Guest Columnist - Jay Abraham
For our second issue running, we are delighted to be able to continue with our guest columnist, Jay L. Abraham.
Jay is one of the highest-paid consultants in the US and as the CEO of the Jay Abraham Group in Los Angeles, this marketing guru has helped grow over 10,000 businesses in 400 industries, increasing the bottom lines for some by millions of dollars.
Continuing our review, we have reproduced further extracts from Jay’s book: "Getting Everything You Can Out of all You've Got" (published in the UK by Piatkus books).
RECOGNITION, RESPECT & A BIG OFFICE
Understanding and applying the strategies you are about to learn will lead to increased company revenues and increased personal success and income for you. But there will also be other rewards along the way.
Realize this hard fact: the people above you (bosses, management and organization leaders) want one thing most of all they want solutions to problems. Solutions that make them look good and help them achieve their goals. They want the people who report to them to be problem solvers. Employers will kill for problem solvers.
A good idea is a good idea no matter where it comes from. And when you come up with that good idea you will be rewarded, perhaps not with an immediate increase in income, but the rewards will be greater recognition, respect, more influence, a promotion, a title, or a larger office. All of which lead to… increased income.
THE UNIVERSAL SOLUTIONS
Can these income-increasing strategies and principles really apply to all industries, all people, and virtually all situations? Absolutely.
Let me tell you about two people, each working in the same "industry." But only one of the two has discovered how to multiply and maximize his talents. A true, but very extreme example:
Two men were mugged. Neither one was harmed.
Mugger 1 took the man's wallet and all his cash -- $85.
Mugger 2 had a different approach towards his "business." Mugger 2 took the other man's wallet and cash, $70, plus his watch and his Princeton class ring. The watch and ring were not expensive and had no real street value.
Ordinarily, that would be the end of the story.
But, two days later, man 2 walks out of his New York City apartment on his way to the office. He hears someone calling his name. He turns, and there is the man who mugged him, smiling and not at all threatening.
Mugger 2 asks the man if he would like his watch and Princeton ring back. As both items held great sentimental value to him, he said yes. The mugger offered to sell them back for $500. The man only had $90 with him. The mugger accepted the $90, but instead of returning the watch and ring, he gave the man a receipt from a pawnshop. Later that day the man went to the pawnshop and paid $80 to reclaim his watch and ring.
Mugger 1 made $85 cash.
Mugger 2, applying simple income-increasing strategies and uncovering hidden assets, opportunities and possibilities, made $70 on the mugging, $60 by pawning the watch and ring, and $90 by selling the pawn ticket to my friend. Total income: $220.
Yes, the income-increasing strategies you are about to learn can be used by all people in any industry.
Mugger 2 was never a client of mine. And I do not suggest that anyone go into this line of work. But if you do, at least get all you can out of it.
AVOID THE COSTLY LEARNING CURVE
I'm referring to the process of borrowing success practices from other industries and applying them to yours.
Most people I meet have spent virtually their entire life in one basic business or industry. Maybe you've done that, too. But when you spend all your life in one industry, all you know well are the common success practices of just your industry. You only understand how people in your field market, sell, advertise or promote. And almost everyone in your industry probably markets, sells, advertises and persuades pretty much the same way as everyone else.
- Industrial manufacturers primarily use a field sales force.
- Retailers basically just put ads in newspapers and the Yellow Pages.
- Stockbrokers do virtually all their business by telephone.
- Doctors, dentists and lawyers rely almost exclusively on referrals.
- And so on, and so on, and so on.
When you limit your business to doing things the same way every other competitor of yours does, you can only produce modest, incremental gains at best. At worst, you could easily lose ground.
By helping you study and identify the fundamental principles that drive the successes in hundreds of other industries, you'll be able to pick and choose the most powerful, effective, state of the art breakthrough approaches to introduce to your industry. An approach that's as common as dirt in one industry can have the power of an atomic bomb in an unrelated industry. I'll show you how to adapt those concepts to your own specific situation. And since you'll probably be one of the few, or only competitor in your field using these breakthrough techniques, your results should multiply immediately. With little effort on your part, we should be able to engineer stunning advances for your business, career, and life, and leave everyone else in your dust.
WHERE DO THESE STRATEGIES COME FROM?
Here are some examples where people took strategies from other industries.
Federal Express applied the banking industry's method of clearing checks overnight to the overnight delivery of packages. Banks send all checks to a central processing point, then out to the appropriate branch. FedEx adapted the hub-and-spoke concept where every package went to a central location (Memphis, Tennessee), and then was flown to its final destination.
A man named George Thomas was searching for an effective way for people to apply deodorant. He was very frustrated in his research for a solution until he realized he was holding the answer right in his hand. George borrowed the concept of the ballpoint pen and created roll-on deodorant.
Dave Liniger, Founder of Re/Max Real Estate, grew his company to a billion dollars in sales by using the "100% solution," which lets sales people keep 100% of their commissions while charging them a monthly fee for office facilities and equipment. His agents were making so much money, they rarely left.
The story is told that one day Dave went into his regular, three-chair barbershop. The owner was lamenting how hard it was to keep good barbers. They'd leave and go into business for themselves. Dave explained how his real estate company held on to talent using the "100% solution." The barber nodded politely.
The next time Dave was back and reached for his wallet to pay, the barber said, "This one's on me. I took your advice and now we're a 100% solution barber shop."
The unanswered question in this story is this: where did Dave Liniger come up with the 100% solution in the first place? Did he create it himself, or did he get the idea from another industry… like his previous barbershop?
