I woke up this morning, confused about where I am and what time it might be.
It’s day one of my U.S. trip. I’m only just beginning the adjustment to the time zone change from Europe. I expect the adjustment to continue until it’s time for me to fly back to Barcelona.
In my confusion this morning, I checked my inbox and saw the many dozens of emails that had accumulated since yesterday. One email stood out.
“Uh-oh,” I said to myself. “That’s a problem.”
Because yesterday, I teased, promised, and threatened that today I would start promoting an exciting and legit business opportunity for working copywriters.
Well, as that email informed me, this promo has now been postponed.
As with most legit business opportunities, you gotta get on a call before you can buy. And as I found out this morning, the guy who does these calls is “taking a step back for urgent personal reasons.”
So I will not be promoting this exciting and legit business opportunity in my email today. Instead, my teasing of this business opportunity continues, and I will be promoting it in the future.
Meanwhile, since I had to adapt my plan for today, I’d like to share the following quote with you. It’s from one of the most successful direct marketers of all time, Joe Sugarman, of BluBlockers fame.
Joe was talking about a glaring objection in a product he was selling once. And he wrote:
“I recognized this as a problem that had to be addressed in our copy. And since I look at problems as opportunities, I wondered, ‘Where is the opportunity in this serious and rapidly growing problem?'”
I read this in the early days of my business and marketing education. And that “problems as opportunities” bit has stuck with me ever since.
Here’s a second quote I read only yesterday. It comes from Brad Jacobs, who started 7 billion-dollar companies so far in his life, and who recently published a book about his experiences, titled How to Make a Few Billion Dollars. Jacobs writes:
“Embrace everything that comes your way, the good and especially the bad. And don’t just accept adversity — figure out how to capitalize on it.”
So there you go. My tip for you for today, via Joe Sugarman and Brad Jacobs:
Train yourself. Change your mind. And the next time you come across a problem — big or small — tell yourself to look at it as an opportunity. In time, this attitude may lead you to a few billion dollars.
In my case, the fact that my planned affiliate offer for today fell through is an opportunity to promote something of my own.
So let me remind you of my Simple Money Emails course. It’s all about writing easy and fast emails that you can use day after day to adapt to problems and opportunities in your business, and even to use them to build credibility and trust with your audience.
For more information on Simple Money Emails: