It’s All A Numbers Game – Lessons I Learned From Mailbox Money
Before the advent of the internet, get rich quick schemes were advertised in magazines. These ads followed a predictable formula – there were pictures of expensive European cars parked in front of a mansion and an average, perhaps portly guy, with a polyester leisure suit and two hot blondes on either side and ad copy stating, “I make a million dollars a year without doing anything.” It’s not at all unlike what is portrayed in internet get rich quick scheme ads today like the Rich Jerk.
I fell for my first get rich quick scheme at about age ten. While other children were playing kick ball, I was dreaming about being rich. Not just rich but filthy rich. Funny money. I sent the rich guy my ten bucks and waited on pins and needles for my very own blueprint for success to arrive in the mail. What I got was a pamphlet telling me how to start my own get rich quick scheme. The scheme suggested you write a pamphlet (or just photocopy his) and advertise it in classified ads. He said if you charge five dollars for your pamphlet and spend two hundred dollars on advertising you should make roughly $2000. He called it mailbox money because he said he opened his mail box and got money every day.
I never tried it and I fell for many more get rich quick schemes after that as I’m sure anyone who has been interested in getting “money for nothing and your chicks for free” has as well. But the lesson I learned from all the various scams I was suckered into was this – IT’S ALL A NUMBERS GAME.
Take any method of making money and there’s at least a million of them to chose from. The formula for success is how many times you actually performed the activity. If it takes 100 sales calls to make one sale and you quit at 99, saying, “this doesn’t work,” you misunderstood the formula for success. Another key component implicit in the formula is your belief in the method of making money you chose to engage in. In other words, maybe you don’t have the personality (or the glamor shot photo) to sell real estate and you believe you are better adapted to, oh, I don’t know, how about shoveling dirt. If that were the case and you honestly believed you should be shoveling dirt for money, the amount of money you make is directly proportional to how many times you shovel. Even as a shoveler of dirt, you have to sell your service even if it means you have to go door to door with your shovel, asking people to hire you. So to be clear, whatever we choose to do for money, we’re selling something whether it’s an idea, a product or our time.
So no more get rich quick schemes – just pick a method that actually makes money and do it over and over again until you have all the money you want. That’s the lesson to be learned from mailbox money. Good luck!