About twenty years ago Jay Abraham ran a protege program to teach marketing consultants how to be "mini Jay Abraham's" in their own local areas. My friend Mitch Axelrod was one of the people who went through the training and then Jay hired Mitch to train the proteges on how to sell marketing consulting.
Jay has made a fortune from contingency based marketing consultancy on the principle of "if I help you earn a dollar you wouldn't have had, will you give me 25 cents?"
It is a very simple and attractive proposition to the clients since it puts the onus on the marketing consultant to deliver the goods.
Jay Abraham is bringing back his protege program which is interesting timing because his new book "The Sticking Point Solution" is going to general a lot of interest in Abraham style marketing.
If I didn't have this silly health issue or if it had been offered two years ago, I would have applied without hesitation. But reading the promotion, it is not for the faint hearted.
Here is the first promotional email I received from Jay about the new protege training program.
History Really DOES Repeat Itself. Thrice Now!
In 1989, I took just under 1,000 business owners and lay people --- and turned them ALL into capable, competent, seriously-impressive Contingency/Performance-Oriented marketing consultants.
Each paid me $15,000-$20,000 (depending upon the training course they chose).
And they dedicated five, 18-hour days and nights to my intensive training regimen, that we conducted in a specially configured training center we set up in Los Angeles.
The names of many of the people I trained there are now household words.
Most chose to pursue the profession I do --- and work with small to medium-sized, under-performing companies --- Strictly on a performance basis --- where they earn performance-based income shares in the profit improvements they bring to the businesses they help.
Still others chose to specialize on one specific industry or field, i.e. dentists, realtors, lawyers, plastic surgeons.
Others chose to do safe (but far less lucrative) fee-based consulting; because it was more stable and immediately profitable up-front.
Still others used their expert training with me to secure fat paying jobs as the new marketing director of a company poised for growth, but who need a well-trained marketing mind to lead it.
Still others used their newfound knowledge of business growth to structure some amazing equity partnerships, where they'd get up to 40% ownership in a struggling business --- just for turning that business's profit picture around.
Still others were business owners looking to become their own internal "marketing consultant." They wanted to learn to think, act, AND TRANSACT explosive profit growth for their enterprise --- the same way that I do it for other companies.
And, they did. My alumni grads from that original group turned out to be some of the Superstar Consultants, entrepreneurs and leading business "gurus" today.
Then I did a more concentrated, but expensive "fast-track accelerated training" program that produced a bunch more successes.
It took four super-intensive days to complete and incorporated many of the best training breakthroughs that I'd learned over the decade since I first trained my initial 1,000-person group of Superstars.
I should probably tell you why I originally did that first and second wave of contingency marketing consultant training programs. It wasn't, ironically, to make a lot of money from the training.
No --- it was for the "Deal Flow." You see, I could only handle a dozen or so lucrative contingency clients at a time, still only can.
So, I ALWAYS want to pick the biggest and best performance-based situations out there. Back then, there were nearly 25 million small and medium-sized businesses in the US, alone.
Most were far too small for me to justify taking "on," as a contingency/profit performance-paying client --- since my minimum target is to make myself $500,000 per year per client.
Conversely, most of those smaller companies couldn't possibly afford to pay me short-term on a flat fee basis for hands-off consulting (where I just give passive advice and they have to implement it all themselves).
Because, when I do that, I charge companies $40,000 a day! So, most of the 90% of business owners out there would not...could not, ever become my clients (even if they wanted to do so).
So, it took absolutely nothing out of MY pocket to open up my mental "spigot," (so-to-speak) and teach them virtually everything I know, do, how I think, negotiate, strategize, formulate, implement, etc.
And, I taught my students/ proteges everything.
It's like getting a peek behind the curtain at the exact way I do what I do. So you can model me and my methods and approaches for yourself.
I figured (collectively, I might add) that a lot of people out there (like you) would love to have 5 to 12 clients at a time, each one of which could generate you potentially $2,000 to $5,000 a month per client in performance-based fees.
And whether you did it full time or part time, I ALSO figured it was an invaluable skill you could use anywhere in this country or the free world --- urban or rural, east coast or west, retail or wholesale...wherever there are businesses or professional practices of any (and every) kind. It can even work with non-profit businesses.
In fact, before I'd let anyone else sign up for either of the different contingency marketing programs I conducted in the past, I instructed them that they first perform a simple --- but highly validating "Litmus Pre-Test."
I told them to pick any 20 businesses, professional practices in their city, industry, market, etc.
Then, go to the owners (they need to be owner-run for you to profit richly enough on the contingency compensation structure I recommend), and ask that owner or professional THIS provocative question:
If I can find you huge windfall profits you never would have possibly earned, seen or made on your own, doing what you're doing today...AND if I do all the "heavy lifting" work necessary to mine those windfall profits for you --- AND if it costs you absolutely nothing at all in extra expense, time, people or effort for me to do it all for you --- Will you give me back a quarter for every extra windfall, pure extra profit dollar I put into your bank account --- AFTER every expense, cost or overhead is first taken out?
My deal with all prospective proteges I was going to train was simple. If at least 90% of the businesses they posed that question to didn't say YES --- I didn't want to train them.
Because, they wouldn't be able to prosper enough from what I wanted to share with them. Either they were too inhibited, too low self-esteemed, too poor of a communicator, etc.
Obviously that qualifying criteria self-selected only highly motivated, exceedingly ambitious, exceptionally focused and extremely well-committed people who possessed a high "success probability" coming in.
And, the rest was marketing history.
Until now...
Because, given the devastating state of all the small to medium-sized business and professional practices out there (many whose businesses and personal incomes have dropped nearly 50%), I think (right now) there exists a screaming, unseen need for an absolute "army" of newly trained contingency/performance-based marketing consultants...to swoop in, and save all those businesses' Financial Butts (and make themselves a tidy bundle in the process).
Quite frankly, the economy is right. But so too, is the psychology of the business owner. In the boom times, many were rich, fat and sassy and would have totally rejected anyone offering help in exchange for a profit sharing pay-out.
But TODAY, they're all shell-shocked, paralyzed, scared senseless. They're like deer in the headlights --- and they are all so anxious to have someone (with a workable profit-boosting plan) come in on their "white horse" and save them --- that they'll be eager to pay YOU just about any performance-based, contingency "Success Fee" (within reason) you ask for.
So, I want to recruit an entire new, fresh group of potential contingency marketing "Superstars" and bring you out here to Los Angeles for a long, 4-day, "Transformatic Weekend" with me and our Chief of Consulting (to teach you to do everything we do to earn significant income...totally-on-performance!).
But I sense that even the future Superstars I'm speaking to now are feeling the economy's pinch.
So, I've decided NOT to charge you each the same $15,000-$20,000 up-front fees I originally commanded last time I did one of these contingency marketing consultant, intensive Train-a-thons.
Instead, I'm going to make qualified-ONLY people that I invite out here, a truly "sporting" --- (heavily performance-based) proposition.
I think you'll find my proposal hard to resist --- if you ARE the right caliber of person I'm searching for to fill this group.
Here it is. Pay me just $5,000, now. We'll train you to be a better contingency marketing consultant in this recession than I ever trained the two previous groups I worked with.
Why? Because my knowledge, techniques, methodology and mastery of the profession have grown exponentially since I first started training proteges nearly 20 years ago.
Today, I can pack into four, no-nonsense, ultra fast-paced, non-theoretical days-now what would have taken me probably a full month of live training (to teach you to master) ten years ago.
So, you're the huge winner and "Prosperity Beneficiary" here...after you leave the live training process.
Why? First because you'll walk out of this training, fully armed and ready to handle as much lucrative, high-level contingency clients as you decide you want to work with --- full or part-time.
You'll know how to help business owners in 465 different industries. You'll also know how to specialize in any one industry you're drawn to --- if that's your choice.
My Chief Consultant and I will personally work with you in small groups by regularly scheduled monthly teleconferences (after you leave the training) for one full year afterward to work through all your client scenarios and profit-sharing deals with you.
Execution and implementation is obviously your responsibility. But he and or I will be there to provide guidance, direction, course correction, and counsel.
In return for slashing $15,000 off the original $20,000 fixed fee that I charge you --- I ask (in return) that you share 15% of your future profit-sharing fee income with us --- after you return home and start successfully applying what we teach you --- Until I've been paid $25,000 more. I think that's a fair upside to me (in exchange for eating $15,000 off the fixed fee up front).
Plus, remember this --- for me to earn my remaining $25,000 success fee from you, you'll have had to first, earn nearly $200,000 from what I'll teach you.
Now, I can't promise that you'll make it all in the first year, alone. But, it's totally possible IF you properly implement the training I want to give you here in Los Angeles.
There IS one more thing. It's important to the both of us. I'm banking on the fact that the people I agree to train will go out there and do a lot of successful small and medium-sized client deals for yourself.
I'm expecting that --- if you do --- that you'll uncover some absolutely killer, larger-sized deals that are too big or too complex for you to do yourself.
When you do, I'm asking (as another consideration for slashing your base training fee by 75% on the fixed side) that you agree to bring those monster-sized deals to us.
If they're as good as you think --- and we accept them as our own contingency clients --- we'll share 25% of ALL the total profits we earn from that business...back with you for as long as we earn them.
No guarantees that we'll take a given deal you bring us. But that, frankly, IS the big reason I'm doing this discount training offering. I can't be any fairer.
Is there any other "catch" to this offer? Yes.
It's not being promiscuously offered to just anyone.
You really MUST qualify. There are three separate (and serious) qualifying steps (or hoops) you must jump through.
Miss, fail or procrastination of any one of them --- and we don't want to share my lifetime collection contingency marketing methods and techniques with you. It's that simple.
Here's the qualification process: First, we're doing a 120-minutes-long, deeply explanatory conference call, for qualified people-only that lays everything out.
If you think you've got what we're looking for (and you can make time in late June to come to L.A., and you can afford to write the $5,000 check without a financial hardship) - And you're someone with a strong history of performance, directability and focused follow-through, you can participate on that call, no charge.
But if we determine ahead of time that you don't possess any one of these defined attributes, you'll be politely declined attendance on the call.
Also, and this is critically important --- if you register for one of the two separate calls we'll do (to accommodate scheduling conflicts) and don't show up or show up late and leave early --- We'll know because we monitor everyone (you'll be permanently placed on our "blackball" list and never be allowed into any program or product offering we do, again).
By the way, this conference call is NOT being done to sell you. We're expressly conducting these sessions to screen you --- or more precisely, to screen out people we don't want to waste our time and knowledge on.
Seriously, people who gain this expert understanding and master my never-before-presented systems approach to earning major paydays (by sharing in the profits you add to a business's bottom line) ---could earn a wonderful yearly income for the rest of their lives if they do what I teach them. If you do, I have an excellent chance of receiving the rest of my deferred training fee paid back to me in the next year or so --- or even sooner.
BUT if we accept laggards, dreamers, insecure people, just to collect a few dollars up-front --- we both lose, big time, on the deal.
You'd become severely disappointed when nothing resulted --- I'd lose $25,000 you would never be able to pay me --- PLUS, you'd never source me one or more $500,000 a year profit-paying consulting clients.
So, it's simply NOT worth accepting the wrong people for the wrong reasons. I'm sorry. That's why I urge unqualified people not to sign-up for the teleconference.
Second, if you feel deserving (and qualified) to be on the call and you like the proposition and training process and new profession we lay out on that call, we'll give you a relatively simple, but highly revealing diagnostic/assessment "Entrance Exam."
We'll send it out to you within 48 business hours of your fully completing the two-hour conference call.
Anyone missing it, coming on later or leaving early will not receive the entrance exam to complete. Those "laggards" will be automatically rejected for eligibility to participate.
When your entrance exam arrives, you'll have 72 hours to complete and return it. Again, the questions are not hard, nor will it take more than 90 minutes to answer.
But if you can't follow through and get back to someone in a complete and timely way, you'll never be a successful contingency (or fee-based, for that matter) marketing consultant.
By the way, there are two short "essay questions" n the entrance exam. We do that to gauge both your basic, written communication skills, critical thinking capability --- and to gain a deeper understanding of who you really are.
Again, we're putting a ton more on our side into this training than you are. We want to be absolutely certain that you're a good horse to back, so-to-speak.
Think of it this way: If we're getting 1/6th or about 16% of our total fee on a fixed basis and the rest ONLY comes if you pay off for us ... well you're only 16% at risk on us, while we're over four times more at risk here -- on you!
That's exactly how we look at it. I already know my contingency marketing methods make proteges a ton of income. I just don't know if you'll do much or anything with that knowledge --- if I share it with you.
Finally, once (and if) you return your fully completed entrance exam in the timeframe required, we'll want to actually talk to you privately, one-on-one to re-gauge your suitability, motivation, qualifications, directability -- and teachability.
If any or all those stipulations turn you off (or outright offend you)---please DO NOT even take the first step of signing up for the teleconference---Seriously, Don't.
I will not sell marginal people on taking this training. If you're marginal or someone who doesn't follow through, then this call will absolutely, positively turn you off.
If you really cannot afford the initial $5,000 in one single payment, don't be on the call, either. The training is extraordinary. The income generation potential is utterly unimaginable. But if you need cash flow instantly, we're not your answer.
I want to teach you a new, wildly well- paying lifetime profession. You really CAN begin doing it in the first month you learn how. But the big paydays won't happen --- if you follow my rock-solid guidelines --- for a few months or more.
If the bank is about to take your home or pull your credit cards --- this training proposition is NOT your short-term answer.
But if you want a life much different and more rewarding --- for years and decades to come (I've been averaging mid-seven figures a year for 25 years), there's no more appropriate training to consider.
I've tried to be exceedingly up-front and straight with you about this situation. I hope to attract the right people to be on the conference call. I hope I deter people who shouldn't be on it from signing up.
If you still feel motivated to hear what I'm offering, you can sign on for whichever teleconference works best for your schedule. We'll re-confirm your registration three times.
Then, it's up to you. If you can't make committed appointments (on your own), you'll never make it as a contingency marketing consultant. So it's probably best to find out now before you waste your own time --- or ours.
Again, if you're Mr. or Mrs. Right, go register at: www.abraham.com/protege We'll see how it goes from there.
Respectfully,
Jay Abraham
P.S. If my e-mail seems harsh, it is. Look, moneymaking as a contingency marketing consultant is a serious business. It's NOT for the tentative or under-motivated among you. Only a few people reading this really will be properly suited.
If you're one of those, I can promise you a journey for life that will forever positively alter the course of your financial future.
