The 7th Principle of RELENTLESS: Relentless AGGRESSIVE ACTION—Hunting, Hammering, Hounding, Pitching, Promoting, Marketing, Selling, and Follow-up
“Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”
—Thomas Edison
You’ve got enough HEART and CHUTZPAH to take on the world. You’ve identified your Relentless AMBITION and set Relentless GOALS. You’re using The TRIAD to start every day with Relentless PREPARATION and an enthusiasm unknown to mankind. You’ve got your BRAND and you’re ready to sell it with the Relentless Power of Storytelling of Video. Now it’s time to take AGGRESSIVE ACTION.
The greatest lie ever told is “Opportunity only knocks once.” The truth is, opportunity doesn’t knock at all. You have to search for it like a heat-seeking missile, attack it, knock it over the head with a club, seize it, and drag it home like a caveman!
The real world is brutal. Opportunity is not sitting around waiting for you. It’s not knocking. You have to create and seize opportunity by taking aggressive action. Nothing good comes from sitting still, waiting, or procrastinating. Good things only come from action and motion.
GOD HELPS THOSE WHO HELP THEMSELVES
Let me tell you a great story about seizing opportunity. Back in the mid-1990s my wife’s best friend’s mother came to me with a request, just like Grandpa Norm did. To protect her privacy, I’ll call her Harriet. This is the classic story that proves “God helps those who help themselves.” Harriett was divorced and living alone for many years. What little money she had, she used to play golf on public courses in the Los Angeles area. Golf was the love of her life. But she desperately wanted a man to share it with.
She often said to me, and it is undoubtedly true, “The odds of getting struck by lightning are better than the odds of a single woman over the age of fifty-five finding a husband in Los Angeles.”
What she asked me to do was “find her a husband.” My advice was: “Take action. Don’t sit around waiting for the man of your dreams to find you . . . take the bull by the horns . . . take aggressive action . . . and go find him!”
I recommended Harriet take a personal ad in the newspaper. Harriet said, “Are you crazy? You’ll get me killed by an axe murderer!” I said, “No, I won’t, because we’re going to take the advertisement in the Beverly Hills newspaper.” But I went a step further. “Let’s promote your two best attributes: You’re a beautiful woman who plays golf. Every guy wants a beautiful wife to be his companion on the golf course.”
So Harriet’s journey began. Instead of sitting home complaining about the impossible odds of finding a good man, she took action. Action always attracts good things. Her advertisement was a hit! Several hundred men responded. Because it was in the Beverly Hills newspaper, they were doctors, dentists, lawyers, and millionaire businessmen. Harriet struck gold. She found one she liked and married him. He was a doctor AND a lawyer. That’s called a jackpot! Taking action changed Harriet’s life. It will change yours too.
Today, of course, no one needs a newspaper ad to find a relationship. Anyone can join Match.com, or any of the hundreds of online dating sites. That makes it easy to take aggressive action. Now you can go shopping for a date every night on the privacy of your computer! You can go hunting for opportunity with the click of a mouse. No one ever has to be lonely again. Anyone can find a relationship. Just don’t sit around on the couch complaining.
Action works just as effectively for whatever your goal might be. It’s a numbers game. Action doesn’t guarantee success, but it guarantees a fighting chance. It gets you “in the game”! You attract good things to your life with motion. Motion is energy. Take action, and good things are attracted to you like a magnet.
“God helps those who help themselves.” Get off the couch, stop complaining, and take Relentless Aggressive Action.
RELENTLESS SALES AND PROMOTION
Life revolves around sales and promotion. That’s why we all need to ABS, and ABP—“Always Be Selling” and “Always Be Promoting.”
The problem is that most people were never taught this law of success. Or worse, they know it, but they refuse to do it. They won’t “lower themselves.” They think selling or promoting is beneath them. They are wrong. If you want to succeed, if you want to do good things for others as well as yourself, if you want to provide quality products to others, if you want to educate and empower others, then sales and promotion are positive principles that allow you to spread your quality service or products to more people.
We are all in sales, whether we know it or not. Teachers often think they aren’t in sales. Really? The best teachers are constantly selling, marketing, and promoting education to their students. Your level of enthusiasm and salesmanship is what will motivate your students to crave learning, to look forward to coming to class.
Plumbers may think they aren’t in sales. Really? If you are the best plumber in the world, but no one ever calls because no one knows about your talents, is that a good thing? How can you help people in need if no one has ever heard of you?
DAVION NAVAR HENRY ONLY
Aggressive action isn’t always about money. Fifteen-year-old Davion Navar Henry Only stood in front of a church in St. Petersburg, Florida, in 2013 to sell himself and promote his cause. Davion was an orphan, born in prison. His cause was to plead for a parent to love him. He said, “I know God hasn’t given up on me, so I’m not giving up either . . . I’ll take anyone to love me. Old or young, white or black, dad or mom, I don’t care. And I’ll be really appreciative. The best I could be.” Cameras were rolling (remember, a video always helps tell your story). The church also understood the value of aggressive promotion. They sent the video and publicity about the story to the media. The media certainly understood what a great story they had on their hands. The story made headlines across the globe.1
How powerful is aggressive action to promote yourself? For fifteen long years before Davion made that sales pitch, he was alone in the world. But with a little sales and promotion everything changed in an instant. Within hours the church had received ten thousand requests to adopt him (five thousand by e-mail, five thousand by phone). Parents offered to adopt Davion from America, Canada, Mexico, Australia, the UK, India, and even Iran! With the right story and relentless promotion, word really gets around!
Realize that without sales and promotion that little boy would almost certainly have stayed an orphan for the rest of his life. Sales and promotion create miracles for any business or personal goal. That’s the power of AGGRESSIVE ACTION. If you don’t toot your own horn, why should anyone else? Sales and promotion aren’t “low class” or “beneath you.” They are the keys to living the life of your dreams. Relentless Sales and Promotion are as essential to success as breathing is to living.
HITTING AND PITCHING VS. BITCHING
Now the question becomes “What kind of action do I take?” The answer is simple: pitch, pitch, and pitch some more. In other words, take action to aggressively search for clients, customers, investors, deals, jobs, and opportunities like a heat-seeking missile.
I start the process with a “Hit List.” I make a list of my targets of opportunity. Then I go after them like a Canadian Mountie—I always get my man! I go down the list each day and start attacking. I e-mail them . . . I call them . . . I text them. If I don’t reach them, I move them to tomorrow’s list. I only cross them off the list once I get a resolution. Once I cross them off the list, it’s time to find new targets of opportunity, or, as I call it, “refill the pipeline.”
What do I do to people on my infamous “Hit List”? I hunt them, hound them, hammer them, and pitch them on either doing a deal, or hiring me as spokesman, or investing in my latest project, or buying my latest book idea, or hiring me to give the keynote address at their business conference. I do so much pitching, I should win the Cy Young award!
I send hundreds of e-mails per day. I make at least a hundred calls per day. I attack business opportunity the same way Harriet attacked searching for a husband. The difference is, she only had to do it once. I take the same kind of whirlwind action every day, six to seven days per week. In business the action never stops . . . as long as you never stop!
How do I know my relentless hunting, hounding, and hammering really work? Because I receive about 200 e-mails per day, every day. Do you have an iPhone? Look down at the e-mail icon at the bottom of your screen. It gives a number for how many e-mails are in your account. As I write this chapter of my book, I have 63,199 e-mails in my account! I’m a busy boy. I also get 100 phone calls per day. That’s 3,000 calls per month.
But it doesn’t happen by accident. If I wasn’t aggressively hunting, hounding, and hammering, it would all stop. I’m the straw that stirs the drink. All those people are contacting me because I’m contacting them! I create the energy and it boomerangs back to me.
How do I know this to be true? When I’m stuck in a TV studio all day shooting a spokesman video, or hosting a TV infomercial or webinar . . . when I’m out of contact all day giving a speech or seminar at a business conference . . . if I’m flying all day on a business trip . . . my e-mail volume and phone call volume drops off by 50 to 70 percent (or more).
Or take the three months it takes to write a book like this. Because I’m writing five hours a day, my time to “go hunting” is limited. And because I’m not initiating contact and making things happen, it gets quiet. If I’m not relentlessly stirring the pot, nothing happens (and that’s not good). That’s what most people’s life is like . . . all the time. They spend their lives waiting for the phone to ring . . . and it never does.
For me, silence is the worst sound in the world. It means no one wants to do business with me. It means I’m not wanted. It means my income and opportunities are drying up. It means my pipeline is empty. It means I’m skating on thin ice. I get petrified. My definition of “heaven” is when I have deals, investors, and opportunities lined up “ten-deep” like jets on an airport runway. Silence isn’t golden, it’s depressing.
That’s why I’m always in motion. Most people spend their lives bitching. I spend my life pitching! From the moment I wake up until the moment my head hits the pillow at night, I’m pitching “me, myself and I,” my brand, my companies, my products, my talents. If people spent less time bitching and more time pitching, they’d have nothing to bitch about!
Bitching vs. pitching: the difference in outcomes is startling. It’s a crime that no one teaches you this stuff in school. There should be mandatory courses in relentless hunting, hounding, hammering, hitting, and pitching.
Rachel Martin is a Manhattan real estate broker, as well as an officer in the U.S. Naval Reserve. If there’s one thing you learn in the jungle of Manhattan real estate it’s to be relentless.
In 2012 this thirty-three-year-old realtor was called up by the U.S. Navy for a 330-day tour of duty in Kandahar, Afghanistan. She was now 6,800 miles from home in a dusty, barren, unforgiving country, at war with the Taliban. End of her real estate career, right? Wrong. Relentless Rachel took AGGRESSIVE ACTION.
Rachel found herself in a war zone living in a converted container storage unit covered by barbed wire. When you’re at war, you grab any shelter you can find. Yet this relentless warrior decided to continue her Manhattan real estate career . . . from the war zone. I guarantee you Rachel Martin was the only soldier in Afghanistan or Iraq (on either side) selling real estate.
Keep in mind she was dealing with even bigger impediments than being in a container storage crate in the middle of a war zone. Her only phone was a bulky, heavy-as-a-brick satellite phone. But when you are committed to taking AGGRESSIVE ACTION, nothing else matters. No obstacle (or phone) is too big.
Using that awkward old-fashioned satellite phone . . . with poor reception . . . from her barbed-wire-encased storage container . . . in a war zone . . . Rachel stayed in contact with her real estate clients and fellow real estate brokers assisting in her quest to sell upscale condos.
Rachel hit pay dirt. She sold a $1.9 million luxury condo at Trump Place. Yes, “The Donald’s” building. Her commission was $114,000, almost double her $65,000 annual Navy salary. Her amazing feat earned her a full page story in the New York Post with the headline “Condo Warrior.” Overnight, U.S. Navy Lieutenant Commander Rachel Martin became the most famous realtor in Manhattan.2
Rachel proves you can sell anything . . . even from the middle of a war zone 6,800 miles away . . . even in the middle of a devastating recession. Rachel proves you can sell part-time while you have another full-time career. Rachel proves it’s possible to stay in contact with your clients, no matter how busy you are . . . even with the Taliban shooting at you. Rachel proves you can succeed while under intense stress—even while living in a converted container crate. Rachel proves you can call people, even while bombs are bursting in the background.
Now tell me again . . . what’s your excuse? Why can’t you set sales records? Why can’t you build relationships? Why can’t you stay in contact with your clients? Why can’t you start your sales career part-time, while keeping your full-time “day job”? After hearing Rachel Martin’s story, no entrepreneur or salesperson has a valid excuse. There is no reason not to start taking AGGRESSIVE ACTION TODAY.
By the way . . . Rachel is a relentless marketer and brander as well. She uses her military background and famous NY Post headline as her “brand” to separate her from thousands of other realtors in a crowded, competitive Manhattan real estate market. If I was buying a condo in Manhattan, I know I’d hire Rachel as my broker.3
MEZA HARRIS
Meza Harris is a Southern woman with another amazing relentless real estate story. Known as a “party girl” who spent her free time playing tennis and bridge, she was divorced in the early 1990s. With her back against the wall, Meza had to find a way to earn a living, pay the bills, and support her children.
She decided to get a real estate license in her hometown, Bentonville, Arkansas, also the home of Walmart. She was fifty years old, had never sold anything, and was starting from ground zero without a single listing or client.
The odds of Meza succeeding were slim to none. Soon after graduating from real estate school she was assigned “floor duty,” manning the phone and answering questions and requests from callers. Denise West, an executive from Walmart, called asking if someone could show homes to a prospective Walmart recruit.
All the established agents knew that Walmart had a deal with another agency and that a call like this only came when the agents at the other office were too busy or passing on the client—and it never resulted in a sale. Not wanting to waste their time, they all said, “No, I’m busy too.” But Meza said YES and took the client to see homes. The date was May 16, 1994. That decision changed her life.
The recruit never relocated, but the Walmart executive, Denise West, was impressed and thankful that someone had taken the initiative and made the potential recruit feel welcome. Denise told her boss, Coleman Peterson, Walmart’s Director of Human Resources, about Meza.
Peterson decided to reward Meza by sending her another client. Meza did a great job once again. So he sent another one, then two, then three, then a dozen. Soon she was also getting the listings of Walmart executives who were themselves relocating away from Bentonville. Meza treated the Walmart clients like family, so the calls from Walmart kept coming. As Walmart grew to become the biggest employer in America, guess who kept getting the calls? M-E-Z-A.
Meza went the extra mile. She took calls at midnight and at 6:00 a.m., she picked up clients at the airport, she became a full-service broker with answers to every question. She found financing for her clients. She knew the right neighborhoods with the best schools for families with young kids. Then, when the executives eventually relocated again, she re-sold their homes.
She became the model for how a realtor should aggressively take action. She out-worked and out-hustled the competition. She cold-called strangers and followed-up leads. Meza was relentless.
The result? In 2006 she sold $56 million dollars of real estate. That made her #1 in the state and started a run of her being ranked #1 in the state by the Arkansas Business Journal for nine consecutive years and eleven times since 1998.4
In the odd years when she wasn’t ranked #1 in the state, Meza was #2.
She was also voted #1 Realtor in Northwest Arkansas by Celebrate magazine year after year.5
Then the Great Recession hit in 2008. The bottom fell out of the real estate market in Northwest Arkansas. Fifty percent of all real estate brokers left the business. Meza just became even more relentless. Here is a sampling of her results:
2007—$33.7 MM in sales6
2010—$24.7 MM in sales7
2011—$24 MM in sales.
2013—$29.19 MM in sales.8
In Meza’s career she has sold about $500,000,000 of real estate. Yes, that’s a half billion dollars. This was achieved in Arkansas where homes are relatively inexpensive.
Remember, her career started at age fifty, with no prior experience in sales of any kind. Meza has won so many awards that she is no longer known by her first name. Everywhere Meza goes, the words “Number One Realtor” are the first words you hear when she is introduced.
Meza Harris proves that Relentless AGGRESSIVE ACTION can move mountains . . . and a half billion dollars of real estate.
AGGRESSIVE ACTION BUILDS RELATIONSHIPS
Success doesn’t happen by mistake or coincidence. Yes, Meza works long hours. And she also understands the value of relationships. Meza knows everyone in Northwest Arkansas and everyone in Northwest Arkansas knows her. She’s at their weddings, she coordinates their fundraisers, she knows their anniversaries, she’s at lunch and dinner with her clients, her weekends are spent showing homes during the day and meeting new contacts at night. She sells homes to the children of people that bought a home from her twenty years ago. Relationships matter.
Do you know why Meza does all these things? Because she loves what she does! You will only be able to be Relentless if you truly love what you do. I don’t have a magic wand to tell you how to accomplish this. All I can tell you is that it is vitally important to truly pursue the life of your dreams. It is my hope that this book will give you the tools to successfully pursue your personal dreams.
If you want to be successful in life and business, then there are three AGGRESSIVE ACTIONS you need to take to build relationships:
a. Build a list of contacts every hour, of every day. Never stop networking and connecting. Never stop contacting new people. Make everyone you meet your friend and then add them to your list of contacts. That list is priceless. Use it to find clients, customers, deals, jobs, business partners, and opportunities. Use it to announce your achievements and success. Use it to introduce people you know to other people you know. It will be repaid in spades.
b. Build a list of testimonials from this list of contacts. Utilize the saying, “If you don’t ask, you don’t get.” Ask everyone on your list to write an endorsement of you, your career, your company, or your product. Testimonials are the most effective way to sell anything. It’s great that you sing your own praises, but when others sing your praise, it’s the most effective advertisement of all.
c. Build a “Wall of Fame” on your office wall. Everyone should have a Wall of Fame. It’s a testimonial to your success. It’s also a neon billboard that screams out to all future clients or business associates. When people walk into your office and see the impressive and influential people you know, they will want to do business with you too. My wall is a “Who’s Who” of American politics, business, entertainment, and sports. The centerpiece of my wall features photos of me with presidents of the United States, past presidential candidates, and future presidential candidates: George W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, Rand Paul, Jeb Bush, Dr. Ben Carson, and Newt Gingrich. It features me with billionaires like Steve Forbes, Jim Rogers, and Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple. It features me with entertainment icons like Al Pacino, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Gene Simmons of KISS fame. Those are all brand names. Associating with brand names makes your brand more valuable.
Relationships matter. Take AGGRESSIVE ACTION to pursue new relationships every hour of every day. Then stay relentless in maintaining “constant contact” with your list.
THE ULTIMATE TEST
AGGRESSIVE ACTION is the ultimate test of RELENTLESS. I have built a successful career as a business and motivational speaker. It all started with a “NO.” I bothered well-known national seminar organizer JT Foxx to include me in his events around the country. He is a superstar in the industry—one of the highest-paid success speakers and coaches in the world. He rejected me for two years. I bothered him so much that finally, just to get rid of me, he said he’d “allow me” to give a speech for FREE at one of his events, just to see how his audiences reacted. He offered me ninety minutes at an event in Chicago, taking up two days of my time for no pay. I accepted with gusto.
The result? I was the hit of the event—including twenty speakers over four days. The audience filled out forms and rated me the best speaker of the event. JT Foxx was so impressed that he hired me, for the fee I asked, to do one seminar. Then two. Then three, and four, and five. Since then I’ve spoken at JT Foxx events all over the globe, from South Africa to Singapore to Amsterdam.
Now I speak worldwide at many different business conferences. But I owe my start in the business to JT Foxx . . . and of course, to Relentless AGGRESSIVE ACTION. If you ask JT, or Damien Elston, the dynamic president of his company, they’ll tell you that I simply wore them down. But JT and Damien are glad that I wore them down. Audiences are passionate about my presentations. So it’s good I was relentless, because it turned into a win-win for everyone!
Or take the TV spokesman business: because I’m relentless, I wear a lot of hats! I have numerous careers, and hopefully more still to come. Today my main career is as a spokesman, the public face or voice in TV and radio advertising and marketing campaigns for many different companies and products. Certainly you need to be relentless to be a TV pitchman. Think of the greatest ones in history: Billy Mays, Ron Popeil, Tony Little, Jack LaLanne, Susan Powter, George Foreman, and Richard Simmons, to name just a few.9
Each could be described as a relentless, high-energy ball of fire. Yet they were all known for one product, or one genre—exercise, or diet, or cooking, or home gadgets. The Power of RELENTLESS was certainly the key to their success. Each of them had “an engine that never stopped,” and they were famous for repeating their key sales message over and over and over again. That’s The Power of RELENTLESS.
But I have a claim to fame none of those superstar TV pitchmen can match. I’d guesstimate I’ve sold hundreds of millions of dollars of products in over twenty completely different fields, most of which I had zero expertise or knowledge about before I became the product spokesman. Here are the genres, fields and products I’ve successfully sold on TV, radio, billboards, and the internet:
• Precious metals—gold and silver
• Rare collectible coins
• Vitamins and nutritional products
• Energy (oil and gas)
• Student loans
• Financial education products
• MLM (multi-level marketing) products
• Sports-handicapping advice
• Horserace wagering
• Fantasy sports
• Legal services for law firms in multiple cities
• Survival products
• Sports memorabilia
• Golf clubs
• Las Vegas resort casinos
• Currency-trading products
• Political PAC fundraising for Libertarian causes
• Political PAC fundraising for Republican and conservative causes
• My own books
• My own seminars
• Gluten-free cereal
That’s one heck of a list. Even I was flabbergasted when I compiled it! How does someone not named Brad Pitt, George Clooney, or Donald Trump wind up as the public face and voice of so many diverse products? By taking AGGRESSIVE ACTION!
For example, you saw on the list above that I’ve been a spokesman for law firms. Here’s the back story on that one! To be blunt, I’m not a fan of lawyers. They are often the enemy of business owners and wealth creators. The legal fees from abusive lawsuits kill jobs and cost legitimate wealth-creators time, trouble, and money.
I may not be a fan of the legal profession, but I also know that when you need a lawyer, you’d better find a great one! One day a decade or so ago, I found myself sitting at the table of one of the most prominent lawyers in Las Vegas at a charity event. I told him bluntly, “Lawyers know nothing about business, they only know how to damage a perfectly run business. Even worse, lawyers are terrible salesmen. Even though I can’t stand lawyers, I’ll bet I can sell your legal services better than you can sell yourself!”
We spent the night good-naturedly debating and arguing. We swapped business cards and said goodbye. Guess who followed up? It sure wasn’t the lawyer! I followed up relentlessly for two years. To prove I could sell his law firm better than any lawyer, I offered to be his TV spokesman for FREE for three months. That was a decade ago.
I served as the only non-lawyer spokesman for legal services in the state of Nevada for many years on billboards all over the city of Las Vegas, on television commercials during the evening news, and even on the cover of the Las Vegas phone book. Today I serve in the same role for a Los Angeles law firm.
I’m sure my mom and dad are looking down from heaven with pride. They always wanted me to become a lawyer. Now . . . I PLAY ONE ON TV!
AGGRESSIVE ACTION is the secret to my success in publishing, as well. I decided to write my first book in 1989. It was rejected by dozens of publishers. But one said “YES!” That’s all you need.
In the years since, I’ve written nine more books. Every one of them was roundly rejected by numerous publishers. I kept right on writing, and finally The Ultimate Obama Survival Guide became a national bestseller, one of the top ten bestselling political hardcovers of 2013, and #1 in three categories at Amazon. The key to success was that I never gave up aggressively writing, pitching, and selling my books. Not for a New York minute. I knew I just had to stay committed and tenacious long enough to find the one “YES” that would change the narrative from failure to success. As usual, I did . . . ten times! That’s The Power of RELENTLESS.
The Ultimate Obama Survival Guide was published by Regnery, the largest conservative publisher in America, with over fifty New York Times bestsellers. My deal came after two years of hounding them relentlessly. Regnery rejected at least a dozen of my book ideas.
Then they finally said, “YES.” Without my constant Relentless AGGRESSIVE ACTION, it would never have happened. I hounded the publisher, Marji Ross, until she could not get me off her mind. Finally, the day after President Obama’s re-election in November of 2012 she called me to offer a book deal. If I had not “gently” reminded her continually for two years, it would never have happened. My guess is she gave me the book deal just to make me leave her alone!
Keeping your name, product, or idea on people’s minds and lips is key. That eventually leads to pay dirt. If you simply wait for people to think of you, or remember you, or do you a favor, well, good luck. It never happens, except in fictional Hollywood movies and fairy tales. The reality is that people often hire or do business with whoever is on their mind at the moment they make their decision. I make sure I’m always that guy.
A PERSONAL STORY
I met my wife, Debra, at a Grammy party at a nightclub in L.A. She was a former Miss Oklahoma and the lead singer for the famous rock group Emerson, Lake & Palmer. She was also a very religious evangelical Christian who never went to nightclubs. Never. And she certainly had no interest in meeting a man at a nightclub. She’d recently had a bad bicycle accident and had been recuperating for weeks. She had almost died. One side of her face was badly injured, and she almost lost her lip and ear. This was her first week “back in circulation.” Her friends begged her to go with them to this Grammy party. They dragged her out of the house.
Neither of us smoked or drank alcohol. So we both wound up downstairs at the pool table. We played on the same team for an hour. Then we talked for another two hours. I had to get home because I had to host a TV show at 6:00 a.m. the next morning. As I turned to leave, I gave Debra my business card. She pushed it away and said she would NEVER call a guy she met at a nightclub. I spent the next thirty minutes trying relentlessly to convince her to take my card. She rejected every argument I made. She kept giving back my card . . . I kept putting it back into her hand.
Finally I left, but on the way out I stuck my card in her hand again for at least the twentieth time and said “If you don’t call, it will be the biggest mistake of your life. You’ll miss out on marriage, kids, and the whole rest of the wonderful life we can have together.”
She laughed and said, ‘I’m NOT calling.”
Two weeks later she saw my card in her purse and called her best friend three thousand miles away in New York. During the conversation she told her about this crazy, RELENTLESS guy she had met at a nightclub in L.A. Debra asked if she should break her vow to never call a guy she met in a nightclub. The friend said, “Tell me this guy’s name?”
Debra read my business card and when she said my name, “Wayne Allyn Root” to her best friend, sitting in her apartment in New York, her friend repeated it out loud to her husband. The husband said, “Wayne Allyn Root? That’s my cousin!”
Debra immediately called to relate this one in a billion story. She said, “Now you’re no longer a stranger that I met at a nightclub . . . you’re like family. You’re my best friend’s cousin-in-law. Now we can go on a date.”
Sixty days after that I asked her to marry me. Ten months later we were married in a ceremony on the beach in Malibu, beneath my beachfront home.
Relentless AGGRESSIVE ACTION isn’t just effective for business deals. It’s effective for relationships, finding love, and building a family. You can never give up because you just never know where the road may lead you!
It’s like Jimmy Stewart in the famous movie It’s a Wonderful Life. Without the repeated actions I took to pitch, promote, and sell myself to this woman I met over a game of pool in a nightclub, my four beautiful children wouldn’t exist. My entire life would be dramatically different.
RELENTLESS REMINDER AND REPETITION
You might ask “Why do I have to always be on the attack?” and “Why can’t I wait for others to notice me?” and “Why do I have to keep reminding people of my talents?”
The answer is simple: “Out of sight, out of mind.” It’s a proven law of human nature. You may think you’re on the mind of your business associates, or your potential customers, or clients, or bosses, but you never are. It’s your responsibility to remind them about you or your products. You must hunt, hound, hammer, hook, hit, and pitch them . . . and then remind them again. There is no such thing as reminding people too often of your value to them or their company. If you don’t remind them relentlessly, you are usually forgotten—no matter how talented, famous, or successful you are.
And remember: you are never too big or too important to take AGGRESSIVE ACTION to remind potential clients, customers or partners that you’re valuable to them. You need to constantly remind people, or they forget you, take you for granted, or hire someone else because that person was on their mind at the moment they made an important decision (and you weren’t). Timing is everything in life. That’s why I want to be on your mind at all times. My timing is . . . always and forever!
By the way, reminding others that you exist is not just for your benefit. You do it for their benefit. You are valuable to them. You will make their life better. So you’re doing them a favor by reminding them of your value!
Why do they need reminding? Remember, “Out of sight, out of mind.” Life is busy and distracting, and they are getting inundated every day with thousands of other ideas, things, people, clients, events, deals. It is also true that many if not most people are somewhat lazy and will do what is easy. If your phone number is in front of them, it is the one they will call.
Think of how repetition works in advertising. A radio advertising campaign must be bought for the long term. Be prepared to buy hundreds or even thousands of ads over a long period. Why? Because few customers ever respond the first few times they hear an advertisement. The calls only start coming in after listeners have heard the advertisement twenty or fifty or even a hundred times. It finally hits home because of the magic of repetition.
You’d think people remember you, but they don’t. You’d think they’d respond to you after hearing your story, but they don’t. So, swallow your pride and keep reminding them. No one is too big, no one is too important to stop reminding and repeating.
Think of politicians. They campaign with relentless repetition. Their TV and radio ads run thousands of times in each market. Their fundraising phone calls and e-mails never stop. As I was writing this book, I received dozens of e-mail fundraising requests for each declared GOP Presidential candidate. Dozens of e-mails from each in a matter of days. They never stopped hounding and hammering me. Because politicians know repetition works.
Think of Viagra. Doesn’t every man in America already know the name? Yet they keep advertising relentlessly. They never want a day to go by without Viagra on your mind. Why would a company keep spending hundreds of millions of dollars to advertise a household name? They’re not wasting money! Advertisers have tested this strategy for a hundred years and they know . . . repetition works.
Think of GM, Chrysler, Mercedes, and BMW. We all know the names. So why do they keep spending hundreds of millions on advertising? Why do these car companies sponsor every sporting event they can get their hands on? Because they’ve tested it thousands of times. They know repetition works.
They also know that if today is the day you are going out shopping for a car, you’ll go to the dealer whose TV advertisement you saw today. Even if you’ve known the name Audi for thirty years, Audi knows they need to put their brand name in front of you today, on the day you are going car shopping, because if you see a BMW commercial, the odds are good you’ll go to their dealer instead. They know repetition works.
Think of national pharmacy chains. Why do these pharmacies put signs in front of their door saying “Flu shots available today”? Why do they have the same sign in the aisle? Why do they have the checkout gal verbally remind you as you’re leaving, “Have you had your flu shot yet?” They know repetition works.
“Relentless Reminder and Repetition” works like magic. If it’s good enough for big business, why should you be embarrassed to use the same technique?
I’ve been represented by the same international speaking company for many years. Yet I’m seldom booked for a speech unless I call them, e-mail them, or follow up on my previous calls and e-mails. And they always say, “Wow. Great timing. I’m glad you called. We’re just now planning an event for next month. Would you like to speak at our event?” Hunting, hounding, hammering, repeating, and reminding even my own biggest clients works like magic. If I didn’t remind them, I would lose half of my income. That’s despite being an outstanding performer for these same companies repeatedly for many years. “Out of sight, out of mind.”
I’m a guest on hundreds of radio talk shows. Some of them have me on as a guest monthly. Some weekly. But the primary reason they book me is because I send them my latest press release or commentary three times per week. I’m always booked immediately after I contact them. Coincidence? They just needed reminding of what a great guest I am. Why would they need reminding if I’m such a great guest? “Out of sight, out of mind.” That’s why I’m always in sight!
You have to keep banging on their door with a hammer and a chain-saw. You need to keep chopping away at that cherry tree with your axe. Eventually it will fall. That’s the power of Relentless AGGRESSIVE ACTION
RELENTLESS INTERNET
AGGRESSIVE ACTION means hunting, hammering, hounding, pitching, promoting, marketing, and selling by every means you can find. But the internet is a great place to start. The internet is where you hunt for new deals, new clients, new customers, new partners, and new business associates. The internet is the vehicle you use to go hunting!
Remember the Relentless Power of Storytelling on Video? Well, the internet and e-mail are the perfect vehicles for showing your video to others. Just film a video on your Smartphone, iPad, computer webcam, or video camera and add a link to your e-mail. You instantly have a unique, colorful, animated message for your target!
The internet and e-mail are the perfect platform to expand your day. In the old days, even if you wanted to work sixteen-hour days, you couldn’t contact anyone beyond normal business hours. I never call anyone before 8:00 a.m. nor after 8:00 p.m. But today the internet and e-mail allow me to make contact, cold call, respond to calls, follow up on deals, and make detailed proposals at all hours of the day and night, plus weekends.
My potential customers will open and read the e-mail at their convenience. I’m not limited by so-called “normal work hours.” That’s how I get so much work done from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m . . . . and from 8:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m.
I can work while others are playing, relaxing, watching a movie, dining out, hanging with the kids, or sleeping. I probably send out fifty e-mails each morning before 9:00 a.m. And I send at least twenty-five more after 10:00, after my kids go to sleep (and I’ve got quiet time to think).
That means a ton of my “hunting, hounding, and hammering” gets done before the day starts . . . and after the day ends (for normal people). That’s time set aside just for hunting new deals, new jobs, new clients, new opportunities. That frees up the normal nine-to-five work hours for making calls and following up responses for all of my present deals.
Here’s what the internet and e-mail has done for me and can do for you:
a. The internet allows me to find and contact the people I want to do business with. I can find anyone on Google. I mean anyone. All the info you need is there, including their e-mail address. If Google doesn’t have it either Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn does. In the old days, if you found their phone number their “gatekeeper” would block access. But now you just send an e-mail. If they answer, you’ve scored! If they don’t, move onto the next “target of opportunity.” It’s all a numbers game.
b. It saves time . . . and time is money. I accomplish so much more by expanding my workday to earlier and later hours. I’ll bet 50 to 60 percent of my income comes from deals I initiated before 8:00 a.m. or after 8:00 p.m. If you don’t expand your day, you’ve lost the battle before it’s begun. I’ve kicked your butt before you even sit down at your desk with your morning coffee.
c. It saves money. I used to send out ten to twenty packages per week to potential clients, customers, partners, etc. They were filled with my resume, bio, multiple videos, and two or three of my books. I was spending thousands of dollars per month on Express Mail and FedEx. Now I send my entire presentation, including resume, bio, videos, audios, and Power Point via e-mail for FREE. It doesn’t cost me a cent to send out these “virtual packages.”
d. It allows me to send detailed proposals. No one wants to talk for hours on the phone. Who has the time? Good luck with trying to contact a total stranger on the phone, get them on the line, then take an hour of their time. At best, they’ll want a sixty-second sound bite before they hang up. But if I lay out a detailed proposal on a Microsoft Word doc in an e-mail and attach a video, the important decision-maker who receives it can read it at their leisure. E-mail gives you this opportunity.
E-mail is the perfect platform for your relentless “hunting, hounding, and hammering” strategy. It is also the ideal delivery system for your videos. I thank God every day for the invention of the internet and e-mail. My educated guess is that something new will replace e-mail in the next few years. That’s the nature of this high-tech world we live in. But there is no going back. We will only move forward. Whatever the new communication system is, it will make it even easier to relentlessly reach out and touch your future clients, customers, business associates, and partners. For now, the internet is your perfect relentless “delivery system.”
RELENTLESS FOLLOW-UP
Now that I’ve taught you about using the amazing internet and e-mails to expand your day, it’s time to learn to use the most important hyphenated word in the English language: FOLLOW-UP. My middle name is “follow-up.” I understand that 90 percent of all sales are achieved in the follow-up phase. Yet almost no one bothers to follow up. How do I know? Because rarely does anyone ever follow up with me.
You want to hear an amazing story? I bought my dream car last fall—a Maserati Quattroporte. In the same category for luxury four-door supercars were the Mercedes 550, BMW 700 series, Porsche Panamera, Audi A8, Jaguar XJ, and Tesla Model S. Counting the Maserati, that’s seven of the most spectacular cars on the road. And they should be spectacular for a cost of over $100,000. You’d think the car salesmen representing each of these cars would be falling all over themselves to make the sale, yes? You’d think they’d be calling me a hundred times to get my $100,000+ check, yes? You’d be wrong.
Only the Maserati salesman followed up my visit with enthusiasm. Great job, Mike Schiffman! Mike called me a half dozen times and each time had new and interesting reasons for me to buy. He was persistent and relentless. He was willing to do anything to make the sale, including cut his own commission. In short, Mike Schiffman is the kind of person with whom I want to do business. Why would I reward a salesman who isn’t willing to go the extra mile to get the sale? The other salesmen either didn’t follow up at all, or made one or two phone calls and left a message. When I didn’t return the call, I never heard from them ever again. Amazing.
If you don’t follow up, you will never get my money. I only reward people that are hungry and relentless. I’m driving my dream Maserati Quattroporte because A) I have the money for it because I spend my life following up . . . and B) Mike Schiffman followed up repeatedly with me.
In every industry it seems there is very little follow-up or customer service left in America. If you want the sale, why aren’t you calling twenty times until you get the customer on the phone? Why don’t you have a dozen great reasons (pre-scripted) for me to buy your product versus your competitors’ product? Why am I (the customer) calling you to find out more about your product? Why don’t you know everything . . . and I mean everything . . . about your product? It seems like 90 percent of the time when I ask an employee a question about their product, they say “I’ll have to get back to you with that answer.” Really? You don’t know the answer to every potential question about your product? Then why should I buy from you?
If a customer asks a question you can’t answer, you’re in the wrong business. If you have no passion about your own product, you’re in the wrong business. If you can’t find the time to follow up as many times as it takes to convince me to buy, you’re in the wrong business. If you won’t cut the price to get me to buy, even if it means cutting your own commission, you’re in the wrong business. That’s the kind of dedication, tenacity, energy, relentlessness, and AGGRESSIVE ACTION that it takes to win the sale. Almost no one has it anymore.
So don’t blame the bad economy. Blame yourself for not being relentless.
If you take one thing from this book, understand that 90 percent or more of all sales are achieved on the follow-up. If you’re not practicing “Relentless Follow-up,” you’re falling relentlessly behind.
RELENTLESS FACE-TO-FACE CONTACT
You use e-mails to make initial contact; then you use the phone for the follow-up. Now here’s the third part of the equation. You must make face-to-face contact to close the deal. No one puts big deals together without “pressing the flesh.” You must see and meet the people with whom you are doing business—LIVE AND IN PERSON!
You can’t hide from face-to-face contact. Far too many young adults have gotten the wrong impression from technology. They think you can hide from real contact through e-mails and texts. You can’t. Nothing will EVER replace physically meeting and talking to your clients, customers, investors, business associates, or partners. Nothing. People only do serious deals, or hire people, or form partnerships, or hand checks to people they meet in person. Technology will never replace that.
It’s not just closing deals that requires face-to-face contact. It’s doing business in general. When someone owes me money and is slow in paying they want to either hide, or answer only in e-mails and texts. They won’t take calls. They won’t meet in person to discuss the problem.
But if I owe them, WOW. They call 24/7 until they get their check. Business is a two-way street. If you treat people like that, eventually you will wear out your welcome.
Face your clients. Press the flesh. Be willing to hear negatives and complaints. Be willing to face problems. Do it all face to face. Your clients or customers need to see you “up-close and personal” even more when things are going wrong than when things are going right. This is how you build customer loyalty and lifelong relationships.
How important is face-to-face contact? Don’t you tip waiters and bartenders well? But you don’t tip the chef. Why? Because you never see him. You never meet him face to face. You only tip the people you see on a face-to-face basis. The dirty little secret in the hotel business is that very few people tip the maid.10 Why? You don’t see her. You can leave without making eye contact. But the same person who doesn’t tip the maid would never even think of stiffing the waiter—because you can’t leave the restaurant without seeing the waiter. Face-to-face contact is that important. Your clients, customers, partners, employees all need to see you face to face on a regular basis. Be a person who practices “Relentless Face-to-Face Contact.”