I am the applecart. How do you propose to motivate me?

I have a brand new business idea.

At first glance, you might call it lead-gen, except that I hate that kind of wheel-spinning. What nerds call leads, I call inquiries – and the difference between inquiries and crap is that nobody wastes that kind of time on crap.

Instead, as I have discussed, I am interested in in-real-life marketing strategies, this as a way of neutralizing the Realty.bots where they are worst – at Sociability.

So what I have is a way of creating a warm network of around 200 people interested in self-improvement, each deploying their varied talents to engender a self-amplifying mutual-improvement machine. Generates listings for me – from people already sold on me – but it generates opportunities for everyone involved.

Even better, it’s totally replicable: There’s room for a group like this every three miles on every freeway in every city in North America. We spend all our time looking for better people, when, instead, we should be cultivating better people – starting from the inside out. Eminently doable – and there’s work in it for everyone.

There’s a hitch, for now: What I am talking about is inescapably social in a world in quarantine. I had all this worked out when Coronavirus came to call. But this is temporary, and we all know it. When I’m ready to jump, the people I want to meet will be ready to jump, too.

The bigger question would be: Why should I?

I am the applecart. In my head are the means to create jobs in my own business while encouraging the creation of jobs in many other businesses.

Why should I bother?

So you know, for now I am not bothering. We haven’t marketed for new business in ten years, and I am not committing to anything new between now and the election. If Trump wins, I’ve got twenty years of growth to plan for. If Biden wins, my applecart will very quickly come to resemble an armadillo.

Yours, too, I should expect.

Profit is faith and follow-through – not faith in the magical but simply an unwavering belief that the follow-through will pay off. If you’ve got both, the faith and the follow-through, you’ve got two-thirds of what it takes to make it as an entrepreneur.

What’s the other factor? Civil order. You know, that thing, like the air that you breathe, that you took for granted until it suddenly disappeared all across America this Summer.

When I push my applecart out into the street, I serve my interests by serving yours. I want your money, you want affordable nosh on the way to work. There’s a Sociable currency in play as well – banter with the regulars, dickering over prices, maybe a free apple if you can make me laugh.

What I am not bargaining for is confrontation, larceny or threats. What better ways, you might think to ask yourself, do I have of working for a living?

And when you upend my applecart, shouting, “Free apples for all!” – why would you expect to see me or my apples ever again?

Tax virtue, you get a lot less virtue. Reward vice and vice abounds. Big duh, right?

What happens when you make it plain that follow-through is futile?

I am the applecart. I can make jobs in my own business, in other businesses – perhaps in businesses across the continent, every three miles along urban freeways.

Why should I?