THE ABRAHAM GROUP Mike Agugliaro/Jay Abraham Podcast Transcript ­ 4 / 28 / 16 Mike Agugliaro: Hello everybody, and welcome to this episode of the Secrets of Business Mastery

podcast. My name is Mark Aguilera, and this is the podcast dedicated to business owners,

teaching you to fast track your business growth and give you practical, doable tips that

you can do today. So grab your pen and notepad, and let’s get started.

Today I’m excited, I’ll be bringing on Jay Abraham, and we’re just gonna dig into so

many subjects, I don’t even know – maybe we’ll be talking about preeminence, or

thinking different – I guarantee this is gonna be an amazing podcast.

Let me tell you a little bit about Jay. He’s the founder and CEO of the Abraham Group.

Jay has spent his entire career solving problems, fixing businesses; I mean he’s

significantly increased the bottom lines of over 10,000 clients in over 400 industries and

over 7,200 sub­industries. Jay has dealt with virtually every type of business. I mean he

has studied and solve almost every type of business questions, challenge, and

opportunity. And, know you’re going to enjoy this today. And without making him feel

creepy or weird, I just wanna tell you, he’s the only person I spent two­and­a­half hours

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with and completely melted my brain down with brilliance. So without any further delay,

Jay, how are you today?

Jay Abraham: (laughs) I’m very, very, good. I’m almost impeccable. Thank you Mike, and thanks for

the privilege of sharing with your audience.

M: Yeah, I’m excited. You know Jay, why don’t you just give us a little quick ­ What’s going

on in Jay’s world today?

J: Well I don’t know if people even have a history, but I’ve been doing this for three

decades, and I’ve done it around the world, and I’ve been very privileged to have –this is

just clinical ­ involvement in more than 465 different industries around the world, and

when I was in a very different point in my life we were very large factors in the business

growth training industry, but as I’ve gotten more evolved and probably a little older, I’m

more interested in operating businesses, so we have clients all over the world, and it’s

interesting – the largest human resource company in China, the largest driving school in

Japan, the collectibles firm that owns 100 million dollars of historic tiaras including

Catherine the great’s, I have the oncology group that did Joan London’s breast cancer, I

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have the top person in the world who teaches dentists how to do dental implants,

coincidentally I have one of the top providers of files for root canals, we have the largest

case management firm in Canada that does traumatic brain injury collaborations with

attorneys, we have the largest platform in Europe that helps young people apartment

share, we’ve got the largest numerology – I do a lot of private work – and I have a

company that retrofits power plants all over the world…I have a lot of interesting and

eclectic clients that I work with.

M: Yeah I know, that’s amazing, we have a lot of listeners who ask “how do you even do

that”. Jay, let’s dig into some questions, and I’m gonna ask a lot of questions that maybe

small business owners might have.

J: Of course. M: What do you think is the difference between one entrepreneur business owner that makes

it big, whatever big is for them – success – and another entrepreneur that just struggles

for their entire life, some people?

J:

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Well it’s not one thing, but the former thinks differently, acts differently, acts from a

strategic standpoint, is strategic for value creation, not just for his market but for his

team, he’s on a mission, a crusade he can articulate, and the entire team is enrolled in it,

he or she understands that there is a vast difference between being an entrepreneur and a

proprietor. Proprietor is just someone who runs a business to make money, an

entrepreneur – it can take me an hour to explain this so I’ll do it quickly ­ an entrepreneur

is somebody who literally just starts off and continues evolving and focusing to make the

interaction, transaction, outcome for the client superior in terms of experience, value,

perception, appreciation, let’s see – the former understands the impact – maybe not all,

but ­ inherently, if not explicitly, the concept of leverage marketing, and that marketing,

strategy, and innovation are the three drivers of all business, and that innovation does not

have to be technologically driven, but it has to basically bring greater advantage, benefit,

enhancement, protection, entertainment – whatever your product or service does – to the

market, that the market perceives, and appreciates and values above all else (including

the two competitors you’ve got that most people don’t think about) alternative means and

doing nothing (procrastination) – I’m going quick Mike, so you can stop me.

It’s being preeminent, which is a long explanation, but it’s really and truly operating with

a conscious commitment to be seen as the only viable source, the most trusted advisor to

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your market, irrespective of whether your market does business with you now, or later.

It’s investing first and meaningfully in the market. It’s understanding that there are about

50 impact points of leverage in the revenue generating side of your business, and most

people know nothing about 49 of them, so they can’t leverage it. It’s understanding how

to use the power of geometry to grow your business exponentially. It’s having alignment

with all kinds of other individuals, influences, entities, distribution channels that have

already expended time, effort, and herculean amounts of resources building trust and

credibility in your market. It’s understanding trust building at the highest level, and

there’s a lot of drivers to that­

­One second, because my voice is a little bit off. Take a deep breath, hold on. Do you want me to continue, or stop there? M: Yeah, no – I mean I’m gonna want you to continue. We’re gonna dig into some of these

things, and I know we’re only 5 minutes in.

And I know that if anybody hasn’t already got 20 nuggets or more already, let’s dig into

something, and we’ll maybe segment it a little bit, like – first, let’s talk about some of the

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things you said about being strategic or thinking different. What does this mean, how

does somebody even start to comprehend this?

J: I’ll answer two ways: with a story, and with a statement. Okay?

First of all, a statement is whatever business you’re in; most probably you got into it

either by being in it before, by observing it, by something that was replicating, modeling,

and most probably you operate your business – sales, revenue, most every other way, plus

or minus 20­30­40% better or worse than all your competitors that are all basically herd

mentality, doing the same thing, the same way, in the same market, because I was

involved in 465 separate industries, not businesses, all over the world. I have seen

50,000 different ways – this is combined, not singularly – to be strategic; 50,000

combined ways to reach markets differently; 50,000 ways to personify and communicate

and project a position; 50,000 different ways to reach markets more directly and

incredibly; 50,000 different ways to start a relationship; 50,000 different ways to migrate

a relationship; 50,000 different ways to partner a relationship; 50,000 different ways to

add more competitive advantage; 50,000 different ways to monetize people that no longer

buy, or have never bought in the first place…and most people only do things the same

way.

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So when I started out ­ when I gained my fame, Mike ­ it was quite accidental. I started

out very young, I was a job transient, I went from industry to industry – not job to job –

and after about 10 industries I realized that people in Industry “A” didn’t have a clue how

people in Industry “B, C, D, E or F” marketed their strategy, their business model, their

competitive approaches, their access vehicles, their starter approaches, their – ya know –

follow up, their selling systems, and I was able to very simplistically, and almost

accidentally, borrow some success approaches from Industry “A” and “B” and combine

them into hybrids and put them into Industry “D” or “E” and our businesses didn’t just

skyrocket – one went from $20,000 to $15 million in about a year­and­a­half. One went

from $800,000 to $9 or $7 million in 9 months. Another went from $300,000 to $500

million. So I was able to use this power, and I realized a concept that’s as common as dirt

in one industry can literally have the power, the impact, the profitability, the potency, the

preemptiveness – meaning, blocks the competition, the preeminence, meaning it elevates

you to the stature of something incomprehensible as far as power source if you’re the first

and only one to use it in your industry, and now I’ll tell you a story that is probably

indicative – it’s old, but it’s very appropriate.

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So, a man marries a very nice, lovely, woman ­ very good family, they have children, and

at holiday time – Christmas – they practice Christmas, and they go to his mother­in­law’s

house for Christmas dinner. The first year he goes he’s fascinated because they have

roast, and in the preparation of the roast they hang out in the kitchen, and his wife and his

mother­in­law both – because they had multiple roasts, they very interestingly cut off

both ends of the roast. The ends are small, but on both ends they cut off about ¾” and

they prepare and put it in the oven. He didn’t say anything; he just watched.

The 2 nd year he watched them do it. The 3 rd year he’s just tormented with curiosity of

WHY. And by the way, reason why is the driving thread for everything you do, and I

could do a whole sermon on that, which I won’t – but, nevertheless, so the man asks his

wife, “Why do you and your mom cut off both ends of the raw roast before you put it in

the oven?”

“Well, I do it because my mother taught me.” So the man goes to her mother, and asks, and she says, “Well, because, my mother taught

me.”

And grandmother is sitting by the fireplace and fortunately she’s not senile and still very

lucid, and he goes to her, and he says, “Can you tell me why you cut off both ends of the

roast?” and she says, “Sure! When we came to America (from wherever they came in

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Europe) we had the teeniest, tiniest apartment, and it had an even teenier, and tinier, and

more amazingly small oven. And even the smallest roasts we bought were too big for

this oven, so we cut off a small piece from both ends just to get it in a pan small enough

to fit in this oven. So they did it, the mother did it, the daughter did it and not because it

was (laugh) even logical, but because that’s what everybody did.

And what I’m talking about is you’re paid in the world….let me stop, Mike Not to get

water, but to stop that thought and then circle back.

So, unless they’re super­human people on this call, there is nobody I have ever met in my

life that has more than 24hours in a day. There are a few that are a little bit intellectually

brighter, but most of them, plus or minus a certain number of points, aren’t that much

brighter in very competitive markets with the exception of dominant forces. Most of them

don’t have a lot more resources, and they’re limited to a small team, small capital,

making their efforts, actions, activities really pay off. All they have as an advantage is

the ability to use their mind more powerfully. The ability to think differently, act

differently, to transact differently……the difference between mediocrity and

magnificence, the difference between mediocrity and making millions more over your

career is really how much better and more powerfully and more strategically you learn to

think! And…..I could go on and on, but does that make sense?

M:

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Yeah, it definitely does, and I would like to hear, for myself – I consider myself, Jay,

someone who just wants to serve people, and it’s almost painful sometimes to see people

just putting themselves through situations, and you want them to just figure it out, so

what do you tell someone how to even start to build the skillset to THINK different?

J: There are a number of ways. I’ll tell you what NOT to do……is keep doing what you’re doing. M: (laughs) J: I like metaphors because they’re very haunting. I had a BRILLIANT business partner in one of my activities, and he was the former CEO

of Adidas, and Speedo for Latin America and he was the licensing representative for

France and Latin America for things like Louis Vitton….very, very elevated guy, and he’s

got a REALLY interesting saying that’s germane to what we’re saying, and it’s not

tangential or an ADD moment…..he said:

Most entrepreneurs in life, when they’re stressed or motivated, dig holes. The more stressed and more motivated they get the deeper they dig the holes.

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First question is: Should I be digging a hole? Second question: Should I be digging there? Third question: Whatever the answer is, should I be using a spoon or should I bring in a

power shovel?

And the Fourth question is: Should I be the one digging the hole? The purpose of the entrepreneur is not to be the day­to­day tactician, but in all honesty,

the purpose of the entrepreneur is to be the strategy, to be the thinker, innovator, the

disrupter, and you can disrupt in a multitude of ways: marketing, selling, positioning,

value proposition, competitive proposition….all kinds of things, but back to your

question…there’s ways to do it.

The first way is NOT continue doing what you’re doing. The second is get very clear on quantifying what you’re doing, how it’s doing….and what

I call quantifying it……most people put up marketing budgets. They don’t really allocate

money for different kinds and values…..I’m going to go back and give you a whole litany

on how to do it, and break it into simple “eating an elephant” bites.

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So first thing is you’ve gotta know where you are before you can figure out where you’ve

gotta go. And when we work with a client, this is not a crass overture, because we get

these huge, huge fees….so I don’t presume this is all contribution……

The first thing we do is we break their business into two parts: what they’re doing now,

and what they SHOULD be doing, okay? And what they’re doing now, even if we think

it’s lunacy, and we look at how it’s doing, ya know, and what it’s doing…..and we break

it apart not just in dollars and revenue, but we want to look at different quality and

categories of buyers and sources because ALL buyers, ALL prospects are not the same

value. You might find that certain product buyers are not very profitable initially, but are

massive profitable on re­purchases or transitioning to other products and services. You

might find that certain people aren’t. You might find that certain media produces a certain

caliber of buyer.

You might find that a certain sales approach produces…until you KNOW the relative

values – it’s usually the 80/20 rule – and can even take it higher – 20% of the 20% are

really generating something like 80% of your business, and most people don’t even know,

so they’ll allocate either a budget, which is either too much or too little, or they don’t

really concentrate on where the real money is, and they put money into very frivolous

things, and they have no idea how it’s doing, not just in the moment, but in the residual –

and we start to look at everything so we can reallocate money. Our analogy is, if your

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business were a mutual fund, and you’ve got 20 different activities going on – selling,

ads, promotion, online, paper­click, organic, all that stuff – and if it was a mutual fund

and you have 20 different investments in it, and all had relatively the same stability, but

one was pulling 2 percent yield, one was pulling 20, one 15, would you equally distribute

that money to all of them? Of course not. So we first of all have to see what it’s doing,

how it’s doing, and then, this is very important: even though I don’t necessarily think

most people are doing the right thing in the right way in the right allocation, we try to

take whatever they’re doing and not jerry­rig it, but maximize whatever it’s doing. Things

like – changing a headline can change something like 21 times more performance,

changing the subject line in an email, changing the way you greet someone at the door.

We did a test one time for a very large company, and we found one different opening that

tripled closures for no more money and the same number of leads. There’s a lot of

variability, and a lot of ways to multiply what you’re doing. Even if what you’re doing is

not the most optimal.

Speaking of optimal, there is a concept that I teach, and I’ll teach a short course right

now, and it’s called optimization. And what it means is “highest” and “best.” Highest and

best of your time. Highest and best use of your opportunities. Highest and best use of

your efforts, and those of your team and your outside providers. Highest and best use of

your capital. Your capital is not just money, it’s intellectual capital – that means your IP

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processes, your human capital, it’s opportunity cost capital, highest and best use of your

access once you get it. Whether that means your exposure in a medium, it means your

interaction with somebody when they come to your website, your presentation to

somebody whether it’s one on one, or they call in or they come in. And most people can’t

optimize until they have a context of understanding of how much more is possible from

effort or time, etc.

So now, to answer your question: First thing you have to do is expand your worldview.

And by that I mean many things. You’ve gotta be ready to start looking at all the other

things other industries and businesses do outside of your industry. We created something

called funnel vision, which is the polar opposite of tunnel vision. You want to borrow,

you want to integrate, you want to synthesize combinations of hybrids from outside your

industry. So you’ve gotta study. You’ve gotta evaluate. You’ve got to really learn what

other industries do. The easiest, fastest ways to do this is threefold. You’ve gotta get all of

your friend, contacts, neighbors, relatives to start saving every trade magazine, trade

magazine, every solicitation, every interesting ad they see. Any time they either involve

business or personal in any activity, or they’re getting a quote for their roof, try to get

them a digital player so they can record what happened and what motivated them. Show

them the email or the postcard, try to reconstruct the – I did this over a long period of

time, and this is an accelerator.

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Next, is spend time studying online – you’ve got like three or four research vehicles that

are worth billions, free. Study things online, look at all the industries. Every day take a

half hour, and look at different industries. We have something called the creativity switch.

It’s how to turn on and up your creative capacity, and it’s real simple. It’s like if you wake

up in the morning, and the first thing you do you go to the bathroom and the next thing

you do is get the paper, and the next thing you do is get coffee – but that’s the first thing,

is that you’ve got to constantly learn what other industries do, how they do them, and see

how many of those approaches can be directly or indirectly modeled to your business.

Most people make very impetuous – not sexually, but transactionally promiscuous

decisions. Because they don’t understand you can test almost any supposition. You can

put it to the question in the court of last resorts, where the only vote that counts is

whether people call, or opt in, or send in, or attend seminar – by the way, if you do trade

shows, different signage and different ways of greeting people can quadruple or triple the

results for no more effort or expense.

So the first thing we do is take what you’re doing, and see how it’s doing, where the

money needs to be allocated right now. And then find meaningful ways, which is not that

hard, because I’ve been exposed to so many ways to enhance the performance of almost

anything. It sounds arrogant, but I can’t turn on my computer and I can’t change a

lightbulb, but I’m very good at marketing strategy and non­technical innovation.

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And then we get that going, because it produces a multiple yield, so no we’re freeing up

extra cash flow, extra windfall income profits – whatever you want to call them, and then

we start systematically identifying the most viable, strategic, long term, preemptive

replacement strategies, and then we start systematically testing them. And by the way, I

don’t believe one source is right for anyone. I’ve got a certain number of stratagems and

methodologies and principles and formulaic things that I’ve become pretty well known

for over a couple of decades – one is the 3 way to grow a business model, which is the

simplest way to grow a business geometrically. I’ve got a 20­page document on that, and

you can put it up for people. I’ve got the Power Parthenon, which is going at the market

from 7 or 8 continuous and contiguous vector points. It’s a take on a militaristic concept

called the “force multiplier effect.” It’s very powerful, and it gives you the power of

geometry multiplied.

I’ve got preeminence, which is how to distinguish and elevate your business to a much

higher level. We have created Maven Marketing, which is how to distinguish yourself,

your conduct, so that you are iconic in the eyes of the target market, whether it’s local,

regional, national, industry specific…

I could go on and on, but I don’t want to take you on a tangent, is this helpful?

M:

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Oh, are you kidding? It’s so helpful it’s unbelievable. I’ve got pages and pages of notes

already, it’s awesome. What are your thoughts…you’ve already talked about growth sum,

and I think its so helpful when you say the things not to do, because I think it’s a lot of

the “what not to do” that we need to hear. When it comes to growth, what are some of the

things you think we just shouldn’t do?

J: Well, you shouldn’t do anything tactically unless it’s opportunistic. And by that I mean,

tactics are episodic, they’re erratic – you should only do things strategically, because

everything should advance and enhance a big game plan that you’re very clear on.

Anything deviating from that – unless opportunistic. In other words, if you said “Jay

there’s a trade show with 10,000 people, every one of which is a prospect, and I can get a

booth, pay for it only if I have success, and its not in my marketing strategy, but should I

do it?” I would say sure! Because it’s opportunistic. But mostly, most people do things

erratically.

We also created the 9 sticking points, but the 9 sticking points are where most people get

stuck, stalled, and they don’t even know it, much less know how to extricate themselves,

and they’re on the revenue side. Let me make a point – and it’s not a metaphysical point,

but it’s a very true point, and when I express this, it should do 3 things. Number one, it

should animate people’s spirits of how much more is possible. Number two, create a

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haunting, soul­searching awareness that they haven’t recognized. And three, give them

solace that there’s no shame at not having done it right up until now, because they didn’t

know any of these things probably. Because I am very unique, I mean it’s really simple

sounding…I mean I’ve helped 400 experts besides the 465 industries, so I have a

knowledge base that’s been refined and distilled and integrated that’s rather unusual, but

the point I was trying to make – I’ve done a lot of work on “greatness.” And it’s a very

interesting concept, Mike.

What I’d say on greatness is this – Every human being alive, honestly and truly, unless

it’s some sort of aberration that they have mental problems or some abnormality have

inherent in their being the desire to be great. Great in every sector of their life. A great

either entrepreneur, or career team person, a great leader, a great husband, father, mother,

lover, athlete – whatever. And yet, only about 1 or 2 percent of people extricate

themselves from the miasma of mediocrity. Now – you can say they don’t have

aspiration, but I would argue they do. Nobody gets up on a Monday morning and says to

themselves, “Self, I’m gonna work my heart out all week long. I’m gonna work 8, 10, 12

hours, 5 or 6 days a week, and I’m gonna get 1/10 th of the outcome. 1/10 th of the profit.

1/10 th of the satisfaction, 1/10 th of the asset worth that the opportunity, the effort, the

capital, my opportunity cost deserves. Nobody is that insane – well, a couple are, but not

that many.

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The reason few people ever achieve greatness comes down to four or five points, and I’ll

give you a distillation. Start with the fact that no one has ever shown them what greatness

is supposed to look like. And that’s a more complex statement than it sounds like. What

greatness is supposed to look like, #1, as it’s being conveyed to the marketplace. And

conveyed means actions, efforts, conduct. Secondly, how it’s conveyed to self, in mind,

and feelings, and purpose, and what fuels it. #2, if they get that far, they have no way of

seeing where they’re trying to get versus where they are now. Or, how to prioritize which

elements of greatness they need to work on first. I mean, you could talk, because these

are entrepreneurs, that greatness should be moneymaking and business growth, but I

could argue that, well – most entrepreneurs that I’ve found, and there are two things I

would say. We’ve done a lot of work on entrepreneurs with ADD and ADHD, and a lot of

entrepreneurs and high­performing sales people are lopsided. And they are so overtly

committed to making their business successful that they really burn themselves out, they

have no balance, they have very problematic personal lives, family situations, so what I

do is try with people is to first break apart all the ways you can be great, and then isolate

which way is the most critical path and logjam to the rest of your life being great. And we

work on that first.

So working on it means the following. First of all, you figure out – let’s say it’s being a

father, a husband, lover, friend, employee, leader, whatever it is, we start first of all by

really clearly defining and not shoving down the throat of the client, but allowing the

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client to embrace and examine and evaluate and excite and evolve to agreeing that there’s

a certain transformation in conduct, in motivation, in basis, in ideology, in focus that is

external in all these things, and then we try and figure out, first of all where they are on

some kind of arbitrary scale and where they want to be. And then we try to figure out the

easiest way to get there – not by pole­vaulting, but by taking very simple…however you

go up a mountain, I don’t know what they call that.

Then, if you get that far – most people don’t get that far – if they get that far, what

happens – and almost everybody listening either has children or has a relationship with

someone who has children – and if you’ve ever seen a baby, and Mike, I presume you

have children…

M: Yep. J: I have seven, and mine are all grown, and they’re from different marriages, but I’ve

watched all this. A little child, when they start out in the beginning, they try to walk and

they fall, and they’re pretty bad, they try to talk, and it’s like (UNCLEAR), they try to go

to the potty, and they usually miss pretty badly, they try to eat and they put the spoon in

their eye with the oatmeal, they get older and they try to ride a bike and they flop over.

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And unless they’re encouraged and nourished, they can’t and they won’t continue, and

I’m saying this for two reasons: even if you get clarity on what greatness should look like

for you in every category, even when you get clarity on how to get there the safest – not

the fastest, but the safest and most assuredly, the first time you try to do anything new,

unless you’re superhuman and very blessed, you’re gonna mis­execute. I can tell you that

I used to do 800 pull­ups at a time, I used to do 400 dips, and I used to do literally 1,000

push­ups non­stop, and the first time I went into a gym, I thought I could probably easily

press a 100­pound barbell, and I couldn’t even get it off the floor because they are totally

different muscles, and I got so frustrated I never went back. So you have to understand

you’re going to mis­execute, and you’re gonna look like crap the first time, and accept it.

It’s a process, just like you were going to do with your children, and then finally, the

reason your children develop and grow because they have you as a parent, or you and

your significant other as parents to encourage, to put them back on the horse, so to speak.

So you have to find someone – it doesn’t have to be compensated, but it can be

compensated – who you are comfortable being not intimate in terms of sexual, even

though it can be your mate, but it’s better if it’s a third party, who you can turn to for not

patronage, but to hold you to the high standards you set for yourself. And I don’t know if

that makes sense, but that’s a short version of why and how people don’t get past

mediocrity.

M:

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Yeah, I think that was awesome, so many nuggets in there, especially the four points on

greatness and everything you went through, that was great. What do you think, and I

definitely want with some of the time here to talk about marketing, because I think it’s

very misunderstood, I think there’s confusion, nobody knows what to do – what can you

share with us about your thoughts about marketing in general and marketing today?

J: Most people are abhorrently bad marketers, most people market internally (meaning they

talk about themselves, they’re not externally focused), most people don’t understand the

difference between benefits and features and they focus on features, most people don’t

understand the purpose of marketing which is to educate someone in a way nobody else

has to realize something that is either troubling them or motivating them, but they’ve

never verbalized to get them to see that that issue can be solved or resolved by you – see

what that resolve can look like. Make it non­threatening to initiate a relationship add real

value.

One of the laughable things that I see all the time – and if you go to our website, we don’t

even ask for opt­ins, and we give better stuff than people sell, and we have one section

that does ask for an opt­in, but before you opt in, it shows you and describes each and

every one of the 40 or 50 resources on it and doesn’t even sell anything, and most people

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offer some very shallow and flimsy report or something, and before you can even get to

it, you have to give them your opt­in, and most of it is very self­serving.

Marketing is not a manipulative ­I mean people say, “What do I have to do or say to get

people to buy?” Well, it’s how much value you can create above and beyond your

competitor, and when you market, you have to realize that you’re marketing against a

number of different forces and factors. And by the way, remind me to get back – to track

back or circle back to forces and factors, because I have some pretty deep and passionate

beliefs about forces and factors, and I don’t know if anybody’s ever discussed them, but

back to marketing. It’s about the most sincere and truest desire to add value – I mean

there’s a quote by one of my dear friends: “Every time you interact with anybody for any

reason in any way, certainly in your business, but definitely life, your goal, your

obligation, your responsibility, and your privilege is to make their life better off because

you were in it.” And that transcends and translates to many more things than I could

possibly share in this couple of minutes.

But marketing is really you helping educate, you helping comfort, you helping people

verbalize things they haven’t really realized. And I’ve got a great resource for people that

I think will be very interesting in a minute. But marketing is the most honorable if you do

it correctly…so many wonderful quality of life, quality of business improvements that

have only been made possible because of marketing. Without educating, without

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demonstrating, without illustrating, you know, where you are now, and how much better

your life can be, or how much richer, or satisfying, or healthier, you could never get

people to even to recognize what’s possible, let alone take action. Marketing, if you

understand it right, and you respect it for its ethical power, it is the greatest tool of

contribution and benefit to humanity – and again, marketing can be manifested in many,

many, many forms – and I don’t want to go into individual today. If you want to do

another session on specifics, I’d be happy to, but today I’d rather do some macro thinking

because I think if I could haunt people, you know, I could give you some resources for

them, not necessarily my own, or my own, whatever you want, don’t matter – but, let’s

talk about factors, forces…

But, now let’s talk about factors, forces….I mean, I could go deeper on that, but most

people market very superficially, very self­focused ­ there’s a concept called the “You

Attitude,” and this is very interesting. If I run an ad that’s read, or seen, or listened to by

ten million people…if I have an ad on Facebook that is seen by 20,000 or re­marketing –

people don’t realize it’s seen by 20,000 individuals, one human being at a time……so all

selling and marketing is salesmanship multiplied. But you’re really talking to one person

at a time. And we’ve got a document that’s probably worth having people review, called

“The Strategy of Preeminence” and there’s like 5 hours we’ve done on it, but it teaches

people, literally, how to externally understand the mind, the motives, the mentality of the

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market, and how to be able to focus on what they want but they’ve never realized. How

to put into words what they feel. How to demonstrate what is gnawing at them, either

from a painful or aspirational level, how to articulate the fulfillment of the goal or the

result or the reward they’re after. There’s some points that are very, very powerful.

I believe there are acts of God, or the equivalent, that impede….. Oh, by the way, I’ve got to start this…. Most entrepreneurs, and we used to do all our seminars, which start with a very

polarizing statement, and it is true…… Most entrepreneurs, professionals in private

practice, business owners, proprietors – if you’re a proprietor, you should question your

motives because that’s a pathetic place to be, when you can be a preeminent entrepreneur

just by shifting your mindset, your motivation and your methodology – but most of them

always have, they have now, and always will have, free reign to basically capitalize on

and grow any business, any way they want to, the heights they want, do it singularly, do it

through acquisition, through growth – anything they want – but they don’t realize it

because they feel impaired that they don’t have any money……we’ve got 150 ways

people achieve the equivalent capital would buy without ever using their own

capital…..we’ve got 101 or 102 ways that you can ethically leverage off of other peoples’

resources….but that’s not what I was gonna say. That’s an ADD moment.

So ­ most people feel stymied, but they unknowingly limit, restrict, impede, the size of

the business, the results they can get from their efforts, the growth of the business, the

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size of the transactions people can do, the frequency of things people can do, the referrals

– we’ve got 93 different referral strategies – systems, for example, and almost nobody

uses one system themselves, which is ironic because almost everybody listening can

actually say that 20­30­40­50% of their business comes from referral, or word of mouth,

which costs them nothing, is more valuable, buys faster, negotiates less, buys more things

more often, is more enjoyable and refers people, and most people spend their money on

the outside market trying to create first­level trust – it’s very ironic and very ludicrous

when you look at it clinically……..but back at the ranch……(laughs)……I’m circling

back three times (laughs)– you gotta look at a diagram and if somebody was doing a

mind map they would go crazy!

M: Laughs J: But most people think they’re impeded. 2% of what happens to people in business and

life are acts of God – they’re tragic, they’re travesties – ya know, whether it’s whatever

virus in Miami, or earthquake in Ecuador, or tsunami in Japan, and it’s

heartbreaking…..just heartbreaking. Or terrorists and things like that.

But 98% of what happens to us in business, our bodies and minds, our relationships – are

the by­products decisions we make or don’t make, actions we take or don’t take – and

actions can be the wrong actions – factors and forces that are ALWAYS existing. When

you UNDERSTAND the POWER and the control ­ ­ not the manipulative, but the

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beneficial control that you have, and you’ve always had, and you always will have, and

you learn how to utilize it honorably and preeminently, but to the optimal level of

positive leverage. There’s two kinds of leverage; it’s like cholesterol – too much

cholesterol and you’re dead. A lot of the good cholesterol compensates for the bad. So

there’s two kinds of leverage: one you get into an asset­based financing and when it

doesn’t appreciate or double you’re in trouble – I hate anything that’s got risk – but

there’s upside leverage that has no downside risk, and when you learn all the ways that

you can harness that, it is liberating, exhilarating and enormously, lavishly enumerating.

But now back….there’s another point I wanted to make, and I wanted to give you some

resources because I’m going to run out of time and I’m also having a little difficulty with

my voice today so I apologize……

The way to learn what people really want and what they don’t want, and how to create

GREAT, authentic marketing, is to utilize a multi­billion dollar research tool that has

always been available to you 24/7, any day of the week, and is open on holidays…and it’s

called amazon.com. you can go to amazon.com and you can take any category – remind

me, one more thing……

I need to tell you who you’re competing against…… ……..you can go to any category of anything, like if you take your business and any

variation of what you do, or any competitive area of alternative means and look up the

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top 25 books in that category, and look at the titles, and the sub­titles because that’s

normally a bigger driver than even the content – and write them down. Those resonate

with people. The go to the reviews. Usually it’s 1­10 ­ nowadays I think it’s 1­5; the 0s

and 1s are terrible and the 5s are great. And you look at all the 0s and 1s, and at all the 4s

and 5s. What happens is that when people are passionate – when they’re either passionate

or joyous, or passionately pissed off because they’re unfulfilled – then they write….they

don’t govern what they say…..it comes right from the inner depths of their being, and

they write in the language their subconscious really relates to, and they tell you what they

liked, what they didn’t like, which is what they want, or not, and you can use all that copy

to talk about your product or service…let’s say they say “I hated it,” “It was shabby,”

Another book that tells you “to mentally think positive and you’ll win.” And you can

say, like if you were selling corsets, and you can say, “I know you’re tired of the shabby

“think positive and you can win” and you can read the ones that are positive and they say,

“this was the first one that taught me this correlation to this, and how to do this.” And

you can use THAT to know what they want, and then you can win big using that language

pattern.

There’s two more things I said I wanted to say before I say goodbye. And now I forgot….. M: Who are you competing against? J: Oh yes! And then there’s one more.

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You gotta realize you’re competing against three very powerful categories, forces, factors: One is your direct competitor. And there’s lots of them. And if you don’t monitor on

line, if you don’t know what they’re doing better or worse, how they’re doing it, where

they’re doing it, ‘cause there’s all kinds of modest fee or free services that you can know

all that, and if you’re not constantly….oh, by the way…..a quote, and it relates:

Socrates said, “A life unexamined is a life not worth living.” M: Ahhhh! J: I will say that a business that is not constantly examined and re­examined on as many

different impact focal points as possible is a business not worth owning. That’s the first

thing.

Second, you’re competing with ALL the direct competitors. They can be online, offline,

they can be divisions, back­ends and front­ends of other companies.

Then you’re competing with alternative means. Let’s say you sell supplements for weight

loss. Well, you’re not just competing with weight loss supplements, you’re competing

with courses, with people that sell portion­control food, you’re competing with gyms,

you’re competing with books, you’re competing with equipment, you’re competing with

private trainers.

The third is you’re competing with inertia. With status quo. With procrastination.

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There’s a wonderful document that one of my colleagues did for us, and I can get it to

you for you to give people. She’s one of the two­person teams that grew a sales force

from small to billions, and they did a lot of work on the four categories of buyers.

One is the one that is “unaware and uninterested.” The other is “aware and uninterested.”

Third is “aware and interested, but not ready.” The fourth is “aware, interested and

ready.” You want to be seen as the only viable provider, expert advisor, and source that

one could possibly turn to. And you need to have what I’ll call “a reason why.”

Something you all oughta watch…there’s a Ted Talk called something like “Focus On the

Why” by a guy named Simon Sinek. It is quite transformative and it’s 20 minutes, and it’s

up on YouTube.

But that’s probably enough for today. M: Yeah…thank you Jay. This has been so amazing and heartfelt. Thank you for all the

information. If people want to find out more besides the resources you’re going to get to

me, what should they do to find out more about you.

J: Well, I’m gonna answer you, but I’m gonna give you a context.

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What I do is expensive, and our products and services are expensive, and most people

can’t, or won’t, afford us. And we made a decision many years ago that if you can’t –

and its part of being preeminent, we’re going to invest in you, so we have great resources

that will someday have opt­in mandate, but if you go to Abraham.com…it’s pretty

cool…but if you go to Abraham.com/50shades we have a resource called “50 Shades of

Jay” that’s got hours and hours of video, and thousands of pages, and 4 books you can

have free, and they don’t sell anything – you don’t have to send money, they’re all digital.

We’ve got interviews with people, we’ve got video interviews with experts that possess

skillsets I don’t, and it’s a contribution to entrepreneurship because I think that if you’re

going to be in business, you should be preeminent. If you’re going to be in business, you

should make everything you can of it, for everyone you can reach.

And one last thing I wanted to say, and I remembered it……the tragedy amongst

entrepreneurs, because many of them are weak on infrastructure, team building. If an

entrepreneur makes an additional million dollars, they don’t invest in infrastructure and

retaining and hiring people greater than them. They buy a Ferrari or they buy a bigger

house or the do something else. There’s very scary research for entrepreneurs that you get

20 percent of the capacity and potential of your team members. It’s not that they don’t

want to perform better, it’s not that any of that, “they don’t know how to perform

better…ohhh I can’t hire good talent!” If you can’t hire good talent, your job is to grow

and develop it. And that’s about all I can say, except thank you for the privilege, and I

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hope I haunt people well. You’re very welcome to go to my site, and most of what you’ll

get is contribution to you, and yeah – if you’re big enough, I’m always interested in

clients, and we do very expensive programs, and they’re very elite, because I don’t do a

lot anymore, I just do things that are very meaningful or fun or stimulating or

experimental, and…Mike, I hope that this was what you wanted this to be.

M: Yeah, this was amazing Jay, I can’t thank you enough. I’m honored to call you a friend,

and this is just so special. You did not only haunt everyone who listened to this, but you

haunted me with plenty of growth and knowledge, so thank you so much.

J: You are very welcome. Goodbye. M: Well there you have it everybody, and I don’t even know how to do a summary of this

last hour. I can just tell you that you will want to go back to this, listen to this many

times, and write down notes. There is millions and millions of dollars worth of value.

I’ll give you guys a couple that stood out for me – be on a mission or crusade, be

strategic, create massive value. Jay did amazing, and he delivered so much about

marketing. What about be the most trusted advisor in your industry, and creating this

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trust, and why you’re doing these things you’re doing. And what about digging the holes?

I mean should you be digging the holes, should you be digging it there? That is priceless,

I will be writing it down, and evaluate all the decisions I’ll be making on a regular basis.

Right? And what about moving the money to where its best so you can maximize it? And

what about moving the money to where it’s best to see if you can maximize it? And all

the information about testing, to see if one little tweak or optimizing something…can it

deliver that extra little more?

And he talks about doing things strategically, and the four points why they don’t achieve

or why you might not be achieving greatness? But I know some of that there is kind like

he said, haunting me right now. Making me thing through a lot of different processes.

And I know that this interview, listening to it many times, will create levels of expansion

for you and personal growth.

And what about the purpose of marketing? Educate them in a way no one has. Verbalize

that. So, I mean, it can be solved by showing them. And again, I just kept writing down

that, “deliver value, deliver value,” right? Marketing is not manipulating people to do

something, it is delivering that real value, and marketing is very honorable. And then he

took us all the way down to, you know, 98% of what happens to use is just a byproduct of

what we do or don’t do.

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And I’m just gonna scroll this down just to keep us to a time, because at this point you’re

probably already feeling amazed, overwhelmed, extremely excited, and I think one of the

biggest points he’s getting at was at the end about the whole “competing against the

status quo”, right? And competing against these alternative means. And what about the

resource of how to use Amazon and the power that’s there for the five­star info that tells

you what people love, and maybe the one star of what they wanted difference from.

So wow, this is very exciting for me today, that’s it for this episode of the Secrets of

Business Mastery podcast, I’d also be grateful if you’d rate my podcast on iTunes, that

helps me tremendously with keeping my podcast visible, so people who’ve never heard it

can discover it. If you’ve already done this, thank you very much, I’m very grateful. Be

sure and connect with me on social media, it’s a great way to ask me any questions or

offer feedback on the show. I’m also reachable at mikea@ceowarrior.com .

Until next time, remember, massive wealth, tons of freedom, and market domination is

only one action step away.

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