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Even More Rules

I’m kind of busy with the projects I’ve mentioned in recent posts, so I’m jumping straight to the Rules of Acquisition today.

Rule #21: Never place friendship before profit

This may be a rule for the back-stabbing, scheming, wheedling Ferengi but for us, it’s more of a recommendation. There are benefits to giving preferential treatment to your friends, but remember not to give away the entire farm.

Reciprocation is a powerful tool for mutual benefit. Doing something unexpectedly kind and generous for someone usually inspires them to reciprocate. This leads to a satisfying Win-Win scenario when partnering with colleagues.

If it doesn’t, it can be an object lesson on which of your “friends” are actually friends and which of them are just looking for a soft touch.

Rule #22: Wise men can hear profit in the wind

This speaks to the intuition that is honed by experience. The more you do something, the more adept you usually become. Practice makes perfect, and all that.

So, be mindful of opportunities in your market that speak to your skills and experience. People will be asking you how you knew to jump on a rising trend and you’ll be able to get all mystical and guru-like about it.

Rule #23: Nothing is more important than your health…except for your money

This is the bane of many people’s existence. When you’re feeling awful, you just want to stay home in bed. If you do that, you lose a day’s pay and you’ve got that much less money to pay the doctor’s bill. This is definitely not a win-win.

What is definitely a winner, though, is not having to go to a job at all. When you can make money passively with work you’ve done ahead of time, it doesn’t matter if you’re sick in bed or out running a triathlon. It may be outside your comfort zone, but there are definitely benefits to setting up an information marketing business. Having the luxury to take a sick day without calling in or dealing with guilt

Rules #24-26: Not yet cited in Star Trek episodes, movies or novels

Here’s an interesting point about writing fiction. When you have sweeping milieus like Star Trek, Star Wars or Game of Thrones, you have to put some serious work in laying out a lot of the details of the stuff that isn’t part of our everyday life. What you don’t need to do is spell everything out in explicit details.

When they came up with the Rules of Acquisition, I feel that they just pulled the numbers out of a hat rather than having any particular order. I wonder if they let the actors pick the numbers on the fly as an ad lib.

Trying to lay out every last detail can lead to the paralysis of analysis. This can stop a dynamic work of fiction in its tracks. You definitely want continuity, but don’t get bogged down in the details.

Rule #27: There’s nothing more dangerous than an honest businessman

For the Ferengi, this could be a real problem. 😆 It’s also a problem for Churn and Burn marketers.

An honest businessman wants to make a square deal. Providing value for pay. Not pipe dreams. Not hype. Not magic buttons or secret loopholes. We’re talking about actually providing information that can help your subscribers and customers rather than giving them the intellectual equivalent of a sugar pill.

An honest businessman is dangerous because he doesn’t create addicts, he sets people free by solving their problems for a fair price.

Rule #29: What’s in it for me?

This is one of the most important questions in writing sales copy. When you can honestly answer this question for the reader, you’re going to make sales. People aren’t interested in whether it’s an eBook or video course. They don’t care how many pages or how many files are included. If you can solve the problem they’re seeking the answer to and they can afford your solution, you’ve got sales!

Rule #30: Confidentiality equals profit

What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, they say. There’s something to be said for keeping your dealings private. One on one provision of information or services is immensely profitable because you’re not only providing massive amounts of value to the recipient but also setting up a loyal customer who will want to get every single thing you’ve got on offer and will eagerly snatch up every new product.