Sharif Khan on "Greed"

I was at an internet marketing seminar where internet marketing Guru, Derek Gehl, related a story about an internet marketer who was making over $100,000 a month by sending one of his product promotions every month through his email subscriber base of 2 million people.

Well, he decided if he made $100K every time he sent a promo email to his subscribers he could make even more money sending out a promo email every week instead of every month. So he started emailing his subscribers with promotions every week. And he was still making money. But the sales started to flatten out. Now he started getting 'desperate' and his greed glands took over and he started sending out his email promotions DAILY!

So what happened you may be wondering? Well, he totally destroyed his list and his reputation and his sales plummeted from a hundred thousand dollars a month to a thousand dollars a month. His customers got fed up with his constant promotions that treated them like cattle. In a nutshell: He got GREEDY! He killed the goose that laid the golden egg.

In an other case, there was a very successful hot dog vendor who prided himself on providing his customers with only the finest ingredients and quality hot dog toppings. By providing his customers with superior value, he built his hot dog business into a multi-million dollar empire.

Then he let his son take over the reins of the business. He was not a highly educated man, but his son had a top-notch MBA from a prestigious business school. Well, his soon took to immediately 'improving' the bottom-line of his father's company. In short order, he decided he could significantly increase the profit margins of the company by taking out some of the ingredients and reducing the amount of toppings.

In a very short period of time, customers realized they were being short-changed and immediately noticed a decline in quality in the hot dogs. They stopped buying from them eventually and switched their business to another vendor. Eventually the father and son operation had to be shut-down.

His father may not have had an MBA, but he had the common sense to provide real VALUE to his customers. That's the lesson we can all learn from this example:

Don't be greedy! Always, always, focus on providing VALUE to people. If you can provide great value at a profit, you will always be successful!

Sharif Khan (http://www.herosoul.com/; sharif@herosoul.com) is a freelance writer, motivational speaker, coach, and author of Psychology of the Hero Soul, an inspirational book on awakening the hero within and developing people’s leadership potential. He provides inspirational keynotes and leadership seminars and also helps companies develop empowering content through his copywriting services. To contact Sharif directly, call (416) 417-1259.

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