Book Club: "How to Make Millions With Your Ideas" - Dan S. Kennedy
Pretty hokey sounding title right? Exactly the point. I had read about David Kennedy in another book on sales/marketing, I forget which but he was painted as a guru on sales. I’ve really been looking for books on selling written by businessmen that have sold things other than books about selling, and David fits the bill.
His book is old, written before internet commerce was prevalent and thus not your typical cutting edge “affiliate marketing” styled book. For me that was a plus, and I was fascinated to see how entrepreneurs made money before blogging, email lists, and squeeze pages.
Kennedy if nothing else provides countless case studies of quirky businesses oftentimes bootstrapped. Some went on to make their owners millions of dollars, plenty more failed. With each study he provides personal anecdotes and shares his own wisdom when it comes to direct marketing principles.
Direct marketing back in the day was selling (you guessed it) directly to customers. Maybe you sent out mailers to customers, but the point is that you are reaching out and trying to sell your client’s yourself. I won’t go into all of his ideas here, but reading someone like Kennedy definitely puts you into a positive and abundant headspace.
Bottom line is that a lot of the book isn’t terribly applicable to the entrepreneurs of today. However personally I found it inspirational to read and very stimulating. While reading I came up with several ideas that I’m currently implementing in my fledging iPhone app business (more on that later!). For 5 bucks on amazon it’s worth reading.