Escaping the Drift with John Gafford - Transforming Publicity into Profit with James Malinchak

Episode Date: March 11, 2025

James Malinchak, renowned for his role on ABC's "Secret Millionaire," joins us to unravel the art of turning media buzz into business triumphs. With over 20 books to his credit, James shares his journey from broker to speaker, offering a masterclass in leveraging media exposure for financial gain. We discuss the power of having a well-thought-out plan to transform fleeting fame into bankable success, highlighting essential strategies like using opt-in pages and mastering SEO. Through engaging stories, we learn about seizing media moments and the critical importance of preparation to avoid missing golden opportunities.   Our conversation takes an inspiring turn as we explore the world of motivational speaking. From the humble beginnings of speaking to kids’ groups to enchanting corporate giants, we discuss the magic of crafting a marketable message. Discover the secrets to tapping into lucrative speaking markets by aligning with audience demands and delivering messages that resonate. We share insights on the strategic use of technology, like QR codes, to keep audiences engaged long after the applause. With personal anecdotes and industry tales, we underscore the evolution of marketing tools and the pivotal role of adaptability in staying ahead.   As we wrap up, we dive into the intricacies of speaker sales and the journey from failure to mastery. James and I share personal experiences and lessons learned, from studying infomercials to harnessing the power of AI in copywriting. We explore the art of choosing the right coach, emphasizing the unique resonance of personal frequency in the speaking industry. With a nod to intriguing stories like a career-defining photo with Donald Trump, we highlight the importance of maintaining neutrality in business relationships. Join us for a wealth of knowledge, practical advice, and a call to action for aspiring speakers to chase their dreams with confidence and purpose.   CHAPTERS    (00:00) - Escape the Drift With Gafford & Malinchak (07:57) - Crafting a Marketable Speaking Message (16:13) - Energetic Marketing Strategy Discussion (21:11) - Mastering the Art of Speaker Sales (29:03) - Studying Infomercials for Sales Success (34:01) - Choosing the Right Coach or Speaker (44:57) - Book Release and Speaker Planning (56:24) - Celebrity Associations and Political Neutrality (01:02:04) - Empowering Speakers to Succeed   💬 Did you enjoy this podcast episode? Tell us all about it in the comment section below!    ☑️  If you liked this video, consider subscribing to Escaping The Drift with John Gafford  ************* 💯 About John Gafford: After appearing on NBC's "The Apprentice", John relocated to the Las Vegas Valley and founded several successful companies in the real estate space.   ➡️ The Gafford Group at Simply Vegas, top 1% of all REALTORS nationwide in terms of production. Simply Vegas, a 500 agent brokerage with billions in annual sales Clear Title, a 7-figure full-service title and escrow company.   ➡️ Streamline Home Loans - An independent mortgage bank with more than 100 loan officers. The Simply Group, A national expansion vehicle partnering with large brokers across the country to vertically integrate their real estate brokerages.   *************   ✅ Follow John Gafford on social media:   Instagram ▶️ / thejohngafford   Facebook ▶️ / gafford2   🎧 Stream The Escaping The Drift Podcast with John Gafford Episode here: Listen On Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7cWN80gtZ4m4wl3DqQoJmK?si=2d60fd72329d44a9 Listen On Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/escaping-the-drift-with-john-gafford/id1582927283    *************   #escapingthedrift #jamesmalinchak #mediaexposure #businesssuccess #optinpages #seo #motivationalspeaking #corporategiants #technology #qrcodes #speakersales #infomercials #ai #copywriting #coach #speaker #bookrelease #politicalneutrality #empoweringspeakers #marketsaturation #personalexperience #publicspeaking #determination #skills

So I started getting a call from a couple of people to speak and I'm like, I don't, I don't speak. I'm a broker. Yeah. Well, just come in like motivate my sales people. Right. I don't speak, man. I'm watching the market and it said, we'll pay you 5,000 bucks for 40 minutes. I said, I speak and now escaping the drift, the show designed to get you from where you are to where you want to be. I'm John Gafford and I have a knack for getting extraordinary

achievers to drop their secrets to help you on a path to greatness so stop drifting along escape the drift and it's time to start right now welcome back to the program everybody and man like the opening says getting you from where you are to where you want to be and today in studio I got a dude that you know I know, I'd say he's a, he's a millionaire, but you know, he's an undercover millionaire, meaning he was actually on that television show, the secret millionaire. He's twice named the national college speaker of the year. This is a dude who was an expert at going on stages and selling from

stage, teaching other people how to get on stages and really just the guy's written more books than you could. I mean, it's like over 20 books. I think it is. I mean, this dude was like a walking library of success and he's here to share his secrets with you today. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to studio. This is James Malincak. James John, my brother. How are you, man? Thanks for coming in. Thanks for coming down the street from me. This was an easy drive.

It is. And you know, I was laughing with my assistant, we were talking about you coming on, about how you parlayed your experience on ABC's Secret Millionaire way better than I was able to parlay by experience getting fired by the 47th president of the United States. Most people don't think about it. They go on TV thinking they're going to be the next Denzel. Well, right. Fifteen minutes of fame. Well, here, but you know, when we were on, this is back in for you kids listening, this is believe it or not back before the back before the Facebook back before this. I mean, like my space was a thing. I remember we were, they wanted us to get on the Friendster, which is what they were trying to push for us and dude what a waste that's that you had And we were the number one show on television

I was on that and to have no outlet to capture that traffic like you can through social media today What a waste yeah, so most people go on TV trying to be famous I looked at his 15 minutes of opportunity yeah, there's two sides of it first We're gonna serve and help these amazing people on the show recognize unsung heroes. But 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. 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. I think, you know, it's funny because when the show was on, right,

we're talking about your show, like it's great. You got that into your show and they got past the edits was magnificent. Well, that's obviously when you're on like a, you live that reality show, it's a little different, right? You're just a pawn, they're telling a story. But at the end of it, like you do get to's a little different, right? You're just a pawn, they're telling a story. But at the end of it, you do get to do all that press, right, so I was on, you're on the Today Show,

you're on Fox and Friends, you're on all this stuff, dude, and I had all this stuff from my tech firm that we were gonna sell this great product we developed, and it was like, okay, what can we sell that people need that we can capture stuff? So we developed, and this is back in the day, this is 07, so we developed a product called Web Popper, which was really just, you could pop up a website, it was like an early version of Wix, So we developed, and this is back in the day, this is oh seven. So we developed a product called Web Popper,

which was really just, you could pop up a website. It was like an early version of Wix, but Wix would be now. Easy website builder, easy domain registrar, the whole thing. I'm like, I'm gonna push this thing. And my first interview that morning was, was it MSNBC maybe, Power Launch or something?

It was one of those, whatever. And I get on there, and you don't realize how fast those interviews are and it's like dude Before like all they want to talk about was how much I look like Vince Vaughn and literally that's all they talked about They put a picture of side by side with them and I was like making a joke about it And then it was funny and we're talking about a little about the apprentice and then it was over Right, it was like holy shit. I just wasted like this whole audience So yeah being able to capture attention and really understanding how to harness it 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 some 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, you just made 15 million bucks for going on a show. What if they spent a hundred dollars with you in a year? You made $30 million for going on a show. Cause 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. Well, I just sold coaching But I didn't sell coaching I just seeded it Yeah, you know when I'm speaking on a stage for a big corporate convention 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

So when you would you know, take a picture and try to like hey, what's your website or how do I find? I'll just hand you a card and it had all my website with all my pictures easy domain You can easily find me if you're in the meat. That's how I got so much press. Nobody misspelled my name. Some of them I made it easy. I printed up just a simple card I kept in my jacket pocket when I was doing the red carpets and things like that. I could hand it to all the media people. Let's go back man. So how did you get started? Like what's your backstory? I was born in a van down by the river. I grew up in a tiny steel mill town outside of Pittsburgh called Menessin. 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. 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.

Started with Merrill Lynch and got recruited, went over to Dean Witter, then ended at Payne Webber 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. Yeah.

So well, just come and like motivate my salespeople, right? I don't speak, man, I'm watching the market. And I said, we'll pay you 5,000 bucks for 40 minutes. I said,'t speak, man. I'm watching the market. And so we'll pay you 5000 bucks for 40 minutes. I said, I speak. Yeah, 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 Thiesman. He used to quarterback the Redskins. Tell his knee got broken in 50 pieces by Lawrence Taylor. Yeah,

yeah. Still one of my favorite stories. But you know the story of if he's one of your best friends, you know the story. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I always say, Joe Joe did it hurt when you broke your leg? He said I didn't break my leg Lawrence Taylor broke my leg. No, no, I had no intention on breaking my leg But what Lawrence Taylor said to him in the hospital? I said hey, man, I hope you get well, but if I get the chance, I'm gonna break that thing I never go half speed Joe. I never cast break that leg good, but no Joe, you know, he had to reinvent himself Yeah after that right 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 a national football million bucks a year million bucks a year Gets hurt takes a nine hundred sixty five thousand dollar pay cut get no longer play. What's he do? So he just remembered that hey, we had to make appearances when played football, right? And and I used to speak at all these dinner. Let me let me speak and start Charlie's So he just remembered that, hey, we had to make appearances when we played football, right? And I used to speak at all these dinners. Let me speak and start charging. He's charging like 500 bucks here, a couple hundred bucks there.

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? 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. I said, I'm gonna 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 do what their fees were, what topics they're looking for. And specifically I started in the college and university market. And then I branched off into the corporate market. I got started by accident, even though it existed. But it based off your skill set and success as a stockbroker.

No, it literally had nothing to do with that. Really? 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 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 and inspiration, motivation, that sort of thing. Cause that's what Joe does. So your skill actually was simply speaking. You just developed that skill. 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. That was my whole purpose. I can get people like excited about what they're doing to try to perform. then I got better and better and better right and then it was like oh my gosh I mean let me take people from 97 percenter 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? All right well somebody's listening to this right now and they're thinking

of themselves I could do that sure I could do that so so let's let's let's let's let's go start with me Let's say I can do that, right? So what are the keys number one? But way both so what are the steps this where do you start? Yeah, the first thing is you got to pick a mark. 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. Amen. So if you say, man, I wanna get paid for like all these corporate, actually that's the reason I moved to Vegas

20 some years ago, got tired of flying around. I said, I'm gonna target all these Vegas conventions so I don't have to fly around, right? Almost like my own residency. Yeah, no kidding. I saw Wayne Newton, right? He bedded down and it was at the Tropicana. He was like the first guy.

My wife's first job in high school was selling T-shirts for Wayne Newton at the Tropicana. That was her first job. I remember seeing him. What a Vegas thing to be able to say, right? That's my first job. Mine was not that cool. 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 of Vegas

I'm moving to Vegas and I'm gonna target all these and it becomes probably more appealing because you save them on the travel cost They're going 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 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. They don't start with a market. They don't find, 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. Yeah. All right. You got a 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 of the book. So sure. Yeah. So Jeff, Mark, Jeff Hansen, Mark, Victor Hansen, Jack Hanf. Yeah, Jack's been my client for years lending them So when that whole movie the secret in that law of attraction craze came out Jack wanted to speak for corporations He's like 40,000 bucks and I said Jack. No one's gonna book you you can't bring that esoteric type topic into corporate America Yeah, board of directors, shareholders, different ethnic backgrounds, religious beliefs. 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.

So there's a market for it. See, I knew that's why you people were listening. There's a market for this. 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. So how do you, how do you, I agree with you completely.

And I talked about this before on this show, but I love how people collect trophies in their office, like all their awards and stuff. I have like a wall of failure in my office. Like I have $100,000 bottle of vitamins in my office. Cause 25 years ago, me and my sister started a nutritional supplement company without asking if anybody wanted to buy them and we just filled up a warehouse

full of nutritional supplements. They ended up all pretty much going to the trash with the exception of the one bottle I have in my office to remind me to test the market before you invest in the product. So how do you test the market for what you want to talk about or what you think they want to talk about? How do you test the market? 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 And you 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

So I mean I could tell you right now, like in the 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. Yeah, he's been speaking for 30 years. Yeah. And what's he talking about? Inspiration, don't quit. Don't, you know, don't give up. Yep. You so, um, uh, peak performance is huge. Anything that like lights a fire under people. So it's not hard. I mean, I just get, you don't have to do any research. I just told you right then and there. Yeah. So you literally, well, you literally just go see what, what they,

what the big boys are doing or big girls, if you will, who are getting paid, who are getting paid. Yeah. Not free talks, paid talks. We're getting paid and then you see where you can plug into that that and you model. So, okay. So let's, okay, let's give me the framework of a good talk. Oh, it's very simple. I'll give you my outline. This is all I do for talks. Five parts introduction. Okay. Which I'll get to in a second. I'll give you the framework first introduction. Okay. Uh, 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. Right. Then you have three points to the talk. Share with you three things point 1.2.3 and then you go into them have some stories under each one. Then you have a little wrap up at the end. That's a 45 minute talk. It's literally the whole framework for it. And how much of that, because I think a big mistake a lot of people make from stage that I see is they sell too much. What's a good mix of helping and what's a good mix of selling percentage wise?

So there's two, you 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? right then there are other events like I speak a lot of real estate events yeah or they don't want me to they don't want to pay me a fee but you want me to offer something yeah so I have a whole course on that so I basically I teach for if 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. Yeah, so 80, 20 is about what you're doing.

Absolutely, yeah. You know, so when you walk out on stage, now, because I had, when I was doing a lot of speaking, I had a coach that helped me set up and craft those talks. And it was never walk out and say, you know, his thing was never walk out and say, hi, my name is John Gaffer.

1000% right. Just assume that you know, just, his thing was never walk out and say, hi, my name is John Gaffer. Just assume that, you know, just you need to grab their attention in 10 seconds and you walk out and you just start talking. You just hit the ground running. Yeah. Let's welcome James. Hey, right. Hey, let's get started with a couple of questions and I have, uh, uh, 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 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. That's it. That's it. Yeah. I have an intro video that kind of introduces me with all the fancy stuff, but I go right into it. Yeah. I think, by the way, I start from the back of the room. So I shock everybody. Oh, you come walking in. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I landed on starting mine normally, which is very effective. I walk out on stage and I just pick up the mic and I go, I'm standing outside of a double door. Perfect, love it.

At Embassy Suites in Santa Monica, California. Love it. And in 30 seconds, I'm gonna kick that door open and tell the most powerful man in television to go fuck himself. You say that to roomful people? Yeah. They all stop and go, well, who's this dude?

What are we talking about? I hate those folks that walk on stage and go, hey, tap, tap, tap, can you hear me? They're tapping the mic. I'm John, as you said in the opening, I'm from so-and-so, and this is how you should listen to me. I took a walk down the street today, saw the trees, like what?

Yeah, oh, it's beautiful here. I call it the Mike Tyson knockout punch. Come out and throw the knockout punch. Just hit the helmet like what? Yeah. Oh, it's beautiful. Here's Mike Tyson, knockout punch, come out and throw the, the knockout. Now grab their attention. Well, so here's a move that I got from my buddy Steve Sims that I really liked too. And I want you to think about this, right? So Steve, it, it did backfire on me once. It's really hard for this. So Steve puts the second slide, the second slide he always has a QR code to capture the room. And he says, look, do me a favor before I get started.

Just everybody, QR code right now, I'm gonna send you everything I talk about today so you don't have to take notes in your phone. You don't gotta take notes. I'd rather have your attention on me. So everybody just do this right now. And it captures the room right away at the beginning of the talk rather than the end.

And when I say that, when I say that blew up on me once in front of about 8,000 people, they pulled that slide out of my thing. And so I was like, oh shit. You didn't know until you were up there. July was lights, camera, action. And when I told Steve that, he goes, yeah, right before you go on stage, I didn't tell you that part and you need to you need to go to the AV guy and say hey

Let me just check double check my slides because I had two versions of this and just make sure what you're working with Yeah, no, that's smart. Does it pull them? Yeah. No, no, I love that. I love that technique because You know look they're gonna forget about you as soon as you finish in 45 minutes anyway Yeah, so but if you get them on a list and 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. Yeah, 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 you do it the right way, it's a way to acquire quality leads and the right leads. If you plant the right seeds. So tech, I mean, technology has advanced so much since 2011. When did you start doing this? Create, I mean, doing funnels and this stuff, because you were actually building HTML websites with landing pages at this point. You know, it's crazy is there was no click from back in Oh five. Okay. So as I used to have an internet company where I would build all this stuff for them, funnels back in oh five. Okay. So as D I used to have an internet company

where I would build all this stuff for them. Funnels, thank you page, upsell page, downsell page, sells pages. This is way before Russell's a long time friend. I knew Russell when he was broke. Yeah. Like when I did my secret millionaire party at Russell Brunson who did click funnels, created quick. I had my secret millionaire party. I had a whole event wrapped around it 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 Russell was so broke. He called me and said, hey man, can I stay in your spare bedroom?

Because I don't have a hundred bucks for the hotel down the street. So that's how far Russell and I go back. We go 20 years back. Russell doing pretty good now. Yeah, 265 million last year, 150,000 subscribers. I was just with him at his event. Yeah, ClickFunnels. Yeah.

It's so funny. I went to a couple of dinners and people are like, did you go to the event? I'm like, bro, when you live here, you can't go to the events, you just go to the dinners, like the dinners around the events. Always good. 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. Yeah, if you don't know if you listen you're trying to be in any type of marketing and advertising Dan Kennedy is a guy you need to know that guy ultimate sales letters that is book the first one of them yeah yeah Dan is one of the best copywriters ever time ever yeah I say Frank Curren's probably better no way Franklin oh yeah I no way. Frank, Dan. You don't think Frank? Oh yeah.

I still think Frank's just such a lunatic in the best possible. And I know Frank very well. Frank's a lunatic in the best possible way, which is why I think he's better. I helped teach Frank how to sell from the stage. Really? He could not sell a lick from the stage.

If you go on my website, bigmoneyspeaker.com, and look at the celebrity endorsements, watch the video from Frank. He even says it. Did you teach Russell how to sell from the stage? I helped Russell, there's a video from stage? Cause I know that- I love Russell, there's a video up there. Cause I know that Grant loves to play that video

where Russell sold a million dollars from stage at the first 10X- 3.2. Yeah, 3.2 million. And just blew him away. Yeah, Russell actually, I'm honored and you can watch it. I don't say this, it's on video. Yeah.

So James is one of the all time greatest salespeople from stage I've ever seen. What's the secret? So walk me through the secrets of selling from stage. Like what's the secret of being successful? Okay. Tell you in 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. And the minute you overwhelm people, our brains go work. They equate it to work. To be studying 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, everybody's slides, words, everything they say, everything has to convey three things everything what's that number one the audience and you can't tell the audience this the audience has to just get this from how you you communicate number one the audience has to say i can do this you know what 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 and number three i can do this. Number two, they have to say, I can do this right now. Oh, this ain't gonna take years. I can get this implemented right away. 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.

It's too hard, it's work, and they just don't, they can't see it. Yeah, I had a guy one time, and I'm not gonna say the name, but we were speaking at the Hotel Roosevelt. He's a legend in the speaking. I love him to death, so I'm not gonna say his name, but he's a legend.

We're both speaking there, and we're both gonna offer a program on speaking. Okay? 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 gonna offer something similar to me, I always go second.

Oh sure, cause you're the one they remember. Well no, I watch them. And then I know how to adjust my talk cause 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. Ah right I don't want to which one do I want oh I need both and that only happens if I'm able to adjust my talk based on what the person said who's on the on the program with the same topic. So here's what the

person said. See okay there's dude that's a lesson so rather to go in being the adversary you want to be the jelly to the peanut butter. There you go yeah 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 gonna talk about the business side of speaking. Yeah. 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, that's the same one. Which one should we take? 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. 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. 1,000 talks, if I do 100 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. It's work. I can't do this right here in my life. I got kids. I 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 gotta make big, I'm not buying that.

So I started switching everything around and showing speed. I would have videos play, people say, hey man, I'm here with James' 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 five thousand books. I just sold speed Eighty percent of the audience bought my stuff which ticked me off a hundred should have bought it And nobody bought his not cuz he's not great. It was work. It was work The audience didn't say I can do this. I can do this now. I could do this here So that's the underlying foundation throughout a whole talk. So when I'm doing a craft and a presentation, 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 got to adjust it to make sure it conveys it,

or I got to take it out. So you stop and say, does this look like work? Oh yeah, 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. If you do it the right way, you're gonna 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. 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-time national college speaker of the year. 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 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 you're gonna have? He said 500 and so in so in my mind, I was going, because 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. Right. 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. Yeah. Hey, if you want to learn how to do what I just did, give me $2,500 bucks and let's move forward. 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 cause I had a long line too, but they were hugging me. Yeah. No one bought.

No one's pulling a pen out. So I went and I invested in everybody's training. I said, there's something not right here. I don't get, I got a standing ovation, but I got nobody investing in my training. Yeah. 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. Nah, I'm going to go to Dan Kennedy. What? So I didn't understand what I was doing. 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, what you share, what you don't share. So I'll give you a little tip on. So you got obsessed with watching other people's stuff, which is the best way to learn. I love to this day, man, dude, one of my good friends, I watched several of your episodes of this podcast before I come on it. Okay. Well good. Yeah. Which one did you watch? Oh, I loved the one about the car, pick the guy lowest on the totem pole. Oh yeah.

Like how you go by a car. Yeah, I might say it's the same man. I just watched that literally. That is solid advice if you want to go by a car. I was like, I should have done that one about my car last year. Oh yeah, that's solid advice if you want to go by a car. You can see that.

All those tips in that one episode was amazing. Yeah, yeah, that was a good dude. But one of my buddies, Nick Daniel, they have a company called V shred. It's a giant online. Oh, yeah It's billion dollars. Yes. It's massive. Yeah, and you know, he couldn't they couldn't get off the ground He just became so obsessed with watching everybody else's webinar that he would just say I just watch Hours and hours and hours and hours of webinars and I would try to to, like, he said it was like a mad scientist. I had them all like written out on this giant whiteboard on the wall where I was like, okay, I think that's a hook.

And I think this is a this and this is that. And he goes, eventually- Because there was no teaching of that stuff. Yeah, he goes, eventually I kind of came up with a formula that was based on what was working. And that's what we made our final last ditch. We got like, you know, 50 bucks left. Let's make one more VSL and see what happens.

And it blew up. I did the same thing with infomercials. Yeah. Because I couldn't, nobody would enroll my stuff. So I was like, well, wait a minute. But these infomercials running on TV, people buy, they're not running unless they work. So I started recording.

Oh, keep going. Unless it was dropping a lot of, I remember like all the old people like a Wade cook and Dave Del Dotto even back in real estate and Charlton sheets. And I'll tell you something funny. You can look up and you look it up on the internet. It's funny. So some buddies of mine used to work with Kevin Harrington and they were his guys. And then they split off

and started their own infant. Cause Tampa is the center of infomercials, infomercial center of the universe. And they split off from him and started their own deal. And I mean, they had Tony Little, they had a bunch of the guys that you would know. I mean, a bunch of the infomercials that you know, were done by Blue Water Media.

And so my buddies, they come out here for convention and my buddies, man, we gotta use you for something. I wanna use you for something. I'm gonna find something, I'm gonna find something we use you for I'm like all right dude so they call me up they go we got it we got it you're gonna be the tax sale guy and I'm like huh I go I don't know shit about doing tax sales he goes I know but we got the guy who knows everything about doing tax sales and you're gonna be the guy you're gonna sell his thing it's gonna be you let's do it and I'm like all right dude I'll be the tax sale You're gonna sell his thing, it's gonna be you, let's do it.

And I'm like, all right, dude, I'll be the tax sale guy. I don't care, let's go. So they fly me down to Tampa and I get there. And in between the time that conversation happened and I got there, they were like, we got a problem. I'm like, what's the problem? They go, well, the actual tax sale guy wants to be the tax sale guy, but he is not that exciting.

So we still want you to be in the infomercial and try to extrapolate some of, you know, get anything out of him, but try to get some of you into him. Cause otherwise it won't work. So we shot this infomercial over two days, which if you go online and watch it, it's like the world's worst pool party in Tampa.

And yeah, and it did not do well. It just did not do well. So not all infomercials do well. We use their formula. They're still on the air. No, God, this air time. So no, this one. So I used to study all the ones I would record them that were like running for three, four, five, 10 years. Yeah. And I'd transcribe them and I'd go through with a red pen and a green pen. And I'd circle with a green pen all of the cells triggers and hooks and oh I see what they're saying here like you know all the all the seeding 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 do you like your V shred? Well, let me let me ask you this man because this is something that I would think and I don't know I don't know I'm guessing that if I had as many programs and courses and stuff as you do I would be kind of concerned about what AI can do. Because for example, when I need to copyright something now, like I straight, sorry Frank, you're gonna break your heart.

I straight tell AI, you're a copywriter, in the voice of Frank Kern, in the style of Frank Kern, write me this hook, write me something for this. And I get pretty close, because it'll go out, read all Dan Kennedy's books, it'll read, Frank, it'll read all that, it'll read all stuff and then generate in that voice. So as somebody that does what you do in coaching, and this can be any coaching deal, right?

Does that worry you a little bit that kind of this computer can get out there and find any PDF that you've ever put out or any book that you've ever published, read them all and then manufacture something in your voice? Does that scary? I can't worry about what I can't control. Right? Good answer. That's a great, that's a great answer. That's a great answer. And I could, you know, 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 kind of, 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 gonna rip it off. Like everybody gets ripped off. Like, what am I gonna like scrutinize and sit there and go after every person that did something like that? I mean, I'd rather just work on bigger and better things. I think that brings up a real interesting point. Abundance.

Well, that brings up an interesting point too, what you just said, which is, there's somebody that's listening to this right now I'm thinking man I like to be a speaker but there's just so many people already doing this there's so many people in coaching there's so many people that's I don't know if it's just because it's kind of what I do and how we do my algorithm on Instagram is just full of nothing but essentially me that's all I see all day right that people that do this and if you are thinking that it's saturated to me I

would say man messages about frequency right even if you are thinking that it's saturated, to me, I would say, man, messages about frequency, right? Even if you have six people with the exact same message, the frequency in which they deliver is going to be different. And your personality. Yeah, your personality. So you may resonate with somebody in a way that other people cannot. So just understand that even if the information is the same, right? Like you just said, people that rep my program off all day. They can't rip me off. Right. 1000%. Well, now they kind of can.

They kind of can with AI, right? They kind of can now. But in general, your frequency and how you connect with people, you can't duplicate that. 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 a hundred 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. 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. So I could go there and get six checks, one location, six checks,

six payments for six talks. Right. I was cranking 150 locations paid. Yeah. A lot of people talk about, Oh, I did a hundred talks. I'm like, how many did you get paid for? Well, no, I did all these Ted X 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 speak. Make their life easier. Make their life easier and what they're used to cutting checks for and what they want the outcome to be for their audience you

don't need a lot of them. What if you're 25 grand? Yeah. And 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. Right, so I don't worry about saturation and, and I always look at it this way too. I'm going to be, I always said this in every business I had, I'm going to be here for the long term. So I'm going to win just by everybody else dropping off. Yeah. Like I'm in this for the long term. I've been doing this for 25 years, which is kind of crazy. Yeah. I've had coaching clients for my, for

18 years is my longest 17, 10, 12. If I'm pretty, here's, 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? Cause 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, a hundred exit, why would you ever go anywhere else? Yeah. Hey, I can't do that for you. I got to ask this cause you've been doing this so long.

I started when I was five, by the way, certified, right? The, um, with Instagram and all of that stuff, dude, there are so many just fake, fake gurus out there, which, I mean, one of my favorite accounts is- You mean those Lamborghinis aren't really there? Bro, one of my favorite accounts is Bollard Busters. If you don't follow that, I don't know who that is.

Dude, I love Bollard Busters. So Bollard Busters is essentially just these people that are just kind of frauds, just pokes them out and it's so funny man because I went to um I went to dinner with somebody let's just call them a large large fix and flip Linda nationwide right and it's a guy that I know and we were just chatting over a couple drinks and and he made the comment to me he goes yeah dude because we're so much this influencer that influencer this and that he goes buddy he goes I see their I'm their bank I see I see what these people do he goes

most of these dudes are selling real estate courses out there can't can't show me a bank account with 10 grand in it yeah oh yeah they yeah. They're unbankable. And I'm like, how is that possible? And he's like, dude, I see it every day. People names that you would know, you know, obviously, he's not going to go so far as to tell me who they were. But he's like names that you would know, these dudes can't put 10 grand together. So what I mean, give me some advice So what I mean, give me some advice for if I'm somebody looking for a coach, how do you effectively in this day and age of all show and no go, how do you effectively vet that person to be real? Yeah.

So here's all I could share is what I do for myself because I'm a big believer in investing in coaching. I still do it. I never would stop. But I had 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. Yeah. First two, you know, lips are quivering, right? Didn't want to do it.

The third one was the only one that did it. Show me his policies, why they're set up, right? Here's for our kids. Here's our keyed 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. Did seven figures with the guy. All because he showed me. So I want people to, you know that line,

been there, done that? Total nonsense, been there, done that, still doing it. So I retired like in 2017 from doing my speaker events and trainings, I had 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 started seeing all this stuff popping up

over the years. And I was like, this is just nuts. I don't, these people who are teaching speaker stuff, such misinformation. 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 Right 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 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 gonna take relationship and marriage advice. I want them to be 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. Well, not divorce five times. It's, it's, it's, it's the same way in real estate, right? It's the same way we do. It's, it's like, I know, it just, just,

I know a call is going to go miserably when it starts out, when somebody tells me how long they've been selling real estate. It's like, bro, if you're that's your claim to fame as you've been doing this for 20 years and you sell one deal a year for 20 years, that means you've done this 20 times. It doesn't matter. Like most, most people to build expertise. It doesn't matter how long you've been doing it. It's how much of it you've done. I care about results. Yeah. I, uh, I, uh, 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 was, 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 at two agents come by and see me. 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.

Took like 30 seconds. Third agent walks in and I said, I mean, you got a packet or something you wanna 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? Yeah. See if we can even help you.

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. Like, I care that you care about what I know and 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.

You know, it does matter, especially in real estate. If you're looking for real estate news, simply Vegas real estate for all yours. That's my shameless plug for the company. You're a financial consultant and you're in debt. Yeah. That's called a clue. I don't want to work with you. I love it. So it's so funny when we agents want to want to join the company here, right? They come over. I know that they've gotten these dog and pony shows from these other companies with like, you know, let me show you how

our pyramid works and let me show you why you're gonna be a gazillion. All this random stuff they're showing them, right? I just go, I start the presentation with new agent every single time. Not new agents, but new agents, but an agent new to me is this, is I just fire up the MLS and I go, okay, this is something I can see that you can't cuz I'm a broker Right. This is the ranking report. This is every company. This is every company in Vegas This is where they currently rank see that one right there. Yeah, that's me. That's number one right see this office Yeah, that's me. That's number one right there. So

pretty much that's My pitch and that's so what can we do, you know? That's my pitch. And that's so what can we do? You know, that's that's it. Because I can't I can't cheat that it's real time data of here's the MLS man. It's I can't make this fake. It's not I see like, like certain sales trainers on Instagram and all that. And I'm like, I know them, they can't even sell their own sales training row.

And they're out there telling you your their gurus. Right. Or, oh, here's the worst. John, this is one that drives me nuts. 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 that. That's the dude that can't put 10 grand in it. It's in that, in that guy is everywhere. Yeah. Yeah. But look, but I rented this really nice car and I can rent this house. Maybe sort of, I don't know, dude, it's just,

so like the speaker trainer stuff, 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, you know, we'll go to dinner or lunch depending on when I stay and I'll break down the presentation. Matter of fact, I want you to keep a notebook and write down the stuff behind the stuff you think you saw, cause then I'm going to quiz you on it, right?

Or if I'm doing a fee paid talk, come with me, watch how I rebook that talk on the spot after, right? Come with me and watch me talk. Ask those other speaker trainers, if they can, uh, if you could go watch them, they won't let you cause they don't book any talks or sound courses. Yeah. Those who can, can those who can't teach. I'm a big believer. Been there, done that and still doing it.

I love it. Well, let's talk about these books, man. Cause cause you've written a bunch of them. I got your, your, this is the newest one. I'm assuming millionaire success. Oh, that was a few years ago. I did that when I came off the TV show to play the kind of piggyback and attached to the secret millionaire TV show Yeah, yeah, there you go. So my contract with ABC where they own secret millionaire

I was gonna call the book secret millionaire secrets and they own the name So I said well, hey, could I use millionaire success secrets script? Is this to the kid? That's true. Yeah, cause Hayden was cool. I got yours over there. You realize that Hayden is my 16 year old son. He was texting me, he's the one set this all up. Dude, I'm telling you, dude, I love that. I love that.

He is, my son is, we just did the West Coast tour of schools. Oh, nice. Shortly we're gonna go do a Vandy and Notre Dame and then some of the Boston schools We're gonna go see nice. He's takes after his mother in that diligence with the grades to get that for me Yeah, that for me at all Didn't have it. Yeah, I almost got it

Let's go in the back of the new roles see student or if I could or C plus that see 2.3 AVG is what I was gonna get yeah I was a C student in high school and that was see your way through school see was a C student in high school and that was see your way through school. See your way through school. I love it. 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. My child, I beat up your honor student.

My child helped your child become honor student. My child gave your child something to cheer for during sporting events. We'll just say that. Well, you know what? I got gotta 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. Yeah. And it was something about, um, 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. Certain things that were beneficial. Yeah. Right? And then 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. Well, I like that. And then that's when you reached out out of the blue like two months later or something. Yeah. I think because I maybe because I started liking your stuff because I was watching it.

Yeah I do. I, you know, social media is such a funny thing man. And that's, you know, honestly people ask why I, why I do the podcast, why we do this. And it's to grow the network man. I mean you live here, I live here. Like we should know each other. Literally five minutes from here. Yeah.

I live 90 seconds across the street. I live 90 seconds across the street, which makes it lovely. But yeah, that's why I do this. And again, that's why I push people all the time. You should be doing a podcast because it's a great way to grow your network to get to know somebody and really talk about them. 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. And I would not have called you because I didn't see. Yeah, I didn't know you're online. 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, Oh, 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 whiteboard sessions. Yeah, I already see that coming down the pipe. My man, if it's helpful, I'll give you a testimonial for it unless it's already. I know where we can use my secret millionaire.

We literally just signed the deal with diversion. I just signed it. Um, I went with them over Ben Bella, great guys at both places. God bless. Everybody went with the guys at a diversion. Uh, they're an imprint of, like I said, Smith Schuster, just because they could get me out in the fall. Like I've been working on this book for like two years. I mean, it's, you know, it's evergreen, but there's stuff in there where I'm like, ah, I'm gonna probably do something different in that situation. Now. So there's gonna be some tweaking.

I'll give you one tip right now. So the majority of the companies in corporate, I don't know if you're going to plan on maybe trying to speak. Yeah. Oh, yeah. That's what I've done before. That's what done before. 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, etc. 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. Sure, the levers are there. 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 grand 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. I love it. Well, let's talk. You've done so many of these books,

so many, and now it's, it really is easier than ever to put, to put a book together. It really is easier. There's tons of self publishers out there. You don't have to do it to go my route and get a big publisher. I really just want, I'd really just wanted to do the one book with them or the first book and we'll see how it goes. Smart. Cause I'll put you in stores. It might be an airport stores, etc. That was my deal. Yeah. Because I'm a big law of attraction guy, right? We talked about law of attraction. Not so much, but I'm a vision board guy, right?

No, I love law of attraction. It's the secret that was a little... Yeah, it's a little goofy. But so that's one of the things I use chat CPT for like effectively. And people don't like people I love when they're like, I gonna we're gonna do a vision board party and let's bring all these magazines it's like why are you bringing magazines to try to hunt out something you may you may want right all you got to do is go to chat GBT and describe exactly what you want in incredible detail and it will generate an image yeah so I have a picture in my gym of my book in Hudson News oh this says bestseller love it sitting in Hudson News and I look at it every day.

And every day I look at that. So part of my deal was, it'll be in Hudson News. 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.

Smartly did that. Yeah, I want to be in the airport and hold my book. And hopefully you negotiated a good buyback where you get a low fee for buying them back. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I do I do I got a Um, I want to say top of my head. It was 40% is what I pay for it. So it's not you know, it's okay Yeah, um 40% they think it's a 29.95 bucks. So Half right. So I'm hardcover. They're coming. Yeah, of course But and they also and they also they want to do all of it at once with the audio and everything. So good.

A lot of work to do. Yeah. When's it come out? They say fall 25, which is why I did that. So fourth quarter this year. Did you write it yet? No, it's been done. Oh, God.

Are you kidding me? Oh my God. No, zero chance it would come out. No, people think it's like, it's kinda like many, many, you know, a couple of years ago, I was involved in a deal and we bought a jet, right? Cause we were gonna do this jet charter business. We bought a Desalt Falcon 50 and people are like,

man, that must be cool to own a jet. It's like, you don't go buy it and then you get to take it up. Like there's a lot that has to happen before it goes. And when I got in the book thing, I started working with some editors that were helping me in New York, Kevin Anderson Associates that have been great.

And they're like, okay, here's the process. This is gonna take a while. You're gonna write, we're gonna edit, you're gonna write, we're gonna edit. It could take a minute. It took almost two years to get it done. And part of that's on me, but to get it done. But they're like, yeah, but then a publisher,

once you get a deal It's gonna take like ten months to a year and a half. Oh, yeah, and I'm like what buying seasons for bookstores? Yeah, I'm like, well, why does it just why can't they just like print and like put a picture on the front? And like put it on some news. I get it. I'll drop it off. I don't care. No, it takes a long time to get it done Yeah, I was shocked at how long that process is. I don't care. No, it takes a long time to get it done. I was shocked at how long that process is. 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 gonna take because I wanted it to come out coincide with the show. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't need it to come out a year later. Yeah, it doesn't help. They didn't understand marketing, right? Yeah. No, it needs to attach to the show, right? Not a year later. Yeah, it doesn't help. They don't, you know, they didn't understand marketing, right? Yeah. Like it, no, it needs to attach to the show. Yeah. Right. Not a

year later. And so I just, I say, I don't, I don't want to do this deal. Well, that's, you know, you talked about Trump. That's why I speed speed to lead here. Right? Like, yes, the apprentice was a million years ago and I don't talk, I don't talk a lot about the apprentice in the book, but I do talk about it because with him continuing to collect it, it's a gift that keeps on giving yeah he keeps showing up and getting elected I have something to talk about which is good it's a little bit like Al Bundy talking about how many touchdowns he scored a polka a little bit like that but but yeah I've done a lot of good stuff somehow you could pull

testimonial from him possible possible I saw people people very close to him, which is good. So that's a possibility. 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, etc. And I kid you not, this was, 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 I got a idea for you 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 I have president United States. No, I have that so you might have the same thing I have that if he said some great things about you on he's he's no no no, I have it printed He said cuz when TV guide all right it printed he said because when TV Guide all right see kids back in the day there used to be this thing called TV Guide it would tell you what was on television yeah and if you didn't have it you

just had to kind of guess when stuff was coming on okay back to our regular back back back to the modern ages as we like to call it but in TV Guide when the apprentice was coming out they had like a big article on it a big spread about the apprentice and that it had quotes from Donald Trump about each of us. No kidding. And he just said about me really really smart. Donald Trump. I would run it through your lawyer but I believe you could actually use that because that's public domain that's public knowledge. Yeah it is. There you go buddy. Look at that dude. Man and I gotta tell you. Think about any other shows you've been on. You were on the Today Show or like you were on Oprah

and they said something. No, no, no, no. Man that is uh that's wild. That is wild stuff. I'll tell you a little. I have that imprint quote about me from him. 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. Cause you know, they're super busy. They're running the whole thing. I'd say, Hey John, here, here's, it was a change. The smartest human I know.

I didn't say that one, but now they said it from the stage and read it. So boom, testimonial. Here's it was a change the smartest human I know But now they said it from the stage and read it so boom testimonial oh my gosh that is magic Unfortunately most of the stuff that people say about me. That's a good You know what I think about this though, and I tell people this all the time look forget, 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. That's a good point. And yeah, that is going to be a call right away to make sure we can do that. Yeah. If I can't get a

new one, which I honestly I think I might could. I still have some, I got some relationships still pretty close to that We helped the campaign a little bit back in 2016 here in Nevada. So Yeah, man, that's a maybe Well, hey look SWSWSWSW some will some won't so what someone's waiting So if you ask him and 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. Very, very smart. In print right there.

I got it. Yeah. 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. Okay. So there's one there. There is a photo of my office. I'll show it to you. And it's actually the photo that got me fired So I'll tell you the story because I've never told this on the air I don't think so people ask me like why'd you why'd you get fired? And I'm always like cuz I'm too tall they're like, what are you talking about? Okay. So here's the story. So The first couple of days that we were there in New York

We're shooting press you shoot all of the marketing for the show It was a really weird couple of days because you're not allowed to speak that we were there in New York, we're shooting press. You shoot all of the marketing for the show. It was a really weird couple of days because you're not allowed to speak because they want the first time you to meet each other to be on camera. So really the first time that I'd met these people on camera, I'd spent three full days shooting

all of this press where you're like posing like your best friends and you have no idea who they are. Everybody's just dead silent on you, right? So they're shooting the pictures for the marketing pictures in the suite. And the first time we ever saw Donald Trump, for some of you ever saw him, and line us all up for the photo,

and there's a big X on the floor in the back. And obviously I know who that's for. At the time, I'm shrinking now. I'm probably six, three now. See kids, when you get old, your discs start to squeeze in together and then you get shorter. That really happens.

So it was probably six four at the time. Now I'm six threes. They put me in the back. And in walks Trump. How you doing everybody? How you doing everybody? How you doing everybody? Good to see you.

Mr. Trump, your spot. Then he's right next to me. Photographer Kevin goes up the ladder, takes two photographs. Click, click. Trump walks out of the photograph. And then literally like we're not there or we're mannequins. He goes, Kevin, Kevin, Kevin, Kevin, you got to move this guy next to me. He's taller than me. And I'm like,

the guy comes down the letter and he goes, let's try something different. I don't know why I'm a you. And I'm like, really me. He's like, yeah, let's move you around front Let's move this move move move move move move move We go back into the photograph and then he goes back up and he proceeds to take a thousand photographs And what do they use for everything one of the first two so if you look at that picture And I'm thinking to myself I knew I was screwed from day one I was like man because they just hired two white dudes in their 30s in the row because we watched watching the Finale for season two the night before we started

Watching your little thing and I'm like up here at another white guy in his 30s No chance that's happening to not to take anything away from my dear friend Kendra Todd who in my season that I was texting with This morning not to take anything away from her, friend, Kendra Todd, who in my season that I was texting with this morning, not to take anything away from her, but I just knew it wasn't gonna happen. And yeah, after that, I was like, dude, he's gonna get rid of me as quick as he can. And I didn't get my reason until about halfway through the season,

but that's it, so there you go. But I love that photograph. That one is framed in my office for that reason, because I just think it's a fun story. I mean, I just think that's celebrity association. Like, somebody walks in here who's thinking of another real estate group, I just think that celebrity association, like somebody walks in here is thinking of another real, real estate group and it's like, oh well.

Well, you know, dude, it's, it's funny. You know, the people that walk in here, we do a lot of very high end homes. We sell, we sell probably like we have the highest average sales price of any big company right now, because we sell a lot of homes over 2 million bucks. So it's not uncommon to walk through that lobby and see somebody that you would definitely recognize

sitting in one of those conference rooms. Just be like, that's this person who's very famous because they're buying a house. It's not out of the ordinary here. So I don't know some of those people, because a lot of them are in the entertainment business being where we are. I don't know how that would fly.

I tend to try to keep my politics as neutral as I can because I don't know how that would fly. You know, I tend to try to keep my politics as neutral as I can because, you know, I don't understand, you know, what's your philosophy on that? And so let's talk about that. We're gonna finish with this little topic because I think it's a good place to stop. But let's, what is your, I always think, man, if you go heavy into your politics,

you are eliminating 50% of the people that are deaf and blind. And then some people are like, but some people conversely say, well, if you go all in on something, politics, then half the people are going to love you and definitely want to work with you. So mine is, uh, and it's always been this way. I don't talk about politics, religion or relationships.

Like, yeah, it's, it's Thanksgiving dinner table. You keep it there. Yeah. And nor do I want to know anyone else's. No, no, no, no, I'm good. That's do I want to know anyone else's. No, no, no, I'm good. That's all I need to know. I mean, I have 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. You know, now it 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, you know, colleagues all these years. Yeah. I got to tell you, I tend to, uh, I tend to, to mute people on social media

that are allowed on both ends of the spectrum. Yeah, I don't care. I don't care which side you're on. If you're loud about it, I'm going to mute you because I'm just not interested. And if you're rude and inconsiderate, just not really know the whole story of stuff. Just going to be, well, everybody's an expert on social media. You know that. It's just, no, of course. And everything's true.

Everything's true on the internet. Well, James, if they want to find you, how do they find you? If they want to learn how to speak, if they don't learn any of this stuff, how do they find you? That's very simple www.bigmoneyspeaker.com, not little money speaker, bigmoneyspeaker.com or like we connected DMing through Instagram. What's your Instagram? What is your handle? Just James Malin. Jack James Malin. Jack. 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. So guys, thanks for having me. This has been great. It's a hundred percent. Do listen up. You have a new fan. I'm a fan of yours. Thank you. I appreciate that guys. Listen up. It doesn't matter if you think the market is saturated. It doesn't matter if you don't think your experience enough. If this is something that you want to do and you want to pursue helping others

by being on stage, you can do it. You just got to learn how to do it. See you next week. What's up everybody. Thanks for joining us for another episode of Escaping the Drift. Hope you got a bunch out of it, or at least as much as I did out of it. Anyway, if you want to learn more about the show, you can always go over to escapingthedrift.com. You can join our mailing list. But do me a favor, if you wouldn't mind, throw up that five star review, give us a share, do something, man.

We're here for you. Hopefully you'll be here for us. But anyway, in the meantime, we will see you at the next episode.