A couple weeks back:
I was feasting my eyes on the tales of two kings.
The Banana King.
And The Burger King.
More specifically…
I was reading both of their biographies. Biographies being something I ‘dine’ on a lot. Because there’s no better way to download hundreds of years of hard-earned experience and consciousness into my own puny brain without being an immortal vampire myself.
But The Banana King was this guy called Sam Zemurray.
Who grew up on the poor tracks of America.
In the 1880s.
But when the exotic fruit called the banana started coming into the US, and people started yearning to eat some everyday, he quickly discovered a biz op.
Namely, buying almost over-ripe bananas for cheap.
From big companies.
Who wanted to get rid of them fast before they got too brown to sell.
And quickly hitching a railcar ride all the way over to the next town, where he sold them for a higher-priced profit. Mostly because people big companies just moved too slowly to get them anywhere. Forcing them to liquidate for cheap.
A problem he didn’t have.
And he quickly amassed his mountain of gold coins.
Through arbitrage.
And made his first $100,000 by age 21.
Which is around $3,669,428 in today’s US dollars.
But he reinvested that. Into getting more farm land. And grew more bananas. And developed more innovative new techniques for growing bananas. And sold more bananas. And bought more land. And grew more, and sold more, and bought more. To the point he even hired mercenaries to help overthrow the government of Honduras during a revolution, just so he could get better tax benefits selling his bananas.
Which made his company, United Fruit, the world’s most powerful fruit company at the time.
But on the other hand:
There was this guy we now call The Burger King.
Namely, Ray A. Kroc. The guy who developed, innovated, marketed, and franchised his way to the billion dollar mega fast food titan we all know as McDonald’s. Which, I never eat at. Because of how bad it is for you. To the point that all of Ray Kroc’s family members (including his wife and daughter), and a large number of his business executives and partners, eventually died after diabetic complications, and even amputations.
But:
The way Kroc grew his burger empire ain’t much different from how Zemurray grew his banana empire.
Namely…
… through buying land…
… and creating a system for consistently and predictably turning whatever land they got their hands on, into a veritable gold mine. Probably even more profitable than a gold mine, because even gold mines aren’t as profitable or productive over decades and years.
But…
One did it by turning land into banana farms.
And the other by turning land into burger ‘farms’.
In the end though:
Zemurray died with just $30 million in the bank.
Roughly.
While Kroc died a multi-billionaire.
The difference?
Zemurray had a system. But a system so complicated that only he could use. And knew how to use. To the point that every single executive who took over the company after he retired was so incompetent at running it, that he constantly had to come out of retirement and oust everyone outta power.
So he could retake the reins.
Until he was so tired after his son died in World War II, that he just couldn’t do it anymore.
While Kroc built a system so simple…
… that even a teenage dropout looking for a part-time job could run it and do it.
And that he could franchise out.
To whoever could get themselves a nice plot of land.
On which they could use his proven ‘burger farming’ system to turn that land into productive profits. Worth more than the cost of the land and franchise fees itself.
At any rate:
Regardless of whether you wanna be a burger or banana king, the key has always been the same.
Figure out and develop a system (while making it as simple as possible) for turning real estate into real coin. ‘Cuz the money ain’t in the land. It’s in the system you apply to that land. And until you figure that out, or find a treasure map with that system on it, ya can sail the seven seas chasing real estate ventures until the cows come home and still lose your shirt every time.
But…
… probably the most important real estate you can have today?
That’s still cheaper, faster, and easier to get than any other…
… and often times, you can even do it for free?
Mental real estate.
Or in other words:
Capturing people’s attention. And making their brains lock up every thing you say into long-term memory storage. So you can convert that mental real estate into more coin. And gold. For both you and them.
Like how kids in their 20s are doing it on YouTube.
And Instagram.
And Tiktok.
Grabbing mental real estate through a screen. And using their system to turn that neural real estate into coin. Literally billions in coin. And sales. And profit. And subscribers. And hardcore fans.
Or how top copywriters have been doing it for decades.
But there’s easy ways to do it.
And hard ways to do it.
But if you want my a neuroscientific system I developed, and tried my best to make so simple that even my marketing-clueless wifey has been able to obsessively (and effectively) use, and is also used by neuroscientists working for and with Fortune 100 companies, like Nike, Microsoft, and more…
… then you’ll find my new treasure map over here:
https://themysteriousmarketer.com/dopamine-on-demand/
Allen Walker
The Mysterious “Pirate King” Marketer
Allen Walker, the Mysterious Marketer, is the marketing genius who’s deleted more 6 & 7 figure businesses than anyone else on the planet (*all because he gets bored). He’s also known as the world’s most genius renaissance marketer. Visit his blog to read thousands of his ‘secret’ copywriting tips for getting paid to grow your email list.
This post (https://themysteriousmarketer.com/the-banana-king-vs-the-burger-king) was originally published by Allen Walker, The Mysterious Marketer. And yes, you can click that link to read his newest secrets for free…