Speaking of Wealth #35 – Millionaire Speaking Secrets

Jason Hartman talks with James Malinchak who has delivered over 2,200 presentations at conferences and meetings worldwide and is considered the top Big Money Speaker trainer in America. More at https://speakingofwealth.com/category/podcast/. James began his sales career right out of college as a stockbroker with a major Wall Street Investment Firm and was awarded Most Outstanding Performance (twice) and #1 in New Account Openings (twice). While in his twenties, James became a partner in a company that handled the investments for many famous entertainers, authors and professional athletes.

Currently, James owns three businesses and has read and researched over 1,500 books on personal and professional development. His author highlights include:

*Co-Author of the Best Selling book “Chicken Soup For The College Soul”
*Contributing Author to, and Associate Editor for, “Chicken Soup for the Soul”
*‘You Never Know Who’s Listening’- Published in “Chicken Soup for the Prisoner’s Soul”
*‘A Brother’s Voice’- Published in “Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul”
*‘Thank You Family’- Published in “Chicken Soup for the Kid’s Soul”
*“How I Became a Big Money Speaker”
*“Success Starts With Attitude: 50 Ways to Refuel, Recharge and Reenergize Yourself in Business and Life” (also translated into Korean)
*“Teenagers Tips for Success: How to Create a Future, Achieve Your Dreams and Become Very Successful” (also translated into Korean)
*“From College to the Real World: Street-Smart Strategies for Landing Your Dream Job and Creating a Successful Future”
*“How to Be a Great Student Leader: 30 Quick Tips to Jump-Start Your Leadership Skills”
*“How to be a Master Networker” (also translated into Korean)
*“Turbo Charge Your Career”
*“Great Leadership Starts With Attitude”

James was also named Consummate Speaker of the Year by Sharing Ideas professional speakers’ magazine. He has appeared in USA Today, The Wall Street Journal and several hundred other publications.
James’ media, personal and professional highlights include:
*Featured in a 14-page article in the prestigious business magazine, “Millionaire Blueprints” (also featured on the cover)
*Only professional speaker or speaker trainer in the world chosen by Mark Burnett Productions (Creator of the blockbuster TV shows, “Survivor”, “The Apprentice”, “Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?”) to appear with Joan Rivers on the new hit reality TV show, “How’d You Get so Rich?”
*Appearance on the hit CBS TV Show, “The Doctors”
*One of the few celebrity motivational speakers chosen to be interviewed by celebrity Hollywood interviewer Robin Leach on the VIP red carpet
*One of only 50 self-improvement leaders in the world featured in the self-improvement movie, “Pass it On”
*Featured in a 5-page article in the international business magazine, “Information Marketing Insider’s Journal”
*Featured on the cover of one of the top professional speaking magazines, “Sharing Ideas”
*Featured in a 3-Page Article in the international business magazine “Personal Branding”
*Featured in the top collegiate publication, “Campus Activities” magazine
*Named one of the “Top 40 Business People Under the Age of 40 in Las Vegas”
*Featured in “Las Vegas Life” Magazine
*Featured for 30-minutes on the televison show, “Leading Experts”
*Featured in numerous newspapers and radio shows
*Voted 2008-2009 “GKIC Marketer of the Year” (Winner over 80 other competitors)
*Two-time “College Speaker of the Year”
*Celebrity Motivational Speaker and Marketing Consultant that even A-List celebrities seek out for business marketing coaching
*Philanthropist- An important part of James Malinchak’s life is to give back to those less fortunate. Personal 5-digit donations and raising over $100,000.00 through his seminars to donate to kids charities.

James has shared the platform with many top speakers such as Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, Brian Tracy, Tom Antion, Joel Bauer, Frank Kern, Matt Bacak, John Childers, Lloyd Irvin, Lee Milteer, Robert Skrob, Bill Glazer, Dan Kennedy, Mike Koenigs, Mari Smith, Jeff Walker, Chris Cardell, Michael Cage, Rick Frishman, Tony Hsieh, Robert Allen, Joe Theismann, Eban Pagan, John Assaraf, Niurka, Bill Walsh, Glenn Morshower, Bill Dorfman, Evolution of Dance, Judson Laipply, Joe Martin, Les Brown, Stephen Pierce, Than Merrill, Armand Morin, Aussie Rob, Bill Bartmann, Tom Antion, National Speakers Association, Dave Lakhani, Joel Bauer, Kelly O’Neil, Kevin Nations, Larry Loik, George Foreman, Patricia Fripp, Brbara de Agelis, SANG, Larry Benet, Wealth Builders Event, Rock Star Marketing Boot Camp, GKIC, Glazer-Kennedy, Denis Waitley, Michael Beckwith, Fran Harris, Coaching Super Summit, Tom Antion Fusion, Speak at Colleges, College Speaking Success, Adam Ginsberg, Jim Kwik, Dottie Walters, Christine Comaford, Speak Your Way to Wealth, Steven E, Lee Pound, James Roche, Mike Stewart, Eric Lofholm, Lynn Rose, Joe Polish.
Many top public speakers, coaches, authors have attended James’ Big Money Speaker Boot Camp and his Millionaire Speaker Secrets Revealed including Brendon Burchard, Ali Brown, Alexandria Brown, Ron Seaver, Terri Levine, Adam Urbanski, Craig Duswalt, Jack Canfield, Kevin Bracy, Speaker Match, Dave Sheffield, Johnny Jeff Hockings, Milana Leshinsky, Kendall Summerhawk, John Beede, Melanie Strick, Lisa Sasevich, Martin Howey, Jonathan Sprinkles, Jill Lublin, Rhonda Sher, Terri Levine, Sean Stephenson, Dan Janal, Arvee Robinson, Alex Mandossian. Be sure to visit https://speakingofwealth.com/offers/ for special offers

Introduction: Speakers, publishers, consultants, coaches and info marketers unite. The Speaking of Wealth show is your road map to success and significance. Learn the latest tools, technologies and tactics to get more bookings, sell more products and attract more clients. If you are looking to increase your direct response sales, create a big time personal brand and become the go to Guru, the Speaking of Wealth show is for you. Here is your host, Jason Hartman.

Jason Hartman: Welcome to the Speaking of Wealth Show. This is your host Jason Hartman, where we discuss profit strategies for speakers, publishers, authors, consultants, coaches, info marketers and just go over a whole bunch of exciting things that you can use to increase your business to make your business more successful and more and more passive and more and more automated and more and more scalable. So we will be back with a great interview, be sure to visit us at speakingofwealth.com. You can take advantage of our blog, subscribe to the RSS feed and many other resources for free at speakingofwealth.com and we will be back with a great interview for you in less than 60 seconds.

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Jason Hartman: My pleasure to welcome James Malinchak to the show. He is an expert on speaking and marketing and doing all sorts of exciting stuff, not the least of which is his new TV show. James, welcome, congratulations on your new show.

James: Hey Jason, thanks so much. I am very honored to be on and hopefully give some bounty to your folks.

Jason Hartman: Well, I am sure you will, I am sure you will. Tell us about the show just quickly before we dig into it.

James: I’m just so blessed that I’ve been among this new ABC Prime Time Reality TV Show called Secret Millionnaire and basically they take millionnaires out of their current element and put us into situations we are not used to living in, for example, I lived in a ghetto and I lived on $44 and 66 cents for the entire week and had to survive on it and basically at the end of the week – I met amazing people during the week and at the end of the week, I open up my checkbook and I start writing them checks to further their causes of how they are serving the people in their community. So, it’s just great. It’s one of the greatest things I’ve ever done.

Jason Hartman: That’s fantastic. So, how did you get your start, I mean, what is your background? Did you always wanted to go in to the speaking business or was this an accident?

James: No, because I never ever knew speaking existed. I had no clue. I was a stock broker, I was a financial consultant, the young guy starting out and they tell you the same thing in the sales training one-on-one. They would say, “You make 100 cold calls a day, you will get 10 people interested, you may open up one account.” And I remember hearing that and I said, “If I have to make 100 cold calls a day, now I know why stock brokers jump out of windows.” [laughter]

Jason Hartman: Yeah, right, right. It’s not because the market goes down, right [laughter].

James: It’s crazy, so I said, “There’s got to be a better way.” I mean, I don’t like doing all that stuff being intrusive, doing cold calling and somehow I stumbled upon and if I just got in front of a group of people and could give the same presentation one time, then I can market one-to-many rather than one-to-one by cold calling.

So, at that time, I didn’t know anything about financial planning, I was brand new and I got this course on how to plan for your child’s college education and it was a presentation. And I found some local schools where parents were paying for their kids to go to school and I convinced the schools to let me come in and educate their parents in an evening session on why they should start planning for now to send their child 10 to 12 to 15 years later to school and I opened up 40 accounts after that first talk and that’s how I went on to build my entire business was a word of mouth the outstanding performance twice, number one new account opening, twice for major Wall Street investment firm and I was all through speaking and that’s how I built my entire business.

And what it happened one time was this, a person heard me speak and said, “Man, you know, you are kind of funny and you are motivational and you really care about helping people. Would you come speak to my people or my company?” And I was like, “Well, sure, but, I mean, do you want me to talk to them on how to plan for their kids’ education?” And he said, “No, I want you to do a motivational talk.” I am like, “Wow, do a [laughter] motivational talk, you know, I don’t even know how to pull them together.” And he said, “Well, just like tell your stories or tell how you like you stay motivated and all that kind of stuff.” And he said, you know, “I have a problem though.” And I said, “Okay, what’s the problem?” He said, “I can only afford to pay you $2500.” And I said, “For what, like what [laughter] do you want to me do?” “For the hour.” And I am like, “Are you kidding me?” He said, “No, that’s all I have.”

Jason Hartman: $2500 an hour is big money, right? [laughter] Yeah.

James: And I took that as a two by four to the head and I said, “Wait a minute.” That’s all he has, but he is willing to pay that to me as a speaker for an hour. I said, “Holy cow, I better learn this. There must be this whole speaking thing out there.” And I did, and I learned it like crazy and here we are 2200 talks later.

Jason Hartman: And how many years later, like give us the time frame as to what year this was that you were a stock broker and were you working for like Merrill Lynch or something like that?

James: I was working for a major Wall Street investment firm. I cannot say the name because of my settlement agreement when I decided to leave because I left and started my own firm. My partner and I created our own, but it was a very major Wall Street investment firm and that would have been probably about 16 years ago now, something like that, yeah.

Jason Hartman: And the reason I asked that James is because I know that the model for financial planners and so forth is they really in the 90s I would say, when they got really big, they all got into doing seminars and I have been to several of them where they invite you for nice lunch at a nice usually a private golf club or something and kind of winey and diney a little bit, group setting 30 people type of thing and but I hear from my friends that are in the financial planning world and I am just calling the financial planning as a generic not specifically, but I hear that that’s much harder to fill the room nowadays and so forth for that kind of thing.

James: Well, of course it is if you don’t know what you are doing with your marketing. Yeah, most people think they know what they are doing because they throw an ad in the paper and that’s not they are more than throwing up or blowing up business cards. Well, there is no headlines, there is no call to action, there is no reason why meaning reason why I should come to this thing, you know, and it is basically most people have no clue when it comes to marketing and that certainly is most entrepreneurs in business today, financial planners included, you know, and I was one of those folks. I became a relentless learner over the years and got so good at. I consulted for some of the biggest people that you could imagine in Famous Dave’s Restaurant, he is one of my clients, a barbecue, 170 chains with $500 million in revenue. I have had Harvey Mackay, author of Swim with the Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive.

Jason Hartman: We had him on the show, he is great, yeah.

James: I had consulted for him on how to create a consulting program. Jack Canfield, Chicken Soup of the Soul. The reason I say this is because most of us are never taught how to actually fill a room. Most of us are never taught how do you ethically influence to get people to want to come to the back to sign up for your service and that’s why my speaker trainings have gone to the top. We just did one this weekend and the reason is because I always teach you got to from the business mindset.

Getting people in a room is a skill. Getting people to come and attend a seminar is a skill. Getting people while they are there to see the value and to see that they need you and your help beyond that seminar is a skill and that the important thing is it’s a learned skill. Anybody can learn. It’s just like baking a cake, you know, I don’t know anything about baking a cake, but if somebody handed me a 3-by-5 index card with a recipe that said mix this first, mix this second, mix this third, turn the oven on to this temperature, put it in for this amount of time, pull it out, I know it is time to serve. If I’ve never baked a cake in my entire life, I can bake a cake. May not be good the first time because I’ve done it just one time, but the more I keep replicating and duplicating the recipe and following the exact step by step instructions that have worked for other folks, I can bake the cake and make it better.

It is the same for filling a room for a seminar. It is the same for getting people to come to the back and invest in your great services, your great products, you know, so I agree with you 100%. When someone says, “I just can’t get people to come out to a seminar” that just tells me, you know, you haven’t taken the time to learn to do it the right way.

Jason Hartman: Yeah, makes sense, makes sense. So, I guess we’ll start back with kind of your speaking business. I see how you have that the segway there, you used it to build your financial services career and then someone offered and paid you to speak and you thought, “Well, there is a whole another industry out here.” So what really was the key to your growth as a professional speaker and maybe one way to sort of benchmark it is to talk about if you were doing mostly corporate things rather than your own programs, what were your keynote fees looking like through the progression or if you are doing your own events and I think you are doing both if I am not mistaken, what was the audience size like and what was your revenue model? Was it back of the room sales? Was it ticket sales? Services after the fact whatever?

James: Well, starting out it was strictly fees because that is all I knew and I love fees. I mean, I still, you know, today I have got about 20,000 bucks and I am raising the 30,000 after the show comes out. And the reason I only knew about fees is that’s what I thought speaking was. It was only one aspect of the industry and let me just say this, Jason, it is called the speaking business. Most people, you know, they say they are in the speaking business but they are really into a speaking hobby.

Jason Hartman: Right.

James: [laughter] You know, because they never take the time to learn the second side of the coin, which is the most important side, the business side. Everybody says, “I have a story, I have a message or you know, 20 years of experience, you know, I can help corporate executives who want to trans, get out of the business and get into the speaking” because they see the money that’s made, you know, I am very honest upfront with everybody. I said, “Look, I love serving and contributing and helping people, but if I wasn’t being paid, there is other stuff I would rather be doing. I would rather be, you know, helping in my community and serving kids.” So, I am very clear that I run this as a business. So, I tell everybody, “Look, if I am going to help you, I am going to teach you the business side and the first thing you got to understand is whether you make any money and create wealth in your life for this speaking.” It’s 10% all of that stuff of story, message, what you are going to teach and it’s 90% learning this business because hypothetically, you could be the best speaker in the world with the best message, but if I know how to market, I’ll beat you everyday of the week. I’ll beat you everyday, I don’t care how good you are on the stage because all that means is I know how to get to the people who have the money, which budgets they have, how to get them to give it to me.

Jason Hartman: Right. You got to get to the stage.

James: Right, exactly, [laughter] exactly. In the seminar world, all that means is I know how to create a compelling seminar that makes people want to come out. So, one of the reasons most people don’t come out to an event is there is no big promise. They create a title like, “Hey, let’s get motivated, you are going to be more passionate.” Well, what’s the big promise? Why should I come out? What is the number one big promise I am going to leave with after the two days or the three days? You know, and everything that is underneath that fulfills that promise.

So, I just did a seminar this weekend in Los Angeles and it was – it is called Millionaire Speaker Secrets Revealed. Finally, someone in the industry pulls back the curtain and reveals the eighth hidden secrets that only those of us who makes seven figures really know. You will know them too after this weekend and these are things that are never taught in the speaking industry. That’s a killer promise.

Okay, so, but back to your question, I started out as a fee paid speaker and that’s all I knew. And I love that, I really do. I love getting paid to speak and going in for an hour and motivating folks, motivating college kids, motivating teenagers and helping them have a better path to more success in their lives. I love that, but what I quickly realized is you are nothing but a high paid labor when you do that, because if you break down your fee on a per hour basis, so let’s say that roughly your fee is $2500. That’s where I started out when I started in the biz and let’s say you are going to gone for 48 hours and the reason I said that is because…

Jason Hartman: You got to travel to the event first.

James: To click the minute you step out of your door to the minute you get back home and put your, you know, your body in your home bed.

Jason Hartman: Well, frankly if I would say I would say it clicks long before that in the sales process of getting the gig committed and then afterwards there is a little bit of follow up as well so even it was, yeah.

James: Oh yeah, yeah, you are a 100%, so let’s add on another couple of hours, right? But let’s just take for this situation 48 hours, if you take that into 2500 bucks, I think you are making like $46 or something like that an hour, you know, well shoot, I can make $46 in a lot better ways than I have to deal with the TSA and go through airports, [laughter] you know, so people think, “Wow! Somebody got paid 2500 bucks for an hour or 10,000 bucks for an hour.” No, every minute you got to travel there and like you said all the prep work and all the post work, that has to be factored into your fee as well. You know, when you start looking at that in that manner, that’s how you can start. That’s one of the ways I teach people start escalating their fees.

Also, that’s how I teach my speakers, my students how to get booked over other people. I have a phrase and that phrase is, “You have to teach event coordinators how to give you money.” And what I mean by that is, explaining how that 2500 bucks is really not 2500 bucks to that hour, because to an event coordinator, all they see is I can’t believe I’m paying Jason $2500 to come in and talk for an hour.

Jason Hartman: But they are experienced at all, they understand that at least some of the mathematics that we have just mentioned, right [laughter]?

James: No, Jason, you are 100% incorrect. I have done over 2200 presentations, I cannot tell you how many times I have had to explain that to people and they have gone, “Ah, I never thought of that like that.”

Jason Hartman: Maybe they are just using this as a negotiating point, but anyway [laughter] go ahead.

James: I highly doubt that. I don’t think that a lot of these folks are business savvy like we are like you are, your listeners are, like I am. And I don’t think they actually ever thought of it that way in any manner whatsoever. The other thing too is I teach them, my students, “Hey look, if you are going to go and do a presentation, then you also want to explain it on what it would cost for let’s say that HR person to send their employees out to a public seminar.” So, if you have, you know, let’s say 300 people and a public seminar whether they are going up to get trained from 9 to 5 on a certain skill like time management and let’s say that fee is $100 per person. Well, what would you do is you explain to the event coordinator, if you were to send your people out to one of these seminar companies, 300 people times the $100, that’s $30,000 you are investing to send them out. I will come in and train your people on site for the whole same day on the same topic and I will do it for just $10,000, so that’s teaching event coordinator give you money.

Jason Hartman: What a deal, yeah, absolutely.

James: They never think of it on a per head basis either.

Jason Hartman: Very good points. Very good points. So, you get the fees, so in terms of marketing to the event coordinators and so forth, I mean, networking, mailing list, other types of marketing.

James: The – all the above [laughter].

Jason Hartman: [Laughter].

James: There is no one right way to do it. And what I believe is a lot of folks have a misconception that “Oh! I found the magic bullet.” Well, let’s say you are doing three of those, let’s say you are doing Direct mail. Let’s say you are doing Google AdWords on the Internet. So, for example, I live in Las Vegas and I do a lot of gigs in Las Vegas. The reason is because anyone who goes to – remember what Google is. Google is nothing more than a search engine tool, okay, it’s like a phone book. So, if you are bringing a convention to Las Vegas, you go there and type in, assuming you want to save money on a speaker, Las Vegas motivational speaker or something like that. You know, some – you know, Las Vegas speaker on technology, speaker in Las Vegas on communication. Well, you type those in, we come up and right away you know that I am in Las Vegas, we have special offers for folks coming to Las Vegas to save money on a speaker, you don’t have to pay for an airline ticket, you don’t have to pay any other expenses and I will even give you a discount because I live in Las Vegas.

So, that’s a mechanism also, so Direct mail, Google AdWords. There are also certain things that you could do which are showcases and I believe there is nothing better for anyone wanted to get into speaking than someone seeing you live, you can send me all the direct mail pieces you want, I can find you on the web and see your great website, but man, if I see you, and I hear you, and I was moved by you and impacted, I can book you right on the spot, okay. So, there are certain things like showcasing that you can get into where you could actually go up for 20 minutes, give your presentation in front of certain number of event co-coordinators and literally be booked right on the spot. Your question about marketing, the real answer that anyone listening has got to get is that there is no magic tool, you have to do all of them and also, referral setup system, you know, so I have agreements with friends who are speakers that if there is ever a talk that they can’t do or if their clients wants a different topic or a different speaker, then they can refer me. Now here is where I am different. If you have ever had the privilege of working with a speakers bureau, speakers bureaus generally take 20, 25 maybe even 30% for anything they book for you for their clients.

And by the way, if a bureau ever wants to book you, let them do it because I hear people say, “Wow! I gave up 20%.” Well, why? All you’re doing is he saying yes to a date on your calendar and selling up, there is no marketing cost. So look at that 20% is your marketing cost you would have to do to get that gig anyway and then they have the ear of the clients, so if they say, “Hey, let’s book Jason” the client is going to go, “Okay, because we trust you, we worked with you for four years.”

So, the way my referral system is set up with my friends or a speaker is anytime you refer me to a gig you cannot do, I pay you 20% of my speaker fee as a referral just as you would pay to a bureau, so literally I got a sales force of speakers out there who want to refer me because I am the only one giving them 20% as a thank you for the referral.

Jason Hartman: Absolutely.

James: Yeah, I don’t hear many speakers who do that.

Jason Hartman: That’s a fantastic idea. It’s a fantastic idea. You just sort of considered that you’ve got that cost built into any customer acquisition anyway, so you might as well pay it to your competitors because then they are going to become your friend rather than your competitor, right?

James: Yes sir, absolutely. And Jason, you can in return do it for those folks who are your friends who are referring. So, I have a friend I sent to Hawaii twice recently to do two different talks I couldn’t do and each time I got referral checks in the mail for good several thousand dollars and it makes me want to send him more than anybody else. So, you can in turn make that another income stream for yourself. If you can’t do a talk, refer it to someone but have a situation set up where you get a referral fee back for fulfilling a talk for one of your friends.

Jason Hartman: Will be back in just a minute.

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Jason Hartman: So James, that’s fantastic on the more corporate side on working with bureaus, getting paying referral fees from other speakers to book you, that’s great. Talk a little bit more about your public seminars, I mean, I think that one of the most valuable commodities in America today, if not the entire world today, is attention span more than money. And filling a room ain’t what it used to be, because there used to be far fewer number of speakers certainly, we would all agree with that. It seems like everybody and their brother is an info marketer nowadays. Getting people there to hear the message vitally important. How do you fill the room?

James: Well, that is something that I actually teach in a four-day thing, so there is no way possible I can answer that question in, you know, a minute, but I will give you some ideas to help you.

Jason Hartman: Sure.

James: Okay, again it’s everybody wants – it’s like all this nutrition and diet stuff. Everybody wants like the pill, you know, like the thing you take and you sit on the couch and you eat Ho Hos and watch television and drink beers and you lose weight, [laughter] you know…

Jason Hartman: Sure, yeah.

James: That’s just not the way it works. It is the same thing for filling in a room. Everybody says, “Hey, look around man, they have got – how in the heck?” Jack Canfield said this to me. Jack Canfield, the co-creator of Chicken Soup for the Soul. He was in the movie, The Secret and wrote the great book everybody should read called, The Success Principles. He spoke at my seminar two months ago. He also spoke last year, I’ve done a lot of coaching and consulting project.

He walks into my room and he goes, “How in the heck in this economy do you get over 500 people here and paying steep registration fees too from 1797 up to 4997 at certain points? How in the heck do you do that?” And I said, “Jack” and I also said this on an interview for him about a month or so after that when he interviewed me for his list, I said, “Jack, I don’t know one way to get – to have 500 people in a room, but I know 50 ways to get 10 people in a room and we do all 50 of those.”

As a matter of fact which blew his mind, I said, “When we start promoting one of our seminars and we are about four or maybe five or six months out, we have 56 different steps that we do in order to get folks to come to our seminars.” 56, I know people that do one and then get irritated because nobody comes.

We do 56 things to get them there. I can’t give you all 56 obviously in a minute, but let me tell you one of the most effective that anyone can do, okay, I taught this to many of my consulting and coaching members. Basically, you do it by what I alluded to earlier, how I built my speaking business, I am sorry my financial planning business is you do three talks for local and let’s say you want to do a one day seminar on communication. Well then you need to be out in your community and different organizations speaking because they are all gathering anyway either on a monthly or a weekly basis and they are always dying to have speakers.

The way I found them through different journals is something that major cities have called the business journal, like Las Vegas has Las Vegas Business Journal. Los Angeles, where I am at right now, because I went to the Grammys last night to promote the TV show is the Los Angeles Business Journal, Orange County Business Journal, Memphis Business Journal, generally around the more bigger cities. In the back it lists like the way Las Vegas is all of the groups in the community who are doing any type of gathering, meetings, you know, breakfast every Tuesday at the Yelp’s Club. The General Contractors Association is meeting every 3rd Thursday in the month. At least the person who is in charge of the meeting, who runs it, where they have it, how many people usually attend?

So that – and in Vegas we have over 200 of them every month that meet and some of them are on a weekly basis. The other is – and this is kind of a shocker is right in the phone book. If you look in the local phone book, you will see tons that’s either under organizations or associations. It’s different like in Vegas they are under association. Now they all usually lists phone numbers in there and it takes a little late work on your part or on an assistant’s part where you kind of have to call them up and find out who the person is that puts on that meeting, when it is and you know, how many people attend, where is it at, that sort of thing. And then which is simply, this is exactly what I have done. Put a letter together that says, if you are – and I send them out, and I literally I have sent over I don’t know 400 or 500 of them out in order to get 20 or 30 people calling me to want me to speak for them for free.

Remember, it’s for free so there is kind of two steps to this. So, step one is getting in front of all these groups, this simple letter says, “If you ever are in need of a speaker or if a speaker ever cancels I will happily drop everything and come speak to your group. Here’s what I talk on.” That’s step one, getting in front of them. Step two, when you are there, what you offer in the back of the room is a chance for them to have the message live on past this, you know, 20 minutes or past this 60 minutes and you are going to do a one day training on this topic where you dive in more in-depth to it. And the cost to attend, oh excuse me, cancel, the investment in yourself to attend is, you know, 50 bucks, 97 bucks, however you want to charge for it, that gets refunded to you when you attend the event. And the reason why is if you offer a free one day event nobody will show up because there is no stake in the game.

Jason Hartman: Right. We’ve experienced that. It’s better to charge people.

James: Oh! Yeah. Yeah, me too. I have experienced the same thing and nobody showed up, but when I charged $47 and by the way, it should always end in a 7 because people move and buy more. If you study anything about buying habits, people buy more when something ends in a 7 rather than a 0, 5 or a 9 or like they show on television then you end in, you know, like 99.95 like 39.95. That’s why I see in commercials 19.95, 39.95 because they triggers for people watching TV, people buy more when it ends in that manner. Anything else when it – I can always tell who knows how to do marketing, who knows how to do influence in sales because if they are not ending in a 7, they don’t even know the basics of numbering. They end in like they charge $99 instead of $97. Now, it might not sound like a lot to you and I, but 97 versus 99, why does that work? I always ask this question.

Jason Hartman: Well, you know, we do the 7s because it seems like every info marketers starting doing the 7s about I don’t know four or five years ago is when I noticed it. So we do 7s; 47, 97, 197 whatever. However, my reasoning for it and I have heard that before just what you said is, I just thought people were kind of wise to the 9 thing.

James: [laughter] Well, let me tell you the real answer, Jason, is – the answer is who cares. You just want it to work.

Jason Hartman: Sure. It seems to work and it is has definitely studied.

James: Yeah. [laughter]

Jason Hartman: So yeah, who cares.

James: And it [laughter] works and all the major, you know, info marketers like Dan Kennedy, Bill Glazer, Joe Polish, they are all friends of mine, I have met all their groups. You know, Dan just did a consulting for me on the TV show stuff. Bill did a consulting, Joe Polish just interviewed me for his Genius Network interview. Dean Garcia, he was the guy on TV with real estate, I don’t know if you know who Dean is.

Jason Hartman: Oh, of course you can’t help, but see Dean’s commercials all the time.

James: So, the real estate millionnaire, he is at 170 million bucks last year, it’s going to be 300 this year. Dean’s and a lot of his groups I am into and you just kind of learn. You sit there and you learn and when you find out that lot of these folks, you know, they do all these, this is the key, so filling a seminar room, they do all these little things. You know, we do 56 step to get people there. That’s why we have 500 people, you know, we end in a 7, you know, we know the psychology of a four day seminars better than a three and a two. We know that the best way for me to get folks to want to come to my seminar is me out there speaking and offering something after that makes them want to come to a seminar.

So, for example, May 12th through the 15th in Los Angeles when I had a 1000 people there at my seminar, I have got Jack Campbell speak and Joe Theismann, former NFL quarterback, Bill Glazer top direct marketer speaking on, this was my event. We have got actor Anthony Hopkins coming down to speak for my group and basically what almost, almost half way full and we haven’t even started promoting it, the reason is because I have already been out there speaking and offering tickets at the back of the room for them to come to this event. We have not even started our direct mail, our Google AdWords anything like that because I am just coming off a seminar this weekend and we are promoting this one, but without ever really blasting it in traditional marketing sense, direct mail, Internet that sort of thing, I have been filling the room towards almost halfway full by me speaking and offering the tickets for them to come after for an investment.

So, I think if I can give your listeners one key on how to fill a room out of all the stuff we do without a doubt have to be be out there speaking and offering an extension of the methods past what they just heard in that short period of time.

Jason Hartman: Very good, very good. Well, since you alluded to it a moment ago, any tips on back of the room sales, coaching? Are you doing coaching programs, are you mainly a product guy, blend of both?

James: The – all the above [laughter].

Jason Hartman: Right, right.

James: See, that’s one of the things I believe is important Jason is, when you have great information, you do people disservice by not putting them into different methods of learning, okay, because everybody learns differently. So, different methods of learning are coaching programs, consulting programs where folks want to learn in a more one-on-one basis or a more smaller group mastermind setting. I have a 160 coaching members and my fees range from 20,000, 60,000 and a 100,000 a year for my coaching programs, okay.

So, there are folks who with the higher end, 100,000, they get a lot more of my personal time, me building their business, helping them with their business and they are in my house, so we are working in my house, we are not stuck in a hotel room, so it is very much more personalized. We hang out in Vegas, we go to shows, we go to dinner, so it’s like a really cool trip when they come to my house for that. So, I do do coaching and consulting. Then we have seminars, that sometimes I will offer for the back of the room. I also have home study kits and products because some folks learn in more of the coaching sense. That’s how I am. I mean, I would rather just join your great mastermind, Jason, learn from you, invest in you, learn from you in a consulting one-on-one type of situation. That’s how I learn best.

There are other folks who learn best sitting in a seminar and love that dynamic of being around folks, hearing different questions going off, talking to people in the hallway, talking to folks over lunch and dinner, finding out, “So, what are you doing, what are you doing, how are you making this work? I am kind of little stuck, oh! I see how you are doing it.” Okay, so they get to meet folks they normally wouldn’t have. That’s just the way I learn best, second. First, it is one-on-one on a mastermind setting. Second for me is a seminar.

Then there are folks who learn best by listening to audios while they are driving around in their car or listening to their, you know, their headset, listening to MP3 files or on their computer. Okay, for me that’s not the best way. For others, that’s how they learn best, so if you don’t take your great information and deliver in that method of learning as well, you are doing those folks a disservice. Then there are other folks who learn best through video type training. If you don’t deliver your information in that matter, you are doing that segment a disservice.

And then even a fifth market is your folks who would learn best through the written material. So, that’s why having, you know, your stuff transcribed, and having the transcriptions of your audios or your videos or even your seminars, there are people, I always do the survey when I am teaching speakers and when I ask them to put their hands up and ask, “How do you learn best?” it is amazing. How many people learn best from reading the stuff? Even this transcription they won’t be like, you know, I don’t really listen to audios, but I sit up late at night for an hour every night and I read stuff. So therefore, if you don’t put your stuff in transcription form, you are, you know, doing a disservice to that segment [unintelligible 33:46].

Jason Hartman: Yeah, definitely, you know, different people have different modalities. No question about that.

James: Yeah.

Jason Hartman: So that’s putting it in, but any tips for selling at the back of the room or packaging services, bundling them correctly or anything like that?

James: Yeah, again this is actually this last seminar this weekend was four days on that. So, you know, I can’t give it all in a minute obviously, but let me give kind of the 30,000 foot view of the couple of ideas. First of all, everybody thinks that in order to have more folks take your stuff home with them after your presentation meaning back of the room sales, everyone thinks they need to know how to close better.

That’s the one question I get, you know, “How do I close better? How do I do this? How do I do that? What close should I use? What pricing?” I would say, “Well, first of all, let me tell you that’s the first mistake you are making because it is not about closing and using some select technique and some do – do NLP magic on somebody. I don’t believe in that stuff.” I would say, “Here is what it is. What I believe is you deliver the presentation in the right way. You deliver what you should be delivering in the right sequence just like you bake a cake in the right sequence. You deliver value and you help people so that they never ever get your stuff, they still have value and they are helped when they walk out of that room”, because here is why. Whether or not you have great back of the room sales, it’s not depending on the close. That’s what everybody teaches and in my opinion that is wrong. It is depending on whether you deliver the presentation the right way. If you deliver the presentation the right way, you make people come to the inevitable conclusion in their mind that they need more of you and they can get great value out of you and they like you.

Okay, so everybody works on, “Oh! I got to do this fancy clothes” and you know, that’s wizard’s way of stuff, that’s a bunch of crap. You deliver the presentation in the right way, right sequence way, giving value and then they come to the inevitable conclusion in their minds, “You know what? I like this guy Jason, he is a good guy, seems to have my best interest at heart, seems to care about people and I’ve got a lot of take home value right here. I am so blown away that I actually learn because then by also doing these flick sales presentation and I learned from Jason. And you know what? I trust him, and I want to continue on with him. Let me see what he has got.”

Okay, and then very simple in your ending you just make two offers. You make an A or B option, because you want to not have people say, “Yes” or “No.” You want to have them see which one is best for them. Is the A option better for my situation or the B option better for my situations so if I can kind of give all your folks a 30,000 foot view and say, “Here is how you want to come at it from a mindset standpoint.”

That’s how you have better back of the room sales starting from that ethical foundation right there. Give the right presentation, give a great presentation and sources and service to people, get them to have value, have come to the inevitable conclusion in their mind, “You know what? Jason is a good guy, I need to learn from somebody and he is the guy I want to learn from.“

Jason Hartman: So James, just to kind of I want to get wrapped up here and this has been very valuable. Any particular price points and package sizes for back of the room? Do you find that $300 level products or services sell the best or $600 level, what are you finding is working the best?

James: Yeah, you know, that is a great question. And in my experience, the answer and it is not the answer anybody loves to hear, but it depends. See it depends first on you, okay and what I mean by that, see, if you want to charge $997 for a price point, if you have not gone there in your mind first, you will never be able to confidently say that in front of a room.

Jason Hartman: What does that mean, going there in your mind? Explain that for the listeners.

James: Yeah, if you think that your product is worth $97 but you are giving a whole bunch of stuff and me or you tell someone, you know, “Man, that’s like a $1000 course.” If in their mind, they still think, “Ah, you know, but it is just little me, it is my course, it is my stuff, I don’t know if I can ask for a 1000 or I never ask for a $1000.” So they haven’t gone there in their mind. They are not confident yet. It doesn’t matter what you or I teach them and coach them on. If they haven’t yet overcome that fear, if they haven’t overcome that mental barrier that their stuff is of great value and helps people, they won’t go to the thousands and the hundred dollar point in their, you know, and they can’t. They will stutter when they are presenting it.

So, what I always say is – this is how I try to help people break through that barrier. Stop selling courses. Stop selling tickets to seminars and start focusing on the value that they are going to get when they go through it. Focus on the information. Focus on how their lives are going to be better and talk in those terms and it comes right back to basic sales one-on-one which, you know, I can tell just by listening to your master ad that I have learned over the years. Stop selling CDs and tickets because those are features and start selling outcomes which is a benefit.

Jason Hartman: And that’s the great thing about our business, James, because we have the opportunity to through our relatively low-price product really change a life and so the value can be infinitesimally higher than the cost. Already that’s been what you’ve said.

James: Yeah, yes, I bet you are right there.

Jason Hartman: Yeah, definitely.

James: You know, so back to you like where do you start? I mean, I spoke recently at an event where there were, see there are so many factors that determine what you charge also for your back of the room offer. I spoke recently at an event where I sold a package, offered a package for $497, which I usually never do. My normal package is $3500 to $5000, but there were 14 speakers at this event. It was an event I really didn’t like speaking at.

I don’t like those kind of events. The reason is because every speakers there is offering something, so it turns into this big kind of sales pitch thing, you know, where everybody is offering a back of the room product and I generally don’t do these type of events. I always want to know now with the level I am at in my career like how many offers are there going to be, I don’t want to be on a program where there are 14 people offering because I just don’t feel good being there. But the person doing it was a good friend of mine, one of the people who helped me when I had nothing, had no money, didn’t know how to speak, didn’t know [laughter] anything, he is one of the people who was just really solid years, nice guy, sat down and taught me some stuff.

So, when he asked me, I said, “You know, I definitely would do anything for you.” But I turned down all these other multi-speaker events because I just don’t like to be in that situation. It makes me feel bad, I think, you know, the audience kind of, you know, before you walk up there says, “Okay, what’s this one offering now? What’s this one offering?” [laughter] So, but I am on this event and there are like 14 speakers there and everyone obviously at the end of their presentation, which they should if they believe in their stuff they should make an offer and I made an offer and I changed the offer to be 497 because I had to adjust because of so many different offers.

And what was amazing, with all the 14, ever at a 497 price level, I was the number two person who had more buyers than anyone. The first was some internet guy, okay, but usually for me I offer at $3500 package or $5000 depending on, if I include you coming to my house for a mastermind and it’s really $3497 not 35, but it depends. So, like your question about the price point, there are so many different variables that determine and the thing that I think is tough is to just set in on a price and say, “Okay, I am only going to offer a $197 product or I am only going to offer a 997 ticket” because it all depends.

There are different variables which then you speak if you are a guest speaker at an event. If you are doing your own event, is it a one day? Well, when should you offer your program? Well, it should be after you take the first break after lunch. So, if you take lunch from 12 to 1, you come back, you teach some more from let’s say 1 to 2 and then you give folks a break, then you come back and you offer. The reason you won’t do right after lunch is everyone is tired, you know, and everyone is exhausted from the food, plus you should come back and always teach and give more value anyway, but then you also have to leave in time for them to still be there at the event to ask you questions on the next break because you don’t want to offer like a 4 o’clock if you end at 5 because people might leave to beat the rush hour traffic.

So, you know, the whole psychology of when you offer it and what price point, if you are doing a two day then you offer it in the morning before lunch on day two and then you could set it up to where those are really interested and maybe getting into my coaching program, you are going to come and have lunch with me and I will explain it more and do a Q&A. So, there are so many variables that go into when and what price and that when will help determine the price.

Jason Hartman: Good stuff. Well, James, this has been very valuable. Thank you so much for sharing the information with us today. We have got some great offers at speakingofwealth.com/offers. And do you want to talk about any of those for a minute before we go so that people can learn more?

James: Oh, thank you, yes, first of all, thank you for having me. I truly appreciate it. I hope that I have served your listeners in some way and I really appreciate you having me on. And basically I think in all my years of learning this stuff, I think that the way I serve people best is that they come to a four day training. So, you will see, you know, our link to some four day trainings up there and let me tell you, this is a training. This is not one of those you get offered all kind of stuff.

I do offer a coaching program. However, that is by application only. I don’t accept everybody. I have a limited number of slots, so I will talk a little bit about the coaching program on day three of the four day event, but other than that, I mean, get ready to come and be locked in a room and learn this stuff and learn the minute details that were never taught. So, I think the four day training is great for any of your folks and I appreciate you even let me talk about it.

Jason Hartman: Excellent. Hey James, thanks so much and congratulations on your success. And we will look forward to your TV show and keep in touch, okay, my friend?

James: Oh! Well, thank you, and I really do hope I get to meet you someday and shake your hand.

Jason Hartman: Likewise, thanks so much.

James: Thanks Jason.

Female: Jason offers an inner circle coaching program. This includes two 30-minute coaching sessions for only $247 a month. For more details, go to jasonhartman.com.

Copyright, the Hartman Media Company. For publication rights and interviews, please email media@jasonhartman.com. This show offers very general information. Opinions of guests are their own. Nothing contained herein should be considered personalized, personal, financial investment, legal or tax advice. Every investor’s strategy and goals are unique. You should consult with a licensed real-estate broker or agent or other licensed investment, tax and/or legal adviser before relying on any information contained herein. Information is not guaranteed. Please call 714-820-4200 and visit www.jasonhartman.com for additional disclaimers, disclosures and questions. (Top image: Flickr | Enkhtuvshin’s 5Dmkll)

The Speaking of Wealth


Transcribed by: Renee’