhabited, that he saw some bloke risking making a bit of a pillock of himself as the pinnacle of human courage.

I think we can all be a bit like this at times. We become almost hypnotically focussed on our own little world, and totally blinkered to the wider picture. We lose perspective, and a sense of what’s important and what isn’t. We overestimate the magnitude of our own problems, and diminish the significance of those experienced by others. 

Reading what Brian Blessed had to say caused me to think about what real courage is, and the nature of real problems. And if I’m honest, I’m a complete stranger to both. 

Perhaps when you think about it, you’ll find that you are too.

 Kind Regards 

John Harrison  

PUBLISHERS NOTICE  

Dear Streetwise Customer, 

I want to inform you of a new Facebook group Andi, a member of our staff has set up for Streetwise customers.  This group is for Streetwise customers only. It is a private members only group and we would like to invite you to join it. 

Andi suggested that he would like to host a series of live online training sessions starting next week. These live sessions will cover a range of important topics from creating the right mind set for success – which will be very handy if you have to stay in isolation for weeks or months at a time! – to the many different ways to make money online from home.  

Including how one man made $30,000 a month sharing untruths. Seriously. 

The reason for doing these live sessions is that if you are going to be in isolation for a few weeks then that is a great time to think about your future, your future income and learn new valuable skills.

It is our way of giving back to you during this strange time and it is also a way that we can interact with our customers better. We can let you know of future products and what we are doing as a business. 

Andi knows a lot about online business and making money online after making quite a bit of it through his websites and various projects. He is the perfect person to be holding live training sessions in the Facebook group… it also helps with him being the only one out of us all who actually knows how to do it! 

To access these training sessions you need to join the group so please click the link below or the image above and request to join The Streetwise Private Members Only Club. 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1326182417580313/ 

Being indoors for such a long time could have you climbing the walls and so you are going to need a healthy distraction. Something to take your mind off being imprisoned within your own four walls. 

This time will be a great opportunity to learn some new life changing skills and ways to earn an income. 

From what Andi has said to me, I believe the group is going to be invaluable to you. There is a lot of great stuff which he plans to share into the group. Stuff which I personally believe will make you see the internet and online businesses in a whole new light. 

To join the group click here: 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1326182417580313/ 

I watched an edition of The Apprentice last night, after missing the first show last week. I’ve been a fan of the show since the first series, and I used to think it was something that all aspiring entrepreneurs should watch. But now I’m not so sure. I think it could give them a false sense of security. 

You see, in the first series, they had candidates who could be described as normal. They approached tasks in a rational (if sometimes misguided) way, and most of them treated the others with something approaching respect. Most had ability.  

Good for reality ~ but not so good for reality TV.  

The producers ~ realising that the biggest untapped audience will come from people filling in time before the next series of Big Brother, rather than entrepreneurs ~ have clearly decided that conflict and eccentricity are what ‘sells’. And so they’ve filled the show this time with a collection of characters who make for great entertainment, but who I wouldn’t employ if they worked for free.  

There’s the ultra-alpha male, the toff, the superbitch, the emotional wreck, the David Brent clone…Get the idea? The end result is great entertainment, and even the least business-savvy viewer gets to believe that they could probably do better than that – which they probably could. 

If you didn’t see the show, let me give you a little test. At short notice, you have to pitch to a hotel to do their laundry for an evening, and need to quote a price. Do you:  

a) Ring an established service to get a feel for market prices and then base your price on theirs? 

Or… 

b) Pluck a price from thin air in the car on the way to the meeting?  

If you answered ‘b’, you should almost certainly be killed, but you’d fit in well with the women’s team. Because that’s precisely what they did ~ they just guessed. But worse that that, the figure they chose was £4.95 per item laundered, which is about 25 times more expensive than the going rate! 

Now anyone who was more concerned with common sense and effective action, rather than strategy meetings, brainstorming, synergy, customer interfaces and the myriad of other corporate crap that these people seem to be able to regurgitate on tap, would have realised two things.

Firstly, that guessing a price in a market you know nothing about is moronic. Secondly, that guessing a figure that is more than the item would cost to replace, just has to be wrong. A child could work that one out.

The fact that one person came up with this plan was bad enough ~ but when all her team mates were so devoid of any common sense that they went along with it…well that’s really worrying. 

So watch The Apprentice for the entertainment, but don’t be fooled by the notion that these people are the ‘cream of young British business talent’, and you could do better. You almost certainly could do better, but doing better than someone who, but for their over-inflated ego and comedy value, would most likely find themselves employed flogging double glazing or toting time-share, is no great achievement. 

For some real business insight, watch Dragon’s Den. There are some numpties there too, but at least you get to see them sweat.  

 Kind Regards 

John Harrison  

PUBLISHERS NOTICE  

“No Gym, No Problem!”

Hello. 

 Now Gyms Have Been Closed Temporarily You Might Be Wondering…

 What To Do Instead?

Well if you’re anything like me, the answer isn’t ‘nothing’!

Over a decade ago now we were introduced to an  intriguing  and  unique home exercise programme. We decided to  publish  it  in  limited  numbers and it created something of a sensation, with many of our customers saying it’s the most effective thing they’ve ever tried…

And It Takes Just 7 Minutes A Day!

This isn’t just a ‘make do’ programme because your  gym is closed. It’s a programme which you can use  for life, no  matter where you are without special equipment, and achieve  spectacular  results.

You can find out all about it and hear from some of the people using  it  to transform their fitness and their appearance HERE.

These are difficult times, but it doesn’t mean we have to give in.

With this programme, I believe it’s possible for  you  to  come  out  of  this fitter and healthier than you went in.

Take a look  CLICK HERE and see what you think.  

www.streetwisenews.com/vince

When musician, Moby, released the album Play, in 1999, it was a critical disaster. Just 30 people turned up for the launch party, and the omens weren’t good.  

So how come nine years later, it had sold over 10 million copies?  

The answer is fascinating, and may contain within it, the germ of an idea for you to transform one of your struggling products or businesses into an outrageous success.  

The ‘normal’ way to make money from a record (certainly in pre-Internet days) is to get it played as much as possible on the radio and TV. People hear it, like it and go out and buy the album. And then the bandwagon starts to gather pace.

But with thousands of artists battling for a limited amount of airtime, it isn’t easy for a relative unknown to get significant coverage. Without radio and TV coverage nobody gets to hear the music. And if they don’t hear it, they don’t go out and buy it.  

At first, nobody was playing Play, and nobody was buying it.  

The record company (and Moby himself, who was broke at the time) were keen to recoup some money from what was looking like a disaster. What they did, was probably done as a last resort, but it turned the record into a hit and Moby into a star.  

They started licensing the tracks on the album to companies for use in advertising campaigns. I don’t know whether they did it purely for the licensing fees, or whether they had the longer game in mind from the start, but the outcome was that the songs on the album quickly gained a massive audience ~ far bigger than could normally be achieved from radio play alone.

Play was the first album to have all its tracks licensed for use in either advertising or films.  

People heard the songs in the ads and movies, liked them, and went out and bought the album. The rest is history. 

I know what you’re thinking though…

“Why the heck is he telling me that? Has he taken leave of what few senses he has left? I don’t have any undiscovered music to license out – or anything else for that matter!”  

Well maybe you haven’t, but the point is this – there’s always more than one route to the same destination, in this case a multi-million bestselling record. Your destination will probably be different, but there will still be numerous routes to get there.  

There will be the well-trodden path that everyone else is on. It will be crowded and uncomfortable and you’re going to have a real fight on your hands to make any progress. In music terms, think about the huge queue of ‘hopefuls’ outside the X Factor auditions, and you get the idea.  

And then there will be other paths, which may take a little lateral thinking to reach, but they’ll be less crowded and you’ll get the chance to do things on your own terms. Compare the rise of Arctic Monkeys via the Internet and word of mouth to that of your average X Factor winner, and you’ll see what I mean. 

It’s difficult for me to be specific here, because I don’t know what you’re involved in, and working on, but let me give you an example from my own business which might explain what I’m talking about a little better…  

Walk into W H Smith and you will find thousands of books competing for attention – and their publishers are the lucky ones ~ the ones that have managed to secure some shelf space. Only a small percentage of books even make it to the shelves.

I don’t have a single book in W H Smith or any other bookstore for that matter (not that I’ve ever tried to get them there) and yet I sell millions of pounds worth of books and other publications every year. 

How did I do it?  

By selecting a different, less crowded route to achieving the same end…selling a lot of publications and making money. In my case, this different route consisted of a combination of unique subject matter and unusual marketing methods, but it doesn’t really matter.

The point is that I looked at the mainstream way of doing things, didn’t like the crowds or the odds and looked for a different route. 

Whatever business or field you’re in, there are back roads, shortcuts and alternative routes away from the main highway that everyone else is using. Once you separate yourself from the crowd, the rules of the road are far more flexible. You get to do things your way, maybe even carve out a piece of your own track while nobody’s looking.  

It’s all the more satisfying when you arrive at your destination, knowing that you’ve done it on your own terms, and avoided becoming a physical or emotional casualty of the mainstream journey.  

Moby did it, I did it, and you can too.

 Kind Regards 

John Harrison 

PUBLISHERS NOTICE  

“No Gym, No Problem!”

Hello. 

 Now Gyms Have Been Closed Temporarily You Might Be Wondering…

 What To Do Instead?

Well if you’re anything like me, the answer isn’t ‘nothing’!

Over a decade ago now we were introduced to an  intriguing  and  unique home exercise programme. We decided to  publish  it  in  limited  numbers and it created something of a sensation, with many of our customers saying it’s the most effective thing they’ve ever tried…

And It Takes Just 7 Minutes A Day!

This isn’t just a ‘make do’ programme because your  gym is closed. It’s a programme which you can use  for life, no  matter where you are without special equipment, and achieve  spectacular  results.

You can find out all about it and hear from some of the people using  it  to transform their fitness and their appearance HERE.

These are difficult times, but it doesn’t mean we have to give in.

With this programme, I believe it’s possible for  you  to  come  out  of  this fitter and healthier than you went in.

Take a look  CLICK HERE and see what you think.  

www.streetwisenews.com/vince

Whilst on holiday last week in Malta, we met up with some new friends who live on the island. Over dinner, they told me that they’ve been together for five years and soon after getting married, they enrolled on a course of marriage lessons.

Now, I really wasn’t sure what to make of this. He’s American, and so it’s fine. But I mean, a Yorkshireman is never going to enrol on marriage lessons is he? He just isn’t. For one thing, it would be an admission that he may be slightly less than perfect. Obviously ridiculous. And for another, he’d feel a bit daft. It just isn’t in our genes.

But as they told me a bit more about it, I could see that there were some interesting underlying ideas – ones that have implications beyond the environment of the ball and chain. (Yes, I know ~ the political correctness lessons aren’t really kicking in either yet.)

One of the things they teach on the course is that there are five different ways of showing love ~ and obviously by definition, receiving love. These are (from memory) kind words, kind deeds, gifts, physical affection, and spending quality time. The theory goes that problems occur in a relationship when the parties’ needs are not compatible ~ when one partner’s natural pattern of behaviour is to show love in ways that the other partner doesn’t readily appreciate.

It may be, for example, that the husband enjoys receiving presents. He thinks his wife will feel the same way and showers her with gifts. But the wife isn’t receptive to this at all. You see, in her past, she’s been in relationships with people who have used gifts as a substitute for attention (or maybe as an apology) and therefore to her, the giving of presents has a negative connotation.

Or it may be that the wife likes to hear kind loving words from her husband, and so expresses her love for him in that way. She doesn’t get the response she’s hoping for, and that’s because in past relationships, kind words have been used as a precursor to the delivery of unpleasant news, an unreasonable request or as a set up for an insult or put down. The words create discomfort in the husband – maybe even on a subliminal level – when their intention is quite the opposite.

There’s a lot more to it, but hopefully you get the idea. Two people can interpret seemingly positive words, gestures and actions in completely different ways – so different in fact, that it creates conflict. Why? Because, the reaction of one party can be so radically opposed to what the other expects.

It’s a fairly small step to realise that if this is true for marriages, it’s true for all relationships – including business ones. Now I’m not suggesting for a moment that you want to express love for your customers – or indeed that physical affection and spending quality time together would be appropriate ways of doing it – but most businesses want to express appreciation to their customers. And it’s certainly true that words, deeds and gifts may be ways to do that.

Most of us would naturally show appreciation in a way that would appeal to us personally, but the message from marriage lessons suggests that this could be ineffective – even counter-productive. I can see two possible solutions…

Where you’re dealing with customers on a one-to-one basis, it would be worth taking some time to find out the type of person they are, and what sort of appreciation would receive the best reception from them. If that’s not possible (and it won’t be if you’re dealing with groups of customers who have divergent responses) make efforts to counter any misunderstandings or misinterpretation at the time of delivery.

So if you’re sending your customer a gift, be at pains to stress that it’s simply a thank you for their business, and that nothing is expected in return. If you’re sending them a message of thanks, make it just that – not a disguised sales letter or a set up for a notification of price increase. That way, at least you minimise the risk of any damage to people who are unreceptive to these sorts of communications in the first place.

In most communications, the best approach (and certainly the one to use in the absence of other information) is ‘treat others as you’d like to be treated yourself’. But there are times when this clearly doesn’t work as you might expect.

I’ll be more aware of this in the future, and I’m sure you will be too.

Postscript

After I heard about this, I suggested to my wife that she enrol on the marriage lessons first, and then I’d judge whether she’d improved before deciding whether to go myself.

For some reason, that was another communication that wasn’t well received! 

 Kind Regards 

John Harrison   

PUBLISHERS NOTICE

Hello. 

Are you worried you’re going to have to “work until you drop”?

Are you tired of working all day, every day to make someone else rich when it’s YOU who should be the one becoming wealthy?

Ian once shared that grief, but now he never has to worry about money again…

Here’s a PROVEN way to make enough money to retire on as soon as you want, never work again and enjoy a fabulous income for life.

And it’s not like you even have to quit your job if you don’t want. You can keep your regular pay-cheque coming in if you’d like while you follow the specific steps of this blueprint in your spare time.


Let us show you everything about this when you click the website below: 

www.streetwisenews.com/wizard

 Kind Regards 

P.S This method works best in times of economic uncertainty and volatility. In other words, it’s absolutely perfect for what’s going on right now. 

Probably the best self-help book ever written is ‘How To Win Friends And Influence People’, by Dale Carnegie. It was the forerunner to so many other books, courses and tape programmes, and although the language used now seems a little archaic, its underlying messages are as relevant today as they ever were.  

If you haven’t read it, do it now. You won’t be disappointed.

Anyway, one of the quotations that always sticks in my mind from the book, comes from Al Capone (that gives you some idea how long ago it was written) when he says:

“I have spent the best years of my life giving people the lighter pleasures, helping them have a good time, and all I get is abuse, the existence of a hunted man.”

Yes, that’s the notorious Chicago gangster, Al Capone – the man responsible for more murder and mayhem than anyone else in his era. And yet he didn’t condemn or blame himself for anything. In fact, he saw himself as a public benefactor – somebody doing good for his fellow man, and not being appreciated for it ~ someone wronged and misunderstood.

For some reason, I found myself thinking about Al Capone as I watched Heather Mills descend the steps following the close of her divorce case with Paul McCartney. She proceeded to present a version of events that was completely at variance with the facts as they were revealed in the full report on the judgement, which was published the next day.

And you just knew that despite all the evidence to the contrary, she believed that she was ‘in the right’. Like Capone, she believed herself to be someone wronged and misunderstood. And no amount of exposure to the bare facts would sway her from that view.

And to a greater or lesser extent, most of us are like Mills and Capone. We have a high capacity for self-justification, and are remarkably resistant to evidence or persuasion that we are wrong, or in some way to blame for events.

You may have noticed that I spend quite a lot of time, attempting to dissuade you from one course of action, and move you towards another. In the course of that, I’m being critical of what you’re currently doing and laying the blame (if indeed there’s anything for you to be blamed for) right at your door.

Now I know you’re resistant to any suggestions I might make, and I also know you’re defensive in the face of criticism. But it’s for your own good, for goodness sake! And that’s why I do it.

But…and here’s the thing…

If I was trying to sell you something, it would be foolish of me to point out your shortcomings, your failings and your errors. It would be silly of me to point out that in all likelihood, if you have problems that need solutions, it’s your own fault. You’re to blame.

Why? Because you’d reject my criticism, and reject what I’m offering at the same time. I don’t mind you rejecting what I say in this book (other than for the fact that I’m right, and you’d do well to listen!) because it doesn’t cost me anything, but if you reject what I say in an advertisement or sales letter, you reject my product.

You miss out on a great product and I miss out on the purchase price!

And it’s exactly the same for you…

Your customer doesn’t believe he’s to blame for anything, so why antagonise him by suggesting that he is? He believes he’s been misunderstood, unlucky, misinformed, exploited, conned, tricked and misled in the past. He takes comfort in the fact that it wasn’t his fault. So why swim against the tide?

Agree with him, sympathise with him, and then move on to explain how what you’re selling will solve the problem he’s now facing. That way, you get him on your side from the start, rather than raising his hackles and switching him off.

Isn’t this a little manipulative?

Maybe, but it brings the ideal end result of a win-win situation that much closer, so it’s certainly justifiable. A little manipulation can be justified, I think, just so long as it benefits both parties rather than one at the expense of the other…Or maybe that’s just me doing a Capone-Mills!

I’ll leave you to decide for yourself.

 John Harrison

PUBLISHERS NOTICE 

Visit: www.streetwisenews.com/simple

I’m sitting here staring at a letter I just received from a bloke whose been a customer of ours since 1999, and I really don’t know what to make of it. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry ~ whether to applaud his honesty, decry his sloth, or just be so damned disappointed for him.

The letter came with a request for a refund on a product he ordered from us a couple of weeks ago. Anyway, here’s what he said after asking for a refund:

“I would like to say that there is nothing wrong with Property Trading Genius. In fact it is probably the best business opportunity I have ever bought from you. It is simple and realistic, and it is the reality that has made me aware that I don’t have the gumption and get-up-and-go to put the effort in and make it work.

It’s no good me making excuses about being at work all day and not having the time – I know that wouldn’t wash with you. 

The truth is that I am lazy and want easy money. It has finally dawned on me after all these years that I certainly don’t want to work for it.”

It would be so easy to rip this guy to pieces, but I’m not going to. I’ve been working with would-be ‘entrepreneurs’ for many years now, and I know that a great many of them would write a very similar letter if they were being really honest. It’s not easy admitting something like that to yourself, let alone someone else. But it doesn’t make it any the less true ~ or uncommon.

If you’ve found yourself making business plans that never quite come to fruition, or investigating opportunities that you never quite follow through on because you don’t have enough time/money/experience/ skills/whatever ~ then I’d urge you to be really honest with yourself…

Are there genuine reasons why things haven’t worked out as you’d hoped? Or could you – in a totally candid moment – have very easily written that letter.

The answer will tell you an enormous amount about yourself, and may save you a lot of time, trouble, and heartache in the future. There’s plenty of comfort in self-delusion, but rarely any profit. 
 

 John Harrison

PUBLISHERS NOTICE 

Here’s Game Changing Information If You Ever
Dreamed of Making a Risk Free Second Income
From Your Armchair…

“I Make An Extra £170 to £200 a Week Messing
Around On My iPhone While I’m Watching TV!

Give Me 5 Minutes and I’ll Teach You How To Do It
Too!

Visit: www.streetwisenews.com/simple

It’s difficult to say which was my worst subject at school. There was so much competition.

In a previous post, I told you how my artistic skills never developed at all beyond the infant school, and woodwork was another area where I excelled for all the wrong reasons.

Somewhere in our office, is a coffee table that I made for my CSE woodwork project. It’s not the best coffee table you’ve ever seen, but at least you can tell that it’s supposed to be a table. Except it isn’t.

You’re probably too young to remember this, but in the 1970s, room dividers constructed from wood and doubling as shelves, were quite fashionable. Well that’s what I designed and set out to make. But it kept going wrong, and I kept having to throw bits away, cut bits off, and re-plane edges that for some reason, refused to go square. The end result was that my room divider became a coffee table. I didn’t have enough wood left to make anything else, and no money to buy any more.

I seem to remember that the examiner was reasonably happy with the table, but totally bemused when he tried to relate it to the original plans. Even ‘thickies’ usually pass woodwork. I failed.

The sad thing is that I was only doing woodwork at all because of French. Now that was something I really couldn’t get to grips with. Not sure whether I didn’t have an aptitude, or whether I couldn’t see the point (because I didn’t know any French people) but I was just hopeless. I still have the scathing school report from Miss Bentley (written after I’d scored 21% in the end of term exam) recommending that I: “try something else instead next year ~ like woodwork”. Shows what she knew.

Anyway, I was thinking about French and other languages this morning. My daughter is learning French at the moment, and I was surprised how much I remember (despite being so crap at it). I can tell you the words for most foods and household objects. I can tell you my name, how old I am, what time it is, and even that there’s a cabbage on the table.

And it’s all totally useless.

You see, the moment a French person starts talking, they might just as well be speaking Swahili for all the sense I can make of it. I’m sure I’m not the only one. In fact, I know several people with an A level in a language, who can’t hold a conversation in that language.

What’s going on here?

Well it’s all to do with the difference between theory and practice. When you’re learning a language, everything is done slowly and correctly. You get to work at your own pace and in perfect conditions. But when you do it for real, it’s completely different. You don’t control the pace – it’s much faster than you’re used to. And they don’t do it by the book either. They use slang, dialect, and verbal shorthand in their communications. The end result is that it has little in common with what you’ve learned.

And of course, this isn’t confined to languages…

When I started in business, I had a degree in the subject. I thought I spoke the ‘language’. But like an A level student marooned in Toulouse, I quickly found that what I knew was of little use in a world where everything was faster paced and rarely followed the textbook. I had to learn the slang, dialect and shorthand, and to develop an ‘ear’ for what was really happening. The formal training helped a little – but in my experience, a week ‘on the ground’ is worth a year in the classroom.

Whatever, you want to achieve, my advice would be to get exposure at the coal face rather than the book face. There seems to be a growing trend for employees to be pressured into studying for degrees. In the corporate environment this may be a necessary precursor to getting promotion, but I would question the practical value for most people.

If your goals are entrepreneurial rather than employment focussed, forget trying to get a few letters after your name, and get stuck into something ‘real’ instead. That way, you’ll start picking up practical ‘language skills’ straight away. Others may be better qualified and look better on paper, but you’ll be the one getting things done and reaping the rewards.  

 John Harrison

PUBLISHERS NOTICE

Dear Streetwise Customer, 

“OMG, Ludlow 3:45…two horses to back. Bott N Brown WON at 25/1 !!! Average odds taken on Betfair exchange 80/1. I backed for £12 winning me £960. Can you please thank Bill for me.” G.B – 6th February 2020

“Many thanks. Thursday OMG Newcastle 5:30. Special Lady WON 50/1. Won £500.” G B – 7th February 2020 

A couple of weeks ago we wrote to you about The Hermes Strategy, a unique approach to horse racing created by Bill Burrows. I’ve reproduced word for word, two emails I received recently from one of our customers who tried the strategy for the first time just a few days ago.

He just won £1,460 in two days! 

Needless to say, he’s pleased!

Now we don’t get 80-1 and 50-1 winners every day (although it looks like we do at the moment!) but because this strategy looks at the whole thing from a VERY unusual angle, long odds winners come along pretty regularly alongside more mundane wins.


It all adds up to a great second income for anyone able to spend 7-10 minutes a day putting the strategy to work. For full details visit… 

www.streetwisenews.com/herm  

You could very easily be up and running and copying Bill within a few hours of reading about this. Everything you need is at your fingertips.

Kind Regards

John Harrison
 Streetwise Publications

P.S. If you can find 7 minutes a day, you can do this for yourself. 

www.streetwisenews.com/herm 

One weekend, I sent out an email to our customers, promoting an excellent DVD comprising interviews with 12 property entrepreneurs who have bought and sold over a billion pounds worth of property between them. Amongst the replies, was one that I must have seen a thousand times over the years – or at least something very much like it. Here’s what it said:

“Can you please explain why you don’t take the advice of these people yourself and make your money, rather than selling DVDs at £50 a time. Sorry to be a sceptic, but this seems obvious.”

Now as I said, I’ve seen this sort of thing so many times, and I really shouldn’t be surprised. But I always am. I mean, would you ask the publishers of Jamie Oliver’s books why they don’t become chefs rather than selling books on how to cook? Would you ask the managing director of Haynes (the people who publish car repair manuals) why he doesn’t make his cash repairing 1988 Ford Escorts rather than selling manuals on how to do it?

I doubt it.

Now as it happens, I do make a lot of money in property, as well as publishing information on the subject. So I make money from both the business and the information. But that isn’t the case with everything that we sell. The clue is in our company name. We are publishers. It’s what we do for a living. It would be a pretty strange (and limited) business if we restricted ourselves to what interests me personally.

We sell some absolutely world-class products in the field of financial trading for example. Customers are making some very impressive incomes from it, but it doesn’t really interest me personally. I don’t get involved. But there are millions of people who do have a rabid interest (and would probably feel the same way about property as I do about trading) and we cater for that demand.

I’ve never made any secret of the fact that publishing is a very lucrative business, but it’s an ethical one too. If I happen to make £200,000 from selling information on financial trading, and you ‘only’ make £20,000 from the programme I sold you for £500, is that wrong or immoral?

I hope you’d say no…but if not, we definitely don’t understand each other! To me it’s a classic win-win situation. Simple as that.

The purpose of this article…aside from explaining why I don’t always practice what I preach…is to alert you to the opportunity you have to share your own knowledge and make a fortune. Most of us have information and knowledge that would be valuable to other people. Sell that information to enough people, and it can often earn you far more cash than the knowledge itself earned you in the first place.

It’s the power of multiplication at work.

For some reason, a lot of people seem to have a tough time understanding this, and I really don’t know why. If you have any comments or observations, I’d love to hear them. It might help me explain this better, the next time I’m asked the “Why don’t you…” question.

 John Harrison

PUBLISHERS NOTICE 

Dear Streetwise Customer, 

“OMG, Ludlow 3:45…two horses to back. Bott N Brown WON at 25/1 !!! Average odds taken on Betfair exchange 80/1. I backed for £12 winning me £960. Can you please thank Bill for me.” G.B – 6th February 2020

“Many thanks. Thursday OMG Newcastle 5:30. Special Lady WON 50/1. Won £500.” G B – 7th February 2020 

A couple of weeks ago we wrote to you about The Hermes Strategy, a unique approach to horse racing created by Bill Burrows. I’ve reproduced word for word, two emails I received recently from one of our customers who tried the strategy for the first time just a few days ago.

He just won £1,460 in two days! 

Needless to say, he’s pleased!

Now we don’t get 80-1 and 50-1 winners every day (although it looks like we do at the moment!) but because this strategy looks at the whole thing from a VERY unusual angle, long odds winners come along pretty regularly alongside more mundane wins.

It all adds up to a great second income for anyone able to spend 7-10 minutes a day putting the strategy to work. For full details visit… 

www.streetwisenews.com/herm  

You could very easily be up and running and copying Bill within a few hours of reading about this. Everything you need is at your fingertips.

Kind Regards

John Harrison
 Streetwise Publications

P.S. If you can find 7 minutes a day, you can do this for yourself. 

www.streetwisenews.com/herm