As mentioned in the previous section, we need to begin to function as speculators.
Proactively, intentionally looking for relationships between things that rentiers ignore as being disconnected.
That’s how you’ll begin to strengthen your idea muscle. And how you’ll develop the skillset of seeing combinations where others do not.
This is exactly what entrepreneur and copywriter, Porter Stansberry, did when creating the first marketing campaign for his investment newsletter, Stansberry Advisory.
The body of Porter’s marketing campaign detailed how the spread of voice over IP was about to radically change the telecommunications industry.
At the time of the campaign, fiber optic cable was being laid all throughout the country. And it was about to present savvy investors with a monumental opportunity.
But Porter knew, if he simply announced another new investment opportunity, the market would see it as more of the same. It would be viewed as old-hat. Typical. it would be an ordinary idea.
Instead, Porter chose to develop an extraordinary idea. A Big Marketing Idea.
He saw a relationship between the spread of fiber optic cable and the spread of the early American railroad.
The spread of the railroad created tremendous fortunes and created many titans of industry. Porter felt the same opportunity was at hand with the spread of fiber optic cable. And that became the foundation of his Big Marketing Idea.
The campaign went on to be a wild success. In fact, it helped launch, what is today, a $170+ million-dollar a year business.
See how Porter found a relationship between two seemingly disconnected things — the spread of the railroad and the spread of fiber optic cable — and brought them together for what became a Big Marketing Idea?
That’s the power of proactively looking for connections.
Let’s look at another maybe more well-known example of how a simple ordinary idea has been transformed into an extraordinary one….
Take a look at this book: ”Outsourcing A to Z”
You can see from the title it’s, obviously, all about how to outsource your business.
I don’t know who published this. I don’t know the author behind this. I don’t know where this came from, but it’s crystal clear what this book is about.
It’s a simple, straight-forward, ordinary idea: how to outsource.
I have no idea if this book sold well or not at all. If I was a betting man, I would bet a stack of chips it did not.
Now I want you to compare it to this book: “4-Hour Work Week”
It was on the New York Times’ Bestseller List for over four years.
Translated into 35 languages. Sold over 1.3 million copies. And put the author, Tim Ferriss, on the map.
What’s the difference between the content, the material covered in The 4-Hour Work Week and the first book, Outsourcing A to Z?
Really, there is no difference. Both are about outsourcing for your business. The difference is not in the content. The difference is not in the essence of the material.
The difference is in the idea behind how the content is being presented. Tim Ferriss took the ordinary and common idea of outsourcing and turned it into something new, unique, and different.
Into, a Big Marketing Idea: You can work a four-hour week, escape the 9-to-5, live anywhere, and join the new rich.
And that one shift — that one Big Marketing Idea — was enough to propel Tim Ferris on to super-stardom in the publishing world.
That’s the power of a Big Marketing Idea.
Here are some other examples of going from an Ordinary idea to Extraordinary idea:
Example #1:
Ordinary idea: The defense contractor is going to get a boost in contracts from the government. That is going to lift the share price.
Extraordinary idea: is that it has infinite power, and their board is going to solve all these different military problems and completely capture the market for it.
Example #2:
Ordinary idea: Buy penny stocks for big returns.
Extraordinary idea: There is this list of companies where there are going to be 45 stock doubles each day.
Example #3:
Ordinary idea: The Social Security system is on its way down and is going to dry up. And you know you are going to lose your wealth, basically, over time.
Extraordinary idea: Piggyback investments from other social security systems.
Example #4:
Ordinary idea: A diet that starves cancer cells of the glucose they need to survive.
Extraordinary idea: Dying Millionaire Discovers Free Food Trip That Erases All Traces of Cancer.
Example #5:
Ordinary idea: You can get a dividend payments from a company that owns government buildings which is only loosely associated with Social Security.
Extraordinary idea: There is a glitch in the Social Security system, and you can get those huge payments of up to $6,880.
Example #6:
Ordinary idea: The opportunity to invest in a company that manufactures wireless charging technology in Apple devices
Extraordinary idea: The extraordinary idea is this could be a revolutionary industry that could lead to 79,000% gains.
Example #7:
Ordinary idea: The ordinary idea is that institutions will buy stocks and that will help raise the price.
Extraordinary idea: The extraordinary idea is that there is a special pattern called the dark trade. That if you can identify the dark trade in advance, then that stock is going to go up.
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