Jay Abraham
April 9 2015
Just this year I was asked to speak at Tony Robbin’s 2016 Business Mastery event in Florida. Out of my 2 hour presentation, a third of it was dedicated to solving
attendees biggest challenges, opportunities, issues and problems. Not only was it great fun, it was also very well received. Each person had 2 minutes maximum to ask a question and I had 3 minutes maximum to answer.
What you will find here is a condensed version of what was shared, distilled into marketing solutions you can start applying immediately. Since you’re paid in life for thinking differently, my hope for you is the insights that follow will reward you richly not just in monetary terms, but also in thinking differently as well.
#1. “How do I improve my business?”
Talk to the highest performers making the most money in the area you want to improve. Talk to people specializing in different industries and see what they are doing. Look online at everyone else doing what you want to improve and see if they sell their technology: Contact them and offer to buy a license. Look at every model similar or related and see how it’s working. Look at everyone reaching the audience you want to reach to see if you can possibly set up joint ventures.
#2. “How do I keep up with my competitors if they are growing past me?”
Go to your best referrers and say the following, “We need to invest in the people you refer to us more generously than our contemporaries. So, anybody you think we can help, we will buy them the first ______________ , so there don’t have any apprehension in patronizing our business.” Secondly, there are probably people who have smaller businesses or semi-retired individuals from whom you could buy their client base and give them a perpetual piece of the business if it’s legal.
#3. “How do I get new clients at better price points?”
Don’t play the same game everyone else is playing the same way they play it.
Whether locally, nationally, online or offline, find people who specialize in industries and make them marketing partners if they don’t have the piece of the puzzle you provide. You can also go to people who have your piece of the puzzle, but if you have an advanced product or service, do deals with them to take their offerings to the next
level. Find people who have sold everything they can sell to their client base, and offer these clients your endorsed products and service. So find out who already has the market – and it could be a competitor if they don’t have as deep a product or service – and find utilization with their clients.
#4. “How do I build trust with prospects better/quicker/easier?”
Instead of making the relationship overwhelming or creating implicit fear, say “Call this number and we will first invest in you. We’ll educate you; we’ll show you the good, the bad, the ugly. We’ll show you who is right. We’ll show you strategies. We’ll give you a way to test our concept. Then we’ll follow up and discuss it with you, and if we’re compatible then we’ll invite you in.” Offer less threatening ways to educate prospects before they have to make a commitment.
#5. “How do I get the attention of high level people/companies/decision-makers for my product/service offering?”
First, find out who else is doing this, how are they doing it, where are they doing it and how well are they doing. You don’t need many to begin with. After you get just a few high level individuals/companies, you can validate you already have clients. Go to the bigger clients with your proof and say “We believe we have an offer that will play out and pay off, but we’d like to buy _____________ of the service gratis to begin with and let you judge it on the most critical criteria we can come up with together, and earn your business.”
#6. “I don’t want to do business the same way everyone in my industry does it. What should I do?”
First, work on building more referral sources. A referral generated client is many times more profitable, less likely to waste your time and easier to deal with. You can’t build referral sources until you have a unique value proposition. So learn all the referral strategies you can and invest real value in developing, building and enriching relationships with people that have access to the market you want. Another
possibility is to find people who may be retiring and they have goodwill with your ideal clients, and make a deal with them where you take over their brand and integrate it while paying them 25% forever and work their clients for them.
#7. “There are so many possible audiences for my product/service. Where should I focus my marketing efforts?”
Willie Sutton was the greatest bank robber who ever lived. He robbed more banks than anyone else. When he was arrested, he was asked, “Why did you rob so many banks?” His answer was straight forward, “Because that’s where the money is.” Think about it pragmatically and go to where the money is.
#8. “My competitor is for sale, but has a broader customer base that I service right now. Is it strategic to buy them?”
If they have a lot of growth you could add by being a better marketer, strategist, make it more preeminent, set up relationships with people who have access – and if you analyze their client base and find verticals you could expand on too – then there’s a definite possibility. If they have clients you couldn’t support, you could probably sell them for an earn-out to someone else who would love them. The real question is this: Who, if anyone, will buy it? Can you make the competitors
employees part of an ESOP? Are there other suppliers that have a big enough interest they would put up the money to be exclusive suppliers? Think about all the
possibilities before you write a big check you don’t have to.
#9. “My business is coming from different sources. How much importance should I place on each source?”
Look at the numbers and what they are telling you. Of one hundred percent of the business you do, how many come directly from each source? That will pretty much tell you what to focus on.
#10. “Give me a specific step-by-step referral generating system I can use.”
Sit with them and say, “Before we start this process, I want to share something serious and relevant with you. We started this business _____ years ago with a very unique belief. We belief that our success can only be predicated only the success we create with clients like you – and – your desire to share that success with as many other people you care deeply about. So we have a process: We have a choice of spending our marketing budget on radio, seminars, advertising and so on. We’ve chosen instead to invest in research, educating our people so we are the best we can be for you. Every client we take on we share with them what we are going to do with
them first. We’re going to _____________. We’re going to concern ourselves, care and be there through anything that happens – good or bad. We will never avoid anything negative and always give you the most well-reasoned decisions and we’re committed to _____________. What we ask is this: Upon achievement of this, you agree in the beginning to refer to us at least __#__ quality, like-minded people you care deeply enough about in your life whom we can explore the possibility with. We’ll give them best reasoned second-opinion, we’ll give them our straight-forward philosophy and on. They don’t have to use us, but we ask this of you because if we don’t get this from our clients we have to run ads, charge you a surcharge and it gives us less time to do what you really want us to do which is ____________.”
#11. “How do I escape the price/commodity business and become more profitable?”
Quantify the soft attributes and show what it means in dollar savings, time savings, personnel saving, what the output is worth and so on. Quantify your performance.
#12. “How do I keep and retain more of my clients/customers?”
You have to understand what people value when you’re not in their life. You have to find implicit and explicit ways to keep them aware of the performance and value you are providing beyond just the service. Doing more things, educating them more, bringing them experts, investing back some of your profit so it will be so explicit you are in this for the long haul – and don’t just do it passively. Your competitors will try and take your clients/customers to lunch, so you’ve got to be able to express more of the reason why you are committed to them for life. Invest in them because they are your long-term investment and you know they are worth it.
#13. “How do I create win-win partnerships to drive traffic to my business?”
Find people that have the clients that are doing relative things. Make a
comprehensive list of your customer profile and go to people that have the market directly or indirectly. Who already spent the time, effort, performance-fulfillment and has the trust and credibility with the same market you want and can introduce you, partner with you, put you on the their blog, create a program with you, and so on?
Find out who already has direct access/distribution and start there.
#14. “How do I get my message in front of more of my target market and have them self-identify themselves?”
Don’t waste your time calling cold. Find out who already has the market and from there you have lots of flexibility. For example, give them a diagnosing test to self-identify themselves.
#15. “How do I calculate my customers Lifetime Value?”
You’re going to have different products/services, different categories of buyers and different sources of those buyer. First, look at the first sale that predictably emanates from different products, categories or medias or distribution; Then look at the real profit or loss that accrues; Then, in a realistic timeline, look at what flows from that in terms of repeat orders, alternative orders, referrals etc. and compute conservatively.
Example: Profit from first sale = $200. Average repeat: 5 sales. Average client stays 3 years. So, in this case, Lifetime Value would be $200 x 5 x 3 = $3000. So every time a new client comes you would be accruing $3000. You could increase business by incentivizing sales people with 100% of the first $200 sale since the business would make $2800 over the lifetime of the client.
#16. “How do I reach more clients?”
Leverage the people who already use you and ask if they will introduce you to their contemporaries and counterparts.
#17. “How do you overcome objections major/large companies have about doing business with my company?”
Ask them to give you their worst problem no one else wants or can solve, and you take it on gratis. Then have them promise to give you more if you solve it, and grow together. You re-channel marketing dollars into subsidizing the creative solutions to the problems. There are certain problems you could find solutions to – even by going out and hiring three of the top people whom all they did was solve the problems, and you utilized your marketing dollars for this – and you become the company that takes it on and figures out the solution, and you don’t even charge for it. The simple quid pro quo is then executed and honored if you deliver.
Encounter! With Jay Abraham and Drew Kaplan