James Malinchak
Appearances
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
So I started getting a call from a couple people to speak. And I'm like, I don't speak. I'm a broker. Yeah. I said, well, just come and motivate my salespeople, right? I said, I don't speak, man. I'm watching the market. And they said, we'll pay you $5,000 for 40 minutes. I said, I speak.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
Most people don't think about it. They go on TV thinking they're going to be the next Denzel. 15 minutes of fame.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
Perfect, love it.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
I hate those folks that walk on stage and go, Hey, tap, tap, tap.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
I took a walk down the street today, saw the trees like what?
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
I called the Mike Tyson knockout punch. Come out and throw the knockout punch. Just hit the helmet.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
And you didn't know until you were up there.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
Yeah, no, that's smart. Because I pull them. Yeah, no, uh, no, I love, I love that technique because, you know, look, they're going to forget about you as soon as you finish in 45 minutes anyway.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
So, but if you get them on a list, then you got them forever. John, I still have people to this day buying from me who saw me on secret millionaire 2011. Yeah. And they're still buying. They're still buying this because they're on my list. I went on that show realizing that TV is just a media.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
It's no different than run Facebook ads, YouTube ads, Sunday newspaper inserts. It's a way to if you do it the right way, it's a way to acquire quality leads and the right leads if you plant the right seeds.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
You know what's crazy? Because there was no ClickFunnels. I was doing it back in 05. Okay, so that's deep. Yeah, I used to have an internet company where I would build all this stuff for them. Funnels, thank you page, upsell page, downsell page, sales pages. This is way before. Russell's a longtime friend. I knew Russell when he was broke.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
yeah like when i did my secret millionaire party at russell brunson who did click funnels created i uh at my secret millionaire party i had a whole event wrapped around that when i debuted we broadcast from my house here down the street and we were watched in over 100 companies 100 countries i had 1600 affiliates promoting us and that russell was so broke
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
He called me and said, hey, man, can I stay in your spare bedroom? Because I don't have $100 for the hotel down the street. So that's how far Russell and I go back. We go 20 years back.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
Yeah, 265 million last year, 150,000 subscribers. I was just with him at his event.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
I went because it was his last one. So I was in Boise in March. I think it was at his office. He bought Dan Kennedy's magnetic marketing company and they were launching a new book and he had me come out as one of the 20 speakers.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
A long time. Ever. Yeah.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
Oh, no way. Frank learned from Dan. Oh, yeah.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
I helped teach Frank how to sell from the stage.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
He could not sell a lick. from the state. If you go on my website, big money speaker.com and look at the celebrity endorsements, watch the video from Frank. He says it.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
Yeah. Um, Russell actually I'm honored and you can watch it. I don't say this. It's on video. So James is one of the all time greatest sales people from stage I've ever seen.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
It's like, what's the secret of being successful? Okay. Tell you one line, but I can give you a couple ideas. Perfect. All right. So the first thing, like when I look at somebody's presentation, I've rewritten a lot of presentation, even for webinars. First thing is they're actually over-teaching. They're trying to cram a three-day seminar into a 60-minute talk.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
And the minute you overwhelm people, our brains go work. They equate it to work. We study neuroscience and brain-based learning. The minute somebody equates something that you're offering to work, they ain't buying it. So I go through everybody's slides, words, everything they say. Everything has to convey three things. Everything. What's that?
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
Number one, the audience, and you can't tell the audience this. The audience has to just get this from how you communicate. Number one, the audience has to say, I can do this. You know, what John's sharing or what Russell's sharing about, I can do this. Number two, they have to say, I can do this right now. Oh, this ain't going to take years. I can get this implemented right away.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
Yeah. So most people go on TV trying to be famous. I looked at it as 15 minutes of opportunity.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
And number three, I can do this right here, meaning wherever I am in my life. I'm single. I'm married. I live on a farm in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I live in a high-rise in New York City, meaning I don't have to make tremendous change in my life in order to make this stuff work. I go through somebody's presentation. That's always violated throughout the entire presentation.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
Yeah. I had a guy one time and I'm not going to say the name. We were speaking at the Hotel Roosevelt. He's a legend in the speaking. I love him to death. I'm not going to say his name, but he's a legend. We're both speaking there and we're both going to offer a program on speaking.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
Okay. So technically a competitor. First of all, I'll give you a little James trick. Whenever there's somebody speaking on the same topic as me and they're going to offer something similar to me, I always go second.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
Well, no, I watch them. And then I know how to adjust my talk because I don't ever want an audience member saying, well, it's both on speaking. Let's go with the legend and hang out with the legend. I want them to go, it's both speaking, but oh, they're two different things. I need both of them. All right. I don't want to, which one do I want? Oh, I need both.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
There's two sides of it. First, we're going to serve and help these amazing people on the show recognize unsung heroes. I was smart enough to realize there's a second side to the coin in business, right? That's why my logo is a coin. Second side is that business. So I went on with a whole plan on how to drive leads and Things I would say.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
And that only happens if I'm able to adjust my talk based on what the person said was on the, on the program with the same topic. So here's what the person said.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
Yeah, I want them to understand they need both. So if they're talking about how to shine from the stage and craft stories and a message, I'm going to talk about the business side of speaking. And once you learn all that, let me show you how you really get paid. See, now you need both. Whereas if I talked about the message and the story, it's like, it's the same one. Which one should we take?
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
Let's take the more famous legendary person's training, right? But this person said this, literally said this, I don't believe you deserve the right to get paid to speak. Listen to the languaging. Deserve the right to get paid to speak until you have done at least 1,000 talks for free. I said, oh, I got them. This is easy. This is easy because here's what goes through your mind. Thousand talks.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
If I do a hundred a year, that's 10 years. That's a lot of work. I can't do this. I can't do this right now. It's going to take me 10 years. That's work, right? It's work. I can't do this right here in my life. I got kids. I run a business. I got to make big. I'm not buying that. So I started switching everything around and showing speed. I would have videos play.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
People say, Hey man, I'm here with James's training. First two hours on day one of four days, he taught one strategy. I went out in the hallway. I've never done a talk before in my life. I made a call to the event coordinator and they just bought 5,000 of my books based on what he said. I don't even know what I'm doing. And I just sold 5,000 books. I just sold speed.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
80% of the audience bought my stuff, which ticked me off. A hundred should have bought it and nobody bought his. Not because he's not great. Because it was work. It was work. The audience didn't say, I can do this. I can do this now. I can do this here. So that's the underlying foundation throughout a whole talk.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
So when I'm crafting a presentation where I'm going to make an offer, I'm going to sell something. Every talk, every word, every slide, every image, if it doesn't convey that, I've got to adjust it to make sure it conveys it or I've got to take it out.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
I go through. If you knew how many hours I spend on writing somebody's presentation or my own. Yeah. Because think about it. You could go up there and literally have a seven-figure day in 90 minutes. Yeah. If you do it the right way. You can have a six-figure day in 90 minutes if you do it the right way. Why wouldn't you spend time on it? So that was one of the hidden secrets of speaking.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
And by the way, when I started, I didn't know any of that. I just thought speaking was fee-paid speaking. And actually, Mark Victor Hansen called me, 2005, and said, hey, man, I hear you're this college speaking guy. Like, you know how to get booked for colleges and universities? I said, yeah, I'm kind of doing that. At the time, I was two-time National College Speaker of the Year.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
And I had 30 different opt-in pages coming up, all running SEO keywords around the show. And so, yeah, we had like 300,000 people, I think it was.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
He said, I got this event I'm doing, teaching speaking. I want you to come and teach speaking on the college circuit. I said, sure, here's my fee. And he's like, well, no, we don't pay fees. I'm like, what are you talking about? He said, well, everybody speaks and then they make an offer at the end. I said, how many people are you going to have? He said, 500.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
And so in my mind, I was going, cause my training was 2,500 bucks. I'm like, oh my God, I can't believe 500 people are going to be 2,500 bucks. Yeah. But remember, I'd never done this before.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
So I didn't, I was so naive. And so I went there and I made the offer and nobody bought. Cause I didn't know what I was doing. I thought if I just talked.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
But I watched a couple of, Dan Kennedy was speaking there and I watched this long line of people. There's a guy named John Childress who was big in real estate back then, trained all the real estate speakers. And there was this long line for him. And I was, I couldn't understand because I had a long line too, but they were hugging me. Yeah. No one bought.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
So I went and I invested in everybody's training. I said, there's something not right here. I got a standing ovation, but I got nobody investing in my training. I had people say, man, I took 14 pages of notes. I learned so much. Best talk at these events I've ever heard. Great, you come into my training. No, I'm going to go to Dan Kennedy. So I didn't understand what I was doing.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
I went to John Childress' training for the first time. 30 minutes into it, I quickly realized probably the most important lesson I ever had about speaking. I speak, but I don't know how to speak. Okay. I was talking, but I didn't know how you structure a presentation that people buy from you at the end. I didn't know what you share, what you don't share. So I'll give you a little tip on it.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
I love it to this day, man.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
I watched several of your episodes of this podcast before I come on it.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
Oh, I love the one about the car. Pick the guy lowest on the totem pole.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
Yeah, like how you go buy a car. Yeah.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
I just watched that literally.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
I was like, I should have done that one. I bought my car last year.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
All those tips in that one episode was amazing. Yeah.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
Because there was no teaching of that stuff.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
I did the same thing with infomercials. Yeah. Cause I couldn't, nobody would enroll my stuff. So I was like, well, wait a minute, but these infomercials running on TV, like people buy, they're not running unless they work. So I started recording unless there's dropping a lot of, I remember like all the old people like Wade cook and Dave Del Dotto, even back in real estate and Charlton sheets.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
And I'll tell you something funny.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
And they're still on the air. No, God, this one. Because airtime.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
So I used to study all the ones. I would record them that were like running for three, four, five, ten years. And I'd transcribe them. And I'd go through it with a red pen and a green pen.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
i'd circle with a green pen all of the sales triggers and hooks and oh i see what they're saying here like you know all the all the seating they're doing and then a red pen i would circle where i thought they could improve maybe they missed and that's how i started crafting my sales presentations yeah because you were talking about like immensely studying i used to record infomercials and study them like crazy transcription and i'd read them hours and hours and hours
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
Kind of like your V-shred.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
I can't worry about what I can't control.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
That's a great answer. Worry is nothing more than the misuse of your mind, choosing to focus on what you don't want to have happen versus choosing what you do want to have happen. I can't control that, so why would I worry about it? It's like people always are like, hey, aren't you worried about somebody ripping off one of your courses? I'm like... they're going to rip it off.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
Like everybody gets ripped off. Like, what am I going to like scrutinize and sit there and go after every person that, you know, did something like that? I mean, I'd rather just work on bigger and better things.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
Abundance.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
And your personality.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
A thousand percent.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
Yeah, because it's you and that's your uniqueness. And here's something else. Like when people get freaked out and say, oh, there's so many speakers out there. I said, you do know how easy it is to make a million bucks. Just 100 talks at 10 grand or 67 talks at 15. Like we can't find 67 people in the whole world if we package you the right way that'll book you for a talk.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
Shoot, I was doing 150 some locations when I was cranking it. And here's what I mean by location. I went to Valencia Community College in Orlando. They have six campuses. I could go there and get six checks. One location, six checks, six payments for six talks, right? I was cranking 150 locations, paid. A lot of people talk about, oh, I did 100 talks. I'm like, how many did you get paid for?
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
Well, no, I did all these TEDx talks and all these freebies and all that. Did you sell? No. So basically, why would you do that? So here's my point. If you price the right way, you package the right way, and you market the right way to what event coordinators want, let's take speaking.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
You do a hundred talks. You get two and a half million dollars, which is basically most net, mostly net after taxes. Yeah. Like you don't have a lot of expense. Yeah. Same with coaching. Yeah. Right. You don't need a lot of people. So I don't worry about saturation. And I always look at it this way, too. I always said this in every business I had.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
I'm going to be here for the long term, so I'm going to win just by everybody else dropping off. I'm in this for the long term. I've been doing this for 25 years, which is kind of crazy. I've had coaching clients for 18 years is my longest, 17, 10, 12. Here's my little thing about coaching. You pay me 25,000 bucks. My thing is how fast can I make you the 25 grand back?
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
Because if I do that, why would you ever leave me? If I could teach you how to do that every year and even 10 exit, 100 exit, why would you ever go anywhere else? Hey, I can't do that for you.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
I know. I started when I was five, by the way.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
Those Lamborghinis aren't really there.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
Yeah. Oh yeah.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
Yeah. So here's all I could share is what I do for myself. Cause I'm a big believer in investing in coaching. I still do it. I've never would stop. But, uh, uh, I had some, uh, I'll give you a personal example where I had three life insurance agents come and want to sell me policies, right? Every one of them, I tell them to open up your portfolio and show me what you got.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
First two, you know, lips are quivering, right? Didn't want to do it. Third one was the only one that did it and showed me his policies, why they're set up, right? Here's for our kids. Here's our key man policy, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right. I said, okay, cool. Picked him. You're the guy. Did seven figures with the guy.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
So one of the, I retired like in 2017 from doing my speaker events and trainings. I'd done a thousand of them. I started, my first one was in 1999 and I just, it was kind of just time, right? Everything has an evolution. And I start seeing all this stuff popping up over the years. I was like, this is just nuts. These people who are teaching speaker stuff, such misinformation.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
So I said, I'm coming back. I'm going to come back in and just teach people the right stuff, and that's going to be my legacy on how I really help people. And so I tell people all the time, if you're thinking about that speaker trainer, you should have him or her open up their calendar and show you how many talks they booked.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
If they tell you they could sell on a webinar, tell them to open up their bank account and show you. So my whole thing is proof. If I'm going to take relationship and marriage advice, I want them to be married for 30, 40 years. Not divorce five times. It's the same way in real estate, right?
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
I care about results. Yeah. I believe only results matter. And you need to show me that you're doing it. Not that you did it 20 years ago. Because markets change, business changes, life changes, right? I listed my house, I don't know, about seven, eight years ago. I thought I was going to sell it because I was getting a place in Florida. I had two agents come by and see me.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
First thing they do, they walk in and they hand me their packet. I said, hey, nice to meet you. Thanks for coming. Here's the door. It took like 30 seconds. Third agent walks in and I said, I mean, you got a packet or something you want to give me? He goes, well, before we get to all that, could I just sit down with you and ask you what's important for you with this house?
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
into you know funnels that create money that's your expertise yeah well think about you know people go on trying to get famous right yeah i would say you can't deposit fame into a bank account you can leverage it clicks don't pay the bills baby right that's right clicks and likes right don't pay the bills but you know you had 300 000 people so what's the big deal well if everybody spends 50 bucks with you just made 15 million bucks for going on the show what if they spent a hundred dollars with you in a year you made 30 million dollars
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
Let me see if we can even help you. Yeah, I didn't care if the first two agents were in business 20 years and took fancy pictures. I don't care about any of that. I care that you care about what I know and that then you show me proof that you can actually do this stuff. So I don't know if that helps, but that's how I pick people.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
You're a financial consultant and you're in debt? Yeah. That's called a clue. I don't want to work with you.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
I can't make this fake. It's not it. I see certain sales trainers on Instagram and all that, and I'm like, I know them. They can't even sell their own sales training. And they're out there telling you they're gurus. Oh, here's the worst. John, this is one that drives me nuts.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
I'm teaching you my millionaire training, and I had to set that guy up three years ago on a 24-month payment plan to pay off a $5,000 debt for me.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
Like I always tell people, I said, come with me to a talk. Watch how I sell from the stage. I'll open up my PowerPoint. I'll tell you everything I'm doing. Work the back table. Hang with me after. We'll go to dinner or lunch, depending on when I speak, and I'll break down the presentation.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
Matter of fact, I want you to keep a notebook and write down the stuff behind the stuff you think you saw because then I'm going to quiz you on it. Or if I'm doing a fee-paid talk, come with me. Watch how I rebook that talk on the spot after. Come with me and watch me talk. Ask those other speaker trainers if you could go watch them. They won't let you because they don't book any talks.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
They're selling courses. Yeah.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
I'm a big believer. Been there, done that, and still doing it.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
I did that when I came off the TV show to kind of piggyback and attach to the Secret Millionaire TV show. Yeah. Yeah, there you go. So my contract with ABC, they own Secret Millionaire. I was going to call the book Secret Millionaire Secrets, and they own the name. So I said, well, hey, could I use Millionaire Success Secrets? Yeah.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
Yeah, because Hayden was cool. I got yours over there.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
Yeah, he was texting me. He's the one that set this all up.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
Oh, nice.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
Yeah. I was a C student in high school and that was C your way through school.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
I love it. My parents had a bumper sticker. You know, those bumper stickers. My child was honor student of the month at XYZ school.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
for going on a show because you strategically thought I had a whole marketing plan centered around the show. So I would say things in the show, you know, oh, that's amazing. That's one of the things that gets emailed into my website all the time. Right. I would just drop those little seeds. Right. You know, when I'm coaching somebody one-on-one, right.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
You know what? I got to pay you some homage, man. I didn't even know who you were. And your video, no, it was a post you did about seven, eight months ago commenting on Trump. And it was something about, you know, appreciate people who helped you and open doors, that sort of thing. And I commented on it because I was like, yeah, people sometimes forget which tree the apple fell from. Yeah.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
Certain things that were beneficial.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
Right? And that's when I started following you because I was like, this dude's real. I like him. I started watching some of your stuff, and I was like, yeah, I like this guy a lot.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
I like that. And then that's when you reached out out of the blue like two months later or something. Yeah. Maybe because I started liking your stuff because I was watching it.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
Literally five minutes from here.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
Well, I mean, let's just play this out. Yeah. And I'm being sincere right now that if I ever listed my house in the future, I'd call you and think about this seven months ago. Yeah.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
i would not have called you because i didn't see yeah i didn't know you're online right i see you online here we are now i'm down here i see what it is right i see who you are and i'm like well why wouldn't i list with john yeah and my book comes out in the fall of this of this year so if you don't think i'm already plotting the strategy with you of like bro we're gonna have some
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
whiteboard sessions.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
If it's helpful, I'll give you a testimonial for it unless it's already, we can use my secret millionaire.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
I'll just, I'll give you one tip right now.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
So the majority of the companies incorporate, I don't know if you're going to plan on maybe trying to speak. Yeah.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
Well, majority of companies and organizations have one of three budgets. They have a learning materials budget for their people. They have a continuing education budget or a T&D training and development budget. They're pretty much all the same, right? Different than a speaker for our convention budget. These budgets over here are for training materials, continuing education, et cetera.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
So the line is, hey, you know, you're interested in having me come and speak. I appreciate it. You know, I have this book and it qualifies as continuing education, learning materials and training and development. So therefore, why don't we pull funds from one of those budgets? By the way, they're all the same. You just don't know how each company labels.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
Well, I just sold coaching, but I didn't sell coaching. I just seeded it.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
And that way we can get all 8,000 people a copy of the book and I'll give you a discount. So now the message lives on after the event. Bam, you just sold 8,000 books. If you make $10 a book, You made $80,000 on top of your speaker fee. You're doing well. Just because you know the budgets. So that's the stuff I teach my clients.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
Right. You know, when I'm speaking on a stage for a big corporate convention, right. Like I had all these little seeds that I was dropping the whole time. I did the same thing in the media. I was on the red carpet of the Grammys and I had a card printed up, right? And I had it in my pocket, like hundreds of them.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
Oh, it's smart because I'll put you in stores. You might be in airport stores, et cetera.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
No, I love law of attraction.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
Oh, I love it. Yeah, that's part of it. Because I want to walk to the airport and see my book. Yeah, see, if you self-publish, you're not going to get that space. You're not going to get it. You're not going to get it.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
And hopefully you negotiate a good buyback where you get a low fee for buying them back so you can resell them.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
When does it come out?
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
And I'm like, what? Buying seasons for bookstores.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
So when you would, you know, take a picture and try to like, hey, what's your website? Or how do I find, I would just hand you a card. And it had all my website with all my pictures. Easy domain. You could easily find me if you were in the media. That's how I got so much press. Nobody misspelled my name. Because you made it easy. I made it easy.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
Yeah. When I was on Secret Millionaire, I had a three book publishing deal. signed and I ended up actually canceling it because of how long it was going to take. Cause I wanted it to come out coincide with the show. I don't need it to come out a year later. Yeah.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
They don't, you know, they didn't understand marketing. Right. Like it, no, it needs to attach to the show. Right. Not a year later. And so I just, I say, I don't, I don't want to do this deal.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
Somehow you can pull a testimonial from him. Possible.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
So I'll give you one. So I love and adore Lisa Gibbons. She has been to my event. We've done co-facilitating seminars for my students on media training, et cetera. And I kid you not, this had to be – so he got elected in 2016. This had to be 2014. We're doing a training together, teaching media stuff to my students. And I said, oh, Lisa, I got an idea for you.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
I said, Trump said some nice things about you when you won Celebrity Apprentice. Well, that's public knowledge. I said, check with your lawyer. But I believe you can take that and use that as a testimonial. And here's what I said. I kid you not. Because you never know. He might become President of the United States one time.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
So you might have the same thing. I have that. If he said some great things about you on television, public college.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
No kidding.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
I would run it through your lawyer, but I believe you could actually use that because that's public domain. That's public knowledge.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
I printed up just a simple card I kept in my jacket pocket when I was doing the red carpets and things like that. So I could hand it to all the media people.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
There you go, buddy.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
And I got to tell you, think about any other shows you've been on. You were on the today show or like you're on Oprah and they said something.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
I'll tell you a little.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
Let me give you a little ninja thing I used to do. So when I was building my speaking career and there would be some celebrity MC, I would write up my intro. And I would hand it to him like 10 minutes before because, you know, they're super busy.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
I'd say, hey, John, here's a change.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
I didn't say that one, but, but now they said it from the stage and read it. So boom, testimonial.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
You know what I think about this though. And I tell people this all the time, look, forget whether you like Trump, don't like Trump. There aren't many people that have a testimonial from a president of the United States on their book.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
Well, hey, look, SW, SW, SW, SW. Some will, some won't. So what? Someone's waiting. So if you ask him and he don't get it, that's all right. Yeah, moving on. But you also have that TV guide thing. I got the TV guide. You got a backup.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
Matter of fact, I was shocked. when I walked in your front door, there wasn't a photo of you and Trump hanging in the lobby or with that quote.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
I was born in a van down by the river. I love that. I grew up in a tiny steel mill town outside of Pittsburgh called Manessen. About 6,000 people. You blink, you miss it. Dad was a steel worker. Mom was a lunch mother serving lunches to us kids at school. We didn't have anything growing up. But my first big dream was to play college basketball. I thought that's how I could get out of a small town.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
I mean, I just think that celebrity association, like somebody walks in here is thinking of another real estate group and it's like, oh, well.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
So long story short, accepted a basketball scholarship at the University of Cincinnati. My coach got fired, transferred, went and played in Hawaii. First game, blew my knee out on a rubber basketball court. My sneaker stuck, ripped it. moved to Los Angeles, started my career as a stockbroker. That was my backup plan.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
So mine is, uh, and it's always been this way. I don't talk about politics, religion, or relationships.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
Yeah. And, and nor do I want to know anyone else's.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
I mean, I, I have a, a lot of folks I've done business with over the years who we didn't see eye to eye on a lot of stuff, but we still liked each other and did business. Sure. Now, had that person been imposing that stuff on me or me on them, we probably wouldn't have done business and liked each other and still been colleagues all these years.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
A thousand percent. Yeah. I don't care.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
And if you're rude and inconsiderate and you don't really know the whole story of stuff. Just going to mute you.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
You know that. Of course. And everything's true. Everything is true. Everything's true on the internet.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
It's very simple. www.bigmoneyspeaker.com. Not little money speaker.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
money speaker.com we'll do like we connected dming through instagram what's your instagram what is your handle just james malinchak james malinchak so check it out dude james thanks for coming in buddy you and i eventually we will sell your house and we're definitely do some stuff with speaking it's a pleasure to meet you man thanks for having me this has been great it's 100 do listen up you have a new fan i'm a new fan of yours thank you i appreciate that guys listen up
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
Started with Merrill Lynch and got recruited, went over to Dean Witter, then ended at Payne Weber in the Beverly Hills branch. And then I did some, we built, my partner and I built our business pretty fast in our young 20s. So I started getting a call from a couple people to speak. And I'm like, I don't speak. I'm a broker. I said, well, just come and motivate my salespeople.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
I said, I don't speak, man. I'm watching the market. And he said, we'll pay you $5,000 for 40 minutes. I said, I speak. I speak. I say whatever you want me to say. And that's how I got into speaking. I was like, what? What is this? And then one of my best friends is Joe Theismann. He used to quarterback the Redskins.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
Yeah, yeah.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
Oh, yeah. Yeah, I always say, Joe, did it hurt when you broke your leg? He said, I didn't break my leg. Lawrence Taylor broke my leg. I had no intention of breaking my leg.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
I never go half speed, Joe.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
But no, Joe, he had to reinvent himself after that. At that time, he was getting a million bucks a year as a quarterback, which he was the third highest paid player, if you can imagine this, in national football.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
A million bucks a year. Gets hurt, takes a $965,000 pay cut. Can no longer play. What's he do? So he just remembered that, Hey, we had to make appearances when we played football. Right. And, and I used to speak at all these dinner. Let me, let me speak and start Charlie's like 500 bucks here, you know, a couple hundred bucks here.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
And then he found out about the speaking industry and he went on to make 50 some million dollars speaking. Well, Joe started to explain the industry to me. I was like, what? There's an, they pay you to talk like, really? I thought it was just this one guy. And, man, you don't have to hit me in the head with a two-by-four twice. I got it. And I just became a hound dog.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
I said, I'm going to figure this out. And I just became, John, really good at finding who the people are who have the money and the budgets. I wasn't famous. I didn't win a Super Bowl. I didn't follow the airplane and live kind of thing. I just knew who had the budgets when they were coming due, what their fees were, what topics they're looking for.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
And specifically, I started in the college and university market, and then I branched off into the corporate market. I got started by accident. I didn't even know it existed.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
No, it literally had nothing to do with that.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
No, it was just, they were looking for inspiration and motivation. And well, I was pretty good at firing people up. Like, especially I talked to a lot of kids groups as an athlete.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
And I just learned through Joe and became a fast study of like, okay, so how do you speak to a sales team? How do you get the sales team to increase their revenue? Like with what you say in inspiration, motivation, that sort of thing. Cause that's what Joe does.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
I came up with great stories. I came up with, you would sit there and go, he's right. I need to get off my ass and go do shit. Right. All right. I'm holding myself back. Let's go do this. Yeah. That was my whole purpose. I can get people like excited about what they're doing to try to perform. And then I got better and better and better. Right. And then it was like, oh, my gosh.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
I mean, let me take people from 97 percenters status quo and let's make everybody a three percenter and then a one percenter like that became my focus. Like, yeah. How do you like kick people in the rear and get them in gear?
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
Yeah, the first thing is you got to pick a market. Everybody says you start with a message. Nothing could be further from the truth, right? Start with a message. You don't even know if people care about it. You start with a market.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
So if you say, man, I want to get paid for like all these corporate, actually, that's the reason I moved to Vegas 20 some years ago. I got tired of flying around. I said, I'm going to target all these Vegas conventions so I don't have to fly around. Almost like my own residency.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
I saw Wayne Newton, right? He bedded down. I think it was at the Tropicana. He was like the first guy.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
I remember seeing him on, I think it was Larry King or something, 25 years ago, and he just signed this 10-year deal, right? And they asked him, well, why would you do this? He said, man, I love entertaining. I hated to travel. And I was like, oh, my gosh, I'm on the road 300 days a year flying all over. 20,000 conventions in Vegas, I'm moving to Vegas and I'm going to target all these.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
Bingo. And I give them a discount too. So, so the first thing you got to figure out who you want to talk to, right? So if you want to get paid to speak for corporations, they have different needs than colleges and universities for students, right? or for educators, or if you want to get paid for youth groups, that's different topics. Here's the number one mistake everybody makes.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
They don't start with the market. They don't find, like, let's say you pick corporations, right? You need to find out what the event coordinators are paying money for, not what you want to talk about.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
Right. You got to map and then you take your message and you match to what they're already used to booking and paying money for. So I'll give you a simple example. You probably heard of Chicken Soup for the Soul, the book.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
Mark Victor Hansen.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
Yeah. Jack's been my client for years.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
Yeah. So when that whole movie, The Secret, and that law of attraction craze came out, Jack wanted to speak for corporations. He's like $40,000. Yeah. And I said, Jack, no one's going to book you. You can't bring that esoteric type topic into corporate America. You got board of directors, shareholders, different ethnic backgrounds, religious beliefs.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
I said, but if we take your stuff and we repackage it as the success principles, which is his book now, how to go from where you are from to where you want to be, which is what you said earlier.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
I told him, I said, you can't market that esoteric woo woo stuff. to corporations. But if we repackage it, now you get booked. Because that's what they want. They want success, achievement, right? Get off your butt, overcome challenges. They don't want wooey, wooey law of attraction stuff. So you got to start, number one, with what the market is that you want to go after.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
John, my brother. How you doing?
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
Yeah, it's so simple. All you got to do is go to a major Speakers Bureau website like Washington Speakers Bureau, which is the number one Speakers Bureau in the world. And you look at the speakers they have and the topics they have. And you know those topics work because they wouldn't allow those on their website to be promoted to their clients. If they didn't work. If they didn't work.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
Right down the street from me. This was an easy drive.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
So, I mean, I could tell you right now, like in a corporate market, anything that helps with sales, customer service, team building, teamwork, motivation, inspiration. Good friend of mine, you may know him, Rudy from the movie Rudy. Rudy lives here. Rudy's been speaking for 30 years. And what's he talking about? Inspiration. Don't quit. Don't, you know, don't give up. So peak performance is huge.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
Anything that lights a fire under people. So it's not hard. I mean, you don't have to do any research. I just told you right then and there.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
Who are getting paid.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
Oh, it's very simple. I'll give you my outline. This is all I do for talks. Five parts. Introduction, which I'll get to in a second. I'll give you the framework first. Introduction, a little bit about your story in that introduction. And the story is only three things. Before, turning point, success, or mess, turning point, success. Then you have three points to the talk.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
Let me share with you three things, 0.1, 0.2, 0.3. And then you go into them, have some stories under each one. Then you have a little wrap up at the end. And that's a 45 minute talk. It's literally the whole framework for it.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
So there's two. You've got to divide it, like put a line down the middle. So when you're being paid a fee, you should not be selling. You're paid to talk, right? Then there are other events, like I speak at a lot of real estate events.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
Or they don't want to pay me a fee, but they want me to offer something. So I have a whole course on that. So basically, I teach for, let's say it's a 90-minute talk. I'll teach for 70, 75 minutes, and then I'll give them an offer to go deeper with me, like in a web class or something like that.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
Absolutely, yeah.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
Yeah. Let's welcome James. Hey, let's get started with a couple of questions and I need some quick enthusiastic responses to each question. Here we go. Question one, how many of you are ready to be more successful in the future than you've been in your past? Raise your hand and say, I am. I go right into it.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak
That's it. Yeah. I have an intro video that kind of introduces me with all the fancy schmancy stuff, but I go right into it. And by the way, I start from the back of the room, so I shock everybody.