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Creating Wealth #90 - "The Secret" and The Law of Attraction with John Assaraf
(Podcast Transcript)
On this show we'll hear from John Assaraf, one of the experts featured in the hit film and book The Secret, plus Jason will answer more questions submitted from our interactive listeners at www.JasonHartman.com/ask/. John will reveal how he helped launch the idea of "attraction" into a worldwide phenomenon. In addition to The Secret, John has also written the only business book he feels you will ever need, The Answer. This work combines decades of research from neuroscience and quantum physics with practical, hands-on business know-how to give you the confidence you need and the specific step-by-step actions to follow to build the business, and the life, of your dreams. John has been featured on Larry King Live, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Anderson Cooper 360° and is now here on The Creating Wealth Show to share with YOU the secrets to achieve success in your health, wealth, relationships, career and every aspect of your life.
Costa Mesa, CALIF. (April 16, 2009)—During this program, Jason is going to tell you some really exciting things that you probably haven't thought of before and a new slant on investing, fresh new approaches to America's best investment that will enable you to create more wealth and happiness than you ever thought possible.
Jason is a genuine self-made multimillionaire, who not only talks the talk, but walks the walk. He's been a successful investor for 20 years and currently owns properties in 11 states and 17 cities. This program will help you follow in Jason's footsteps on the road to financial freedom. You really can do it. And now, here's your host, Jason Hartman, with the complete solution for real estate investors.
Jason Hartman:
Welcome to the Creating Wealth Show. This is Show No. 90 and for you regular listeners who have been with us a long time, thank you so much for your loyalty and we're glad that you are enjoying the show. We get all kinds of positive feedback from you from all around the world.
We appreciate you listening and we ask that you tell your friends and spread the good word about the show so we can get even more people listening and thinking the right way about protecting their financial future because this is really all about financial self-defense, folks. We are in an unprecedented time of crisis in the financial world, but we know listening to the show how to protect ourselves from that.
The first thing I'd like to do today – we have quite a few things to talk to you about today – first thing I'd like to do is let you know that I have Sara and Brittney here in the office with me. Say hi.
Brittney:
Hello.
Sara:
Hello.
Jason Hartman:
We'd like to talk to you a little bit about the Masters Weekend, which just finished Sunday evening. And this was our fifth Masters Weekend. We had a great time. I think this was one of the best Masters Weekends so far. I just want to thank all of our clients, who flew in from so far away. Sara, what was your take on the weekend?
Sara:
The weekend was great as usual. We had a full house.
Jason Hartman:
Oh, it was packed, especially on Saturday. Standing room only.
Sara:
Yeah, a lot of guests from out of town. I'd especially like to thank Peter and Josh for flying in from New York. Peter, just to answer your question from the previous email, we will have our slides posted up in the Members Only section shortly here, pretty soon.
Jason Hartman:
So we have the slides from the last Masters Weekend posted there, but we will post the ones from this Masters Weekend there as well, from all the different speakers, all the PowerPoint slides. And then of course, it was great to have Drew and Tracy, who are regular podcast listeners, who came out from Pennsylvania. And it's just wonderful to have such a great family and what we're really realizing, folks, is that in interacting with some of you on our Facebook pages and stuff, there is just a great family of listeners to the show and clients of ours and we appreciate your feedback and all of your knowledge.
We have a great pool of talent out there and we notice that you're engaging more and more with us and contributing more and more to the various ideas and the things that you want to see covered on the show and so forth, guests that you're requesting, videos you want us to look at and discuss on the show. So we're happy to do that.
And we're going to sort of morph the business model a little bit to be even more engaging and interactive with our Creating Wealth family. So we're looking forward to that. But any other comments on the weekend?
Sara:
Well, how about let's listen to some of our comments that we had from the people who attended. Ruth, on your Facebook account, had a comment to say. "Hi Jason, that was a great Masters Weekend. Thank you again. Everyone around me was happy to be there. I was, too. Glad to meet Puppy. He has very sweet eyes."
Jason Hartman:
I do have the world's cutest dog, you know.
Sara:
Who was also at Masters Weekend.
Jason Hartman:
Only for one day, though.
Sara:
Look what you missed. Another guest, Paul, had to say, "Hey Jason, had a great Masters Weekend with you and your team. I am thoroughly impressed with your desire to educate and make sense of, inspire, and protect our investments. Looking forward to more events, more podcasts, and more properties purchased under your wing."
Jason Hartman:
Excellent, glad to hear it. Any other comments that you had offhand?
Sara:
No, that's about it. I think that says it all.
Jason Hartman:
Well, we had a whole stack of evaluations and from all that we – what we did this time is we had each speaker, we asked you evaluate each speaker individually and we got a lot of excellent feedback from you there as well, in order to tailor the next Masters Weekend, which will be in the fall.
In terms of the speakers, the reviews were really great. I mean everything was pretty much an eight or a nine. There were a few sevens and a couple lower than here and there in some of the categories, but it seems like all of you that attended really just loved it. And for those of you that couldn't attend, and I know we have a lot of notes from you who wanted to attend, were from out of town or had other commitments and so forth, we are planning to finally create a product out of Masters Weekend so that you can get a hold of the videos or DVDs and an audio version of it as well and maybe transcript also. So look for that and we'll have that available.
One of the other things I wanted to mention is one of the really, really popular segments was the loan modification segment and this is the second time we've had a speaker on that subject. We have commissioned a book or really, a manual I should say on loan modification, which we should have published by the end of the month or early next month, so look for that on the website at www.jasonhartman.com. And you know, Brittney, I also wanted to thank, before you go on about the other speakers, our panelists. One of the really cool panels that we always do on Masters Weekend is real stories from real investors and this time, we sort of called it Tales from the Edge because this isn't all perfect. There are problems from time to time, but they're not insurmountable and at least here, you're in control of the problems. If you have a challenge, you can face it. You can over come it. There are things that you can do, whereas with your other choices in Wall Street, what can you do to overcome Birney Madoff or Merrill Lynch or any of these companies that are losing your money on Wall Street? Here, at least, you are in control.
But I did really want to give a very special thank you to Mark Austin and Jenny E. for being on the panel this Masters Weekend and really appreciate your contribution and just opening up and sharing your real stories about what happened, the good, the bad, and the ugly, so to say. And that was very enlightening and helpful for all the attendees.
What were some of the other speakers, Brittney?
Brittney:
Well, we can say thank you to the experts we had on Property Tracking, your investments, property management. We had a lawyer speak on asset protection. We had loan modification like you mentioned, investing with your IRA, commercial and residential lending. You name it, we had it there.
Jason Hartman:
Good stuff. Okay, any other thoughts on the Masters Weekend? It was a great weekend. We'll do it again soon.
Brittney:
See you in the fall.
Jason Hartman:
Sounds good. Okay, in terms of the rest of the show, we are going to be answering a few of your listener questions and then going to John Assaraf, who is a very active person in The Secret. You've heard of the very famous Secret that has virtually swept the world. It's about the law of attraction.
And he is also founder of a company called One Coach and we're going to talk about some business success. Again, we try to make every tenth show on a non-real estate topic, so as soon as we get through some of these questions, we're going to go into the rest of the show. So Brittney, let's do these as quickly as possible.
Brittney:
This question is from Tom from Quarter Lane. "How do rent prices fluctuate with market conditions, inflation, credit, or the economy as a whole? As a landlord, it would be good to understand what makes rent prices change so I can prepare for future pricing and budgeting. Thank you, Tom."
Jason Hartman:
Excellent question, Tom. Well, of course, supply and demand, but supply and demand you have to think of it in all of the different types of supply and demand. So one thing that landlords really love are high interest rates. Yes, I did mean what I just said because with high interest rates, fewer people can afford to buy and so they are forced to stay in the renter pool many times.
Now, remember that when it comes to qualifying for a mortgage, as a prospective homebuyer would, someone who may be renting one of your properties, there are two issues. No. 1 is the interest rate and the affordability of that property that they might buy. But the other one is just the ability to borrow at all and so right now, we're in kind of an odd time, where we have very, very low interest rates, but we also have a time where we see it much more difficult for tenants to qualify for loans, which you would think would strengthen the rental market.
And it was strengthening the rental market quite a bit until about three or four quarters ago, about a year ago. Here's what changed. The government, as the election was ramping up and the campaigning was going on, there was all of this pressure for banks to keep people in their homes. That was sort of the mantra you saw, where it was keep people in their homes. Don't foreclose. Of course, they never asked the logical question, do they actually deserve that home. But that's a whole different issue that I've discussed before.
And so with that, we saw this movement afoot for a "don't foreclose" mentality. Do loan modifications, do workouts, do short sales. Do all of these things, which basically, this intervention and pressure from government and governmental agencies basically kept people in their house when they could have been really good tenants for us.
So there has been recently a little bit of artificial suppression of the rental market, where I think the rental market should really be much stronger at the moment, but it's not because of this government intervention, if you will.
So of course, you want to look at interest rates. The higher interest rates, the harder it is to qualify, the more of your tenants can't buy a house, so they're staying in the renter pool, which that increases the demand for rentals. If you have a situation where you don't have much building in the area, obviously supply and demand there. So if there are a whole bunch of new apartments being constructed, a bunch of new single-family homes, and a highly speculative market where investors are buying like crazy, you're going to have a larger supply of rental units. And we don't see that very much right now, so that's on the good side for landlords.
All these factors interact and remember that low interest rates and rental prices are contrary, non-correlating indicators. So the lower the interest rate, the easier it is to qualify, and they won't be looking to rent quite as often. If you see prices rising quickly, more people have urgency to buy and they will move out of the renter pool and try to buy a property as well.
So all of these factors sort of interplay, but for more details on this, see my prior podcast where I talk about the three dimensions of real estate, and that is a prior show that will be very helpful to you.
Next question.
Brittney:
Next question is from Ian from Salt Lake City. He just wants to know your thoughts and opinion on the video he provided, the Glen Beck Show, about home prices over history.
Jason Hartman:
Ian, that's a great question. When you first sent that link to us, I thought it was the Glen Beck video talking about how the government is creating money like crazy. But when we watched it, we realized it was the other video that's been very popular by Glen Beck, "A History of Home Values." And he talks about how the Federal Reserve was instituted and the theory for the Federal Reserve is it would stop the sort of tumultuous boom and bust economy, and it's done nothing of the sort. It's actually made it worse in my opinion.
What Obama is quoted as saying in the Glen Beck video is he wants to arrest the downward spiral in the economy. And first of all, that interventionist attitude by government I think is a terrible thing ultimately, but it does have little side effects, where it creates unusual winners and losers in any marketplace.
What you have to realize here when Glen Beck or anybody is looking at the history of home values, No. 1, is that all real estate is local. In a country as large and diverse as the United States, as I've said many times before, there is no such thing as a national housing market. Every time someone talks about the housing market, I can't figure out if that's in Los Angeles or Miami or New York City or Chicago or Mobile, Alabama, or Dallas, Texas, or Indianapolis, Indiana. These are all very distinct, very different marketplaces.
So all real estate is local, No. 1. No. 2, there is a vast difference between linear markets and cyclical markets. Cyclical markets are generally markets with high land values and those markets are far more volatile than the linear markets that we like, where they have low land values, where you're mostly investing for the packaged commodities investment side of it, which I've talked about before on many shows.
The other thing you notice in the Glen Beck video is the chart that he's showing, where you can really see the Allen Greenspan bubble, and if there is one human being on Earth that we can blame more than any other single person for the problems which our country now faces, it is Mr. Allen Greenspan himself because he is the one who flooded the market with ridiculously cheap, easy credit. In the Post-911 world and in the late '90s and the dot com bubble and the tech bubble, Allen Greenspan, more than any other person, is responsible for the calamity that this nation has faced. So if you want to get a dartboard, stick Allen Greenspan's picture on it, and throw some darts at him because more than any other, Clinton, Bush, whatever, Greenspan is the one guy you can really blame the most.
Construction jobs are down. Obama talked about that. Well, there were too many construction jobs. The housing market was too hot and in the bubble markets, what goes up must come down. The linear markets really haven't been affected much at all. So those construction jobs had to work their way out of the system and these cycles, this is called the business cycle. This is a natural thing.
When the cycle goes down, it cleans out excess inventory. It cleans out bad ideas, bad companies, bad business models, and then there is a rebirth. This is what happens when you see a forest fire, when you see Mount St. Helens volcano erupt. At first, it's devastation and it's terrible, but after that, you see the soil is rejuvenated, new plants grow, new life emerges, and it's a natural cycle. And the Federal Reserve has made that cycle more severe and much worse, but the business cycle, it's a natural thing and the government should get the heck out of the way.
How much money will the government spend? That's what Glen Beck talks about, too. Yes, all of us responsible people are bailing out the less responsible people who didn't save money. But then again, can you really blame them? There was no real incentive to save money because that saved money kept going down in value. So yes, the government will create money like crazy. They will cause massive inflation. It will destroy the lifestyle of well over 100 million Americans and it will destroy the value of stocks, bonds, savings, and thankfully debt. So stock up on good debt attached to cheap rental properties in diverse markets. You know my philosophy on that one.
Thanks for the question. Next one.
Brittney:
All right, next question is from Zach from Cheyenne. Now, Jason, don't get a big head on this one, but he says, "I'm new to investing in real estate and I love your show. Simply that."
Jason Hartman:
Well, thank you very much.
Brittney:
And our next question is from Jack. He's from St. Louis. "Jason, I'm a new listener. Love the show. I have eight rental homes, all on Section 8 program. My positive cash flow is about $125.00 per house. I overpaid for five of them. They all have 30-year conventional mortgages with about 6 percent rate. I would like to start unloading them and start rehabbing to sell retail.
"I became an agent about two years ago. I would like to do real estate full time. I am interested in doing lease-to-own to start selling some of my units. My problem with rental is after someone moves out, the fix-up, clean-up, paint, repairs, etc, are too high. I get frustrated because I'm not really making money. Plus, it's not my favorite type of investing. Any advice would be great. I would really like to work with a seasoned investor for a while or have a mentor to coach me. I am willing to do whatever it takes to become successful. Jack."
Jason Hartman:
Okay, Jack, I'm not really sure I understand your question there, but it sounds like you have some rental properties in bubble markets that you may have overpaid or you said you did overpay. It sounds like you're not too hot on being a landlord. And I'll tell you, if you really investigate our system, we make landlording pretty easy and over the last 20 plus years that I've been in the business, I have definitely noticed that the people who buy and hold have real wealth, and the people who flip properties have spending money.
I don't know about you, but I'd rather have real wealth than spending money any day. So I would say keep your properties generally. Now, if they are in bubble markets that are still declining in value, depending on your equity position – you'd have to talk with one of our investment counselors here – it may actually be wise to sell them and trade them for better properties.
But generally speaking, I want to see all of our listeners be buy and hold investors because those are the people who really develop the long-term wealth. And there are so many things going on behind the scenes in an investment, where you may be winning when you feel like you're losing. It's not just one-dimensional. It's not just about appreciation. It's not just about cash flow. It's about inflation-oriented debt destruction. It's about tax benefits. It's about the tenant paying down your loan and a whole bunch of things. So there are a lot of things going on behind the scenes and if you want to know more about that, if you're a new listener, listen to the old shows.
And by the way, all of you listeners, please make sure a great place to start is go to www.jasonhartman.com, click on Education, Podcast and Radio, and click on the button that says "New Listeners Start Here – Core Content." There are about six shows that we identified as sort of our core content, which is a great place to start. Anyway, I hope that helps. Okay, Brittney, I don't think we have any more time for questions. We have to get into the interview here with John Assaraf. We will answer your questions on the next show. And here we're going to talk about the law of attraction with a very, very successful man. He is the author of several books. I think his most recent book is called The Answer. He's an interesting guy, runs several companies, and been very successful as an entrepreneur.
So we're going to hear about the law of attraction, but we're also going to hear about some things you can do in your business and a lot of you have businesses. If you work for somebody else, many of you have a small home-based business on the side, or you have a business idea that you want to see launched eventually. So I think this show will be interesting to you. Again, we try to kind of steer away from the real estate topic a little bit every tenth show and I know the questions were all geared toward that. But let's listen in and we have more shows coming up for you real soon. Here's the interview with John.
Interview with John Assaraf
Jason Hartman:
It is my pleasure to welcome John Assaraf to the show. He is the founder of One Coach and also very involved with The Secret, the author of a few different books. John, it's great to have you on.
John Assaraf:
Thanks very much. Great to be on.
Jason Hartman:
Tell us a little bit about what you do and how you came to doing what you do.
John Assaraf:
Well, what we do is really help small business owners increase their revenues, profits, and value, and specifically in today's challenging economic time, everybody needs to learn how to make more revenue. Unfortunately, we don't have a lot of time to make mistakes and so my company, One Coach, really helps small business owners and entrepreneurs understand the blueprint for having the mindset for success and a proven system for attracting more clients.
But it has really stemmed from my building four multi-million dollar businesses in the last 25 years and helping thousands of business owners around the world. We've developed an easy to follow, step-by-step plan to really help somebody understand specifically what they need to do to generate more revenue than ever before and in many cases, in less time if they took it right now.
Jason Hartman:
Is there a certain, particular focus of the One Coach program, John, where it's based on marketing and getting clients or is it based on business systems and operations? What is sort of the focus or is it very broad?
John Assaraf:
No, it's not very broad. It actually focuses on two major things. No. 1, we talk about the mindset for success. The question I always ask is what causes somebody to have all these great ideas, have all these great goals, and have all these great aspirations, but they don't do the things that they know they should be doing. And the second part is even if they don't know what they should be doing, where are they going to go to find the answers?
So first and foremost, we really work with the individual to recalibrate the psychology of success and how they can start to believe that they can double, triple, quadruple their income in the next 12 months. That's Phase 1.
Phase 2 is really about understanding who their ideal client is. See, every product or service has an ideal client who is going to buy it or sell it. We have to identify specifically who that is for our specific industry.
The next thing that we do from again a scientific perspective is understand what kind of messaging is going to attract the attention of that purchaser or that seller in that case. And the third part is to understand where are all these people. So there's a lead generation part of what we teach, a lead qualification part of what we teach, and a lead conversion part of what we teach that's based on the psychology of people's behavior and how they make decisions to buy. The understanding of where they are and the understanding of what kind of marketing messages online or offline or face-to-face someone needs to engage in in order to increase the chances that somebody's going to do business with you instead of your competition.
Jason Hartman:
That is a very innovative approach. Can you give us an example of a specific business where you've done this or helped someone do it?
John Assaraf:
Let's take an obscure thing like a daycare and you're thinking as a mother or a father in your local marketplace that you need to choose a daycare. And you flip through the Yellow Pages and everybody pretty much has the same type of ad, Daycare open 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., weekly rates available, etc, etc, etc.
Now, that's all fine and dandy, but that's not what going on in the mind of the consumer, the person who is looking to place his or her child in a daycare. What they're thinking about is is the place safe? Will they take care of my child as an individual versus a number? Will there be too many kids there? What happens in case of an emergency?
So let me give you an example. If you were to craft a message, such as, "Do you ever feel like your child is treated as a number instead of an individual? Would you like to have access to see your child at the daycare from the convenience of your computer at your home or office? Would you like to make sure that your child is receiving nutritional, healthy meals while they're by people who care about them just like their own?"
Now what we're doing is we're getting to the dialogue of what people are thinking about when they're looking to make a decision to put their daughter or son into a daycare. And so some simple messaging can mean the difference between ten people that you talk to and one buy, and ten people that you talk to or come to your website or see your marketing piece and four buy.
Jason Hartman:
Is that really sort of about tailoring a unique selling proposition? I mean that's somewhat cliché, of course, but where does it go from unique selling proposition to backing up the platitudes with something real?
John Assaraf:
Yeah, I'll give you a simple example. How many daycares do you know of that have a webcam in the daycare that a parent can actually look at while they're sitting in their office and concerned about their child?
So when we're thinking about, whether it's real estate or about anything else, what's going to differentiate you from everybody else who is pretty much saying the exact same thing? So innovation is critical for every single business whose selling a product or service or buying a product or service. Why you, why now, why should I care?
And so there's a process that we can take somebody through to really get into the dialogue that's happening in other people's heads and teach them how to create the right messaging that does actually differentiate them from everybody else, so they don't sound like vanilla, and like everybody else.
Jason Hartman:
Let's move back for a moment to your Step 1, which you have really made a name for yourself in, which is the mindset, and the whole concept of the law of attraction and self-fulfilling prophecy. And I know you have that story about your dream home. Talk to us about that, but as it relates to a businessperson. Everybody's trying to succeed nowadays. The economy is contracting. It's very easy to get negative now. I think it's a battle to keep the law of attraction going, if you will.
John Assaraf:
I've spent the last 25 years building some fairly successful companies and the last eight years specifically, in understanding how I did it, and how I did it from the perspective of the mindset, how I did it from the respective of what my brain does when I focus on things that are the circumstances of our society, like our economy right now. And so I'm focused on how powerful is our brain and what does it do when we're focused on what we want versus what we don't want. And there's a lot of great research that suggests that our brain is like a guidance seeking missile, that once we have a target for it, it actually finds everything that relates to that target.
So we're focusing on what we don't want. We're focusing on the negative stuff in the economy. We can't be focusing on the how we create a different solution to what it is that we want. So we have to understand that our brain is very, very precise and it will find a match in our physical world to match up with what our biggest fears are, whatever we doubt the most, whatever we are most uncertain, as well as it will find exactly what we are most certain of and what we are most confident in achieving.
And so we have a choice and the choice is do we want to focus on what's not working or do we want to focus on the solution on how to make the goal and the dream we have a reality. And so that's the brain side of it and I'm being very 30,000-foot view.
There's also what we're finding about how the universe operates. There are two sides to what we always talk about. There's the side that you can participate in, meaning the physical world, but then there's the non-physical world and all of the scientific evidence is now pointing to the fact that our thoughts actually do cause an effect in this field of intelligence that we cannot see.
Jason Hartman:
Are you kind of leaning that to sort of the holographic brain theory, school of thought? That law of attraction is really a real electro-chemical thing, they say. Your mind, rather than being just like a processor, it's a magnet, and it attracts what you think about.
John Assaraf:
The mind is an activity of the brain. But our brain does produce a biochemical and an electrical signal, but we also now know, based on the research at the HeartMath Institute in Boulder, that the emotion that the heart feels actually emits a frequency that's 60 – 80 times more powerful than the one that our brain emits. And when you think about 100 trillion cells in your body, each giving off an electrical impulse into this field – we talked about auras in the past and if we stay away from the esoterical, foo-foo side of it, we know from a scientific side that our body is emitting a frequency 24 hours a day, seven days a week, based on what our predominant thoughts and feelings are.
And if you think about when somebody sits at a piano and plays a certain key on the piano, and the piano is near a chandelier 20 feet away that starts to vibrate, what's causing that vibration? Well, what's causing that vibration is something at a non-physical level that is called a resonance factor.
And so when we have a certain thought pattern that we get emotional to, we actually send out a frequency, no different than a radio station sends out its frequency based on whether it's rock and roll, classical, jazz, or whatever the case is, we're sending out a frequency as well based on our predominant thoughts of what we either, a. actually want or b. what we are concerned or fear. And that's why it is critical to stay focused on what it is that you want.
I was on Larry King a few weeks back. We were talking exactly about the economy and how when people are focusing on what they don't want and all the negative stuff that's in the economy, they can't be focusing on what they do want.
And just a couple days ago, I was with a friend of mine, Randy. He's buying $1 million a month of real estate here in Southern California. So he's looking at the marketplace and where some people see foreclosures and this is crazy and this is ludicrous, oh my God, he's seeing opportunity, opportunity, opportunity, opportunity. Same situation, different focus, and guess what? He's worth hundreds of millions of dollars and will be worth a billionaire at the end of whatever we're going through right now.
Jason Hartman:
It's like the old J. Paul Getty saying. "Buy when everybody's selling; sell when everybody's buying." And then Warren Buffet's corollary, "Be greedy when everyone's fearful and fearful when everyone's greedy."
I think the mass psychology, the masses, do not have an understanding of the law of attraction. Would you agree with that, by the way?
John Assaraf:
Oh, absolutely. Most people think the law of attraction is some foo-foo, mystical, Eastern philosophy.
Jason Hartman:
Yeah, I agree. Well, moving that more into the scientific realm, there's obviously been some real progress in that. You mentioned in Colorado and there's a lot of other research about it, too, which is fascinating, fascinating stuff.
But you know, John, here's the thing. I mean I have understood the law of attraction from when I originally discovered Denis Waitley back in high school and he and Zig Ziglar, who really just changed my whole life and got me on the track of all this kind of material, like your material and so forth. And I remember I wanted this Toyota 4x4 pickup truck with big tires, really cool and I pictured it, and gosh, it was real. I have replayed that so many times in my life, where I have pictured something in my mind with sensory specific detail and then it just sort of magically appeared. It's not always really fast, but it does occur.
And so I completely agree that this is a real thing. It is not some esoteric thing far out in the distance. But here's my question for you. You understand this intellectually and you agree with it and you believe it. But when life keeps knocking you down over and over and over, it gets sort of hard sometimes when the rubber meets the road and people are dealing with real life tough circumstances to remember it, to implement it, to practice it. Any advice on that?
John Assaraf:
A law that's a corollary law to the law of attraction is called the law of rhythm, and the law of rhythm is no different than the ebb and flow of the oceans and that there would be highs and the lows, the ups and the downs, the ins and the outs, and every human being goes through that same cycle. And so whatever gave us the audacity as human beings to think that that stuff doesn't happen?
Now, when we think about why are most of these things happening to us, in almost every case, there are reasons that we were involved in that have caused those outcomes. There is randomness in the universe, but when we take a look at our result, for the most part, it's because of something we did or something that we didn't do that we should have, without question. I don't care if it's relationships. I don't care if it's money. I don't care if it's your business. There's a cause and effect relationship in our universe that decrees that for every effect there must be a cause.
Jason Hartman:
So with the law of understanding the law of rhythm, is that something that once you understand, maybe you just sort of accept that this is the ins and the outs, the ebbs and the flows, and then we just accept that and keep the law of attraction firmly in mind and expect and visualize what we want out of a situation or out of life? Is that pretty much the advice because it's awfully hard when someone keeps getting kicked in the face and I see people now in this economy that are definitely struggling for real and things are changing around us. Circumstances are changing now. What we decide to do with them, that's obviously a different thing, right, in how we decide to perceive all that?
John Assaraf:
Yeah. Listen. We've never seen the economic challenges that we're faced with right now, which means it's going to take a new set of skills and strategies to navigate through this. And so what we have to understand is if we're focusing on the challenges, we can't be focusing on the solutions. If we're whining and complaining, then we can't be focusing on upgrading our knowledge.
And so what we have to understand is we have to stay pliable and we have to change our course and guess what? It might mean every day, every week, but what's the alternative, to succumb to the circumstances? It doesn't work and so depending on your muscle for taking risk, your muscle for sustenance, and your persistence, will determine how well you do.
There are a lot of people who are hurting right now. There are a lot of people who are making errors in judgment. There are a lot of people who are still using the same strategy and tactics as they were a week ago, a month ago, or three months ago, and guess what? In conjunction with the right thinking, you have to figure out what are the right strategies and so we can't use the same set of rules today when the rules have changed. And all I can share is if we're going to whine and complain, that is not a solution that's going to give us the result that we want.
What separates us from a pig or a horse is our ability to make a choice. It could be that we're not making the right choices. And if we're not making the right choices, when would now be a good time to get help and find out what some of those right choices are.
Jason Hartman:
Absolutely. Very good advice. Victor Frank will call that the last human freedom is the freedom to choose how we perceive things.
John Assaraf:
Exactly right.
Jason Hartman:
Yeah, very true. I want to go on to the Step 2 and 3 if we can in the One Coach thing and maybe just drill down. We have a few more minutes left. Anything you want to wrap up on the more, we'll say, esoteric law of attraction type of stuff?
John Assaraf:
The esoteric law of attraction type of stuff, a lot of people don't believe it works because they don't understand how it works. There are a lot of people that still think the Earth is flat. There are a lot of people that still think the sun sets when it doesn't. The Earth rotates. We've gotten into this belief system and our belief systems drive all of our perceptions and behaviors.
What I did in my newest book, called The Answer, was really give people in laymen's terms, all these scientific reasons of how it works and why it works and so they could be naysayers and don't believe that it works or they could actually learn why it works and then start to apply it right away.
And what I'm not saying is that they can just meditate or visualize or be in the right vibration, expect everything to fall in their lap. They have to take the right actions in the right order for the outcome that they want and for every result that we want, in our business and our money, relationships, there's a certain way of thinking and behaving that will yield that result.
And so if we're not achieving the results that we want, let's stop focusing on just the negative result or the ones that we don't want. Let's focus on what's causing those results. There's a physical side of it, meaning what we're doing, and there's a non-physical, meaning what we're thinking that always make up what the result is all about.
Jason Hartman:
Yeah, excellent advice. Drill down a little bit if you would on Step 2 of attracting more clients because right there, that solves the problem of pretty much any business. If you just increase the flow of new clients, new customers, new revenue, that's the lifeblood of a business, of course. That just solves a lot of problems right off the bat. What do you teach in One Coach to do that?
John Assaraf:
Well, in conjunction of obviously being in the right vibration, as I mentioned, you have to fire on all cylinders, and so it's great if you and your team are in the right vibration and you have the right vision and you have the right mental image, etc. But now you have to be doing the right things and every business has what I call an optimal marketing strategy and an optimal selling strategy.
So when we talk about optimal marketing strategies, that really means that we are promoting our product or service to the individuals who are most likely to want it, where most people don't think about whose most likely to want my product or service. They're doing what I call prey and spray. They're trying to reach everybody, as opposed to specifically, precisely whom they want.
And what that does is that narrows your field versus open up your field. It narrows your field to the people who are most likely to have an interest in your product or service and are most likely to buy your product or service. So we actually want to narrow the focus and narrow the niche versus expand the focus and expand the niche.
Let me give you an example. At One Coach, our focus is on small business owners, who are less than five employees, and under $1 million in revenue that want help. Now, you didn't hear me say that need help. It's that want help. Those are the people that know they're either not going as fast as they could. They're stuck at a certain income level and can't get to the next level. They're working too many hours and want to work less. They're either giving up hope because what they're doing isn't working and so they're looking for the answers.
So the reason we wrote the book, The Answer, was to help those that want to read about it. The reason we created One Coach is to coach the ones who wanted not just the information in the right order, but the accountability that is absolutely paramount for people to make changes long-term.
Jason Hartman:
When I would do seminars on marketing and branding, I would always say I'd rather be No. 1 with a small group than No. 2 with a large group because No. 2 doesn't buy anything. They buy from their No. 1 choice. So narrowing the focus prevents wasting the resources, doesn't it?
John Assaraf:
Absolutely. It narrows the resources of who you talk to, it focuses anybody who, unless they come into your website, to speak specifically, directly to them. It allows you to do joint ventures or partnerships with people who are already dealing with that existing customer who could also use your product or service. So in narrowing the focus, we actually are achieving more and we're spending less because now we're not doing what I call flea market selling or flea market marketing, where we're hoping somebody will say, oh, yeah, that's for me. We're targeting specifically whom we want.
So if you're a real estate investor, who actually one of my clients I just got off the phone with, consulting them for an hour – they live in London, buying distressed properties – we just helped them narrow their focus of specifically who was actually allowing them to buy their homes right now, based on the last 20 transactions. So we've tweaked their internet message. We've tweaked what they say. We've tweaked their sales process. And just in the last six weeks, they've doubled the number of business that they're getting – in six weeks!
Jason Hartman:
That's fantastic. Any tips on specific marketing avenues? When you say narrow the focus, I definitely agree with you. That's very good advice. Do you get specific in terms of the more technical side, like email marketing, what to do with your website, any tips there?
John Assaraf:
Oh, yeah, absolutely. Again, go to what I talked about earlier in how do people make decisions to buy. So if you were to do a Google search right now on any topic, guess what Google does? Google keeps track of what you are putting in your search. Well, you could buy the placement for people who are searching for your exact service or product. And so the internet is one of the ways, 77 percent I believe, of all individuals making a purchase go to the internet first for information.
So if you're looking to buy or sell something and you don't understand that bazillions of people are going online to do research first and if you don't know how to get your company's product or service to show up in the top three or four or five spots on the Google search engines, you're leaving millions of dollars on the table or hundreds of thousands of dollars on the table.
Jason Hartman:
Yeah, that traffic is incredibly important. Do you want to share any tips on that? I mean that's a big one right there.
John Assaraf:
Well, yeah. The first thing about websites is most people don't understand that your website shouldn't be everything to everybody. You only have two seconds when somebody comes to your website for them to know whether they've come to the right website or not. That two seconds is the most time you have initially.
And so if you don't have a website that hits them between the eyes as to what exactly it is and specifically, is it something that they want to continue it, they're bouncing off your website in seconds, going to the next one. And that's just the human behavior.
Now, if you have a precise understanding of what the buyer is looking for and you create a message that keeps them there and you focus on one thing that you want them to do. Most websites focus on too many things and guess what buyers' behavior is? It's suggested if you give me too many options, I'm doing none. And so what's the one thing you want people to do? To do business with you.
So let me give you an example. Since you do a lot of work in the real estate business and investor business, what about offering a free white paper on the seven deadliest mistakes that people make who have to sell their homes fast because of foreclosure. And the only thing you do is get their first name and email and you start a dialogue with them by giving them something for free.
Jason Hartman:
Yeah, I definitely agree and that also invokes the law of reciprocity, so that's a great thing. It's just good karma, too. So excellent. Good advice; good advice. Do you recommend using squeeze pages and things like this that are just sort of these one-page websites? Those are pretty hot nowadays with a lot of marketers.
John Assaraf:
Absolutely. The internet is a strategy. Squeeze pages are a tactic, and so when we get into the internet as a strategy, that formulates part of our optimal marketing and optimal selling strategy. Now, there's 20, 30, 40 different tactics we can use, of which a squeeze page is one of them, and the question's not the squeeze page, but what happens after somebody gives you their name and phone number or name and email? What do you send them? What do you call them on? What's the communication like, today, tomorrow, the next day, the week after that? Those are all things that need to be thought through and planned out so you're not reinventing the wheel over and over again.
And that goes back to success in business is really a science. It's not a matter of luck. Sure, I'll take luck. When we put the book, The Answer, together, we really focused on a lot of the how-to's, as opposed to what-to's, so here's what you should do and here's how you do it. And the internet is one strategy for obviously promoting your product or services.
But if you have a website, that's like having an igloo in the middle of Siberia without driving any traffic to it. Nobody is going to see you.
Jason Hartman:
Good analogy.
John Assaraf:
Even if somebody sees you, then what do you want them to do? All of this stuff is something that you don't have to figure out for yourself because others have already spent millions of dollars figuring it out. What you have to do is determine what's the best strategy for you and then how do you get to implement it?
Jason Hartman:
Absolutely. Well, let's wrap up, John, with Step 3 of the One Coach program. Just talk a little bit about building a better business. This is the part that's the funner part. It's the sustainability part, the attracting more clients and customers has been achieved, and of course, that's always an ongoing process. But now we're talking about sustaining growing. One of the great quotes I heard about businesses, find people you can trust and grow old with them. How do you do that, sustainability, the right people, extraordinary life?
John Assaraf:
Let me give you an example of building a better business. I was talking to one of our private clients who is a dentist in Illinois and he does about $1 million in revenue a year and doesn't have any clue what the lifetime value of his customers are. And what I mean by the lifetime value of the customer is think for a moment – somebody comes to see you, you're a dentist or your own product or service, and they buy it for $20.00, $50.00, $100.00, whatever the price point is. If you don't know how many times they're going to come and see you over the next year, two, or three, plus what kinds of referrals they're going to give you over the next year, two, or three, how do you know how much you can invest in the acquisition of that customer?
And so part of building a better business is understanding some of what it means to attract a client and what the value is of having a relationship with that client with you. So every business should have a lifetime value program, knowing what their customer is worth, knowing what other products or services they could buy, knowing the value of the referrals that those people could give you over the lifetime of your business. That's just one simple way of thinking of the lifetime value of a customer.
Jason Hartman:
Is there a formula for that? Say the lifetime value of the customer is $100,000.00. Is there a formula for how much you invest in them?
John Assaraf:
Well, it depends on your profit margins once you know what your initial profit is or your initial gross revenues for each client. Think about what the infomercials do, where you watch an infomercial, they get you all excited, and they say you can buy this for $9.97, and you get all emotional and all excited. They don't make any money off the $9.97. They make all of the money on the back end, on the $29.00 that you agree to when you call to let them charge your credit card for those vitamins every single month or for the new CD or the new book.
So they clearly understand that if they give you a loss leader, a chance to buy their product or service very, very inexpensively on the front end, they don't even need to cover their costs because they have figured out their optimal selling strategy and optimal marketing strategy that will give them $100.00, $200.00, $500.00, $5,000.00 return on investment over the next few years.
And so the formula is what is the profit margins obviously on your initial sale, what is going to be the profit margin on future sales, how long that's going to last, and the number of referrals that you can expect from those clients. So there's definitely a formula that you work with and you don't have to understand this formula. You just need to know that it exists and you need to make sure that somebody implements that for you.
Jason Hartman:
Excellent. How can people take advantage of the One Coach program? I'm very curious as to the cost.
John Assaraf:
The investment to get coached by us, either one to many, we have about 52 experts that they get access to throughout the year because we interview them and they share their secrets of success with them. We have an archive of hundreds of interviews we've done with experts in growing a business. We have coaching one-on-one and the prices will range anywhere from somewhere around $400.00 to buy some of our product, all the way to $25,000.00 to work with our consulting department specifically on a business.
And so it's all customized based on the individual and their needs and so we don't have a one price fits all. We have obviously my book and Murray Smith's book, called The Answer. It's $24.00 or something hardcover, all the way up to $25,000.00 and everything we do is based on somebody's intellectual ability and knowledge and what they need, and their financial ability in how fast they want to grow their business.
Jason Hartman:
Sure. And where can they find out more information? You have several websites.
John Assaraf:
If they want to get a couple of chapters of the book, they can go to www.readtheanswer.com. Jason Hartman:
And those are complimentary?
John Assaraf:
Those are complimentary. A couple of chapters are complimentary. And I was fortunate to be on Larry King promoting that book as well on one of the shows and he's on there promoting the book. And then go to www.onecoach.com and if they go to the right hand corner, they can actually sign up for some of our free workshops. We do a two and a half hour free workshop on Saturday mornings that is absolutely jam packed with business growth and revenue growth ideas. We do momentum calls that we invite guests to on Thursday nights. So we have a variety of ways for them to get engaged with us to see what we do, and then to make a decision whether they want to get coached by us to help them grow their business. Jason Hartman:
Excellent. Well, John, thank you so much for being on the show and keep up your good work, and I hope this has really given listeners some encouragement as to, first of all, the mindset, which is the first most important thing. Appreciate having you on.
John Assaraf:
Awesome. I appreciate it so much and everyone just remember that regardless of what's happening out there in the circumstances of life, keep your mindset right and make sure you're applying the right strategies and tactics and your results will be stellar.
Jason Hartman:
Great advice. Thanks, John.
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[End of Audio]
Duration: 56 minutes
About the host, Jason Hartman:
Jason Hartman is the Founder and CEO of Platinum Properties Investor Network, The Hartman Media Company and The Jason Hartman Foundation. Starting with very little, Jason, as a 19 year old college student, embarked on a career in real estate while promoting his unique Personal Branding methodology through which Jason says "virtually anyone can achieve wealth, notoriety and a high level of personal satisfaction." Through creativity, persistence and hard work, he soon joined the ranks of the top one-percent of Realtors in the U.S. and in quick succession; earned a number of prestigious industry awards.
By 1997, Jason realized his first entrepreneurial dream when he acquired an Irvine, California real estate brokerage firm. He combined his dedication and business talents to become a successful entrepreneur, public speaker, author and media personality as a guest on hundreds of radio and television shows. Jason's latest accomplishment is the celebration of his first company's 11 year anniversary. Over the last 20 years he developed his Complete Solution for Real Estate Investors™ where his innovative firm educates and assists investors in acquiring prudent investments for their portfolios in 39 markets nationwide. Jason's highly sought after educational events, speaking engagements and his ultra-hot "Creating Wealth Podcast" inspire and empower hundreds of thousands of listeners in 26 countries worldwide.
While running his successful real estate and media businesses, Jason also believes that giving back to the community plays an important role in building strong personal relationships. He established The Jason Hartman Foundation in 2005 with $200,000 of his own money to provide financial literacy education to young adults so they can utilize the all important real world skills not taught in school which are the key to the financial stability and success of future generations. We're in a global monetary crisis caused by decades of misguided policies and the cycle of financial dependence has to be broken, literacy and self-reliance are a good start.
Jason Hartman is available to speak at events ranging from radio and television interviews to keynote speeches and full day seminars. He presents his Complete Solution™ in a style that is entertaining, empowering and actionable. Visit www.JasonHartman.com for details. To book Jason TODAY please contact Brittney McKaig at 714/ 820-4267 or via Media@JasonHartman.com.