Magicians never tell the secrets to their tricks. Once they do, the magic and wonder disappears, and the magician is no longer valid to anyone anymore. He can get replaced by someone cheaper or younger. In business, you can learn a lot from them. To someone that lacks your skill, your knowledge is extremely valuable. They will constantly try to pick and prod it out of you and if you let them, you lose your leverage and power. A lot of people want your knowledge, but they don’t want to do what it takes to get to that point. They want you to do the research, spend the time and test it out first then just give it to them. I wrote about this in an earlier post.
I also wanted to talk about another reason you should safegaurd your knowledge: creating competition. Sometimes people will see your success, and want to duplicate it for themselves. They will come off as a friend, in an attempt to take what you have inside that head of yours. To see what they can pry out of you. In my line of work, often people want to tap into my brain. They know I’ve spent thousands and thousands of dollars and years of time researching and testing tactics or products to find the best. Many try to see what they can get out of me for free. You must be careful not to give too much of your ideas and knowledge away… especially for free. Once you give away the farm, you lose your 
value and they will take your ideas, use it for themselves and forget you ever helped them. I’ve had to learn that the hard way. When I first started, I would give away too much. Pretty quickly I created competition for myself. You give man a fire, and he’ll burn everything down. I found out that if you create a titan, they will forget they were once merely human with you.
I am a pretty open book to most, but I rarely ever give out my best secrets and knowledge. I will hold back what I know. I may throw out some gems to them to help, but I keep the best locked away inside my head for my business and for my personal clients that hire me.
Never show anyone. They’ll beg you and they’ll flatter you for the secret, but as soon as you give it up… you’ll be nothing to them. – The Prestige
Got an email today from a reader, Ken asking about how to deal with unhappy customers. His question: “I have a customer that I am constantly doing so much for, but they don’t see it. I give them extensions on payments, I add incentives, I give away free services, but still they are unhappy. I’m at a loss. What can I do to please them?” Ken, most likely you never will. Some people just will never be happy with the work you do. The meals too hot or cold, the design isn’t right, what they were happy with before, they aren’t happy with now. In business, it’s going to happen, no matter how good you are. There isn’t a lot you can do about it because they just can’t be satisfied. 
The other day, I attended a seminar where the speaker, multimillionaire Blake Mallen, said: 
Not too long ago I was on vacation in Atlanta where we stopped at the Coke museum. Coke had created a museum of nothing but old coke memorabilia, history, taste testing and the process to create Coke. It was really interesting stuff. I mean wow, what a great way to build its brand recognition also! Hundreds and hundreds of people were standing in line to go inside to learn about and see all things Coke. 
Are you playing Russian roulette with your business? Well, you could be if you aren’t marketing to women. Not too long ago a study found that women control 83% of purchase decisions and are the chief purchasing officer in most households. This mammoth-sized market has become a 4.7 trillion dollar machine (and that does not account for teen spending). Women are a majority, not a niche market. Another study found that women are responsible for more than 89% of bank accounts, 80% of healthcare, and 51% of all electronic purchases. 
Every business has rules. It uses them to make life easier and “run smoothly.” However, just about every business has stupid rules as well. Recently, I went to a restaurant that had only a few people eating there. I asked for a booth instead of a table. The hostess told me that the booths were sectioned off because they were low on staff. 
I love this picture. I snapped it at the coke museum a few months back. It’s a door that says “not an exit.” with an exit sign above the door.
Have you ever seen a fly that tries to escape outside only to be blocked by a window? What does the fly do? It keeps flying right smack into the window. It doesn’t try a new route. It stays on the same path and fails constantly. Is your business that fly? A lot of businesses have really poor marketing. Even worse, they keep doing the same thing over and over again without realizing it’s not going to work. They are like the fly that keeps flying into the window. 
