Tim Ikels - Creator, Publisher, Marketer

Getting Everything You Can Out Of All You’ve Got Jay Abraham

Published: · Updated:

These are my personal book notes of “Getting Everything You Can Out Of All You’ve Got” by the author and marketing legend Jay Abraham.

It’s time to create some breakthroughs.

Your greatest success and prosperity in business and life will come from your ability to create your own breakthroughs.
- Jay Abraham

Facts

Table Of Contents Of The Book

Chapter 1 - Your Flight Plan

You are surrounded by simple, obvious solutions that can dramatically increase your income, power, influence and success.

The problem is, you just don’t see them. I’m going to show you how to recognize the income and success increasing connections that are all around you.

I will give you proven strategies and detailed examples of how to leverage those strategies so you can turn them into greater income, respect, power and success.

And when you do, your life will never be the same.

Much of this book is focused on how you can improve your business life and career.

But the strategies also work in virtually any area of your life where you need to persuade others to accept your position or ideas.

They show you how to become a leader.

A person who holds a position of respect and influence.

They show you how to get what you want.

And how to get what you want in a totally ethical and honorable way.

But it is important that when you read these strategies and examples, you focus on how they can be successfully applied to all areas of your life.

The Only Three Ways To Increase Your Business / Profits

  1. Increase the number of clients
  2. Increase the average size of the sale per client
  3. Increase the number of times clients buy (again)

Everyone Is In Sales

When you read the phrase selling your product or service, don’t just think in terms of the product or service your company sells, but also your individual and intangible personal product or service - you.

And understand that you need to sell you and your ideas in order to advance your career, gain more respect, and increase your success, influence and income.

These strategies will enable you to reach your persuasion or selling goals in many areas or your life. You will gain confidence by knowing the best and most effective ways to cause people to follow your lead.

Study Different Industries

A good idea is a good idea no matter where it comes from.

The philosophy of this book allows you to avoid the costly learning curve in almost everything you do.

And that saves you time and money. […] I’m referring to the process of borrowing success practices from other industries and applying them to yours.

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.

You will focus on the main barriers that cause people not to do business with you and how you unknowingly limit and restrict your, results, success and income.

You will learn strategies to break through those barriers.

Depending on any single approach for all your new clients and continuous business is a disaster waiting to happen.

A simple analogy:

If you’re fishing and have one pole with one line in the water, you will be able to catch only a limited number of fish.

But if you use ten poles and put ten lines with ten different baits in the water at the same time, your fish catching potential will significantly increase.

Many of the best prospects are accessed from multiple impact points which moves them from curiosity to interest, all the way to action.

If you’re attacking your market from multiple positions and your competition isn’t, you have all the advantage and it will show up in your increased success and income.

A Teaser To Jay Abraham’s Famous And Powerful “Strategy Of Preeminence”

In this book, the word client will be used instead of customer.

This is not only to avoid the constant and cumbersome phrase of customers and/or clients, but because it helps define the meaning of the Strategy or Preeminence.

The Webster’s Dictionary definition of these two, seeming identical words is:

Customer: One who purchases a commodity or service.

Client: One who is under the protection of another.

The difference in the meaning is massive.

And there’s a massive difference in the way a person who does business with you could or should be treated.

Always think of them as a client.

What exactly does under your protection mean?

In this case it means that you don’t sell people a product or service just so you can make the largest one-time profit possible.

You must understand and appreciate exactly what your clients need when they do business with you - even if they are unable to articulate that exact result themselves.

Once you know what final outcome they need, you lead them to that outcome - you become a trusted advisor who protects them.

And they have reason to remain your client for a lifetime.

It’s your responsibility to determine the real truth and his real need.

You should think of your clients as dear, valued friends– it is the essence of the Strategy of Preeminence and the lifeblood of a long lasting, rewarding and profitable relationship for both you and your clients.
- Jay Abraham

The Author On The Importance Of An USP

To get your prospects and clients to see you or your business as offering them a superior benefit or advantage that no other competitor offers them is the essence of unique selling proposition (a USP).

You must determine the most powerful benefit or advantage you can possibly offer an existing or future client so it will be totally irrational for them to choose to do business with anyone but you or your company.

And here’s how you can do that.

You identify what advantage or result your clients want the most.

You don’t have to change your product or service, but you have to position your product or service as having a unique benefit they re not getting from your competitors.

And you don’t offer it to your clients subtly.

You incorporate the fact that you are now offering them this unique advantage or benefit in everything you say and everything you do.

When you do this, you clearly educate them so they see, appreciate and want to seize that advantage.

A Short Story About “Risk Reversal” And Offering Guarantees

Two friends are each going to purchase the same product or service.

One is leaning towards giving his business to Company A, the other to Company B.

“I’m buying from Company A because if something goes wrong, I know Company A will take care of it quickly.”

The other said, “but if you buy from Company B, nothing will go wrong.”

The first person replied, “Yeah, but it might, and I don’t want to have to worry about it.”

Whenever two parties come together to transact business of any kind, one side is always asking the other (consciously or otherwise) to assume more or all of the risk.

If you ask someone to take on all the risk, their first inclination is not to buy.

Your goal is to eliminate as much, if not all, of the risk in the transaction for your client.

When you take away the risk, you lower the barrier to action and eliminate the primary obstacle to buying.

Aggressively let your clients know that if they are dissatisfied, you will give them their money back, re-do the job at no charge, or whatever else it takes to demonstrate your total, passionate commitment to their satisfaction.

Clients will take advantage of this risk reversal strategy and very seldom ask for reimbursement.

But the offer will serve you 100% of the time.

Did you ever subscribe to a magazine or a newsletter and the reason you subscribed was because they gave you a 30, 60 or 90-day, no-questions-asked, 100% money-back guarantee?

Or even not ask you to pay up front?

That’s risk reversal.

It’s all about you helping your client get the optimal benefit or advantage out of the transaction they’re doing with you.

Once you understand these strategies - the Strategy of Preeminence, developing a USP, risk reversal, add-ons and cross-selling, testing and several others - you can easily apply them to your current operation and gain increased revenue and income.

Chapter 2 - Great Expectations

Your greatest success and prosperity in business and life will come from your ability to create your own breakthroughs.

You can and should think in terms of skipping levels and making quantum leaps.

Think about it logically.

You can’t be a follower and expect to ever really become a leader in your field.

You probably spend too little time studying the most successful, innovative, and profitable ideas people in other industries use to grow and prosper.

What Exactly Are Breakthroughs?

Breakthroughs are unconventionally fresh, superior, more exciting ways of doing something.

Breakthroughs are the dramatic improvements in each area that make you more powerful, efficient, effective, and productive, and more valuable or inspiring to your client.

Breakthroughs let you outthink, outleverage, outmarket, outsell, outperform, outimpact, outdefend, outmaneuver, and continuously outwit your competition on every level.

Leadership becomes the natural (almost effortless) byproduct of seeing and creating breakthroughs.

Being Opportunity-Focused

Major breakthroughs come from the correct mindset.

It’s an attitude - an opportunistic attitude.

People who make breakthroughs are always opportunity-focused.

People who don’t, aren’t.

It’s that simple.

You must constantly be on the lookout for new and better ways to dramatically improve your overall business performance by capitalizing on what everyone else sees as a limitation.

Head Up, Eyes Open, Mind in Gear

There are an unlimited number of breakthroughs out there… just waiting for you to discover them.

So many breakthroughs, so little time to discover them all.

So much to borrow from and funnel into your newfound maximizer’s mindset.

That’s why you need to start doing it right now. And keep doing it, forever!

You don’t have to be an Einstein to look at your business or career world with fresh new eyes and stop accepting the traditional “herd” mentality just because you and everyone else has always done it that way.

Think: highest and best use of your time, money, and effort.

Highest and best. Always highest and best!

Your Fundamental Objectives

In order to produce the maximum number of breakthroughs possible, you should focus your thinking on these fundamental objectives that your breakthrough ideas should be designed to achieve.

It’s a success template that keeps your mind’s eye on the breakthrough ball at all times.

Chapter 3 - How You Can Go Forward If You Don’t Know Which Way You’re Facing?

The first step in navigating any journey through treacherous business waters is to know exactly what your strengths and weaknesses are.

And how they relate to your competition.

Yet almost no one in business does this strategic analysis.

Following are fifty questions.

By simply answering these questions, you will gain vast insight into the strengths and weaknesses of your business or career.

Answer the questions on a company and a personal career level.

If you don’t totally understand or are unable to answer particular questions, don’t worry.

When you have read all the strategies in the book you will understand the meaning of all these questions and you will appreciate the value and importance of them.

Jay Abraham’s 50 Questions To Gain Insight Into The Strengths And Weaknesses Of Your Business

  1. What initially got me started in my business or career (what motivation, occurrence, etc.)?
  2. When I first started, where did my clients or promotions progress come from (what process, method, or action did I use)?
  3. Why did clients originally buy from me (or buy me)?
  4. Why do clients buy from me (or buy me) now?
  5. What primary method of generating clients was used to build my business/career?
  6. Which of my marketing or sales efforts brought in the bulk of my sales or clients? What percentage of my business comes from this particular effort?
  7. Do I test the various aspects of my marketing and selling activities to make sure they’re producing the best and most profitable results?
  8. How well connected or how involved am I with my clients at the sales/networking or transaction level (do I still sometimes take orders or sell or follow up)?
  9. What ongoing sales/networking efforts do I personally perform today? How do these functions differ from those I performed when I started my business/career?
  10. Where do my clients come from specifically (demographics)?
  11. Would I rather attract more new clients or garner more money from my existing clients, and why?
  12. Who else benefits from my success, excluding my clients, my employees, and my family members?
  13. How many of my suppliers/business colleagues would be motivated to help me grow my business more because it will directly benefit them at a very high level? Who are they?
  14. When I create a new client for my business or profession, who else have I directly created a new client for?
  15. Describe completely what my business/career does (what I sell, how I sell it, and whom I sell to by industry, commercial category, or specific niche).
  16. What is my business philosophy as it relates to my clients?
  17. How have my methods for doing business, or the product or service line(s) I market, changed since the inception of my business?
  18. What are my sales per employee or personal/departmental performance levels? Is that above, below, or equal to my industry average?
  19. What is the lifetime value of my typical client (or my contribution to explore) (i.e., how much revenue will he or she generate for me over the entire period he or she does business with my company)?
  20. What is the biggest client complaint about my company, and how does my company successfully address this problem?
  21. What is my unique selling proposition or USP? (Why do my clients buy from me – what is it about my product and/or service that distinguishes me from my competition? Do I have more than one USP for different product/service lines or segments of my business?)
  22. Is my USP a consistent theme in all of my marketing and sales efforts? If yes, how, and if no, why not?
  23. Briefly describe my marketing program or marketing mix (all the different types of marketing I use and how they interrelate – i.e., sales letters, direct mail, direct sales, personal networking inside, outside my company, industry, marketplace, Yellow Pages, spot advertisements, etc.).
  24. Who are my biggest competitors and what do they offer that I do not?
  25. What steps do I take to offset their advantage? Are they working?
  26. What is my competition’s biggest failing, and how do I specifically fill that void?
  27. What do my clients really want (be specific, don’t just answer “a quality product or service”)? How do I know?
  28. Do clients buy from me exclusively or do they also patronize my competitors? What steps can I take to get the main portion of their business (preempt and dominate)?
  29. What’s my market potential (universe) and my current share of that market?
  30. What does it cost me to get a new client? (If I ran an advertisement that cost $1,000 and I obtained two new clients, my cost would be $500.) Translate this to what ever your acquisition cost is.
  31. What is my biggest and best source of new business, and am I doing everything possible to secure this business?
  32. What has been my biggest marketing success to date (defined as a specific promotion, advertising campaign, sales letter, etc.)?
  33. What is my biggest marketing problem or challenge today? Describe it in its entirety as candidly and directly as possible, including personal, financial, and transactional implications it may impose.
  34. How many better ways could I reduce the risk of transaction, lower the barrier of entry, or reduce the hurdle for my client to make it easier for that person to do business with me?
  35. After the initial sales, are there systematic, formal methods I use to communicate and resell to my clients – strengthening the relationship and bonding them to me?
  36. Do I have an adequate supply of client testimonials, and is there a system in place for their capture? Are they written, on audiotape, or on videotape, and how are they used in my marketing? Also, can I measure, compare, or quantify the tangible impact I make on my clients?
  37. Do I actively solicit referral business?
  38. Have I ever tried to reactivate my former clients and unconverted prospects? Do I maintain systematic contact?
  39. Have I ever tried selling a list of my unconverted prospects to my competitors, or turning enemies into allies?
  40. Do I make consistent efforts to communicate with my clients about what my company is doing to help them?
  41. In what ways do I try to up-sell my clients?
  42. Do I need to make money on first-time buyers, or am I satisfied with only making it on the back end (reorders), short- or long-term strategy.
  43. Do I ever barter my products, services, or assets with other companies in exchange for their products, services, or assets?
  44. What kind of guarantee or warranty do I give my clients, to take away the risk of the transaction, and how does it’ compare with my competitors’ or what the industry at large offers?
  45. What is my client attrition rate?
  46. How do I capture the names, addresses, and phone numbers of all my clients and prospects? Do I use them in my marketing programs?
  47. What is my average order, transaction size, amount, and what are the steps I can take to increase it?
  48. How much is the initial sale to a new client worth?
  49. Do I use a list broker or data experts? If not, where do I get my prime prospect names?
  50. Do I joint-venture my client names with other companies? If so, what were the results?

Just by answering these questions, you have placed yourself ahead of 95 percent of the businesspeople in America, many of whom are your competitors.

Those people spend so much time working in their business, they never work on their business.

Identify what you’re doing right and what you’re doing wrong.

What you could be doing better, differently, more effectively, and more profitably.

And what you know, but don’t act upon.

Chapter 4 - Your Business Soul - The Strategy Of Preeminence

Why do some people gain levels of success so much higher than others'?

Frequently it’s due to the fact that they have a better philosophical strategy.

They approach everyone they deal with in a totally different and more effective way than anyone else does.

And while their competitors are usually unable to figure out this strategy, it is one anyone in business can successfully employ by simply changing his or her focus from “me” to “you.”

This simple adjustment in your focus is the key to what I believe is the most powerful business (and life) strategy you can employ.

I call it the Strategy of Preeminence.

Once you begin to use it you will always - not just sometimes, but always - stand out in the minds, hearts, and checkbooks of your client, your employees, your employer, or your boss as the very best there is.

The preeminent choice.

The Strategy of Preeminence is quite simply the ability to put your clients’ needs always ahead of your own.

When you master that your success will naturally follow.

If it seems backward to put your clients’ best interests ahead of your own that’s understandable.

In fact, that is the reason so many businesses are unremarkable, unmemorable, and, ultimately, unsuccessful.

It makes people enthusiastic to do business with you instead of your competitors.

And when you start to serve clients rather than sell clients, the limits on your business success will disappear.

You should use the Strategy of Preeminence as a basis for dealing with everyone.

Be a problem solver, not a problem bringer.

Whatever you do, if you focus on giving value and advice instead of manipulating and maneuvering, you win over many more prospects, clients, bosses, colleagues, and friends.

Falling In Love With Your Clients

One of the biggest mistakes, probably the biggest mistake, people make in any business is that they fall in love with the wrong thing.

They fall in love with their product, service, or company.

You should believe passionately in your product, service, or company.

But you should fall in love with your clients.

Awesome service is admirable but trite.

Falling in love with your clients means taking responsibility for their well-being.

Putting their best interests ahead of your own.

The more value you give others, the more value you generate.

Not only for your clients but for yourself.

Jay Abraham On Providing Value

The more value you give others, the more value you generate.

Not only for your clients but for yourself.

The more contributions you make to the richness of the lives of your clients, the more bonded you will be to them and they to you.

And the more successful you will become.

The focus of your concern should state to the client, in essence, “You matter. Your well-being is important to me.”

See yourself as becoming an agent of change.

A creator of value.

A value contributor.

Human Nature

Mastering the Strategy of Preeminence is really the understanding and having the utmost respect for human nature.

You need to understand that you have a higher purpose for being in business than simply making money.

Your purpose must be understanding what you can do to help solve the problems of others, help maximize the options, and finding ways to do it.

Chapter 5 - Break Even Today, Break the Bank Tomorrow

Acquiring clients at a breakeven or a slight loss and making substantial profits on back-end repurchasing is one of the most overlooked and underutilized methods of client growth and generation available to you.

Jay Abraham On The Importance Of Calculating Your Client’s LTV

Until you identify and understand exactly how much combined profit a client represents to your business for the life of that relationship, you can’t begin to know how much time, effort, and, most importantly, expense you can afford to invest to acquire that client in the first place.

You need to know the lifetime value of your clients (or your clients’ marginal net worth).

Make It Easy For New Clients To Do Business With You

Most businesses and people make it far too hard for clients and employers to start a relationship with them.

They make it too difficult to get prospects to start using their products or services to the maximum advantage.

If you lower or totally eliminate the hurdle in starting a relationship, far more people will begin one with you.

Chapter 6 - Vive La Difference - How You Develop a Unique Selling Proposition (USP)

How can you elevate yourself or your company to a position of notable superiority over your competition?

In order to stand above the crowded marketplace, you or your company must offer your prospect or client a unique and distinctive benefit or advantage above and beyond that of your competitor.

If you don’t, people have no motivation to do business with you instead of your competition.

You must identify and understand what it is you or your company do or can start doing for your clients that provides them with a result or an advantage superior to the competition’s.

This is called the unique selling proposition (USP).

Your unique selling proposition is that distinct, appealing idea that sets your business apart from every other “me too” competitor.

Then: Promote And Live That USP

When you identify what that distinct advantage is, you then must integrate it into all your promotional, marketing, advertising, and selling operations.

You don’t just want to say it, you want to constantly demonstrate it.

You want to live it.

That means that whatever your USP stands for, you do at all times.

The more clearly you telegraph what makes you the better choice (offering more benefits, advantages, and bottom-line payoff), the more often they’ll choose you over your competition.

You need to create maximum real and perceived advantage in your clients’ and employers’ eyes and minds at all times.

Jay Abraham On How To Develop An USP - The Big Promise

How do you pick a USP?

You must first identify which needs are going unfulfilled within your industry, such as:

  1. A broad selection
  2. Big discounts
  3. Advice and assistance
  4. Convenience (i.e., location, fully stocked shelves, immediate delivery)
  5. Top-of-the-line products or services
  6. Speedy service
  7. Services above and beyond the basics
  8. A longer and more comprehensive warranty or guarantee than the norm
  9. Any other distinct advantage, tangible or intangible benefits, or valuable advantages you can give that the competition doesn’t.

The point is to focus on the one niche, need, or gap that is most sorely lacking - provided you can keep the promise you make.

You can even create hybrid USPs - combinations that integrate one marketing gap with another.

Jay Abraham On Irresistible Offers, Risk Reversal And Exceptional Guarantees

And it will be no contest for you against your competition if you incorporate strong risk reversal into your business operation.

The biggest secret to success in business or a career is to always maintain the edge in everything you do.

Logical-sounding, yes, but infrequently understood.

Even less frequently practiced.

One of the biggest “competitive-edge” advantages you’ll ever gain is to always make it easier for the client to say yes than it is for them to say no.

You do it by taking away the financial, psychological, or emotional risk factors that are always attached (stated or unstated) to virtually any decision-making proposition you ever ask a client to make.

When you remove the risk for anyone deciding to do business with you, it results in a powerful advantage in your business and financial success.

When you take away the risk to your prospect or client, you lower the barrier to action, thus eliminating the primary obstacle to buying.

And that’s what you must do.

Here’s how you do it: You totally and completely guarantee the purchase for your client.

Think about what your clients want most (results-wise) from purchasing your product or service.

Then guarantee them that outcome - or they can have their money back.

If it’s not practical to fully guarantee the entire purchase, then guarantee whatever portion of the purchase is practical.

Even More Powerful: BTRF (Better Than Risk-Free)

When you tell me that if I am dissatisfied for any reason whatsoever, you will not only give me full and immediate return of my purchase price, but you promise me an additional reward on top - a compensation incentive for having taken the time, effort, and faith to purchase in the first place - I’m impressed.

I’m hard-pressed to say no to a proposition like that.

Compensating your clients for their dissatisfaction and valuing their time and trust is the concept behind a better-than-risk-free guarantee.

BTRF guarantees are a seldom-used but offer an extremely powerful advantage you can give yourself and your business or practice.

Great, But How Can I Do That Practically?

If you sell products or services, consider offering the client something else in addition (a bonus) when they agree to purchase.

Offer them an exceptional money-back guarantee, but allow the client to keep the bonus if he or she asks for a refund.

Sounds Simple - And It’s Also Extremely Powerful

I’ve observed that when you put very specific and dramatic performance-based guarantees or risk reversals on your selling proposition, your sales almost certainly soar.

But another quite wonderful thing occurs.

Because you guarantee your client such a specific outcome or result, you will normally perform even better than you used to in order to assure that your company delivers what you promise.

So the client ends up receiving a far higher than expected level of service, quality, and performance - and you both win big in the process.

And because you understand that you are the one company or person that is consciously working to assume all the risk in the transaction, your awareness of the risk factor will be very apparent to your clients.

They will be drawn to you and your enterprise because they’ll sense your commitment to make the transaction work for them, not just for you.

Are you starting to see all the innovative ways you can use risk reversal and money-back or performance-based guarantees to eliminate uncertainty, improve decisiveness, and give your business a competitive edge?

If there’s no risk in doing something, a lot more people tend to give it a try.

Once they try it out, if your product or service performs as you say, most people will continue buying again and again.

Jay Abraham On How To Scale Your Business

Closing Thoughts

My book notes only cover small parts of the book.

So if you like what you read, please consider buying the book from the author.

Stay awesome,
Tim

P.S. Questions or comments? Reply via email.

P.P.S. Want to start and grow an online business on YOUR terms?

==> Free resources here ($0.00)