Turning Customers and Partners into Growth Engines | Jay Abraham

Business strategist and growth expert Jay Abraham explains how entrepreneurs can scale faster and more profitably by leveraging partnerships, referrals, and underutilized assets. In this episode of Strategy Sessions, he shows that significant growth doesn’t require large budgets—by building long-term relationships and strategically aligning with networks, business owners can access new resources, markets, and revenue streams.

Abraham emphasizes moving beyond transactional approaches to relational alliances that create compounding benefits. He also demonstrates how systematic referral programs and creative use of untapped assets can unlock exponential growth while strengthening trust and loyalty among clients and partners.

Key discussion points:

• Designing partnerships that create value for all parties and reduce risk
• Using reciprocal relationships to generate revenue with minimal capital
• Building long-term relational alliances rather than one-off transactions
• Implementing systematic referral strategies to drive consistent growth
• Monetizing untapped assets to expand revenue and market reach
• Increasing customer lifetime value through strategic collaboration and engagement

Transcript

Jim Fitzpatrick 0:13

Mr.

Welcome And The Partnership Question

Jim Fitzpatrick 0:14

Jay Abraham, welcome into our second episode of Strategy Sessions with Jay Abraham. So thankful that you're here with us and you're part of the ASBN family. And uh we got so many great comments on the first episode of our new podcast here. So here we are in our second one.

Jay Abraham 0:30

Yay, I'm glad. It's wonderful.

Jim Fitzpatrick 0:32

Yeah, that's great. So um I want to talk to you about uh, and I know this is something that's very near and dear to your heart, and that's fostering partnerships that can help scale a business. So let's talk about that. What first of all, what what makes a partnership thrive long term?

Jay Abraham 0:48

Well, it's gotta be a collaboration, and normally when you're trying to structure a partnership, it is gonna mean more to you in the beginning than it does to the other side. So you have to understand it is a value exchange that has to be uh educated, created, and appreciated. So I'll use three words. So basically,

Find The Decision Maker First

Jay Abraham 1:12

the first thing you want to do, no matter what kind of business you are, is say, okay, who is the decision maker buying influence I am reaching or want to reach? Because it's great for startups, too.

unknown 1:24

Right.

Jay Abraham 1:25

And then you generically figure it out. It's a decision maker, it's a kind of person, it's a demographic, whatever it is. Then you ask, how many different generic types of businesses, organizations, associations, media, influencers, authors have access to that, and then you get this list of categories. It can be an association that reaches them, it can be a discussion group that reaches them, it can be a service company, it can be a product company, it can be an ad a consulting company. So now you have isolated the market you're targeting, all the different kinds of entities and individuals who have a trusted, direct, credible relationship with that market. So then you've got to break it into two categories. The very large ones, the big corporations, unless you are very significant, will probably not be good target collaborators because you're not relevant enough. They're gonna have to go through legal, it's just it's not worth it. But the entrepreneurial ones will. So now you find the out you separate the big ones from the little ones, and now you start going to the categories of the little ones, and I'm just walking you through the whole process. You go through that category and you get all the data. You know, get their their contacts, who are the decision makers, et cetera. You always want to go as high up as you can, obviously. Right. So

Build A Specific Value Proposition

Jay Abraham 2:55

now you've got to figure out what your value proposition is. And it's not one size fits all, because your one your value proposition could be that your product could be added in the sales package to what they do. Your value proposition could be that they sell somebody one thing and they have nothing else to sell, and your product could be basically the back end that would double the lifetime value or the profit.

Jim Fitzpatrick 3:26

Right.

Jay Abraham 3:27

Your value proposition might be that yours is a logical predecessor to theirs, and if they made that product the first thing they sold, they would get a lot more people to start a relationship. Right. Your value proposition might be that your product has a very unique appeal and a high per se value, but you can make it available to them as a bonus. Your proposition might be that it's a value-oriented and they just want to make it available because nobody else does. Right. But you've got to figure out what is your value proposition, first of all. If it is economic, then you've got to be able to show the entrepreneurial potential partner what it can mean to them. So if I say to you, I want you to introduce my uh high-end advisory services to your audience, and I will give you a share of that. It's that's a pretty tepid proposition that doesn't really sound that exciting, and you're gonna have to basically perceive into it what it means. But if I say instead, Jim, you have 500,000 visitors a month. What I've looked at, you have at least 10,000 who are perfect profile for my $300,000 services. I believe every month, if we do this right, you can probably generate five or ten of those, which is a million and a half dollars. I will share with you X. Let's say I say I'll share with you 25%. Right. 25% of a million five a month is what is it? It's my brain isn't working, it's about $450,000. That alone could be compelling, but what I always say is then you take it one more gradient and you show what that money will do. You say, so let me tell you what it can mean. It can mean that you could hire 10 more salespeople, it can mean you could basically pay off your building, it can mean that you could buy three other companies, it means that you and your wife could basically, for $450,000 a month, uh $5 million a year, you could basically buy an office building and have it paid for. And I give you all the tangible implications of it.

Jim Fitzpatrick 5:43

Right.

Jay Abraham 5:43

And then I do a takeaway because I understand risk reversal and anything that somebody is offering that you've never done, particularly if you don't know a lot about them, you're gonna be apprehensive, even if it sounds very lucrative. So you would normally say, Well, I don't know, but I'm not gonna let you. I'm gonna preemptively introduce the negatives and overcome them. So what

Risk Reversal And Safe Testing

Jay Abraham 6:06

I would say is, and before we'd ever do that, I would want you to, and depends on what my product service is for me, I'd want you to get at least 10 people you trust who have businesses of this size that are representative of that 10,000 people in your 500,000. And I want you to sit in a room or watch video when I interact with them to see how I look at it, because you have to be convinced of the value I could be, or I wouldn't even do it with you. So I I don't even wait for you to say that.

Jim Fitzpatrick 6:32

Right.

Jay Abraham 6:32

Number two, I would say I want you to talk to at least 10 people that I've made at least a million dollars to sixty million dollars extra for, so get their perspective.

Jim Fitzpatrick 6:43

Right.

Jay Abraham 6:43

I want you to be a believer. Right. Because if you're not a believer, you can't advocate for me. Then I explain that there are easy ways for me to make my service available to your people in a gratis way with resources, books, things like that. So I show you how, in doing it, I am going to orchestrate value creation for you. And there's lots of ways to do it. And then I tell you, but before we do a lot, let's do a very safe, conservative test. Let's take, if you can isolate, you've got it, I mean, you've got viewers, which is hard to isolate. You've got different shows you can check. You also have an email list of a newsletter you put out. We can isolate 10,000 or 5,000, and let's do a safe and a very, very definitive test, or at least an indicative test before we do it. I take away the risk by by introducing how to acknowledge and mitigate it before we ever start. And then I say, if it if it we we can to together decide what kind of response, because you're probably not going to make money right away, it's going to be indication. People want more, they want to talk, they want to get something, will decide that. And I'll say, if that doesn't work, then I wouldn't even I wouldn't even think of going forward. But I'm saying you think it all through.

Jim Fitzpatrick 8:01

Right, right. I I love it. That's what that's what you

Joint Ventures That Add Instant Credibility

Jim Fitzpatrick 8:04

do. And and and that's uh and just to use maybe another um example, uh, if in the event that you are a plumbing contractor and you've got a plumbing company, you're a plumber, and you meet up with an electrician, right? Um, that person is in those homes, they've got that data database that you're talking about. Um, everybody in the homes or or their in their database is probably going to need plumbing from time to time. That's a perfect marriage, right?

Jay Abraham 8:31

I told you about uh I have a client who has a restore restoration, a home restoration when there's fire, when there's water damage. They get 85% of their business from joint ventures they have with plumbers, because plumbers are called first.

Jim Fitzpatrick 8:49

I was gonna say, yeah, they're the first one. They'll turn the water off, right?

Jay Abraham 8:52

But they aren't gonna do the and so I can see that the plumbers generate business for them. I think I I have told you this privately. When I got started, I took a a gold brokerage company from a few hundred thousand dollars to over five hundred million dollars in literally uh 18 months because we were able to partner with a bunch of financial newsletters that had the exact profile we wanted. They made us their recommended provider. I was in the seminar business for a very few years, I think five years, and we did $250 million, quarter billion dollars, and I put up almost nothing because I had Entrepreneur Magazine was my partner, Success Magazine, the in-flight magazines. I had 20, 30 financial newsletters of my partner. I had partners who were the big promoters in Japan, China, Vietnam, Thailand, UK, and they put all their risk up, they put all their good work.

Jim Fitzpatrick 9:55

So the magazines would basically run your ad.

Jay Abraham 9:57

Yeah, they'd run, they wouldn't run my ads, they would run 20 pages of ads that we would run in their magazine.

Jim Fitzpatrick 10:03

Okay. Okay.

Jay Abraham 10:04

And they would get a share of the revenue. Right, right. But partnerships, I mean, it's the safest, the most infallible way to not only make money, but elevate your stature instantaneously. Because if I partner with you, let's take your other side of your business. You have a presence to the automobus. Right. They trust you. Right. I have a limited presence to that audience. If you promoted me to that audience, the first thing is at least they would be open-minded. If I promote me to that audience, the idea of getting the chance of getting to the top person is very low. Your chance of picking up the phone or texting or emailing is very high.

Jim Fitzpatrick 10:50

Right.

Jay Abraham 10:50

Everything about it is strong. I think I talked in one of your interviews with me about the Rothschild effect.

Jim Fitzpatrick 10:56

Yeah.

Jay Abraham 10:57

And I'll say it again. Yep. That's a story, but it it's very indicative. Supposedly somebody wanted Bear and Rothschild to lend them a hundred thousand pounds years ago. Sure. He said, I won't give you a penny, but I'll give you something infinitely, infinitely more valuable. I will walk back and forth twice with you across the stock exchange with my arm around your shoulder. And when we're done, everybody will lend you all the money you want. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Jim Fitzpatrick 11:25

It's like an Elon Musk doing that today. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Jay Abraham 11:27

Yeah. Exactly. But the power of it is undeniable. And I think I also told you that 2,000 of the top corporations in the United States today get 20% of their revenue, but 40% of their profit from partnerships. I mean, uh Microsoft $32 billion of one of one division. Zoom gets something like 40% in Japan. Shopify all these companies are use it, but most entrepreneurs don't realize it. And even if you're this is what's wonderful about it, you can you talked about this reciprocal. Even if you are professionals who are legally uh you're unable to share revenue, you can do reciprocal. We one time put an ophthalmic surgeon together with a trust and a state lawyer. And they both reciprocally, they first of all had to basically gain trust, respect, and certainty that each other was really the real thing and would add greater value than the than than uh the maddening crowd of competitors. Once they did, they reciprocally introduced each other to their database. No money would change his hand, and both of them made about 400 grand a year. Wow. So I mean it's a very powerful concept when you embrace it. Yeah.

Jim Fitzpatrick 12:49

But most of the people so much quicker for such little amount of capital, if any capital.

Jay Abraham 12:54

Well, also you get access to resources. We used to talk and call it the unlimited checkbook, because if you're an SMB, you don't have a lot, you don't have a big bench.

Jim Fitzpatrick 13:06

Yeah.

Jay Abraham 13:06

And you also don't have a big bank account. Low bank account, low bench.

Jim Fitzpatrick 13:10

That's right.

Jay Abraham 13:11

So let's say you would love to have a sales force, but you can't afford it. Right. Well, if you partner with somebody who's got salespeople all over the country, now you have a sales force.

Jim Fitzpatrick 13:19

That's right.

Jay Abraham 13:19

If you wanted to open another office somewhere, you're gonna have to basically spend money recruiting, you're gonna have spend money leasing a facility, you're gonna have to have spend money outfitting it, you're gonna have to spend money training, and you might not be right. That's right. But if I partner with you and you already have a great office, you already have salespeople.

Jim Fitzpatrick 13:42

And they've already have they've got the trust factor and the relationship. Exactly.

Jay Abraham 13:45

But but where most people even most people who try to do it fail, they don't understand how to concretize the value of the relationship. I gave you the process, but they would go and say, Jim, uh if you promote me, I'll give you 15% of the sales.

Jim Fitzpatrick 14:03

Yeah.

Jay Abraham 14:03

And you're going, well, that's a lot of that's a lot of risk for me to make very little.

Jim Fitzpatrick 14:09

Right.

Jay Abraham 14:09

And so you've got to be able to understand that it's I think I uh I I know I did in a in another segment talked about the tugboat and the Yes and I don't want to go into it that much, but it's all about you start with a little and then you keep building on it. But for me to gain your willingness to lend me the most valuable, intangible assets you have, which is your trust and your relationship with your audience, or your trust, your relationship, and your human capital, your salespeople, your distribution people, your distributors, I have to earn that. And most people don't understand what it one of the things I'm very good at, because I've really spent my whole life, is understanding what it's like to be in the rescues of the other side. When you're trying to do partnerships, strategic alliances, become endorsed by somebody, the recommended provider, co-branding, you have to work up to it. You know, if if you've ever we have a bunch of of uh mountains and uh in California, everywhere. And if you're gonna walk up them, you don't go straight up. There's switchbacks. That's right. And that's sort of a metaphoric example of how you get this done. Yeah.

Jim Fitzpatrick 15:24

Does that help? It it does help. Yeah. You don't it's much more difficult to go straight up the mountain than it is to kind of zigzag up the mountain.

Jay Abraham 15:31

But if I show you what I could create for you, and I show you that also that that is gonna make more money for your clients and the money it makes, so they're gonna be able to spend more advertising with you. But I show you how I can use the money that I will earn you by my performance, and that that will get you more of what you want and even things you haven't thought were possible. I have a much higher chance of getting your buy-in.

Jim Fitzpatrick 15:56

That's right. That's right. Talk

Transactional Deals Versus Long-Term Alliances

Jim Fitzpatrick 15:58

to us about the difference between transactional alliances and relational ones.

Jay Abraham 16:02

Yeah. So a transactional is what a lot of people do in the online marketing. They'll go to they'll go to a bunch of people that have a database and they'll ask them to do a promotion.

Jim Fitzpatrick 16:13

Yeah.

Jay Abraham 16:14

It's a one and done.

Jim Fitzpatrick 16:15

Right.

Jay Abraham 16:15

They'll say, hey, I'm coming out with this new training program, it's three thousand dollars. If you'll promote it to your database with three emails, I'll give you X half of it. And it's one and done.

Jim Fitzpatrick 16:28

Yeah.

Jay Abraham 16:29

Whereas, so let me give you a better example. I was telling you the story, it's a very interesting story. I was telling you about when I did the gold company and we grew it to a half a billion dollars. The way we did it was not doing transactional. I'm giving you the contrast now. I would go to all these newsletters. We first of all, they had to they had to believe we were a superior and trusting and a worthy uh provider to recommend. We became the recommended provider for bunches of them.

Jim Fitzpatrick 16:57

Okay.

Jay Abraham 16:57

When somebody subscribed to the newsletter, I'm talking about this is long term. When somebody subscribed to the newsletter, they would get that newsletter's welcome packet, and we put a packet in that explained the case for hard assets, gold, silver collectibles. It interviewed experts who were advocates. It interviewed experts who were not, so it was balanced, right? We never would take people's money from these. If they wanted to come to us to buy gold, silver, we would first insist they got our even more expansive education because we didn't want to be avaricious. We wanted to build a long-term repetitive purchase. Every quarter, we underwrote a special edition of a newsletter that we paid for, but the newsletter would put out on the case and the outlook for hard assets. We would interview great people. Every two or three months, we would underwrite regional training programs and seminars that we would pay for. We would bring the publisher of the newsletter, we would hire an iconic, like a magazine author or book author to speak, and our president would speak. But we were in it perpetually as opposed to singularly. Does that make sense? Yes. Yeah.

Jim Fitzpatrick 18:13

Totally different. For sure.

Jay Abraham 18:15

And we made millions of dollars. And the others would make a little bit and they're gone.

Jim Fitzpatrick 18:19

Right, right. Right. And and it's a different way of looking at it and uh and obviously much more profitable, like you say, playing the long game. Um building referral systems that compound over time. Sure.

Jay Abraham 18:31

So uh I'll start with a visual that it might be a little hard to fathom, but it's if if you understand this, it'll it'll really rock you. So I used to do these seminars. When I got to the topic that you're talking about, I would ask how many people in this room get between 20 and 100 percent of your business from referrals or word of mouth. And you get about 30 percent that would stand up. Okay. And I'd say, remain standing until I tell you to sit down. And I would randomly ask different people for percentage and dollars. How much is a percentage? 30 percent million dollars, uh 50 percent 500,000, 100% 10 million. Then I'd say, okay, remain standing only if you have in place at least one formalized, systematized referral generating strategy that you and your team adhere to always to assure that every one of your satisfied buyers are programmed ethically to generate referrals for you. 95% sit down. They don't have one. Then now you've got about 5% still remaining. I'll say okay, two. 95% of the five percent sit down. When I say three, they all sit down. Because I've worked with literally a thousand plus industries, I've been able to uncover over a hundred and twenty-five separate methods for generating no cost, pardon me, high, high value, high converting referrals. So keep that over here. We'll come back to it in a minute. So then I will say to everybody, okay, let me see if uh Tony Robbins calls it hallucinating. I'd say, I'm gonna hallucinate. I'm gonna hallucinate that a referral-generated buyer buys quicker, negotiates less, buys more, buys more combination, far more profitable, far more enjoyable, stays longer, refers other people, and it would cost you nothing compared to the fact that almost everybody that gets a portion is spending, not necessarily investing, because investing is for a predictable yield, and spending is basically speculating. They're running paid advertising, and a paid advertising respondent, first of all, low conversion, low trust, long sales cycle, if ever. And I said, it makes no sense. So that's the background. There are many ways to generate referrals. I have 125. No one's gonna do 125, no one's gonna do 25, but if they're doing none and getting X percent already and dollars, if they only had three and it tripled what they're doing, and you added that to the business they're getting that they're they're they're investing a ton or spending a ton on in advertising or sales commissions. Right. It just makes total sense to have referral generating and referral marketing an integral part of the business.

Referral Systems And Raving Fans

Jay Abraham 21:25

We have a book we just came out with. It's called The Wonder Drug for Business. I don't remember even right now what the subtitle is, but it's all about referral generation. It just says, why would you not if you are if your business is not getting referral referrals continually, you should question yourself. Because why? Now there are a couple of very you know, there's you know, personal type services they're not going to tell you about that are you know cosmetic or you know, or sexuality dysfunction, but with with you back to the thing. Yeah. If your business isn't getting right now some number of referrals, first thing you have to say is what's wrong with this picture? Right. If you are and you're not helping people really generate more, then it's shameful because if your business is significant enough that people refer, it means they see the value you offer above and beyond your generic competitor.

Jim Fitzpatrick 22:23

Right.

Jay Abraham 22:23

And if that is a true articulation of what you stand for, you deserve, but you also have an obligation to help people, help people they care about come to you over your competitor, not because your competitor is a jerk or you wish them uh poor, but because you're going to add more value to them. So referral generation, if you really are preeminent, is a necessity because you don't want people to be disturbed by lesser providers.

Jim Fitzpatrick 22:57

Trevor Burrus, Jr. Right, right. Staying on that referral um uh topic for a second here, how do you turn customers into raving fans or advocates for your product or service?

Jay Abraham 23:11

Well, you you don't abandon them after you sold them. And you also don't abandon them after you haven't sold them. Right. So if somebody doesn't buy for you from you, uh you can say I I have enjoyed the the conversation. I think uh I'm sorry that our product doesn't serve exactly your need, but I want you to know that anytime in the future that your needs change we're here, and any time in the future you have anyone you think our product serves, we'd hope you would do that. That's the first thing. Second is you send to them constantly case study examples of different scenarios that show different reasons people come to you. I mean, uh there's a there's a concept called the reticulator activator system. Do you know what that is? No. It means and and you'll understand this from the car business. If you and I buy uh a shiny, cool red car and we've never had a red car, all of a sudden we see all these red cars on the high. But before we didn't notice any red cars. Well, if you start qualitatively programming people to refer because you help them see scenarios. Let me tell you a very real story that will make the point, and it's true. So back uh when I was in the sub I had a subscription business, and at the time we sold products and subscriptions, and I was the biggest client of our local bank. And so the local bank manager would take me to lunch every week. And she was a hot divorce woman, so I really enjoyed being with her because she was nice to look at and she was intelligent. And she would always lament to me that she couldn't get a date, and she was asking everyone to do it, and nobody got her a date. She was a very quality woman. She was attractive, she was fun, she drank a little bit, she didn't smoke, she was athletic, she I mean, everything about her was like hot and desirable. And after about three months of listening, I said, okay, I'm gonna tell you what to do. I want you to go back to the bank, and I want you to consider this for everybody in your in your in your scepter, in your in your field, and I want you to say to them that I just had lunch with somebody, and he pointed something out very, very profound, that even though I've told you I would love you to find me somebody, I haven't helped you understand who they are, where they are, and why they are. So let me help you to know what I'm looking for. It's probably somebody who is in your life but you don't, or has been in your life. Maybe it was an ex-neighbor who got divorced but you know him him to have been a great guy, or somebody from college, or somebody very, very pinpointed exactly what it is. Exactly what it is and why it is. And you could say then, you know, as long as he is between the ages of X and X, and they don't smoke, and they're, you know, I like alcohol, but not obsessive, and they're reasonably athletic, but not obsessive, and they like movies and you know what it is. Uh and they could be a professional, they could be in management, and they might be here, they might be somebody from your your your your residential life, they might be somebody from your family, they might be somebody you have met and forgot about at church, they might be somebody in a in a in a community group, and it should painted everything. Right. And I told her, try that and tell me what happens. About a month later, I had I I I I was traveling. She said, I did what you said, it was amazing. She had the first week I had eight dates. But that's the power of helping people help you. Right. You gotta help I have to help you help me, but also help somebody you care about, and most people don't. That's right. They go, hey, if you know anybody, tell them, or hey, I'll give you a hundred bucks, or I'll give you a Starbucks card. That's right. It's tacky.

Jim Fitzpatrick 27:08

That's right. That's right. It's not the incentive. Or in that case, they'll go in with a sob story. You know, I don't have anybody in my life.

Jay Abraham 27:14

Avarice-based referrals work sometimes, but nobility-based ones will work all the time.

Jim Fitzpatrick 27:22

Yeah.

Jay Abraham 27:22

If I'm referring you, let's take your car business, because I think somebody really will give me a great deal, will treat me very well, will get me the best financing, and will be a pleasure to deal with, and will not take advantage of me. And I want that for you because I care about you, that's a lot more of a motivation than making a hundred dollars. That's right. And there's about, as I said, 125 different ways to do it without giving somebody money.

Jim Fitzpatrick 27:48

Right.

Jay Abraham 27:49

You just have to basically pick the three or four that are the best and then do it regularly.

Jim Fitzpatrick 27:54

Right. Right. And then even then you can you can uh you can go on to other you know, more on the list on the 1250s.

Jay Abraham 28:03

What you do is you you you you start with the easiest, consistent one. You apply it, it works, you add the next, you apply it, and then sort of it's a it's a build-up, it's a scaling.

Jim Fitzpatrick 28:14

Sure, sure, sure, sure. 125. Yeah, wow. Talk to me about um uh a win-win-win. Uh you

Win Win Win Collaboration Stories

Jim Fitzpatrick 28:24

may maybe some of your favorite examples of win-win-win collaborations.

Jay Abraham 28:29

Uh okay. Uh well, I can give you historic ones that are that are pretty cool. So uh I well, I had a friend who was the marketing director for Carnival Cruise when they first started. It's a very funny story, it's true. Carnival Cruise, when they first started, wasn't the multi-billion dollar five brand line they are today worldwide. It was a guy that had a second rate ship that wasn't even fully painted on one side. True story. He had to bring it in on the painted side so no one would see it. It would go out every month.

Jim Fitzpatrick 29:05

Is this Aronson?

Jay Abraham 29:06

Is that the uh it would go out every this was early in Miami. Yeah. Every week it would go out half empty, which is 400 empty empty rooms and let's call it worth a thousand dollars. So $400,000 a week was going literally down the drape.

Jim Fitzpatrick 29:19

Right.

Jay Abraham 29:19

My friend got the idea of going to radio, TV, media, and trading them the unsold cabins for advertising.

Jim Fitzpatrick 29:27

Okay.

Jay Abraham 29:28

And he was able to create $400,000 of value a week in will. And he was able to trade it, but there was a problem. The problem is if I exchange this unsold cabin for advertising and the trade gets redeemed right away, then I don't really I can't I can't accommodate the paid ones. How do you do that?

Jim Fitzpatrick 29:51

Right.

Jay Abraham 29:52

So he asked for his advertising to be provided immediately, but he gave all the media five years to use theirs, which is very interesting because not only was it a deferred payment that he's paying off at a discount, no interest, but the the time value of money is much lower five years from today.

Jim Fitzpatrick 30:10

That's right.

Jay Abraham 30:11

And that's how they started that. Uh uh DHL, you know DHL. DHL, sure. When they came into the market, they real this was before the Internet, they realized that the key market happened to be the media companies because they had to get stuff at that and and um and and um law and legal, but the media companies had a duality because they had to get things overnight, signed and back, yeah, and and they did trades, and they did trades to upend FedEx and UPS. And so they would trade ten million dollars for ten million dollars of advertising on the radio, TV, newspapers, but they did it with a very long-term, again, long-game philosophy. They knew that when the trade expired, as long as they did a good job, people weren't going to replace them, and it would become cash paying. And that was their whole strategy. So they're very good strategies like that.

Jim Fitzpatrick 31:09

Yeah, there's no question about it. I think that, and I'm sure you obviously you agree on this, and that is that's that business owners can get so tied up in the minutiae of their business that they don't they don't open their minds to new ideas like partnerships and and creative uh ideas like that to move their business forward, right?

Jay Abraham 31:28

Absolutely. I mean, Tony Robbins came to start him because he partnered with an infomercial company called Guthy Ranker. At the time, infomercials were hotter than could be. Guthy Ranker was a huge player. They owned a lot of media, a lot of time on TV.

Jim Fitzpatrick 31:43

Exercises.

Jay Abraham 31:43

Tony got them to create a spot for him. I mean, a whole show that cost a million dollars, they paid for it.

Jim Fitzpatrick 31:48

Yeah.

Jay Abraham 31:49

He got them to get Fran Tarkinton, who most young people wouldn't know, but at the time, he was a three-time uh three-time uh Super Bowl player. He was a hall of fame, he was on three TV shows. He was a well-known, successful entrepreneur, very popular. I'll tell you another thing that's really cool that happened. That's I'll be just a minute. Uh they they and Tony made a deal where they basically put up all the money, they did all this, they got everybody, and they split they split revenue, but they also split the names. So Tony got the names, Kathy Ranker got the names. Kathy Ranger didn't have anything to sell to them. Tony Robbins had a whole business. He got a million names. Right. Kathy Ranker spent a couple hundred million dollars that Tony didn't. Wow. That's because of a partnership. I told you about me basically doing seminars. We did $250 million, and I put almost no money up because I was able to get other people to do it. There's a great story about Disneyland. When Walt Disney first started Disneyland, he ran out of money. And it was supposed to open, and he was supposed to do the grand opening on, I think, ABC, that's where where the where uh Mickey Mouse Club was going to be. And he had it all set up, but he couldn't afford the a a star host for this, you know, for this inaugurate the show. And Art Linkletter, who again, young people won't know, but at the time Art Linkletter was the popular guy. He had about 12 books, he had four shows, he was purity, great kids. Can't say the darnest thing. And and so Walt goes to Art and he said, I really can't afford back then his his rate was 40 grand. He said, I really don't have that. I'm out of money, man. And he said, and Art said, it's no problem. He said, it's no problem. I'll tell you another one that's interesting too. That's it's no problem. He said, I gotta get scale because he was union.

Jim Fitzpatrick 33:39

Yeah.

Jay Abraham 33:40

But he said, I'll tell you what, just give me the rights to the photo booths at Disneyland. And he got the rights and he flipped it to have the Kodak or Food Cap. So there's a friend of mine who came to Los Angeles 25 years ago, and he's looking for opportunities and he sees this thing called the Rose Bowl. And the Rose Bowl was only being used for the Rose Bowl and for U UCLA games, and occasionally it'd be used for concerts, but not that often.

Jim Fitzpatrick 34:07

Okay.

Jay Abraham 34:07

And he goes, Wow, this thing has enormous parking. Wow, this has enormous capacity for displays. This place would seem like a great place for a flea market.

Jim Fitzpatrick 34:16

Yeah.

Jay Abraham 34:17

So he goes to the county that owns it and he gets a contract to do a flea market and pay them a revenue share, right? No money up.

Jim Fitzpatrick 34:23

Yeah.

Jay Abraham 34:24

He didn't know squat about flea market. So then he goes and he finds that there's a company that's a professional flea market operator. He goes to them and he flips his contract for a million dollars up front and a permanent share of the revenue. And it became a huge flea market. I had a client in Australia, fascinating story. It's a triple story. He basically, in downtown Melbourne back then, you couldn't put any kind of major advertising on the outside of any office building. Probably still can't. But there's no law that said you couldn't put it on the inside facing out. So this guy gets the rights to all kinds of ground level office building in the high traffic and gets the right to the signs, and then goes to the sign company and flips that right.

Jim Fitzpatrick 35:12

Wow.

Jay Abraham 35:13

I call it flipping assets and assets, but I go on and on, but there's tons like that. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Jim Fitzpatrick 35:17

And it's just having you know the forethought and thinking outside the box, right?

Jay Abraham 35:22

No, absolutely. I mean, there's just so many stories like that of people with ingenuity and so many stories of people that walk over those opportunities.

Jim Fitzpatrick 35:31

That's right.

Jay Abraham 35:32

The question is, who has an asset they're not fully utilizing? Who basically can you be the back end, the front end, the a comp a component? Who's got an organization? Who's got you know, and it's just mat it's like a it's like a kaleidoscope. Yeah. You're just trying to find the right combination. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Jim Fitzpatrick 35:51

And the answer is always no unless you ask. Right? What have what have you got to lose in asking? Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Jay Abraham 35:57

One of my very good uh very good friends, somebody I'd love you to interview because he's very, very impressive, is is named Dr. Alan Bernard. He's the world authority on theory of constraint.

Jim Fitzpatrick 36:07

Okay.

Jay Abraham 36:07

And he has a quote. He said, It's impossible unless what?

unknown 36:12

Yeah.

Jay Abraham 36:12

What has to happen to make it possible?

Jim Fitzpatrick 36:13

Right.

Jay Abraham 36:14

And most people, they just accept impossibilities. That's right. But I mean, it's very interesting. I told you the motorcycle story, and I don't we didn't tell it here, but it's really it, you know, you have to show somebody they have a problem you solve.

Jim Fitzpatrick 36:26

That's right.

Jay Abraham 36:26

And the problem could be they need to add more value. The problem is they've got a sunk cost and they're not getting everything they can. Yeah. The problem is that if they had more capital, they could compete more effective. The problem is that they can't reach their personal goals like a dream house, and you can help that make possible. But you just have to understand the psyche of the other side.

Jim Fitzpatrick 36:47

That's right. What do you say to those that are listening? They go, well, you know, I hear what you're saying, Jay, but all those people had really good luck.

Jay Abraham 36:56

I'd say uh you are a deluded negativist.

Jim Fitzpatrick 37:01

Exactly.

Jay Abraham 37:01

And I'd say get your head out of here, you know what, because it it's a methodology that will work. I mean, and you can prove it to people. I can give you large, I mean, i the um well, as I said, if it works for Microsoft, if it worked for me, if it worked for all the companies I told you, and I've got a litany, my brain is just not uh accessing, but I can tell you 30 different stories like that. And and they they range from everything imaginable, tangible, intangible. I mean, I told you about the restore the restoration, I told you about a medical doctor and a lawyer, I told the little ones, uh, you know, um I've seen uh high-end jewelry stores partner with with high-end car dealers. Sure. I mean, I and I've seen it.

Jim Fitzpatrick 37:52

It all starts with, like you said, with uh with with the creative mind thinking along these lines, and also in many cases, the need sometimes to to really say, hey, we I've got to do something. We learned that during COVID, where restaurants you know literally had to shut down and then go into the to-go business. And some of them did very, very well. A lot of them did very, very well, you know, and that to send out to-go orders that they uh a number of restaurants didn't even do that prior to COVID, and now they're realizing you know it's a whole new business that that they never had to do. It's a new revenue province.

Jay Abraham 38:27

And people should look, I mean, there's and there's a flip on this.

Monetizing Non-Buyers And Better Back Ends

Jay Abraham 38:31

We are talking about how do you go to someone else, turn it around. What else can you do with your access? Yeah, if you have an audience, if you have distribution, yeah, if you have uh uh licensees, if you have salespeople, if you have buyers who buy, I'll tell you something else that's hilarious. I made more money when I was in the seminar business from non-buyers of other people. You want me to tell you the story?

Jim Fitzpatrick 38:56

Sure.

Jay Abraham 38:57

Okay. So we were in the seminar business and we had many seminars. One of them was because I came from the world where I was a very successful contingency marketing consultant. I would go to a company that had enough, pardon me, enough big, untapped opportunity that I would work with them strictly on contingency and I'd make hundreds of thousands of dollars a month.

Jim Fitzpatrick 39:19

Yeah.

Jay Abraham 39:19

It was very lucrative. But I couldn't really work with smaller ones because if they gave me half of the upside, it wouldn't be enough to really justify it, and they could never pay me my f fees. So I thought, okay, I can help other people who would really appreciate the smaller income do it. So we started a training program called the Protege Mentor Training. It would teach people how to be a contingency marketing consultant. And ours had many more risk reversal, very strategic elements than anybody else. And I realized I could go to all the other people that were selling training programs. At the time, people were selling how to be a utility auditor, like a commercial utility auditor and get paid for the savings, how to be a uh a payables auditor and get paid for the double payments that you catch, how to be a commercial real estate tax uh, and there are those things. And they'd run billions of dollars of ads and they would get lots of leads and they'd convert a small portion for $10,000 or $20,000. Ours was $15,000 and $20,000. I went to a bunch of them and I said, okay, you have unsold buyers that you paid a lot of money for. I'll tell you one other that's really brilliant. You paid a lot of money for, there's some cost. I believe I can I can monetize them. And I convinced them, and they and so I I gave them a letter to send out to their unsold buyers. And the letter said something like this. It was from the would be signed by the head of the this company. When you inquired about our business opportunity, I was thrilled. I thought you would be uh part of our family of utility auditors. And when you didn't follow through, I was certainly disappointed, but I assumed either the timing wasn't right, our offer wasn't right, the terms weren't right. Uh but if you haven't found your dream business, I'd like to introduce you to a colleague of ours because he's got something I think you'll really love. First of all, it applies to any size type business. It can be large, small, consumer, B2B, doesn't matter. Number two, it basically doesn't require the client to pay anything. Number three, he won't even let you pay for the training until you have first verified for yourself that it works. Number four, before he'll ever take your check or credit card, he'll send you a $2,000 training. Number five, when you come, he won't deposit your check or uh or credit card until you've attended all two and a half days of the first five days, and you're not convinced beyond. And if you're not, he'll give it unsigned back to you. And we made tens of millions of dollars by going to people they couldn't even sell. Isn't that something? It was pretty interesting. I had another one that's interesting. Many, many earlier in my life, I went to Australia and was doing training, and there was an early player in the in the uh in the CRM business, very early. And they had a very expensive uh system they were selling for a lot of money, and they were running ads in all the trade journals, and they were getting about they were spending about 100 grand, getting about a thousand leads every month, and converting about three percent, but still very expensive. And they weren't converting 97, which means 970 out of 1,000 leads that cost them 100,000. So $97,000 was being wasted. So I said to them, well, let's take a look at this. A CRM is not an exciting, it's not like you know, trying to get the Sports Illustrated swimsuit. It's like if somebody is inquiring, they're seriously wanting the result. The reason they're not buying, it's too expensive, it's too complex, too many bells and whistles, you know, good financing, whatever it is. I said, why don't you scour the world and find somebody who's got an entry-level one that's basic? You guys get the rights, give them a royalty, basically, you know, engineer a few bells and whistles on it, yeah, and then offer that as a downsill to everyone that didn't buy.

Jim Fitzpatrick 43:21

Yeah.

Jay Abraham 43:22

They did that, and they started making tons more from the people that originally didn't buy than the ones that did. And the ones that bought the main one were all gravy, but it's a way of thinking different. That's right. It's all true stories.

Jim Fitzpatrick 43:33

That's right. Wow. That that is incredible. Exciting. Yeah, and and this is something that in many cases you might have spent a little money on postage and things of that nature, but for the most part, these are not things that you're going to drop.

Jay Abraham 43:46

And you can validate or invalidate it very easily. And if you're turned down by one, you go to another one.

Jim Fitzpatrick 43:51

Right.

Jay Abraham 43:51

It's not that hard to do.

Jim Fitzpatrick 43:52

And now with e uh emails, you know, you you were actually sending these letters out and newsletters and such, but now it's a click of a Absolutely.

Jay Abraham 44:01

And there's just a myriad of applications, but there's not any reason that and so but come back to what I was saying. You can take it's a double valve. You can take your product service to lots of other distribution partners. Yeah. You can take other people's product service to you. Because the opposite, maybe something easier is a greater starter. Maybe something you can add will double the profit you make. Maybe something you could add at the end will double the margins you I mean, the lifetime value you make. And by the way, let me tell you what happens when you have many times more lifetime value. You have a lot more competitive advantage because you now have the justification that you can invest more in the acquisition of the first sale because it's much more valuable. So you can run more ads, you can go deeper on ads, you can lose money on the first sale, you can pay more commission. So it all plays together.

Jim Fitzpatrick 44:58

Right, right. Interesting, huh? It really is. There's no question. Jay Abraham, Strategy Sessions. Thank you so much for joining us. This is great. I know that our viewers are going to get and our listeners on the podcast. We'll get a lot out of this. So thank you for joining me. You're very welcome on our second episode. All right. Thanks. Thank you.