You can’t go broke making a profit…

Here is my first anecdote. These are little gems that I’ve picked up over the years, along with musings and other random thoughts. I’ll be sprinkling these in the blog on an occasional basis. I hope you enjoy them.

I first met Marv (his real name) when I was with a small company trying to break into the personal computer business. Marv had developed a very successful real estate firm, and was looking into using computers to further develop his business. Since this was around 1980, Marv was way ahead of his time.

We collaborated on a project to automate “farming”, a method used by many successful real estate agents to develop local markets. (By the way, the same techniques can be used by consultants to develop their own markets. We’ll talk about this in a future post. )

Marv was specifically interested in direct mail — using word processing combined with data base management. It didn’t need to be elaborate, as his experience has shown that a “farm” of even several hundred prospects was often enough to assure an agent’s success.

Marv also graciously shared a lot of good advice with me — both on business and on life. One of his sayings that really stuck with me was, “Remember, as long as you are making a profit, you can never go broke.” So simple, yet so profound. Thanks, Marv.

Happy New Year, and All the Best in 2011!

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