Chandler Bolt [00:00:02] Hey, Chandler Bolt here and joining me today is Perry Marshall. The man, the myth, the legend. I love this guy. He is unbelievable. So Perry is one of the most expensive business strategists in the world. He’s the author of 80/20 Sales and Marketing. He’s written a bunch of books on advertising. One of which is the Ultimate Guide to Google Advertising. He’s also written Evolution 2.0, a bunch of other books. If you’re watching on the YouTube channel right now, you see a couple of those books in his backdrop among a bunch of others. Perry’s also announced the world’s largest science research challenge of over 10 million out of exactly $10 million. The Evolution 2.0 prize. Really, really smart, very humble, very generous. I mean, I think his book is going to be a long, long intro. I think this book, 80/20 Sales and Marketing should be required reading for any salesperson, any marketer. I’ve read it. I’ve read this book probably, I don’t know, 5 to 7 times. We’ve had it as a company, book club, at least two or three times in our company history.
Perry’s been generous enough to come in and do a Q&A with the team as part of this book club. I mean, I can’t. This is a great book. I can’t speak highly enough about it and just just all around. Great person. So we’re going to be we’re going to have some fun today. He’s also was on the podcast way back way back (Episode 35), where we talked about some 80/20 sales and marketing stuff. And so we got a lot of fun stuff in store. Perry, welcome. Great to have you here.
Perry Marshall [00:01:42] Thank you for the intro and thank you for having me. And I’ve watched your empire grow and grow and grow, and I’m really proud of you and I’m just glad to be here today. And we’re going to have a really fun, interesting conversation. I think we’re going to go some directions that most people would not expect one of these conversations to go.
Chandler Bolt [00:02:01] All right. That’s what you told me before the interview. I’m like, I’m going to better buckle up. I’ve got some questions, but we’ll see where we go. I guess first is maybe the backdrop. Why are books such a big part of what you do? Even just like I’m looking at the hits I know you’re doing, you do multiple updated editions. You released a book this year. You released an updated edition of multiple books last year. You really like it just feels like there’s always books coming out or updated editions. So why is this such a big part of what you do?
Perry Marshall [00:02:35] Well, in the marketing DNA test, which is part of 80/20 Sales and Marketing, we give people a tool to say, “how is it that you persuade as opposed to other people?” For years I read all these sales books and you’re like, “Well, you should say this and you should do this”. And it’s a numbers game and you should call these people. And a lot of that was good advice for some people, but it wasn’t good advice for me. And some people are public speakers, and they should just go out and they should woo the crowds and they should get the standing ovations. And that’s what they should do. And some people should be making videos and some people are writers. And if you’re a writer and if your customers are readers, then you need a book. Now, if you own a construction company and your clients don’t read anything, then maybe you shouldn’t do a book. Like, I would never say that everybody should write a book, but some people are writers. And the reason that I write so many books is that the my best customers are readers. And if somebody has read one of my books, so if they read 80/20 Sales and Marketing and they took the marketing DNA test and they went online and they, they, they got on my email list and they started getting the stuff. That person is usually a very, very good client and I want to attract those people. And I do a lot of work in science and in science, if you can’t write, you don’t know anything, right?
Chandler Bolt [00:04:15] You get the paper published.
Perry Marshall [00:04:17] Everybody in science who’s to be taken seriously publishes. Right. And so. So writing is my wheelhouse. And if you get good enough and do all this stuff to write one book, then writing a second book is less of a big deal and writing a third book is less of a big deal. Now I’ve got nine out. We’ve got another one coming out probably in January. It’s the Definitive Guide to YouTube Advertising. Oh, nice. Okay. Because nobody’s got a book on that that has done an adequate job. And so we want to be there. So so yeah. That’s why books and again, I don’t think everybody should write a book, but if you’re a writer and if your customers are readers, there you go.
Chandler Bolt [00:05:02] That’s great. I never thought about this till just now. But it’s interesting how, you know, you obviously have a background as a copywriter, world class copywriter, and then you have a background in science in and how you’re saying to be in science, you have to be good at writing that. I never connected the dots. I would guess that that’s a big part of why you are great is what makes you a great writer is because you’re able to pull. Because when I think science, I think technical writing, I think copywriting, I think relating to just everyday person. And that’s where I feel like is kind of your sweet spot, is the ability to communicate technical things in everyday language. Do you feel like that comes from those two backgrounds?
Perry Marshall [00:05:41] That is why I’m the bestselling author on Google Ads. I am explaining a highly technical topic to regular people who have to use this jumbo jet airline cockpit to go out there and get some leads. And I have to explain how it works in a way that they can relate to. And they have to they have to get on their machine and they have to put copy in the ads. That’s good copywriting in the technical side. And you need the personal side. In fact, a story: when I was 20 years old, I was a junior in college and I had an English professor. I was taking an English author’s before 1800s class, and I had an English professor pulled me aside and said, “I would like to talk to you.” I go, “Am I in trouble?” “No, I’ve been reading your papers and I have some observations for you.” Okay. So I go into his office one day and I said, “you said you wanted to talk to me.” And he says, “Yes.” He goes, “You’re an electrical engineer, right?” And I said, “Yes.” And I he said, “Well, I’ve been reading your papers and you understand people. And he said. “People are way more interesting than things. And engineers work on things and you’re a people person and I can’t figure out why you’re an engineer if you understand this.” And he wasn’t insulting. He wasn’t saying English majors are better than engineers. That was not the point at all. In fact, he was one of the sharpest people I’ve ever met in my entire life. His classes were amazing. Every single class would blow your mind. He would connect dots that you had never connected. And he quizzed me for a while. He’s like, “Oh, so you understand things and you understand people. So and you have this curiosity about how things work, and that’s why you’re in engineering.” He goes, Well, he said, “Most people either understand things and they don’t understand people or they understand people and they don’t understand things.” You understand both, he said. “That is a very valuable skill, and he said you would do very well in technical sales. And in fact, I think someday you’ll be the president of the company.”
I had never heard anything like this ever in my life before. And then you take what he said. In 15 years later, I’m writing a book about Internet advertising, how regular people can use a platform like Google, which is designed by a bunch of engineers. Like, I understood exactly what they were trying to get us to do. Most people didn’t like. Here, let me explain it. They want you to do this. They want you to achieve these objectives. Here’s all the little shortcuts and hacks that’ll get you there. And here’s how to read all these columns and numbers and make sense out of them. Even if you were never an accountant, you were never an engineer. You’re never a mathematician. You’re you’re you. You do quilting and you’re just trying to sell quilts or something. Right. And and and so, yes, putting those two together and like all of the copy that I write is also logical. It’s not just pushing your emotional button. There is a logical flow in an argument to it. But then I write scientific papers too, like I’m part of the scientific community. Peer review and all that kind of stuff in a way to write scientific papers. I still have to adhere to the rules of science, which doesn’t involve a lot of clickbait headlines as right. But there needs I need to still communicate to the reader on an emotional level, even if they’re not consciously aware that I’m doing that. It’s to be a rhythm and a flow so that it’s an enjoyable paper to read and maybe even a beautiful paper and not just to data.
Chandler Bolt [00:10:02] Yeah. Oh, that’s really interesting. So I’m curious on this. You write a lot of like speaking of technical training, like you write a lot of technical books or books on technical topics, I guess I should say. So Google ads, Tik Tok ads, Facebook ads, you know, you’ve got pay per click advertising, you’ve got Ultimate Guide to Local Business Marketing. You got YouTube ads coming up. How do you do that? How do you approach writing those books on it, on a topic that is just always changing?
Perry Marshall [00:10:35] Oh, that’s a great question. And here’s here’s how I do it. In fact, this is really core to how I do all of this. Though I do not look at it as though the topic is changing. So one view of of Google’s platform or Facebook’s platform is, oh, my goodness, it’s changing all the time. Okay. That’s true. But that’s only true on the surface level. It’s like, say the ocean is changing all the time. Yeah, it’s also been there like for 3 billion years. Right. And in fact, it might not look terribly different than it looked a billion years ago. What part of it does it change? Well, in marketing, the part that doesn’t change is the stuff in scientific advertising by Claude Hopkins. There is a set of principles that do not change no matter what they did to the screen or the log in or the menu or what features they’ve got or however they change all that stuff. And I’ve never written my books with the intent that they’re going to understand the software interface. I write the books with the intent that they’re going to understand the principles behind the platform, that regardless of how the rules make change or their quality score algorithm might change. That I’m still following in the steps of Clyde Hopkins. You know, like Clyde Hopkins invented the coupon in the late 1800s because he needed a way to track advertisements in newspapers. Who bought the soap from this ad versus this ad? And he would have the stories. Well, you know, every time you give us one of these clipped coupons, we will give you cash. So we are paying you to help us track our advertising. And this is this is how they worked out the whole notion of of direct marketing, you know, 120 years ago. And so he wrote this book called Scientific Advertising. And from my point of view, it’s like, “Oh, engineers figures how to sell stuff, by newspapers and direct mail.” That’s what this actually is. And so we just moved it on to the Internet. And so because of the way we write the books, those books usually last about three years before people start feeling like they’re long in the tooth. And in fact, the first edition of the Google book came out in 2007. And if you went and you bought that version of the book and you used it, now it would be clunky and it would be difficult, but we are still telling you all the same basic right things to do, even if the details are wrong.
And so and so that’s how we look at it. And I also looked at it like they think I’m teaching Google advertising. I’m really teaching them direct marketing, which means if I do a good job at this, then they could go use LinkedIn or they could do Instagram or they can do Pinterest or whatever. And they’re going to find that that conceptually it’s not really all that different in that I’ve equipped my reader with something that will last much longer than his Google ads account.
Chandler Bolt [00:14:01] That’s great. That’s really great. So teaching on first principles and it sounds like universal strategies, not in the weeds tactics. And you said with that, you know the the the shelf life the shelf life is a lot longer than three years, but three years is when it sounds like people start to feel like maybe they’re a little bit it’s a little bit dated. So I think that leads to multiple editions. And I’ve seen you do this with a lot of your books, but I don’t even know how many editions you’re on with the Google ads one.
Perry Marshall [00:14:33] Facebook is four. I think all of the other ones are first editions. I have a I get to this later, I have an Ethernet book and it’s third edition. So it’s kind of a crazy story. In fact, you asked me “What was your first book?” And this was my first book in and it’s called Industrial Ethernet: A Pocket Guide and I don’t think you’ve ever heard the story Chandler, but it is still in print even though it came out 20 years ago so so here’s the story behind this when I was I was a scrapping 28, 29 years old, sales and marketing manager, tiny little company. I’ve got a wife and a couple of kids in diapers and I’m I’m up to my eyeballs in debt, and I’m just paddling as hard as I can. And I’ve got this job at a hardware software company, and I’m selling this industrial stuff. And my boss had a marketing consultant, a really smart guy named John Fox. John told him when Mike was approached by a trade magazine and they said, Will you write us an article about industrial networks? John said, “Mike, take it like do it. That’s a really good idea. Just take it Mike.” Okay. And so, Mike pounds out this article. And Mike is not a writer and he hated every minute of it. And I happened to be in Mike’s office the day Mike finished the article, and he says, “Man, I am so glad I’m done with this article. I hope I never write an article again. I think it’s done. It’s out the door.” He goes, “I hated that so much. Perry, if you ever want to write a magazine article, I’ll pay you $500 to do it.” And I go. “You will?” He goes, “Yeah, actually, I will. I don’t ever want to do that again. It’s a good thing to do. I just don’t want to do it.” And I thought I could do that. I’m making, what, 60 or $70,000 a year? 500 bucks. One article a month. Man, that’s like half my mortgage. Okay, I’m in. And so I started writing magazine articles, and the editors liked it.
I was a good writer. Well, one day I get this phone call and this guy says, “Hi, my name is Matt. I’m from the ISA and we own this magazine that you write stuff for. And we have a book division and we are looking for somebody to write a book on if they’re not.” And I go: “Well, I don’t really know Ethernet, but I know this other network called Device Net and I know this other one. How about a book on those?” And he goes, “Well, the readers aren’t asking for a book on those. They want an Ethernet book.” And I said, “Well, I don’t know either. Not that well.” And he goes, “Well. I really like your writing and if you want to do the research and figure it out and write the book, I’ll give you the book contract because I like what you do” and I like sort of altered ego, my marketing gurus, you know, in my head and I, I think most of them would tell me that this is a good idea, even though this is like a giant pain in the butt. And I said okay. And so I spent six months figuring out how Ethernet works so I could write an Ethernet book. And then I wrote this book called Industrial Ethernet: A Pocket Guide. And this is a niche, niche, niche, tiny niche market. I mean, these books sell for like 80 or 100 bucks apiece and only certain engineers and certain kind of industries would ever buy these things. I’d be surprised if this is sold more than, I don’t know, 500 or a thousand copies, if I’m lucky. And I certainly didn’t do it for the money, but. It is the first book ever written on industrial Ethernet first to market on a niche topic. And it did get me clients on it. When I hung out my shingle as a marketing consultant. Companies that sold Ethernet stuff were like, I’m hiring that guy because he understands this stuff. There’s tons of marketing consultants, but they don’t know anything about this technical stuff. I’m hiring one that understands what we actually do. One client, they probably paid me a quarter million dollars of of fees over a period of three or four years. And so it was very much worth it. Well, that’s that’s not the punch line. Okay. That was certainly worth doing.
But here’s the crazy, crazy punch line. So. In 2004. I go to China to visit my brother, who’s a missionary teaching English, and he and I get in a conversation and he goes, “You know, Perry, I don’t really believe this Christianity thing anymore. And I’m about to be done being a missionary and I’m about to move back to the United States, and I’m done being a Christian already now.” And we’re both pastors kids. So this is a bit of a shock. And we get in an argument and I go, “Brian. Look at the hand at the end of your arm. This is a nice piece of engineering. And I’m an engineer, and I should know. You don’t think this isn’t a random accumulation of accidents, do you?” And he goes, “Hold on.” And he comes right back at me with this kind of canned, like, I think everybody’s had this argument somewhere in their life. Like, “did it evolve through some random chance or did God did it?” This is the argument that we’re having and. It’s stalemated really quick. And I thought, you know what, I don’t know much about this. And I know a lot of biologists would agree with him, not me. So I’m going to go home and I’m going to figure this out and I’m going to stop arguing with my brother because we’re making ourselves miserable anyway. I don’t think we’re going to solve this today. And so I stopped arguing with them and I went home and I hit the books in like half the books behind me are there because of that conversation, and they’re all about biology and genetics and all this kind of stuff. And I was lost. It was like, I have never studied biology in any detail before. This is the most complicated subject ever. How does a cell work? Oh, my goodness. That’s more complicated than how does New York City work? Right. And and so I was lost. And then a couple of weeks later, I was like, wait a minute, I’ve seen this before. And I realized that the rules of genetics are the same as the rules for Ethernet. And I don’t mean I don’t mean I mean in the in the technical sense of how the math works. And in all of that, it was like, wait a minute, I understand this. And a year later, I was giving talks on this. And I give this talk at a large megachurch called If you can read this, I can prove God exists. And I was saying that all codes are designed, therefore even the genetic code is designed. And so there’s evidence of a divine spark in the universe. And this. This got me dragged into the largest atheist discussion board in the world at the time, and it was me defending myself. One of me and dozens and dozens of them. I was ridiculously outnumbered and I had one piece, only one piece of academic credibility. It was like a really thin thread that I could put my stake in the ground and say, I actually know what I’m talking about. And that one piece of credibility was I wrote an Ethernet book for an industrial and technical society which prints academic literature, and I know about ones and zeros in genetics 1s and 0s. And this is the one tiny little piece of scholarly street cred. They didn’t care about my Google books or anything like that. That didn’t mean anything to anybody. But I had done this. Well, one thing led to another, led to another, led to a book called Evolution 2.0, led to me announcing the world’s largest technology prize for basic science research was which is $10 million at the Royal Society. And I when I went to the Royal Society and and told my story and it’s on video, I held up this book and I said it all started with ones and zeros. And like, who could have possibly conceivably imagined when I said yes to the editor of the book acquisition Ed of this industrial society that, you know, 20 years later, I’d be at the Royal Society of Great Britain, which is the oldest scientific organization in the world, announcing a science prize. Hmm. Okay. And so this was a credibility game, if there ever was one. In fact, science, I think, Chandler, I think you’d be very fascinated to hear this. People think of science as a cold, clear, black and white objective. It either works or it doesn’t. Proof based profession. And in theory it is. But there’s a problem. And the problem is. Almost any scientific experiment that gets done now. Anywhere, any university, any city, any state, anywhere in the world. Is so complex and so subtle. And understood by such a small number of people. That even other professional scientists mostly have to take each other’s word for it. If an organic chemist says something about organic chemistry. A physiologist does not have the expertise to know whether he’s telling the truth or not. He has to rely on: Publishing street cred. Number of papers. Number of grants. How many letters buy in their name? That’s how they judge you. So in a sense. Science is a more subjective field than you buying groceries at the grocery store. When you you buy a can of beans, you open the beans, you can see what the beans are. And everybody understands what beans are. But if you see a press release about the latest Nobel Prize or something, you don’t have any ability to know whether that’s legit or not. It’s not a can of beans. Mm hmm. So science is marketing. Science? Almost everything that you and I call science is really marketing.
Chandler Bolt [00:26:47] Yeah. Because you have a hypothesis, you do a test, you see the data, and you have a level of confidence in that test one way or the other. But it’s still kind of subjective. You’re still deciding, okay, based on this, what do we test next?
Perry Marshall [00:26:59] But but it’s based on you believing the person who ran the test.
Chandler Bolt [00:27:03] And believing the data that the test produces. Yeah.
Perry Marshall [00:27:07] Hardly anybody actually looks at the data.
Chandler Bolt [00:27:09] Yeah. Yeah.
Perry Marshall [00:27:11] There’s most scientific papers. There’s only 45 people that read it and understand it and probably only ten that ask any questions about the actual thing.
Chandler Bolt [00:27:25] Yeah. Same with marketing, right?
Perry Marshall [00:27:28] Right. Right. And, and. And all of the biggest problems in science are marketing problems. They’re not science problems. They’re cultural problems. Right. And, and like, I think a really mature. Later. If a bunch of scientists listen to this, the average scientists would be really agitated and irritated at what I said. The very best scientists would all nod their heads and go, Yeah, he’s right. Hmm. Because that’s what’s really going on. Hmm.
Chandler Bolt [00:28:04] And that’s it. It’s interesting just overlaying the parallels to my world of of marketing and of books. It’s interesting because there’s a lot of things that are part science, part marketing, and then why does it put in. So maybe that’s a segway to this question: Which of your books have sold the most and why? Because even that’s pure art. Part science.
Perry Marshall [00:28:30] Sure. Well, the the the number one is the Google ads book, which is in its sixth edition.
Chandler Bolt [00:28:36] So that’s do you guys wipe clean? Do you do a new listing every time you do a new book with that one?
Perry Marshall [00:28:43] You mean on Amazon? Well, I believe you have to. Back in the day, they would they would link together. But now, at least last I checked, Amazon makes you start over. Which is another reason why we only do them every three years. Yes. You don’t want to start over every year.
Chandler Bolt [00:29:04] And why not leave the old editions out just like, hey, we’re not going to sell them anymore?
Perry Marshall [00:29:08] Well, they’re still there. But I mean, I’m I’m talking about in point of like reviews and all of that. You start from zero every time you do a new edition. Yes.
Chandler Bolt [00:29:19] Yes. That’s why I’m just looking at reviews on your books and it’s, you know, 80/20 sales and marketing has 875. Ultimate guide has 200.
Perry Marshall [00:29:28] That one is the same book that we released in 2013. In fact, the publisher asked me if I wanted to do a second edition. I said, “Absolutely not, because I’ll have to start over and I don’t start over.” I wrote that book to be evergreen. 80/20 sales and marketing. I don’t think more than 5% of that book will be out of date ten years from now. I deliberately wrote that book to not go out of date. There are bits and pieces that are dated, but very little. Hmm. And that’s the number two selling book, and that’s sold about three fourths. What the. The Google book has.
Chandler Bolt [00:30:09] Got it.
Perry Marshall [00:30:10] In as a business, but that’s the one that I’m most proud.
Chandler Bolt [00:30:18] I know we’re nearing the end of our time together. Can you just briefly. And such a big question. But the 8020 sales and marketing concept on a whole. How would you explain that on a napkin to an author and like how they can apply that principle?
Perry Marshall [00:30:33] Well, first, let’s say there is hardly anything that will benefit your life more than a deep understanding of 80/20 because it applies to everything. It is all around you, every minute of the day. And I’m not joking on the 80/20 principle says that “80% of what you get comes from 20% of what you do and 20% of what you get comes from the other 80% of what you do”, which means really that the effective stuff is 16 times more effective than the ineffective stuff. And it’s not equal. It’s ridiculously unequal. And not only that. There’s a top 20% of the top 20%. That’s still 80% of the 80%. And then there’s the top 20 of the top 20 of the top 20. So what does that mean? That means it’s basically a law of physics. That. One author like Stephen King is going to outsell almost all other horror genre authors in the world. It’s not some unfortunate byproduct of capitalism or something like that. It’s how the world works. And you’re either harnessing inequality or you’re a victim of it. You’re either consciously on the right side of it or you’re unconsciously getting ripped apart by it. And so it’s an incredibly powerful tool. And I’ve had so many customers that are like, they read that book and they go, “Oh my word, I see it now and I can’t unsee it. It’s everywhere. How they missed this before now.” Read the reviews of my book. You’ll see it again. People say “I never look at my customers the same way as I did before ever again.” So it means. It means that if you write ten books, two of them are going to outsell the other eight guaranteed. It means if you have ten customers, two of them are going to outspend the other eight guaranteed. When you accept this, now you’re living in the is world instead of a should be world. And it is easier to make money, easier to sell the things that want to sell you start trying to sell the stuff that doesn’t want to sell. You realize there are natural forces in the world that you just harmonize with and life gets easier. It doesn’t have to be bitter, awful slog. And I think most education teaches people to go through a bitter, awful slog. And they just.
Chandler Bolt [00:33:29] I’m going to Lightning Round with a couple of final questions that I’m really curious on. So you’ve sold that 8020 sales marketing book for a penny. While for a while.
Perry Marshall [00:33:38] And I still do. I guess.
Chandler Bolt [00:33:41] So. Still do. So a lot of people do a free + shipping funnel. You did. You’re the only one I’ve ever seen that’s done it for a penny. And what? Why what’s the why behind that? And. And has it work? Does it convert well?
Perry Marshall [00:33:56] So the reason why we do the penny plus shipping is because I knew that I. Well, I. I didn’t really feel like I could test all of the ways that I might try to sell that. And I decided to copy the Columbia record and Tape Club from 30 or 40 years ago where you would open The Sun newspaper and you’d see an ad. It would say, Get these 12 albums for $0.01. And there would be an asterisk and a say plus shipping and handling. And then you would fill out this thing and you look at all the titles and you’d fill out the albums and send in the card, and your albums would come. And they tried all kinds of stuff over the years. And the the one that worked the best was charging a even a tiny little amount of money for it rather than making it free because it seemed more valuable. So I said, Well, I’m going to copy that. And we’ve now been renting that. I think we’ve been running it for nine years. If you go to sell8020.com, you can buy 20 sales and marketing for $0.01 + $6.99 shipping and handling. So you’re buying the book for $7. Now, I tell you a dirty little secret. That’s about what we pay the publisher for the book on a huge volume discount. So you literally are paying the wholesale price and we are paying the shipping, which means we are taping dollar bills to the book. But here’s what I found. So you remember the 80/20 rule. That 80% of the sales would come from 20% of the people while we have upsells in the shopping cart. 78.2% of the people. Only by the book do not take the upsells. 21.8% of the people take upsells and buy extra stuff. So I tape dollar bills to 100% of the books so that 20% of the people will go buy something else and something else. We have extra videos, extra courses. They’re all worth the money. They’re incredibly worthwhile. We give people incredible value and we have 800 reviews on Amazon on top of all of that. So that’s why we do that.
Chandler Bolt [00:36:41] It’s great. That’s awesome. Hey, what would be your parting piece of advice, knowing what you know now to the perils of, I guess, 20 plus years ago, before you wrote that Ethernet book and all the other Perrys out there who are thinking about writing their first book.
Perry Marshall [00:36:56] When I was a young sales guy. In the mid 1990s. There was zero apparent or obvious role for a writer. In in to to sell something like I. I get laid off from my job, I go hunt around. I get a job as a manufacturer’s rep, and my job is to go make cold calls and go see people and get purchase orders. Right. And I remember during that time I sent out a Christmas letters and one of my friends said, “Perry, I read your beautiful Christmas letter. You’re in the wrong profession.” And I just laughed. Yeah, well, you can’t make any money as a writer. What I didn’t know was. If you take off your sales hat and you put on your marketing hat, you make lots of money as a writer. Writing is a lucrative profession, namely copywriting. Or what’s copywriting? Copywriting is writing to sell. And you can write to sell industrial, software or cranes or coffee or anything, right? And. What I eventually figured out about myself is, dude, you’re not a sales guy. You’re a copywriter. In fact, you’re an author writer. You’re a technical writer. In fact, you explain technical marketing to people who aren’t technical. That’s what you should be doing. And when I look back at that sales job, I was always trying to educate customers about technology, and I was always trying to consult and be the expert and do all this missionary work. And it was square peg, round hole baloney sandwiches, ramen soup, debt, credit cards, poverty, ramen noodles, baked potatoes and salsa, you know, big potatoes and salsas, like really cheap food. Like, that’s that is the cheapest food that I know.
Chandler Bolt [00:39:13] Your analogies are amazing. Yeah, I think it’s how you think. It’s how you relate and how you connect technical writing because he’s even long in the tooth when I first hung out. My shingle is market like just all the little turns of phrase that I think and I even think the 80/20 sales and marketing of. Racking the shotgun of the three star book with no three star reviews. And just like all of these kind of analogies and metaphors and.
Perry Marshall [00:39:47] Yes.
Chandler Bolt [00:39:47] Yes, all that, yes, it makes it entertaining and fun. So I appreciate that about you Perry.
Perry Marshall [00:39:55] Is not language like just the most fun thing in the world? Like, I know that’s not everybody’s, but if you’re a real connoisseur of words, words are just the most amazing world. And and I want to say this. There’s people listening to this that should not write a book, because you are not words people you don’t love, words. You’re not in love with verbs or whatever. Maybe you should maybe you should make YouTube videos or something like there’s no what those that you have to write a book or like a book is the be all in all. But if it’s in your gifting and if it’s in your wheelhouse, you might 20 years from now, you might be like me and your 10th one is about to come out.
Chandler Bolt [00:40:41] Hey, and if your gifting is videos and you want to do YouTube stuff, then check out that new book was coming out in January.
Perry Marshall [00:40:47] Absolutely. Absolutely. Go. Definitive guide to YouTube ads that should be out at the beginning of 2023.
Chandler Bolt [00:40:55] Awesome. Well, Perry, that’s a great segway into this, which would be just where can people go to find out more about you to buy your books, all that good stuff.
Perry Marshall [00:41:12] Go to sell8020.com. Buy the book for one penny and just see what happens next and just watch the machine turn. Yeah, we’ve we’ve put that in place. We designed that over years. And if you belong in our world, something’s going to hook you. And if you don’t like it, then just forget it. Unsubscribe. No problem. But the 80/20 book will change your life. It’ll change the way you see everything. It’ll make you know. I tell people who who have jobs. I see the number one reason why you should become a freelancer is that you can 80/20 your work. You can get paid for 100% of it, but not have to show up for 40 hours. If you can figure out how to do 15 hours and be three times as productive, you get 45 hours of work done in 15 hours and take the rest of the week off. That’s why you should be a freelancer.
Chandler Bolt [00:42:12] That might have been where I work. Before I dropped out of school, I started hiring people on Upwork to do my papers and projects. I’m like that. I learned that from this work that.
Perry Marshall [00:42:22] Perhaps.
Chandler Bolt [00:42:23] Cannot confirm nor deny. Perry, you’re the man. I appreciate you. This was awesome.
Perry Marshall [00:42:29] Thank you. It’s always great to talk to you. I always look forward to it. I knew it would be fine. Thanks.
Chandler Bolt [00:42:34] Hey, sell8020.com. Check it out. Grab the book for one penny. And like you said, see the marketing machine at work as well. As I always tell people, go buy it for a penny because you’re going to learn a lot from the book, but then you’re going to learn from the process of how you bought the book, which might be. I mean, that is for some people, that’s the biggest that’s the biggest learning. So it might be more than you’ll learn in the book, but I don’t think so. So, thank you, Perry.
Perry Marshall [00:43:01] Thanks Chandler. Take care.