PASSOVER 5774 EDITION
SECTION B PAGE 11
Rabbi Issamar Ginzberg doesnt claim to be a miracle-worker. He does not dispense blessings or amulets.
The 34-year-old business strategist, marketing consultant, financial columnist and motivational speaker and very visible chasidic Jew does, however, see a divine hand guiding his success. His Jerusalem- and New York-based consultancy is named Its All From Above.
I can trace anything Ive accomplished to other things Ive done that werent moneymakers, and it all leads back to shamayim [heaven], he says.
His lecture at Google Tel Aviv on leveraging social media? His marketing workshop at Tel Aviv University? Both came out of connections from a lecture to members of the Israel Translators Association.
His gig with the Jewish National Fund? That resulted from his work for communications consultant Gil Peretz, author of Obamas Secrets.
Ginzberg has clients in Egypt, Dubai, Italy, Japan, Australia and the Caribbean. He was voted one of Inc. Magazines Entrepreneurs of the Year in 2005. Hes advised politicians, corporate executives, nonprofits, startups and even a Hollywood movie studio.
What people pay me for is my understanding of how to apply principles of psychology in business, marketing and social media, Ginzberg says.
Why can I teach someone how to make money on social media, which usually doesnt lead to sales? I understand how to use it in a profitable way. I dont mean to say I have superhuman powers or Im psychic. Its just that I understand what works, why it works and how to make it work.
Baked beans
He not only has no psychic powers; he also has no secular schooling. Growing up in Brooklyn, he was educated in a chasidic yeshiva and married at age 20. Shortly afterward, he went online to learn about business credit and became a guru on the topic. Under a pen name, he published an e-book, Business Credit Secrets. It sold well and led to some paying clients.
I backed into what I do giving people advice on building credit, and then on marketing and morphed into what Im doing now, he says.
Now a Jerusalem Post columnist, Ginzberg is co-writing a book for a mainstream publisher under his real name.
The rabbis entrepreneurial streak was evident as early as third grade, when he bought Boston baked beans at two for a nickel and sold them for 15 cents apiece.
Over the years, he sold his yeshiva pals doughnuts, bagels, boxes of cereal, cans of soda.
As a preteen, he came across a source of $199 used computers. He bought some and resold each for $300. My father said, If youre buying a bunch, ask for a discount, so I got them for $175 apiece and kept selling them locally for $300. That made me realize the power of classified ads, says Ginzberg.
He was among the first to capitalize on the concept of custom icons, creating a collection of 50 for free download through shareware.
His product was featured on MITs hyper-archive disk, and he understood that offering a choice of icons for a small fee would look more professional and make him a few bucks.
This experience taught him a critical lesson: When you dangle a carrot, it makes a huge difference in conversions.
The summer he was 15, Ginzberg had his older brother schlepping to camp to bring him bagsful of checks accumulating in the mailbox at home.
Novelty draws customers
As long as you know what youre doing, you dont need credentials, he says.
People only want to make sure youre not a scam artist, and you can prove that with testimonials and facts on the ground. If you have the goods, people will buy from you.
At a cousins Bar Mitzvah, young Ginzberg met someone who helped companies raise money. That person introduced him to a firm that hired him for a consulting job, which led to other consulting deals with small companies.
By the time he was 20, Ginzberg was already an established businessman.
In 2007, he and his wife and four-year-old son came to Israel for the High Holiday season to recalibrate after Ginzbergs sister passed away. Essentially, they never returned.
They now live in Jerusalems Hasidic Kiryat Sanz neighborhood with their four children. Ginzberg devotes his mornings to Talmud study and works American hours, traveling abroad frequently to clients and speaking engagements.
Four years ago, he finished a special program at Jerusalems Ohr Somayach Education Center granting him rabbinic ordination, a teaching certificate and a bachelors degree. He is also a certified mohel (circumciser) and speaks English, Hebrew and Yiddish as well as a smattering of Hungarian and Russian.
Living here gives me the blessing of living my life the way I want to, and working on my own schedule, he says. Being here has blessed me in many ways.
Perhaps unexpectedly, his out-of-towner status has been good for business.
People always assume the person who lives next door isnt an expert at what he does. To people in New York Im Israeli, and to people in Tel Aviv Im a New Yorker. The disconnect is the novelty that makes them interested in contacting me.
You could also say the novelty is getting business advice from a man in chasidic garb.