Business Secrets Of The Highest Paid Marketing Consultant | Jay Abraham
- Nobody even knew what the word entrepreneur meant. And even if you make a lot of money, you'll really never be wealthy or prosperous, you can't be. - Like two, three years. They're like, oh, this is the hottest thing and then after a few years, they're like, nowhere to be found.
Like nowhere to be found. Like disappeared, right? - Welcome to another episode of The thenLok Show. Today, I am so, so, so excited. We have a legend with us today. And let me just share a little bit story with you.
This is a man that I've been studying for now over I don't know, 13, 14 years. In the beginning of my career in my early twenties, I actually have in my house, a section of all his materials. Back then, it was like cassette tapes, that's right.
Not an MP3, it's cassette tapes and also VXF tapes. That I have collected over the years. And Jay Abraham, if you've been online, if you've been studying marketing, Jay would be no stranger to you? He is truly a legend.
Someone who has consulted with tens of thousands of companies in over a thousand industries. Pretty much anyone in marketing, you would see, you talk to them who has been any length of time. They will tell you, they've studied Jay's work one in one way or the other. Jay's work has impact them one way or the other. He's also known as a $21.7 billion man. That's how much value he's helped companies generated.
Nowadays, a lot of the marketing guys are teaching marketing. You get a lot of those concepts. They quite frankly, they stole it from Jay. They got it from Jay.
Jay is pretty much the source of material. So Jay it's an honor that we can finally connect and for you to have to be on the show. - Well, first of all, I'm very grateful. Second of all, I'm delighted and thrilled to learn that you have some roots with me. It makes me very, very happy. And just as, and I'll say this publicly I'm also gonna give you, I have a hard drive that has 35 full length programs we used to do when we did the marketing and in a protege, I'm gonna send you all those.
I think you'll get a kick out of them. - Now, Jay did this so much information, so much of your work. I mean, like you said, there are hundreds of program, books, interviews for this interview because I know your material so well. I wanna do something a little different. I wanna ask questions that people who may not usually ask, right? - Sure.
- So in the beginning of your career, how did you decide that you wanna be the super consultant for companies? - Well, it was an accidental process. I mean the accidental super consultant. So I started off then very sincerely at age 18. I got married, we had kids right away. I had two kids at 20, nobody cared. And the only people that give me a job wasn't really a salary job.
They were crazed entrepreneurs who would give me a desk and a phone and say you can have a piece of whatever you can sell kid. And when you only eat, when you earn, you find out very quickly what works, what doesn't and you concentrate towards that. But I was a job transient and I jumped all the time from industry to industry.
And after about eight or 10 I realized people in industry A, had no clue what people in industry B C, D did. Strategies, sales approach, access vehicles, business model, value, propositions, preemptive advantage, anything like that. And I started borrowing very commonplace techniques from one industry, combining two or three of them together into a hybrid, applying it to industries that didn't know anything about it. It just killed. It was great. We did Icy Hot, the product that, you know, we did entrepreneur.
Then I got into the investment field and I started having knowledge that nobody else did. I studied along that some very profound people from earlier than my era but I became very adroit at understanding the psychology of human interactive motivations, sort of psychological stimuli. And I was able to find all kinds of companies who worked very hard and cared very deeply and were committed to making a difference but they couldn't market their way out of a paper bag. They didn't understand sequential selling, they didn't understand residual value, they didn't understand how to get more people to convert and buy.
They didn't understand how to take away the risk. And I became this golden hair. I'm not golden here, I'm dark but I became this golden haired figuratively speaking boy in all these different industries.
And because I made a contribution to all these overnight successes, I mean we grew truthfully many of them, 500, 900%, 1,000% in a year. And it wasn't because I was that great. Just so we're clear on it. It was that I just had knowledge, nobody else had. Like the one I man in the land of the blind.
But after awhile, everybody said, "you gotta get Jay Abraham, you gotta get him working for, you gotta get him working for you, not your competition. We used to run ad saying, "pray he works for you and not-- - And not your competitor, yes." - That was hilarious. But yeah, but I just started to be evolve. And after a while, very honestly the best of all worlds, your outrageous but documented reputation becomes your calling card really. - That everybody knows, and everybody's calling you.
But it's interesting, I remember even back then you positioned yourself as the premium, right like from the get go. 'Cause most consultants, as you know where they would, oh, let's just charge average price. I remember back then, I think I saw an ad saying that, "like, back then, like $3,000 an hour," now you're probably way more like $10,000 an hour. I'm just guessing. - We do 120,000 a day.
- Yeah, $120,000 a day. So, but back then, even $3,000, it was an obscene amount of money for like an hourly consultant. - But I'll tell you what I started.
Just so you wanna know my strategy. I had a different strategy back then and I'd be happy to share it because it's pretty cool. So I'll give it to you in different parts. It has different evolution. So when I started doing this really and wanting to super position myself, I already had a low, nobody knew who I was in the beginning but they knew the businesses that I was sort of behind the scenes on.
As I said, ICI in a year and a half, grew from a few thousand to 500,000 buyers. And an entrepreneur grew, you know, 900% became preemptive, and everyone knew what they were, but nobody knew who I was. And in an industry they started saying, "who did all that?" And my name came up, came up, came up.
I decided because I had the ability to understand how to correlate, how to contrast, how to compare, how to add, how to concretize intangible value, if that makes sense. Because in the work I did, I helped 20 or 30 newsletter advisers, people who were the Icons for real estate for business opportunity, for option trading. And I had to figure how to denominate their ability beyond just generic. So I became very, very good at taking almost anyone with skill and a reasonable track record and making them seem genuine to like they were invaluable. And so I started doing it finally for myself. And the first way I did it was saying that basically whatever price I charged was irrelevant given that, you know, the history of performance and that at the level that I was working at, you know hourly as a joke, and that makes no sense.
But if I had to charge something it's gotta be at least 3,000 because you know, I'm worth it. And I started showing all kinds of things that I knew that others didn't in our marketing for example, we didn't just titillate. We would run. This is hilarious. You might've seen him. We used to run 16 and 20 page ads in the in-flight magazines but they weren't just hyperbole three to four pages.
We'd be actual distillations of concepts, principles and strategies people could use, right then would be just distilled and laid out. - And that back then, was like a pioneer of like education marketing, right? - Yeah, nobody was no one was, everyone was titillating. We were just saying, here's something and you can use it anywhere in any universal. But what we did that really blew people's mind then, and I was proud of it. We would run three full pages that would have about 25 testimonials and success stories.
But you know how most people run Jay as Illinois. We had people from all over the world, we had the name of their business, we had their story and we had their daytime phone number with a disclaimer saying, if this is the last mile you need in order to make a decision, then call them, but don't disrespect-- - Their time, yes. - With that, and we actually had a qualifier that said, "you must understand when somebody like these people go out of their way to give not just a testimony but to give their access information, their phone number."
It's not for Jay, it's they wanna make sure that they do everything in their power, to help people deserving like you get access to something that's going to transform your business. So we were very good at positioning. - And yes. - is good. - Yes, and-- - One more thing, and you'll get a cake out of this, and this is, you can use this. - I Love it. - So, when I was in the seminar business.
We did a quarter billion dollars in a few years which back then was pretty amazing. And we spent almost nothing. And the reason was I had helped all kinds of entrepreneurs. Success Magazine, Entrepreneur Magazine, 20 investment newsletters make millions of electorally, hundreds of millions of dollars. And they were very comfortable signing outrageous but truthful endorsement letters about me.
But that wasn't what did it. I had a really cool strategy. We got to the point where back then, we were charging $50,000 a day for consulting. Now, one of the things I was gonna say, before the world got so diffused and digitally obsessed, entrepreneurs were dependable.
So if you made a deal on performance where you gave them knowledge and they had to act on it and execute they would do it. Today, it's different You have to be very careful 'cause people equivocate, procrastinate, divert. But when I was starting, you could depend on to do that. I wanted more than a short-term fee. I wanted a percentage of the increased profit I created for a business from many different facets, from improving what they were doing right now on the revenue system, new markets, new products, new selling approaches, new, you know new distribution channels. So I would run very expensive pricing as a contrast to make giving me 25 or 33% of increased profits seem like a blessing if that makes sense.
- So, because if they want to hire you just a pay consultant, it's gonna be this-- - 50 grand per day. - 50 grand, it's just minimum, right? So then instead of doing that, they would say, "well I could get Jay. And I know if I can give Jay a percentage of profit, I know he's gonna work hard. I know he's gonna--" - And I was making millions of dollars from the clients. 'Cause I knew how to make what I'll call, performance-based highly leverageable assets and activities and brand value.
I knew how to make it produce many times more, I still do but they didn't. So I get to see somebody that had a bad headline or a bad call to action or bad positioning or a bad conversion or they only sold a hundred dollar item. And they didn't understand how to sell a 500, or a 5,000 or a 50,000. And I could just add those elements very easily.
And all of a sudden a business that was making 500 grand is making 5 million and I'm getting paid every month for the use of it, you know, 25, 50, a hundred grand. So it was great for me but when we did the seminar business you'll get a big kick out of this. And it was very legitimate.
But you ask about positioning. So we would sit with the endorsers would endorse my seminar but first I would ask them preemptively to send a letter out that I underwrote, I paid for. And it told about me and it offered their audience a one day $50,000 consult. We, then were thrilled if we broke even. It wasn't designed to make money.
It was designed to position the second communication as being unbelievably, outrageously appealing. So if we got one client and it cost me 50 grand for the mailing and I got a $50,000 for the consult, yay. But then we'd go behind with a letter from the endorser that would say, so many people were incredulous about a man that could charge that much. They no way they wanted to pay it but they wrote and ask us if he's real, is there any way we can afford some kind of access? And then it would say, well yes, JD said, sure. Get 500 of them together at five grand a piece and economies of scale, I'll do a three-day and for each one, it's the equivalent of 150,000 for five grand.
And we just nailed it greatly. Then we'd go behind and pull off the people that came on the list. And we'd say so many peoples still we're in graduates, but the goodness for it and we do that.
Then we do the home study studies at 2,500. Then we'd pull that off and we'd sell a $400 book. I mean, it was hilarious, but it was very integrative.
I don't know if that makes sense or not. - A hundred percent, a hundred percent, because I have some of those sales letters. - And it worked very well.
But then, I mean, all along, we're making, we're still working with experts and Icons. I always spent more time really doing it than teaching it, which gave me a great credibility. I was doing Tony Robbins. I was doing all these prominent newsletters. I was doing dozens and dozens.
And now it's been hundreds of Icons, like yourself either directly, indirectly, you know, as Stephen Covey was telling how great I was, you know, you know, there's different Icons in different eras, but whoever they were, a large portion of them, I helped. And they would acknowledge because it was very profound for them. And I was very blessed and grateful to do it. But it was really fun. And I mean, now I've evolved the ability to create value or are outrageous or in comparable value from somebody's expertise. And, you know, I do it for a lot of clients as well but yeah, but it just, I always understood that intangible has to be made concrete.
You have to be able to show what it's done, what it's worth, contrast it, not to, you know, to a fee, but to all the transactional implications it's gonna mean to a business or a life and not in static terms like for the moment, but the ongoing yield you're gonna get over and over again things like that. Does that answer the question? - A hundred percent? And I could see sale from a positioning point of view over the years, you could see, you always serve different different industries. But like I said, the Icons, right? Nowadays we call that influencers, right? It's the influencers. - Yeah, that's right. - And when you call, not you, but what your industry would call, what do you call them? The joint ventures. What do you guys call them today? - Social media influencers, maybe? - No, well, if you do a deal with somebody and you-- - Ah, the joint venture strategic alliance? - Well, when they're not, but they called them. It was actually very tragic when we did strategic alliances.
You're not asking this to me but I probably should share because I find it very sad. Oh, affiliate. When people do affiliate-- - Affiliate, yes. Affiliate yes.
- I wanna cry because I think there's a way to make them much higher. And I hope today, I think it's gotten very marginalized 'cause everyday when a brother goes to people and says, "hey, we'll give you whatever 40%, 50%." And if they agree, everybody sends pretty much the same letter. And they do a static arrangement.
What we did in my initial period, we probably did more. We did billions and billions of dollars of power partnering, strategic alliance. We still do. Really very sophisticated joint ventures. But what we would do is never want to waste the opportunity and the value of a relationship on a single and superficial opportunity. We would go to the people, starting with the people that I had helped.
And if there were people I hadn't that had a lot of influence, I would offer to buy them my time and do something and have them see their bank account grow. And they became a believer very quickly and were very comfortable because I didn't ask for anything. I would just say, "I'll make you 500 grand as long as you'll endorse me," and they were pretty happy. But what we would do is we would go to them and we would set up integrated very, very customized arrangements where first of all, the deal was that we would have a specific product, program, seminar, we wanted them to promote but it was never a single promotion. We would basically create a sequence, a very integrated communications that built on it.
We would basically, if it was a newsletter, we would pay to underwrite a special interview where we'd put out a special edition that we would write and let the newsletter added. We would put out content way before anyone figured out to do that, that people could use right, right away. We would do self diagnostics.
We would give them 20 different techniques they could use right away themselves with the explicit and implicit understanding. We were doing this so that they would apply it and make so much money. We would pay for our costs for them. And what we did was we did it very integral, but no two communication pieces were the same.
Every one and the reason was very strategic, then. In that era, there were people subscribing to five or six newsletters or people that were buying five or six different biz op or marketing peoples. And I did not want them to get the same copy from everybody. So I would sit down very arduous and write a very customized, personalized, and very uniquely different cover letter and brochure for every influencer that we had partnerships with and it had much more integrity. And so if you're subscribing to five different newsletters and you get five totally different stories that are uniquely contoured to the personality and the activities of your different Icons, there's authenticity and there's integrity to it because you go, wow, I get that, that it makes sense.
'Cause I see that my guy does that and Jay helped him with that or the other my guy does that. And Jay helped him with that. But that wasn't the cool thing. I recognized early in the value of that relationship not as a performance-based profit center but as a long-term distribution channel. So what we did is that I started, and I'm not an old relic but I got into it very early.
Nobody realized the value of endorsement and nobody realized the value of accessing people's subscriber buyer member-base, I did. So when we went in then, the deal I always made with people was look, this is what I'd like to do. And it's very customized and very integrated and very sequential. There were multiple pieces processional, but if it works, I want the right of first refusal to control and bring you other qualitative offers. And the reason I want it is not for my benefit of jurors, that I understand the psychology. I understand the methodology, I understand the positioning.
If you just take on crappy offers and throw them out, you're gonna destroy and diminish the viability of distribution. I will never let an op for B be compromised. I will never let your integrity be compromised. I will always create and negotiate better than you. And even if I get half of your side, you'll make more.
So we locked up the rights to the distribution, if that makes sense. - And you see Jay, like studying your work, me over the years, there's so many different marketers, right? Marketing teacher, there are a lot of them. There some of them, your friends, right? This is just my observation.
I think what makes you so great? It's not just, everybody would say, Jay as the marketing genius. I think of course, but I really think you are a great deal maker. From the way you look at views and you leverage different relationships. A lot of teachers, they're very great at selling something or they're great copywriters but I don't think they have your insight or your wisdom to do these deals. And that's how you create a, I mean, a fortune doing that.
That's just my observation. - No, no. And I would agree, but I would agree that it's a combination. What I have, is very unique and I'm not sure that I would wish it on people but when you spent your life really doing it not just theoretically, teaching it.
And when you've been involved in literally a thousand plus industries, not companies. And when you I'll give you this example, I mean you name a concept, referral generation. Most people don't have any, we have 93 lead generation.
I know 105 as strategies. I can give you 500 business models, how many you want? And I understand the value. I understand motivation. I, again, I'm just not being arrogant. I'm being clinical because I don't want you to think I'm this potty guy I'm really not, but I'm very knowledgeable.
- 100%. - And I understand all the implications of something. And I don't think most people do. And the nuances when you're making deals, the positioning, understanding that you're not necessarily playing a static game, there's residual and understanding how to make it so irresistible for the other side, which is the first step. But even if you make that deal, now you've gotta use that deal to make it irresistible for their buyers or their subscribers.
A lot of complexity. And I understand that, I think. - And I think is, I remember when I was studying your work, like at first, first of all and I was early like, twenties. I couldn't quite understand, 'Cause it was deep, right? Or just learning about marketing. So I remember I go through it.
I'm like, I don't understand. This is very complex. And as I go through it again, okay. Now risk reversal, right? It's positioning and then pricing and an endorsement, like a lot of these things, but okay, I'm getting it, I'm getting it. And I think it's only after that my companies got to a certain point.
I go back and we listen to it. We study it again. Then now I'm not so much listening to just the strategies. I go a little bit deeper.
I wanna listen to the thinking pattern. How does Jay view things? How does he think? That's when I had a break through. One of the, you know you were saying before the interview. Like the social media and people look at what I do.
That, oh, then Lok just kind of came out of nowhere, and he now build this company and on social media. And I always tell people, you know what I started online back in 2004. And so really I have taken a lot of what I learned from you and a lot of even direct response marketers back then, breakthrough advertising. I love these certain things. And I just kind of filled a gap.
There's this a gap in between. I don't if you see it. Like, the-- - There's definitely. - Right. The new guys, they don't know, they don't understand these like these knowledge that's from there.
Like, well, how do you view them? - Well, I feel it's very sad that a lot of younger people and not, I mean, I've got a lot of younger adult children. But I think a lot of them basically have been too benefited by easy success. And they don't really have, they're two things.
I don't think many of them, honestly then, have a heartfelt, empathic, respect and appreciation for their marketplace. That doesn't mean they don't sell to them. I think a lot of their copy is superficial. And I think that a lot of them are what I would call one trick pony. And the, they're trying to you that you're gonna build wealth and success with one tactic. And what these people don't understand is the tactic sellers, really, they're not trying to sell two of you the tactic.
They're trying to sell 202 of you. So the moment that it gets, let's say democratize, everyone's got it. It has no value or becomes the standard for everyone. You gotta find another tactic. I just don't think. And it's not their fault, except the fault is they don't, they don't have humility enough to say I really haven't experienced that much of business life.
And I don't really know all the interworkings but I do know that this tactic works at least right now. And, and you knew how to use it in concert with an integrated strategy or in concert with a really integrated, I teach preeminent marketing, right? - Oh yes, it's one of my favorite. One of my favorite, by the way. - It's very powerful.
- Yeah, one of my favorites. - And I think the problem with a lot of young people is they really, their success, and this has happened through many people I've helped in my life. Their success erroneously makes them deluded to believe they're almost omnipotent.
When they're basically very good salesmen and women of A tactic and that's all they are. And they don't have enough maturity, enough, they haven't lived enough life. They really, they could be longterm dangerous. Believe it or not. Even though that's not their intent, they could be long-term toxic, if they don't allow themselves to learn more about business life and how lots, more elements and factors and forces relate and integrate, and that seems like a tragedy to me.
- It's true. And I could see, that's why, people ask me all the time, what's like, kind of, "what's the secret?" I'm like, I'm just taking like all these principles. And I just executed better than most in the modern age.
That's really it. And I've been doing it for a long time. But as you know, people don't see that. They just see, oh, they see the-- - They see the front end. - They just see the front end. They don't see the depth and they don't see like the study that you've done.
And that's, you know, this body of knowledge, your body of knowledge, it's out there. And a lot, a lot of, you give it away for free even on your website. - They don't even ask for an opt-in. - I remember a lot of those materials.
I spend a lot of money acquiring those materials. Now you just, 'cause you're generous. - You know why? - I'm gonna tell you, it goes to the same issue we're talking about. About five and a half years ago, I sat down and cried because I found out that 187 separate pieces of my intellectual property were being filed scared.
It just crushed me. But I decided, okay, even though I'm the one that stands for the strategy of preeminence, which is elevated integrity and a higher ethos, I thought, okay, you young people 'cause most of them are young. And some of them are, you know, in some countries in Europe or in Nigeria that you can't even know. I said, "if you wanna play that game, you don't know who you're playing against." I'm going to not try to sell things, but we still sell a few things, but high end stuff. I'm going to become the greatest and the most in the most amazing benefactor, contributor and advocate champion of the beleaguered entrepreneur.
And I'm gonna give them better content than most people sell because I want them to know that there's more to life than just trying to just get them to pay for things." People should invest in them as well. And I can afford to.
So I do, but then we side, we've been doing it now five years. And I think it's been very helpful for a lot of people. And I think a lot of people have grown but not just in their money-making ability but in their ability to add value and contribute meaningfully to the markets they serve. And that really flatters me. And it makes me very happy.
- One of the most part of the biggest lesson that I've learned from you, the impact me the most. Is in the beginning, you always talking about adding value. When anyone that listens to your materials actually rarely you talk about money.
You're always adding value, win-win, how to benefit the other party. The money is like a by product of all of that, right? - Yes. But so here's the real truth that a lot of people don't understand. We are really, we're awarded and compensated in our world in our life and in our business for the quantity, quality, consistency of problems we solve for others and opportunities we make possible.
And that alone is a very profound realization but it gets a little bit more complex when you realize that half of the people we need to do it for don't even know yet that they have those problems or they haven't really verbalized it clearly. And they don't realize that the opportunities are available, so it's an education and an enlightenment and you can't do it if you aren't really committed to their betterment. And that goes towards what I teach. But it's not as selfless.
It's the most selfish thing you can do is worry more about them. That's where it comes back. - And just like when you give away so much value to the marketplace and people study materials they will say, wow, like Jay's material is so good.
It's helping me in my business so much. I wanna hire him for what they have consulting. I wanna work with him on some kind of capacity.
Like that's, that's like the easiest sell, you don't even need to make this up. They would. It's 'cause Steve already live a value. - Well, and also I realized reasonably long ago that the majority of small business men and women, entrepreneurs are large enough that I could ever work with them on any kind of modified fee or percentage. And many of them can't even afford my stuff.
But I can afford to make a difference in their life. And three things happen. They'll raise the standard of impact that they make.
And that alone answers, all commas. And it makes me happy 'cause you're making the world better. They have a chance to grow large enough. They can afford our products or services, but what most of you don't realize, you can be a small entrepreneur or a dentist, but you might be the brother-in-law of somebody who runs a $500 million company. You might go to church with somebody who's a big private equity investor. You might, literally, so I am very pragmatic that I know that I can enhance freely a lot of people's lives who couldn't transact business with me, but it always comes back and it's helping me.
We don't make as much as most 'cause I don't have, I don't get any opt-ins and we don't put any sales offers and any of the stuff we give away and people say, "what? What's his angle?" We have no angle. That's it. I just want to be a great contributor and a great benefactor. But if you look us up online, it's outrageous. And my brand has enormous.
It served my strategic needs. I wanted my brand to be more stratospheric, more qualitative and more in comparable because that's what I think we are but I wanted to make sure we solidified it. I think we did. - 100%. I mean, that's, how I see why over the years, the personal brand has sustained for so long over the years. I remember I saw one of your new program, the China connections, and I saw it on Facebook.
I'm like, this is something new, finally, Jay is selling me something. Let's go, like I can buy something, right? - It is funny. I mean, now, I mean, it's hilarious, 'cause everybody yells at me, my family works in the business, my wife, they say, "are you gonna make money?" And I say, "this is so cool. I can send this out and give this to and this" and they go, "you're crazy."
And I go, "but do you know how many people we're helping transform their business lives and their world who would never have anybody else do it for them or understand how and you know, the payoff in tangibly in the psychic compensation is really quite profound and I'm not, I love making money, I love charging $120,000 a day. I love getting six and seven figure payments for speaking or doing a seminar overseas. But I really love equally transforming people's lives.
If you don't really, you don't love humanity and you don't fall in love with everybody that is striving to be better. And all you're trying to do is be crass and have riches, you'll never really, I mean, even if you make a lot of money, you'll really never be wealthy or prosperous. You can't be. - Just like one of the things you taught is, don't fall in love with the product services, fall in love with their customers.
- Good on you. You studied well. And most people don't, they don't fall in love with their clients.
They really don't. They're just saying, oh, I'm the biggest this, I'm the, that. And they use vulgarity and they do this and they do that. And it's like, why? You're stuck, what they don't understand.
And this is tragic. then, I've been around over three decades and I'm not trying to act like I'm an old calcified Relic sitting on the old market tears. - No, you've seen it all. - But I can tell you this over almost four decades if I told you the name of the person who was the real estate guru in the late seventies, the eighties, the nineties, it would not be the same, that option trading guru, the business op guru.
So you're only here, I mean, I'm very proud. I've endured and I've actually stronger a brand. At this age than I was when I was your age or younger.
And it's not because I'm that, oh, I'm a pretty good promoter, I guess I would say it's probably part of it. But it's mostly because of the value we have constantly strived to contribute and the impact and the integrity of our intention if that makes sense. I'd say about me it's a model for anybody listening a while. - And that's why people, they see they can see these big names. They come and go. - Yes.
- Like two, three years. They're like, oh, this is the hottest thing. And then after a few years they're like nowhere to be found. Like nowhere to be found, like disappeared, right? But deservedly so, because they really weren't playing a long-term game for the betterment of their audience and they don't understand that's the only way you'll ever endure. - Jay, over the years. Do you see, let's say a company let's see for my listeners, let's say someone from a million dollar level, million dollar in revenue to $10 million in revenue to a hundred million dollars in revenue with a $200 revenue.
What are some of the bottlenecks that you see that it's keeping them from going from this to this to 10 million to 10, to a hundred and so forth. - Okay, that's great question. And I have not been asked that very often. So I'm gonna give it to you today, which will be a little more skewed than if you asked me this 10 years ago. - Okay. - So the first thing I think is that most, if it's entrepreneurs, they fail to realize that if you hire the best, you'll cry only once as opposed to hiring lesser trying to cut corners and having them either screw up or leave and having to do it over and over again.
You wanna hire people better than you at what they do, and you wanna compensate them very richly, not just always in money, in other things that fulfill them, number one. Number two, you want to have a team that you constantly grow and develop, meaning you train them, you make them a collaborative. They're all on a mission, a crusade with you on behalf of the client. You want, if you studied my preeminence, you wanna respect your clients, know that you invest first in the relationship with the clients before you ever have to worry about getting paid.
You wanna keep growing your knowledge base, most of them don't spend a lot of money. What I would call R and D testing, trying things out. I have a personal, this is gonna sound a little bit weird. I have a personal prejudice against the concept of best practices because I think it's limiting to the best practices.
People learn are the best practices from their industry or a couple related ones. And I've learned that if you look at a thousand industries there are a lot of higher performing, safer, lower risk, faster yielding, more residual, ongoing payoff alternatives. So I wanna be able to always travel outside my industry and do what I call funnel vision. - Yeah, well it's a television. - Yeah.
- So that's that? I think that they aren't trying to really, I think a lot of businesses today, they really don't try to understand the client the way they should. I think that a lot of them aren't as connected even though everyone says you're connected because you can be digitally connected. I think that's a fallacy. I think that a lot of companies don't understand that their consumer has or their buyer has a number of alternatives, then. They can a buy from another generic company, a competitor. - Yeah, 100%.
- B, they can buy an alternative, that's not yours. And I'll give you an example. C, the worst competition you're against, is inertia, procrastination, equivocation, and concentration. And you have to understand all these and be able to address it. Now that's another thing.
When you're trying to grow, what I said is very interesting. If you're trying to grow your business from here to here, well, first of all, there's barriers of capability, competency, infrastructural ability. And you need to, I mean, you don't go from a million to 20 with the same team people, the same management, the same internal logistics or IT, but what happens? They don't realize a lot of them when you grow too high, too fast, your resource requirements grow even faster.
They are like asymmetric slope. Your ability to manage a few people, also you've got to be, this is very important. The role of the CEO of a company is to be the strategist, not to do the heavy lifting. And a lot of them don't extricate themselves from the day-to-day. They don't spend time doing reflective, critical, strategic, consequential thinking.
They also don't realize something very fascinating and it's really physics, but you either expand or you contract, you know, there's no such thing as constancy. You grow or die. And growing is a function of lots of things. You wanna grow, you gotta basically have more than just repetitive of the same model.
You gotta be able to be more strategic, you gotta be able to have better yield, you gotta be able to, you know to get more out of what you're doing. - I love it, I love it. So, what you're saying is the role in the beginning maybe when you're a million-dollar, you're the doer, you're kind of the ones that are making. - Yeah, you're doing everything. - Yeah, when you're at a 10, 20 to now, not just a team, but your role as a CEO changes.
I found that it's very true. In the beginning, I was the best marketer for my company. - Yeah. - But now I'm definitely not the best marketer for my company. - Well, even if you were, your job is to set the long-term, short-term, mid-term direction.
Figure out where you have to shift, what you have to integrate, new products, service, media, access, vehicles messaging, and you can't do that if you're down in-- - Downing the stuff. - And one more thing that I think is very critical that a lot of entrepreneurs don't realize is that everybody in your service, your team, no matter how high ranking, low ranking, menial. Whatever they do, they have a very meaningful life, their hopes and dreams, their wagon is hitched to you. And they have as much relevancy and importance as you do 'cause a lot of our kids are obsessed with themselves, their life and their achievements and their material things. And they lose track that you gotta be mindful and respectful and nourishing and nurtures of everyone in your employee and your vendors too. If you wanna get great outcomes, and you've gotta get people to be collaborative, not to be siloed, they gotta feel respect and appreciation, and contribution from and for each person they work with.
There's a lot of cool things. But most people, everything I've listed, they don't do. - Yeah, yeah.
And Jay, how do you view, in terms of like you've seen marketing, now over like three decades, right? Back then, like we're talking direct mail and full page ads, and then we have now the internet, email, and now social media, of course, Facebook, like just a big picture. How do you view that, like these phases that we've gone through and for entrepreneurs, what do you think they have to do in terms of digital media to just stay on the cutting edge? - Well, I'm gonna tell you what troubles me and then I'll tell you something that gratifies me. - Okay. - What troubles me is, I think that the database technology-based people have figured out massively impressive ways to game the human condition. - Okay, that's deep. Okay, I wanna please, expand.
- And I don't think what is being done is as qualitative in its value content, but I think it's far more effective in harnessing understanding of how human nature reacts, pro acts, responds and can be led or guided. I think that that's very impressive, you know. All the remarketing, the funnels, but I find most of it amazing.
I'm like, for me, I am surprised when somebody goes on a webinar and is surprised you're selling them something. Or somebody goes, I'm speaking as an example in a 4,000 person event. That's if you sign up early, I think it's $95 or maybe it's 49.
I have no idea, I'm not selling it. I'm just a keynote speaker. And people are shocked when they come to that for two and a half days with a $200,000 fee-based speaker that somebody is going to sell them something. - Yeah. - I mean, I think ignorance doesn't work in this.
I think also that, I mean, for me the thing that gratifies me and you know, this. I meet and I know a lot of very successful higher quality online marketers, and they use my stuff. And I think that when, when they put the methods the ideals, the principles, the techniques, the intellectual understanding that I give people to work. And it's very qualitative. That's wonderful.
That pleases me. But frankly, I think the majority of them are very manipulative, but they do understand what I'll call human nature response technology. And they're very good at harnessing it. But though, they don't really impress me other than the fact that it's very interesting, but I find it actually tragic 'cause I don't think it's going to the right direction.
I don't think there's much deep connection anymore. That's my feeling. I think there's a lot of superficial connection. - Yeah, it's just true. And it's funny now everybody's talking about being an entrepreneur. It's like, it's the new book, like thing all everybody's entrepreneur, right? It's seven a year on Instagram.
Well, I'm a, I'm an entrepreneur. And I just actually find, I guess I see so many people even like on social media, I connect with them. My overall feeling is everyone saying they're entrepreneurs, but overall feeling is people actually less entrepreneurial compared to like a decade ago, right? - I'll tell you something you'll laugh about. I had the great privilege of being part of entrepreneur magazine when it was first starting out. Now you're gonna laugh.
Nobody even knew what the word entrepreneur meant. All of our mailings on the outside of the carrier envelopes. And I was doing it before the internet. So they were direct mail.
They had the Webster's dictionary definition and pronunciation of the word entrepreneur, because we were we named it entrepreneur but nobody knew what the knack and entrepreneur even was. Today, if you looked up the literal definition, it is so typically out of a congruency with what most people are doing trying to make money in a online business or in a one trick pony business. Business was intended to bring a really meaningful value to others. That's what business is all about isn't it? - Yes.
- To bring value to the marketplace or solve a problem to fulfill a need. - And, if you wanna be successful, you wanna do it above and beyond and better or more impactful or more unique or more niche and vide than the competition. I think there's, I mean, I think as I said, I'm very humbled 'cause I'm not as technologic. I'm very lucky.
Technology is not my strong suit but I help an enormous number of technology companies. Because if you can explain to me what bottom line is of what the technology is supposed to do for the business or the consumer they're selling to, I can articulate that. I think technology is remarkable. It's fascinating.
But I just think that the people that have the power to use it don't really care as much about the people it is designed to benefit. That's just my feeling and not everybody. It's a generalization, that's a disservice to all the really preeminent pre, you know, preemptive you know, sincerely massive value contributing and empathic, respectful people that love the market, they serve and understand them and appreciate them and respect them. But I don't think that's the majority, frankly. - And the ones who actually, they care about the customers combined with technology, with the savviness.
Those are the ones. - Those are fabulous. When I meet those or when I get the privilege to work with those. And I see how they integrate that caring. It's funny. I was on a plane yesterday with the head of a car dealership that is very huge in Los Angeles.
And we were talking about their philosophy. And one of the things they were explaining was their dad years ago decided to invest in a restaurant in the middle of the dealerships. It's very large dealership.
And he wanted to not have people leave when they needed to go out for a cup of coffee. They have a Starbucks in it. They have all these things, 'cause they wanna basically provide the things people want. I think that people who have wonderful awareness of how to bring, benefits, values, protections, enhancements, joy, entertainment whatever the bottom line outcome, your product or service when at work in the lives or in the hearts of a business or an individual provide. I mean, I take my, I don't wear a hat, but if I did, I would take it off. I love and admire.
And I'm in awe of those people. But ones that just are using technology and methodology to, as I said to game human nature, doesn't mean they're not selling something that has usefulness. I just don't think the reason they're doing it, - The intent. - Yeah. The intent is just, okay, we'll make a lot more money.
We'll be able to go, you know the hockey stick will sell out for a billion dollars. - Jay for someone like for yourself, what do you think? What do you want your legacy to be? Like, where do you see yourself now? I know you do some consulting, but most of the, you travel and time to time your studio, that's your passion like, - I still do, what I'm going to Paris to do a session. I'm going to Vietnam.
I'm going to Singapore. And I love introducing strategic and critical thinking and preeminent thinking to people. I want my legacy to be that, that I have taught people how to really be A, the greatest value contributors they possibly can be in their marketplaces. I want to be able to leave people. I know, I wanna know that because people use my work, not just the use of the entrepreneur or the professional or the business owner, or the corporation is much more prosperous, but I wanna know that that prosperity has produced enormous leveraged and compound prosperity. That's both financial and psychic in the lives of all kinds of people.
The clients they serve, the families that work for them, the vendors. And I wanna be able to know that the world, very frankly and this is not trying to be hypey or sound syrupy that I left the world better off because I was in it. - 100%. For an entrepreneur watching this. And I don't know who would not have not heard of you but in case they have not heard of you what would be a good starting point for them? Of course, they can go to your website. What would it be? - I mean, the best way, if they're very large, get ahold of us and we'll be happy to talk to you about some kind of a compensated relationship.
But for the most of them, if they go to abraham.com and on it is something we laughingly named 50 shades of Jay and we give away I dunno, 800 hours of video, or it's gonna be about a couple hundred hours of video. All kinds of sessions, Tony Robbins and I answering and solving problems.
Daymond John and I solving problems, interviews I did with great people. There's 200 podcasts on it. There's about 4,000 pages of content.
There's four full books and none of them sell anything. We do have products for sale, but it's not a prerequisite. You don't have to opt in right now. Someday, maybe I'll change that. But I would say that, that would be a good start.
- And a book that definitely, the book is like-- - The book digitally it's on, the only thing I would say to anybody that book is still, it's timeless, except the chapter on online marketing, which is embarrassing, but it was it was great when it first came out. Now it's laughable. But if you discount that the rest of it is available.
- It's great. Jay, what advice would you have for me personally? - Well, it sounds like you could give advice to me. You've exploded. You have, you help train people. You've got, you've got SAS services. I think that the advice I would give you is if you have been profoundly impacted by my work and it has helped you and your living, let's say the ideals that I would hope you are, that you be.
You know, I always believe that the adage about show me, don't tell me is the denominator. You know, people should see by conduct. People should see by example. And if you keep doing that as you keep growing in compounding, great. And you know, if you, I mean if you have been impacted, you wanna help them.
I know certainly helped me. Tell anybody you want, send out anything you want, tell them to go there. And not for me to profit, we don't even get opt-ins. But I created the, you know, the resources so that they would be used and shared and impact people. And I'm eager to get everybody who could use them using it whether I earn a penny from it or not.
So, I mean, I think that would be good, but I think the thing is, don't ever take yourself too seriously. Always be, you know, it was Peter Drucker, the now deceased but the fame business consultant said, I'll give you two little quotes that are very good. He said, "if you're not constant as a business, if you're not constantly committed to make what you do and how you do it obsolete, you can make sure your competitors are constantly committed for you and to you." The other thing I would say that I believe you already do, but it's a great philosophy for your peoples. Most entrepreneurs, business owners and aspiring ones today given how competitive and brutally difficult it is to command attention, access to minds, trust all these things. They non-verbally struggle in their mind and heart then, with a really weird question.
The question is, am I worthy of this goal? Can I really make, you know, a half a million dollars? Can I really go from a million-- - Am I good enough? - Can I compete successfully? Can I still be in this business? Can I achieve my vision? Can I have a future? Can I have, you know, some wealth creation, some security. But when you realize how much more is possible. Time, from effort, from access to a market, from interaction, from people, from media, from all this. The question you should be asking yourself is not, "am I worthy of the goal?" It's the opposite? Is this goal worthy of me? Because there's so much more that you should get from everything you do, everyone you do it with, every way you do it. And I would like, if I can leave people with a message, that's it - It is getting more out of what you've already got, whatever they have.
It is very, very true. And just by shifting the thinking and very often actually it doesn't cost more resources. It's just a, like you said, like a paradigm shift when you see the world from a different perspective suddenly, oh, that works. Oh, I can put that deal together. I can add value this way.
Oh, I'm not marketing to my existing customers. I'm not asking them questions. Like it's fascinating. That's what makes it very interesting. I think then business becomes a lot of fun. - We've identified, this is interesting.
In a typical revenue system, 61 potential impact points not just in the macro, but in the micro that could be increased five, 10, 15, 20%. And most people are not even recognize what they are. We talked about the referral systems. 93 referral systems. Most people don't even have one. - I have the cassette tapes, I still do, but I'm not even gonna wait-- - It was great for what it was, not today.
- Yeah, it's great. And also the mastermind marketing, I love that. - We have 150 ways you can access.
This is pretty cool. You can access other people's resources. You know, we we've been done strategic alliance, all that. But if you look at it differently, I call it the unlimited business checkbook because there's no reason any entrepreneur can ever claim to be resource impaired or impeded or constrained ever again because whatever you need, somebody else has got it.
And if you understand strategically how to give them more of what they want, they'll make what you need available to you and you can pay for it out of the results. So I made a lot of things like that. - Yes. Well, Jay, I hope this is the beginning of a long-term relationship.
It's the kind of first step-- - I'm very proud of you. - Thank you. - That's I'm tickled. Like I'm smiling, like the Cheshire cat to know that I had an impact on your life. 'Cause I know you're doing wonderful things and your success gratifies me and you're showing me that you have studied my work. Just it thrills me.
Thank you very much for that. - Thank you. I hope this is the first step I introduce you to my audience. I would love to do more and then bring them to your worth. - That will make me happy too. Let's do it.
- 100%. Thank you Jay, thank you. - And I'll send you all the things I promise. - I appreciate it, I appreciate it. - Thank you sir, bye. - Thanks you.
2021-03-06 21:27
