Almost Alchemy

1. Financial Efficiency: The Cornerstone of Business Success

"Financial Engineering or Re-Engineering is the art, science and process of adding, subtracting and rearranging everything in order to achieve maximum possible financial efficiency."

Maximum financial efficiency is the key to business sustainability and wealth extraction. It's not about brand identity, product superiority, or even gross revenues. Financial efficiency means getting the absolute maximum value out of each dollar invested, quickly and repetitively. This approach allows you to outspend competitors in customer acquisition and retention without going bankrupt.

To achieve this:

• Focus on return on investment (ROI) for every business activity
• Eliminate waste and reduce losses
• Optimize processes for maximum output with minimum input
• Continuously analyze and improve financial performance

By prioritizing financial efficiency, you create a business that can withstand market fluctuations and consistently generate wealth for its owners.

2. Relentless Follow-Up Marketing: Transforming Leads into Gold

"Follow-up after a failed selling attempt will produce subsequent sales from no less than 5% to as much as 20% of the non-buyers. Period. No exceptions."

Abandon the "sales culture" and embrace a "marketing culture" to maximize the value of your leads. Most businesses waste opportunities by relying solely on immediate sales, ignoring the potential of nurturing leads over time.

Implementing a relentless follow-up system:

• Creates multiple touchpoints with potential customers
• Builds trust and credibility over time
• Captures sales from slow-maturing buyers
• Increases overall conversion rates

By automating and systematizing follow-up, you can transform your business from fragile to anti-fragile, ensuring consistent growth even in challenging times.

3. The Power of Ascension Pyramids and Ladders

"There is no greater alchemy than taking customer flow a business already has and boosting the average customer value by 2X, 5X, 10X, 20X."

Increase customer lifetime value by creating structured paths for customers to ascend to higher levels of engagement and spending. Ascension Pyramids and Ladders provide a framework for customers to move up in their relationship with your business.

Key benefits:

• Improved customer retention
• Increased average customer spend
• Higher profit margins at higher levels
• Enhanced customer loyalty and commitment

By designing clear pathways for customers to progress, you can dramatically increase the value of your existing customer base without the need for constant new customer acquisition.

4. Price Liberation: Unlocking Hidden Profits

"Fact is, few business leaders ever really attempt this. They build, buy, operate and settle for quasi systems known in advance to involve tolerance of some amount of episodic failure."

Break free from pricing constraints to unlock hidden profits in your business. Most businesses undervalue their products or services due to industry norms, fear, or lack of creativity in pricing strategies.

Strategies for price liberation:

• Implement strategic price testing
• Use psychological pricing techniques (e.g., $9.97 instead of $10)
• Create value-based pricing models
• Offer tiered pricing options

By liberating your pricing strategy, you can significantly increase profits without necessarily increasing sales volume or incurring additional costs.

5. Place Strategy: Finding Money's Fertile Fields

"Money is mobile. Advertisers scammed. In one 48 hour purge of fake accounts at Twitter (July 2018), Katy Perry had 2.8-million fake fans disappear overnight, a body count by which compensation to her from sponsors, and general power in the marketplace was based."

Identify and capitalize on unconventional opportunities for your business. Place Strategy involves finding new, more fertile fields for your products or services, often in unexpected places.

Examples of effective Place Strategy:

• Selling in non-traditional venues (e.g., jewelry at horse auctions)
• Utilizing out-of-category media for advertising
• Expanding into global markets previously considered inaccessible
• Leveraging digital platforms to reach new audiences

By thinking creatively about where your business can thrive, you can tap into new revenue streams and outmaneuver competitors stuck in traditional mindsets.

6. The Only Metric That Matters: Sales

"If it can't be put on the bank deposit slip, it's not a result."

Focus relentlessly on sales as the ultimate measure of success. In an era of "new metrics" and vanity statistics, it's crucial to remember that only sales truly impact your bottom line.

Key points:

• Reject "fake metrics" that don't directly correlate to revenue
• Hold all business activities accountable for their impact on sales
• Invest in strategies and tactics with proven ROI
• Continuously optimize for improved sales performance

By maintaining a laser focus on sales, you ensure that all business efforts contribute directly to financial success.

7. Accurate Thinking: The Foundation of Alchemy in Business

"Accurate understanding of a 'type of' person is complex."

Cultivate accurate thinking to make better business decisions. Accurate thinking involves seeing reality as it is, not as you wish it to be, and making decisions based on facts rather than assumptions or emotions.

Steps to develop accurate thinking:

• Challenge your assumptions and biases
• Seek out diverse perspectives and information sources
• Analyze data objectively
• Be willing to change your mind when presented with new evidence

By developing accurate thinking, you can identify opportunities and threats more effectively, leading to better strategic decisions and improved business performance.

8. Moneyball for Business: Data-Driven Decision Making

"Force yourself to dig in. Be infinitely better informed than most of your direct competitors and your entire peer community."

Leverage data analytics to gain a competitive edge in your business. Just as the Oakland A's revolutionized baseball with their data-driven approach, businesses can use analytics to make more informed decisions and optimize performance.

Key areas for data-driven decision making:

• Customer acquisition and retention strategies
• Pricing optimization
• Product development and improvement
• Marketing campaign effectiveness
• Operational efficiency

By embracing a data-driven approach, you can uncover hidden opportunities, reduce costs, and make more accurate predictions about future business performance.

9. Amazon: The New Frontier for Brand Growth

"Amazon is an existential, expanding threat. At the same time, Amazon is a grand frontier of epic opportunities."

Develop a strategic Amazon presence to capitalize on the platform's growing dominance in e-commerce. With Amazon expected to drive 80% of U.S. e-commerce growth in the next five years, businesses must adapt to succeed in this new landscape.

Key strategies for Amazon success:

• Optimize product listings for Amazon's search algorithm
• Leverage Amazon's advertising platform strategically
• Manage your brand presence to prevent counterfeits and unauthorized sellers
• Use Amazon as a marketing platform for new product launches

By mastering Amazon's ecosystem, you can tap into a massive customer base and drive significant growth for your brand.

10. Solving Problems with Financial Re-Engineering

"If there ever was alchemy, it was done with combining of base metals and chemicals – and sorcery. Not lettuce and kale."

Apply creative financial solutions to overcome business challenges. Instead of focusing solely on traditional metrics or strategies, look for ways to re-engineer your financial structure to achieve desired outcomes.

Approaches to financial re-engineering:

• Adjust pricing strategies to improve profitability
• Develop new revenue streams or upsell opportunities
• Optimize cost structures
• Explore alternative business models or payment structures

By approaching problems from a financial perspective, you can often find innovative solutions that transform seemingly insurmountable challenges into opportunities for growth and profit.

Last updated: April 29, 2025