Response to Jay Abraham’s “Master of Passive Income” call

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If you read my pre-call summary, well, my guesses were pretty accurate overall. It did end in an invitation to join Jay’s mentoring program (though I noticed even the sales letter said that, once I re-read it… so much for my powers of observation!). It involved a lot of “this is how cool I am and why you should listen to me” bits. However, there was a lot of really good stuff in there, too.

The biggest surprise to me was actually the type of passive income that Jay is talking about. I realize now that I never even considered what kind of suggestions he would be making; I just assumed it was more of the same… affiliate programs… info-products… that kind of thing. It wasn’t.

Jay’s focus is on something I’d never really considered: brokering deal between businesses. This basically involves finding a business with a need, finding another business who can supply that need, and putting them together…. for an ongoing percentage.

At first I was skeptical. How could I set something like that up that the companies wouldn’t just do themselves? And if they could just do it themselves, why would they pay me on an ongoing basis?

Once Jay began to drill down, though, and make it more concrete, I started getting it. The idea is to analyze a business and figure out what activities they are currently doing. Once you do that, you can find ways to maximize the current activities (by improving effectiveness of things like referral systems), add new revenue streams, and repurpose existing resources.

There are a number of different ways I could use this concept, with different levels of daily involvement, but the way that most appeals to me is as sort of a consultant. In that role, I could go into a business, do the assessment, pinpoint areas that could be improved, expanded, or repurposed, and give them an action plan, along with an agreement to get x% of increased revenues/new customers/whatever.

There’s a lot more to it than that, though. If you can get in a position where you gain control over some aspect of a business’s assets, opportunities, resources, transactions, etc., you can develop it into a stream of passive income.

The call had many specific examples of how this works. For instance, home improvement is one of those areas where people often get started with one specific project but go on to do more projects shortly after the first is complete. If you have access to the list of clients with recently completed projects from, say, a kitchen remodeler, you can leverage that list to provide referrals for a bathroom remodeler or a landscaper. The other home improvement businesses would only have to pay when it brought in a job, and that’s far more appealing than throwing money into advertising and hoping someone will call, so it wouldn’t be hard to sell them on it.

There were tons more examples of real deals and variations on the central idea.

One that interested me was the idea that just about any business that really excels in its industry is doing at least one thing much, much better than their competitors. It might be marketing or a referral system or a specific technique needed for their day-to-day tasks. When you figure out what that thing is, you can systemize it, quantify the value, and then license it to other, non-competing businesses. One example talked about how a dry cleaner developed excellent marketing materials and went on to license them to dry cleaners in other cities.

I’m going to have to think over the implications of some of the ideas a little more and figure out how to apply them to my business, and also how to use them to improve other businesses for a commission.

When it came time for the sales pitch, Jay made it pretty compelling. The first month of his mentoring program is free ($250 after that). He said, “It will either work in the first 30 days or it won’t.” I think that’s true, but mostly because a lot of people will prove their ability (or inability) to follow through within a month. If they don’t follow through enough within the first month, are they likely to send in the written request to cancel promptly?

One very interesting point is that once you pass that first 30 days, you’re in for the next year. You are committed to the $250/month for the next 12 months, with no option to cancel after the free month. I’m not sure if that’s really a good long-term move or not. On the one hand, it might really make some people angry down the road. On the other hand, it adds a certain level of built-in motivation to take it seriously.

On the upside, it sounds like they’ve put significant effort into making the mentorship a good program. Jay claims that he’s offering it this cheaply in order to get a batch of very successful students quickly so that he can sell it for significantly more the next time around. Not sure if I go for that or if it’s just a sales technique, but frankly, if he actually delivers on the promises in the sales letter, I don’t really care.

On the basis of the phone call and the quality of information that was there, I’m inclined to sign up for his mentorship. My one concern is whether I’ll be able to put enough time into it to get good results. So I’m making a bargain with myself. If I can actually check of every item on my daily to do list (something I haven’t manage even once in the month I’ve been using the current system), I will reward myself with the first month. If I am able to put the necessary time in during that month, I will continue. If not, I will cancel.

If you’re interested in attending one of the calls, there are several lined up for the next couple of weeks.

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