[JayBallentine]

If you called any "Joe Merchant" and offered them one of two options;

Option A
$1M cash right now.


Option B
$1M net profit on sales over a "short" period of time.

Which one will he pick?

YOUR opinion and what YOU may pick doesn't matter. What makes sense to YOU is irrelevant.

YOUR knee jerk reaction may be to take the cash. Because that makes sense to YOU.

Did YOU sell everything you owned and put YOUR parents in debt to open a store where YOUR take home pay after paying expenses is $40k or $75k?

Business owners are a strange animal. I recently walked in to a BRAND NEW bar and offered the guy $2,000 to shoot commercials BEFORE HIS opening day.

He refused. Flat out. No "I want more money." Just; "no thanks."

I was incredulous. THE PLACE IS BLEEPING GORGEOUS!!

I stop by the place once in a while and recently asked his first "former employee" over a beer - why?

Turns out this particular owner is in it to profit, but views his business as being sacred. He didn't want it desecrated by "commercialization."

This type of business owner picks Option B because that means that people have to come in so that his ego is stroked.

What may seem obvious to YOU is often fools gold. Thats why a lot of you are failing at your marketing.

A lot of premium guys are in pain right now because they figured the obvious course of action to THEM was raise money now - get customers later.

They'd be in a lot less pain if they operated as an ISO until they had a lock solid customer acquisition plan in place. "The Lean Start Up."

See right now, that company would have enormous leverage. Over everyone.

I love learning about merchants and the way they think. It informs every 3 am search for data to justify a specific marketing strategy I have.

If you consider it a waste of time - maybe at least you can be entertained!!


EDIT: For the record, if someone had the audacity to make me this offer, I wouldn't be around long enough to hear, "and option B is..."

[funding pro]

EDIT: For the record, if someone had the audacity to make me this offer, I wouldn't be around long enough to hear, "and option B is..."

Funny stuff and same here, but what if option B was $2M?!?!?!?!?!