seminar Martin Lee on 12 Sep 2007 01:11 am
What to Expect From a Jay Abraham Seminar
Over the past two weeks, I had the good fortune to attend two back-to-back Jay Abraham events in two different countries. These were the first ‘live’ events of Jay that I have ever attended. Overall, it had been an enriching experience and I would like to share some of my thoughts here.
The first day of the program deals with your marketing mindset (strategy), the second day introduces you to many of the tactical weapons available, and the third day is for you to build your own master marketing plan.
Jay Abraham is paid not to deliver a lecture from 9 to 5 everyday, but is paid to make sure we learn. From his years of experience in running similar programs, he found that this approach works best in making sure we learn:
- Delivery of lecture for about 1-2 hours.
- Discussion among participants (same table) of key concepts they have learnt.
- Some sharing by participants (using the microphone) to the rest of the class.
- More sharing (with at least 5 people) during tea breaks of key concepts learnt.
The sharing plays an integral role in the learning process. Assuming each participant has 15 years of experience and there are 200 participants in the room, there is 3000 years of experience and insights to be shared. This gives a greater dimension to learning than just listening to Jay talk for the whole day.
Of course, not everyone embraces this approach and some people only want to sit there and listen to Jay whole day long.
Also, we are given homework to do when we get back home. These are reading assignments of short reports and we were supposed to share our insights with the class the following day. I have to confess that I didn’t manage to finish all the reading I was supposed to do. Some of the reports were lengthy (40 pages long) and were difficult to read.
My verdict of the event is that it would be most beneficial to a marketing greenhorn. Someone without the knowledge of backend, USP, strategic alliance, etc before the event would be able to profit tremendously if he takes what he learns and applies just a fraction of it.
I’m not saying that an experienced marketer will not benefit. It’s more a case of marginal utility. The less you know, the more you will learn and the more you already know, the less new things you will be able to pick up.
For the case of someone well versed in Jay’s concepts, he will do well to listen very carefully to what Jay says and identify precise actions that he can apply to his business. Sometimes, an idea might not sink in the first time we hear it and repeated exposure may trigger different ideas in us. One good idea could very well pay for the seminar itself.
To quote one analogy from Jay, learning marketing is like learning a martial art. You learn a few strokes and you practice them over and over again. Mastery is obtained by repeated practice, and not from learning one thousand different strokes.
Marketing greenhorn or not, one thing that is very beneficial is the networking opportunity. In each learning session, we are supposed to change seats. That means getting to know twenty new people each day. Add in the tea breaks and lunch time and you can potentially get to know 80-100 people during the three days.
Regretably, I’m not a strong networker and I only got around to introducing myself to less than fifty people.
There are two reasons why this networking is important.
1) You can form mastermind groups with like-minded individuals.
2) You can identify strategic alliances and form joint venture deals. As everyone has the same mindset towards stategic alliances to begin with, it will be easier to negotiate such win-win deals.
on 12 Sep 2007 at 11:53 pm 1.Paul said …
Hi Martin
I do envy you the opportunity that you have had.
While I have never attended one of Jay’s live events I have acquired various recordings and there is quite a lot of repetition.
But in some ways that’s good. I was listening to Jay this morning on CD say that he must have read Claude Hopkins “Scientific Advertising” book about 70 times. Each time he has read it he got a deeper understanding.
Incidentally anyone who wants a copy please email me at with “Scientific Advertising” as the heading because I have it in a PDF through a marketing article service I subscribe to.
The other problem is moving from KNOWING to DOING. It takes constant repetition to make changes and for me, that’s the big strength about a coaching rather than training approach. But as a coach I am biased.
on 15 Sep 2007 at 12:32 am 2.Martin Lee said …
Hi Paul,
Thanks for your offer of scientific advertising. I have removed your email from your comment as it is usually not a good idea to post your “naked” email on a website. It will be harvested by spambots and you will get tons of spam.
I tried looking for a “contact me” form on your website to put here but couldn’t find it. Perhaps you might want to include that in as well.
on 16 Sep 2007 at 2:31 pm 3.John B said …
Hi Martin,
I havent been to a live event of Jay, although I’m a big fan, and have studied his mastermind marketing, peq, his interviews, transcripts, etc.
He’s brilliant, but I think he’s also misunderstood, it certainly takes repetition to understand the concepts.
Scientific Advertising is brilliant. But the first few times I read it, I dismissed it as just another marketing book. It takes repetition to get the deep understand that Jay has, and thus give you an edge in marketing and business.
on 16 Sep 2007 at 4:40 pm 4.Martin Lee said …
Hi John,
I’m guilty of reading the scientific advertising book only once. Perhaps it’s time to re-read it again.
For those who would like to read it, I have made the pdf available at the downloads area.
==> Download Claude Hopkins Scientific Advertising
on 18 Sep 2007 at 12:24 am 5.Paul said …
Hi Martin
I wasn’t too concerned about my email address because it’s all over other websites.
You are right. I do get loads of spam but people have to be able to contact me. I have now added my contact details to my blog. I forgot to tick that box. Thanks again for featuring it on this site.
It’s good to see that you have posted a version of Scientific Advertising on your site. Any book that is so highly rated by Jay is worth reading by his followers.
It is quite heavy going. It starts well but then seems to go on although it is a short book.
Another book Jay rates highly and I have in some of his manuals is Obvious Adams so that might be worth finding as well.
on 18 Sep 2007 at 10:09 am 6.John B said …
Martin,
I think with scientific advertising, you expect to find big, powerful, blockbuster answers. The answers almost seem too simple to believe, and thus everyone sort of dismisses it.
Although it’s interesting to see the parallels between what Jay does and Scientific Advertising.
The book talks about how people judge things by their price (assuming high prices must equal high quality). And Jay in his own marketing always emphasizes the point about “$5,000 an hour consultant”, “$15,000 seminars, etc”. Certainly not by accident.
I think a good way to test marketing knowledge is to see all the parallels between the two.
on 18 Sep 2007 at 10:51 am 7.Martin Lee said …
Hi Paul,
One way to avoid leaving your email out there is to link people to your “contact me” form instead. If you do have to leave your email, use a modified form, eg. name at domainname dot com.
Hi John, I’ll do a short summary of Scientific Advertising in my next post.
on 24 Sep 2007 at 9:09 am 8.TA said …
Appreciate yr Scientific Advertising pdf & other useful links.
Thanks alot!
TA. 🙂