In one of my recent blogs I talked about the concept of, Outside perception vs. Inside reality in marketing of your business. The marketplace usually gets one impression of your business, that is not always in sync with the inside realities of your operation…good or bad.

Yesterday I experienced and excellent example of this phenomenon. Lately on CNN, amidst all the Bubblehead talk from our media puppets on the show, I kept seeing a commercial sponsored by CNN for a new book by a Grant Cardone. The title of the book is “Selling to Survive” and the quick informercial about the book in between newscasts sounded a lot like the message I have been pounding via Youtube and articles for the past year, which is WE ALL must become better adept at Selling in order to survive job losses or just the economy in general.

Selling, as I have always said will set you free from the chains of relying on a fictitious, benevolent employer to continue to send you a paycheck every two weeks. So I got pretty excited about the subject of the book and wanted to learn more, so I went to the website: www.selltosurvive.com , and I tried to order the book. The transaction did not go through, apparently some scripting errors on the checkout page occurred.

Another thing I noticed was that the website itself was not too impressive. There was a disconnect, between the image I received of this guy on CNN and the website. I immediately made an assumption, he is probably a newbie marketer just starting out and this is his first product. In any event, I called the 800# and was surprised to hear a girl that sounded like it could have been his 15 year old daughter pick up the phone and say…”Hello?”

Again, not the impression I expected to hear on the phone, we went through a quick back and forth about my order, she at the end of getting my credit card number made a weak attempt to upsell me on the audio version of the program which cost, 5 times as much as the book for the privilege of having Grant read the book to me…”no thank you”. She thanked me for my order, and said she would email me an MP3 first chapter a couple of other freebies and most importantly my invoice.

Two days went by and I received nothing in my email. I nervously called back to confirm the amount of my order, knowing that sometimes, online sellers use similar tactics to overcharge your credit card. So far my confidence level was waning on this originally excited purchase. Again, I called and this time a guy picked up with the same, unprofessional greeting and promised to forward me all that was promised. He did and I was satisfied for now.

Now, I am a marketer and a researcher, I find it very hard to leave things as is and my curiosity led me to find out more about Grant Cardone. I googled him up and found that he actually has another website named Grant Cardone, and this website unlike the other one was very professional, sleak and exciting. It gives a more professional image and adds more credibility to who this guy really is. My perception of him being a newbie and struggling upstart marketer, was completely wrong when I found out online that HE is actually a multi-millionaire, married to a famous actress and I even got to see a video of a gorgeous $20,000,000 dollar home he has for sale in California. I even found out that he is in Celebrity circles when I found photos of a 50 Birthday party bash he had last year, in which a bunch of A-List celebrities attended. Another curious thing is that apparently Mr. Cardone, was attempting to use Youtube video to promote his books, and message…

However, once again the video was in a plain setting, very down to earth and would never reveal a glimpse of who he really is and what caliber of person he is in the business. To the point that, his videos have not gotten much attention in the youtube community, people are obviously misunderstanding his credibility. He is just blending in with all the other wanna-be mentors on youtube.

If this was an ordinary person, than there would be nothing wrong with that, but the fact that this guy is the real deal, has the wealth, has the powerful message and is SELLING his expertise in making YOU a better marketer and saleperson...makes these disparate messages inexcusable.

Again, he may just be a very down to earth, humble guy and he is just trying to connect with the average person, without trying to brag and be flashy, but this I believe is an inappropriate approach for his intentions. He is selling a product and a message about prosperity. People are hyper skeptical today, You HAVE TO show evidence as to why your audience should believe you. As they say…If you have it flaunt it.

Not every customer would go through all the steps that I took to thoroughly research the guy, and I wonder how many potential customers actually walked away with the impressions that I initially had. Again, outside perception, inside reality.
Which came first, the Product or the wealth, Consumers today know too well the stories of the BROKE late night infomercial marketer, selling dreams of wealth as if he already had it, when the sales he makes is what actually will eventually get him there. As they say: “Fake it until you make it.”

Having said all of this, because I did my homework on this guy, because I have found him to be for real and because I think his message is so very important...I suggest you go and buy his book :"Selling to survive" by Grant Cardone.

Bob Solis is a Marketing Consultant, Entrepreneur and speaker living in Orlando,FL with his Wife and 2 daughters. Contact: