Leveraging Media Exposure and Speaking Events with James Malinchak
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I have on a cork board, I have a thumbtack and the thumbtack is holding up a bag of Top Ramen noodles, an empty bag. Because when I don't want to make a call or I don't want to like, you know, get on a plane and fly out of Boise or do something like that, I always look at that Top Ramen noodles bag and I say, you know, you could go back. It could go back. Even though I know that I'm

I'm theoretically not, but that's my motivation. It's like Michael Jordan when he was playing ball. I remember him saying this one time to a small group when we were doing the thing in Vegas. So how like did you just dominate all the time? He said, because my high school basketball coach cut me. So every time I took the floor, the coach that I was playing against was my high school coach. And whoever was guarding me was my high school coach. And I never forget that. And he said, that's how I became a killer and just destroyed people.

And so I was like, dang, that's me, man. Top Ramen noodles is my thing. In the last decade, I went from being a startup entrepreneur to selling over a billion dollars in my own products and services online. This show is going to show you how to start, grow, and scale a business online. My name is Russell Brunson, and welcome to the Marketing Secrets Podcast.

What's up, everybody? This is Russell. Welcome back to the Marketing Seekers podcast. Today, I've got a really cool friend and guest who is in the office here in Boise today. He is someone who 13 years ago was on the TV show The Secret Millionaire. I had a chance to go watch the airing with him and a bunch of my friends at his house. We're going to talk about that during this episode. We're going to talk about how he turned that into

10s of millions of dollars in revenue. A lot of people get media and they don't really know what to do with it. He's walks you through the exact strategy. What did, why didn't, how you guys can model it when you get any kind of exposure. He also is one of the best speakers I've ever met. And he talked about the two different sides of the speaking industry. One that I'm not, I've never been part of, which is like getting paid to speak. Uh, this is where he got his start. He's going to teach any of you guys who have a miss, uh, a message.

like how to actually take that and get paid to speak, going to speak at universities and speaking to kids and things like that, which is really fascinating. And then after that, we transitioned to how he transitioned to speaking to sell. And then he talked about one of the things he's doing, which I'm going to figure out how to model in my business to take his $2,000 offer sale and get it to the spot where 70 was at 71.6% of those people show up at his house and then buying his high ticket program. And so if you are speaking, you want to speak,

or you have any kind of media coming up, you're going to love this interview with my friend James Malachek.

What's up, everybody? I'm here today with one of my friends, the secret millionaire, we may call him, and a bunch of other names. His name is James Malinchak. And James is someone who I've known of you for, I don't know, how long? Almost 20 years now, probably. Back in the Dan Kennedy mastermind. Yeah, back in the Kennedy days. And then I knew you were a great speaker. I had a chance to watch you speak at Armand's event and close the entire room. And then you brought them all to your house, which we're going to talk about that a little bit. But I want to start actually...

Actually, let's start with Secret Millionaire because that's kind of like one of those big media things that was interesting. If you guys remember the TV show, The Secret Millionaire, James was on it, and then I had a chance to go to your house to watch the viewing and the whole party. Talk about what it was first off because some people may – the show hasn't been on for a couple of years. It's been like 13, 14 years. And actually, I brought something to start off to surprise you. You have never seen these. That's you at my house. Oh, what?

With Robin Leach. With Robin Leach, Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. Here we go. Is he still live, by the way? No, he passed away a couple years ago. There you are watching the show. There's me and Brent. We had the premiere party at my house. Isn't that crazy? That is crazy.

Well, there you go. There we go. Lifestyles Rich and Famous. So you're on the TV show and went to the airing, so we got to watch it. And what's cool is on that show, you helped coach something. What was his name? Coach Tony. Coach Tony. Coach was there, and so it was a really neat experience. But yeah, talk about that whole experience. How did you even fall into that, and what happened with it? Yeah, you know what's crazy? To this day, I still don't know who recommended me for the show because I didn't try to get on it.

producer sent in an email saying, hey, we got this show coming out where we're going to be showcasing organizations that help in the communities and we want to recognize unsung heroes. And I thought, that's a load of BS, right? Because they always hide who they are. They don't tell you it's ABC TV. Yeah.

And so I turned them down for like two weeks because I thought it was like, you know, the cousin Joe trying to print up a Vista print card. He's a producer. But no, they I did an interview with them at my house and I found out they were real. And then they revealed their ABC. And I'm like, what? Like, why would you want the ABC? Yeah. Like like I'm not a TV dude. I'm just an entrepreneur. And they're like, that's what we're looking for. Like the average everyday person. Right.

So long story short, they came and filmed at my house, and then they picked me up, put me on a plane, sent me to Gary, Indiana, which I didn't know anything about Indiana. I thought I was going to milk cows like farms. It was the number two murder capital at that time. Yeah, and so basically the premise is I lived undercover.

And I looked for amazing, beautiful people who were changing lives. And no one knew who I was, hence Secret Millionaire. And at the end of my time there, I revealed my identity as I'm about to leave town. And then I had to open up my checkbook and start writing them checks to further their cause, which we wrote over $100,000 worth of checks. Did they tell you how much they want you to donate in that? No, I had to put $100,000 into escrow.

And by the way, people were like, that wasn't his money and all. No, it was my money. I had to put a hundred grand into escrow. We filmed it and it didn't come out for several months later. So if it never picked up and aired, I don't get that money back.

right so uh but i it had to be over 100 grand but i decided who got it based on like my relationship i built with them yeah so i've never been on a reality tv show well actually i was awesome man i was cheering different though because for you like you you were like i'm assuming they were a camera crew following you around was that weird like yeah try to act cool with the camera yeah well you know how did you justify the people like yeah there's a camera crew just here because you know so abc masked it under the

the umbrella, they're doing a documentary on organizations that are helping people. They didn't. That's why the cameras were there. So you're like a host or someone. Yeah. And my whole angle was that I'm going through a change of life and I'm trying to volunteer to help serve and give back.

And so my name was James, but they wouldn't give my last name because they didn't want people Googling who were on the show. And so I wouldn't lie. They wanted to give me a fake name, but I said, no, I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to lie to people. So my last name was Robert James.

because that's my middle name. It wasn't Roberts. It was James Robert. When I introduced, I said James Robert because I wasn't going to lie to people. So I was living under James Robert, which was really me, right? And, yeah, I just had to look for amazing folks who were serving and giving back and then reward them at the end. But it was crazy. There were 15, two crews, three crews of 15 people at all times.

Even when I would sleep, we had security guards. They had cameras everywhere. They were watching you. Yeah, it was great. It was reality. Like, it was different. And then I also saw, like, how crazy it was, like, the setup. Wires everywhere. You only see, like, me on TV. But, man, there were people everywhere. There was one guy. All he was in charge was my microphone. And so we'd be walking, and then he'd say, stop, stop, there's an airplane. I'm like...

there's no airplane. And he could hear like these airplanes, 30,000 feet in the air that would mess up the mic on the show if we kept filming. So it was a whole different. And the other thing too, is like, I had to take, I do like one time we're walking down an alley and I had to walk like 15 times, step over the puddle. Yeah. Step over the puddle with your left foot, step over the puddle with him. Like, this is too much work, man. I'm gonna go back to speaking. Yeah.

That's crazy. Do you still keep in touch with some of the people from the show or from the, you actually worked with? Oh yeah. Yeah. I actually went back. This might be the first time publicly I'm revealing this, that I went back to Gary with no cameras or anything to check on everybody months later to see how they were and to just hang out with them for a couple of days. And then coach Tony, who you mentioned earlier, I flew him and his wife out to Las Vegas, gave him a second honeymoon because they hadn't had like a vacation in 20 years and

And then I had a surprise for him. I said, you're going to stay at my house. And then I'm going to set you up at the Mirage for a couple of days down in Vegas. And so I took him down and checked him into the room. And I said, let's just go walk around. And so we're walking around and Tony is a basketball guy. He starts looking, he sees all these big posters of Michael Jordan hanging. And he's like, huh, that must be something going on promoting sports or something. I said, well, let's just go check it out. Like, let's just go wonder. Right. And he didn't know I already had this set up.

So I was doing an event with Michael Jordan for four days in Vegas that I had done for a couple years. And I had it set up where he and his wife were going to go with me, and I had him meet Michael and sit next to Michael at these things. And he was just beside himself. I want to meet Michael Jordan. That would be amazing. It was pretty cool. You're in the presence of greatness. Yeah, that's so cool. Okay, so for –

As cool as the story that is, we're marketers and business people here. I know that you – most people who are on that show or any show, they just do the show and that's kind of it. Where you were very strategic on like, okay, how are we going to turn this into – like this attention, this exposure into actually money into a business. I'd love to know like kind of what you did. I saw some in your home because we watched – I was watching you execute on it. But I'd love to know kind of your strategy, how you took that media and turned it into –

Yeah.

And I took a bunch of flip chart papers, and on three walls I put B, I put D, and I put A. And I strategized for a couple weeks. What am I going to do before the show to leverage it and bring me a whole bunch of leads and turn it into profit? What am I going to do during it while it's running? What am I going to do after? Right? And so I started strategizing. So one of the things that I did while we were filming was I started to plant seeds, right?

I hired Bill Rancic, who won season one of The Apprentice, and I had him come to my event to speak. And I didn't care what he spoke about. It was for the hour-and-a-half dinner before he spoke, so I could ask him one question. I said, Bill, if you were going on a reality TV show again, knowing what you know now, what would you do differently to leverage it and bring you a whole bunch of leads and money, the business aspect of it? And he gave me the idea that if you could speak in soundbites,

to where they can cut things and use it in the promos and you can get millions of dollars of free publicity. So when I was writing out my bio before we actually started filming, I wrote my entire bio. You know, you talk about an origin story, right? I've heard you talk about that forever. I wrote my before story.

my during and my after of my story in bullet points. And this is the way I teach people to tell their stories. Do it in bullet points because it forces you to stop at the end. So when I said I grew up in a very tiny steel mill town outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, population of about 6,000 people. See, that's a bullet, so I have to stop, which means they can cut it very easily.

So I did about 30 of those before. I did about 30 after. And I wrote 30 after thinking, if someone listening or watching heard this, could they come find me and get into my funnel? Right? Well, so one of the lines I wrote, I literally scripted it out. I'm one of the highest paid, most in-demand motivational speakers in America. Russell, they took the line. And in your bio? It ran, ready for this? This is crazy. 200 times a day?

for about three and a half months leading up to the launch of the show to help promote the show. I remember the first night it came out. I was watching a television show like Monday Night Football or something. All of a sudden, about 9 o'clock, I was at the Westin at LAX. My phone is sitting on the desk, and it just starts going like this. It starts like... Bouncing. Yeah, it looked like aliens took it over. I'm like, what the heck?

I seriously thought something's jacked up on my phone. And I had like 300 messages. I'm like, what the heck? Like, there's something wrong with my phone. And I started looking at the text. Dude, I just saw you on ABC. I just saw the trailer. I was watching Monday Night Football. You came on. And I'm like, what? They forgot to tell me ABC that was coming out?

And the line they picked and the clip they used of me speaking, I'm one of the highest paid, most in demand motivational speakers in America. I literally got 20 some million dollars of free publicity. Right. But that's not all. Here's here's how I turned it into money. But I hope you guys listen to that because this is something like I got media trained way back 20 years ago. And it's about learning to speak in soundbites because the same thing like news or clips or media are going to pull those pieces out.

And if you're, most people just like wing it. It's like, no, you got to have the beats. Well, imagine doing that like 30 times when you talk about, and why is your message a before your story, a before and an after, right? Because that's how you can covertly, subconsciously start connecting with people. Oh, wow. Look where she was before he was before. Look where they are now. I want to be there, right? So, but that's not all. So now you hear that and you're watching it and you go, who is this dude?

I'd never even heard of him before. I thought Tony Robbins was the highest paid, right? So you go and start Googling. Well, I had all these opt-in pages coming up. I hired all these companies to have opt-in pages. So you would opt in and I would pop up on a video and say, hey, this is James Malinchak featured on the new hit ABC TV show, Secret Millionaire. If you'd like to learn how I built my business to where ABC invited me to be on the show, maybe you can use these strategies to build your business. Put your name and email in here and I have some free training for you.

We added almost 350,000 people to our opt-in just by doing that, just by strategically doing it, right? And people say, well, what's the big deal? Well, let's take 300,000. You have 300,000 people that opt in, and all of them spend $50 with you. You just made $15 million. What if they spend 100? You made $30 million.

And what did it cost you? Strategically planting a seed, a line. I'd love to go back to Bill Rancic. You won the Prentice. Like, what did you do? Because you didn't do anything, I don't think, right? No one...

Thinks about it afterwards like, oh, I should have capitalized on that better versus you were wise enough to think about it ahead of time, which most people don't. Yeah, so I realized this, that I wasn't going to be the next Denzel. Like people go on reality TV shows thinking this is my big break. No, something you and I learned from Dan Kennedy years ago, TV is just a media thing.

It's just a way to, if you do strategically, to draw leads. No different than a Sunday newspaper ad. No different than what you're amazing at, traffic online. It's a way to, it's a customer acquisition model. And I figured that out going into it. People say 15 minutes of fame. I said, no, I have 15 minutes of opportunity.

I have 15 minutes of opportunity to turn this into business and leads that could last a lifetime. It's crazy. We still have people who opted in way back then who are still on our list. Still buying today. Still buying. So cool. So you've got to look at media as a way to – this is a way to draw leads back to your business, whatever it is, whether you own a coffee shop, whether you're a speaker, whether you're a coach, whatever it is.

I'm curious another part because I was here for this again. This is picture number two here But we're at your house and there's a campaign so I remember it wasn't just like you got options Yes, but it's like you had a campaign in an office I remember part of me coming to your house was like hey if you're my house you want to promote this thing and throw a bonus in and What was that part of it? That's where you actually start collecting cash like during the show Yeah, so I I thought how can we number one blow this up in a big way and

Right. And number two, get what you talk about affiliates, right? It's one of your fortes, right? Talk about the dream 100. Why I was doing this back in secret millionaire day, where I was like, you know, if I could get top influencers to promote it to their list, then this just helps us get the word out even more. And the reason why I really wanted to do this is I went to ABC and I had a meeting with them and

And I said, how would you like to have 10 million emails going out or more to help promote the show? Would that help you get more promotion? And I knew that would help them tremendously because that would allow them to get renewed, right? Would allow the show to get renewed and for an option for a second season, a third season. So I was thinking like, don't walk through life like this. And that's how most people walk through life. They wear a bib and they walk through life being a taker.

Right? Like, oh, what can I get from this person? Let me slam them with this business card. Oh, I need to go with that person because they can help me. And what I always teach is you take that off from around your neck and you walk through life wearing the napkin. I call it the power of the napkin. And you look at everybody you meet. How can I serve them? How can I help them? It goes back to one of my favorite quotes, Zig Ziglar. You can get anything you want out of life. You help people get what they want.

So I went to ABC. I thought, like, what could I do for ABC to help them that would, you know, help them accomplish their goals but then put me in great connection with them? And I thought, well, they want viewers. So how could I? I just kept, like, peeling the banana, right? How do I help them get viewers? How do I serve them? And so I came up with this idea. What if I did a product launch?

And what if I could get a whole bunch of affiliates that would help promote it out? That would be the fastest way to get the word out about the show, which would get a lot of people watching, which would drive viewers, which puts me in a position to go to ABC to talk to them about a spinoff show, which I had called this way before the profit secret millionaire mentor show.

where I would literally mentor businesses and fund their business. This is crazy. Like the profit came out all those years later, but that was the goal. If I could serve them. And then I thought, well, how could I serve these affiliates? Like why would Russell Brunson want to get on it, cancel everything, get on an airplane and come to like some kind of party. And I'm like, well, what if I hold it at my house? And I thought, I just kept asking the question, how could I start? What if I got a celebrity?

So I started thinking about athletes that I knew, and I'm like, eh, would somebody fly across country for this? And then I thought, well, wait a minute. If you're going to have a party, you've got to get the most famous host on the planet. And that's when I went out. Robin Leach. Robin Leach I've known in Vegas for a while, and I said, you've got to get Robin Leach. And so I called Robin. Robin was able to do it. So now I'm like, well, okay, but would somebody fly across country for Robin Leach? No. What would make them come? What if I broadcast it live through the Internet?

and people could watch live. And I started thinking, what if 13 years ago, that was a big, like, Whoa. Oh, that was huge. Yeah. Matter of fact, what else I didn't know is you have to get a commercial license to do that from your house. Oh yeah. I got banned from the cable company. I mean, you saw we had cable cameras. I mean, we, we, you can't just like blast business like that through your local, like internet. You got to get a license for that. I had no idea. So, um,

I just kept thinking, how can I just add amazing experience and service? And I thought, what if I tell all the affiliates, if you come to my party at my house, we're going to watch the show. And then every break, I'm going to talk about what I saw in the previous scene or what I thought in the previous scene. And during and after, we'll put you on the red carpet and

And we'll allow you to promote your information and your website, your opt-in to everybody watching. So I'll make it like everybody collects opt-ins, right? And obviously everybody had to opt-in to watch the party, but you guys are able to promote your opt-ins.

As soon as I said that, like people were just calling like crazy, like because they saw it as a way to help build their business. It wasn't about just me with getting a bunch of opt-ins. It was like you can be on the red carpet. You'll get pictures with Robin Leach. If you want the video, we'll give you the video and you can drop your opt-in and you could build opt-ins from it. So that's how we did it. So cool.

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man, I could ask you a million other questions, but other things I want to talk to you as well, that I think will be super helpful for people because, um, obviously the, the world that I, the speaking world I grew up in was very much, I learned from Dan Kennedy and Armand Moore and these guys where it's like, we speak to sell, right? That's how we do it. John Childress, remember the first time I heard a public speaking coach and it was my first event I ever went to. And I remember he was like, there's two ways to get paid as a speaker. One is be famous or number two is learn how to speak to sell. And like the whole thing. Um, and you're,

you started speaking different than me. And I want to talk about that because I think a lot of people who want to become speakers, they're looking like, I have to sell something, which is great. I think, by the way, something you should all learn to do in a skill set. But you got started speaking, if I understand, maybe I'm incorrect, but like actually speaking for fees at schools and places like that, right? Can you talk about how that works, that whole model? Yeah, this whole space we're in now, like I didn't even know it existed.

When I first got in, I was like, what is this? Oh, there's a lot of scam artists in this thing. What the heck is this? Why are they selling stuff? Yeah, manipulating, tricking people. Like, I don't understand it. But I started as a fee payer. That was my dream. Like, I wrote a little book called, this is funny, titles of a book are important, right? My book was called Teenagers Can Do It.

And nobody would book me. I couldn't figure out why. Well, I'm teaching them how to do it, right? Come on, you guys. Don't you want to learn how to do it? Later, I understood titles and I changed it to Teenagers Tips for Success.

Would you rather me teach your kids success or how to do it? Yeah. So I didn't understand any of that. But I wanted to just help kids and serve kids. And then one of my best— How old were you at the time? When was this? Oh, man, this is like 22, 23. Okay. Yeah, so like five years ago? Yeah. Really recently. But one of my best friends is Joe Theismann, who's a former NFL quarterback. Okay.

And I saw Joe speak in 1995 in Palm Springs. He did a 45-minute talk, and we went to lunch after. And I said, Joe, did you get paid to be out here? And he goes, yeah. And I said, would they pay you like $50 or something? Because I had no idea. He didn't know if I was naive or joking. He quickly figured out I didn't know what I was doing. So he said, no, they paid me $10,000. Now, this is 1995. Joe's $30-some thousand now.

But I remember like, Russell, I was like, what? I about fell off my chair. I'm like, they paid you $10,000 to do what? And he said to do a talk and take some photos after. I'm like, huh? I just couldn't fathom it because at the time I was so broke. I was working in a video store making seven bucks an hour. $10,000 a year is worth of work. Oh, man, it was life-changing money for me. But it was so far from my reality.

And I was like, what? And he started to explain the speaking industry and how he was doing 100 some of those gigs. Yeah, I'm like, wait, wait, wait, what? You're talking. 100 times 10,000, like,

How do you do what you do? I need to learn this. I was just in disbelief. And I said, well, I don't know how to do this, but I'm going to do this. Like, you don't have to hit me in the head with a two-by-four twice. I catch it the first time. So I started, like, learning from trial and error. Nobody taught me. There weren't people around nowadays like me that I taught a lot of people. But I just started figuring it out.

And so I got into it speaking for kids to help them go for their dreams. And then like the elementary schools or the churches or I was the man, it was anybody that would give me a check or a free chicken dinner. I'll take it because that was way better than the top ramen noodles I was eating at the time.

And so, yeah, so it started with like kids, schools, churches, in schools, conferences, nonprofits. How would you get those? Were you marketing to those people? How does that even work? I don't know if that works at all. So when I started, no, I was just like, and it wasn't like the internet like today, right? Yeah, I would just ask everybody, hey, do you know anybody has a kids group that I can come talk for? And I would talk whether you paid me a dollar, whether you paid me 50. I once drove four hours.

spoke for four hours for $50, drove four hours back in Los Angeles, right? And I was so happy and excited. I probably spent more on the gas, right? But I would speak anytime, anywhere. And I just started by asking. I mean, now, and we'll go through later. I could tell you how to find gigs like that.

But that's how I started because I just wanted to help kids, and I thought it was so cool. I'm a rock star. I'm a speaker, and I wrote this book. And people actually care what I say, and I get to share my story. I think what's cool too is the fact that you're doing that because I think a lot of people want to skip the –

They're like, you have to get good phase. You doing that, like you're out there cutting your teeth, like learning and learning and learning, getting better and better so that you become worthy of like, oh, now I want $10,000 or $50,000 or $100,000 for a gig. But you got to put in the effort first, you know? Yeah, absolutely. And I always say, look, planes don't take off when they're completely 100%. Everything's perfect.

They course correct along the way. And that's how we have to do it in business or in speaking. And I would say it's not about being a good speaker. It's about getting to the people who have events and getting them to pick you.

Like I've seen a lot of speakers that I look at them and I'm like, oh my gosh, that guy, oh, he's not saying anything new. And then I have to catch myself and I'm like, yeah, but he's up there getting paid and I'm not. He's doing something right. I should take that guy to lunch and figure out what he's doing. So I started there. Then I went into the college. Then I started learning speaking. I went into the college university market. And once I figured out the key was you got to get to the people, even today, whether it's fee paid or speak and sell, you got to get to the people that run events and get them to pick you.

Or you're broke as a speaker. And so I wasn't a great speaker. I just became a master at getting people. When I figured that out, like that was the eight ball. Like if we're shooting a game and pull the goals to knock the eight ball in, the eight ball of speaking is get coordinators. So I used to use an app. I don't know if you know. I created an app back in the day. Yeah, it's called AIC. It's called Ass in Chair App.

And I just sat my ass in a chair and I looked for coordinators. That's all I did for hours a day. And I built spreadsheets. And so it got to a point where it became actually pretty simple. I had 10,000 coordinators on a spreadsheet. So if I mail... Coordinators are someone who runs an event. Yeah, they're the people that book and pay checks for people to speak. If I mail 10,000 brochures that cost me one stamp,

Old Dan Kennedy direct marketing, right? By the way, it still works today. It still works today because nobody gets mail anymore. So you're the only one that shows up. As long as it's going to the right person with the right messaging, 10,000 on a list. If I mail 10,000 of them, 10%, my 10, 10, 10 philosophy, 10% will be interested. That's 1,000. And 10% will book you. That's 100. Or if your fee is, let's just say, 10,000, you just made a million bucks, and what did it cost you? About 10 grand. And so that's how I got going. And so I used to run this business.

seven-figure business, just me, no assistance, with something called ACT. Remember the old database ACT? And I used to print out my labels, and I used to watch Blockbuster videos all weekend, and I'd stick labels. I didn't even know they made like stamps that already were sticky. And I would do that, but every time I'd drop a brochure in the mail, I would think, you know, $10,000.

$8,000, $5,000, $3,000. So that's how I got started and very blessed that over the years I ended up becoming two-time national college speaker of the year. And it wasn't because I was a great speaker. It's because I was doing so many more talks than everybody else. I had more votes. And so I just really – and then I went into the corporate market because they pay you much higher fees.

I still do fee paid speaking to this day. You know, as long as it hits my fee, I'm not going to turn down. It's like, wow, you get to speak for an hour and they're going to pay you like 40 grand, 50 grand, whatever, 10 grand. Like, come on, man. I used to eat Top Ramen noodles. I want to tell one last thing. You know, in my office, I have to this day, I've had it for years. I have on a cork board. I have a thumbtack.

to the cork board and the thumbtack is holding up a bag of Top Ramen noodles, an empty bag. Because when I don't want to make a call or I don't want to like, you know, get on a plane and fly to Boise or do something like that, I always look at that Top Ramen noodles bag and I say, you know, you could go back. You could go back. Even though I know that I'm

Theoretically not, but that's my motivation. It's like Michael Jordan when he was playing ball. I remember him saying this one time to a small group when we were doing the thing in Vegas. I said, how did you just dominate all the time? He said, because my high school basketball coach cut me. So every time I took the floor, the coach that I was playing against was my high school coach, and whoever was guarding me was my high school coach. And I never forget that. And he said, that's how I became a killer and just destroyed people.

And so I was like, dang, that's me, man. Top Ramen noodles is my thing. Yeah. Yeah. So cool. So that's how I got into the fee paid speaking. That's cool. And I think it's cool. Like last year at Fun Hockey Live, one of my friends, Ben Kerr, spoke. And probably the best speaker we had. Amazing. But he's not from our world. So he's doing this. He's getting paid, I don't know, 10 to 30 grand per speech. And he's doing 50 of them a year, traveling place to place to place. But because he's gotten so good at speaking that like –

I was like, dude, if you just learn how to close at the end, this goes to millions of dollars a year. And he'll figure it out. He's an amazing kid. But he went that same path. I think in our entrepreneurial world, people – I'm going to start a webinar. They don't understand that. It's such a cool path. I didn't go that path, but I had to cut my teeth the same way. I was back when I was doing –

learning how to speak. It was, I was going to all those events that, um, pre 2008 people do all these little events. It was funny. I don't know. You probably didn't get invited. These ones, but I can invite his events. Like there's gonna be 500 people. And I show up, there's like,

12 people and half are speakers. I'm like, okay, we're in trouble. I was sitting in this room. I'm like, only one of us is going to get paid this trip because we had to pay our own flights and hotels. We had to out-close the other people so we get paid that week because otherwise I'm flying home with my wife. Yeah, I didn't make anything. It was all like you eat what you kill, which is a fun mentality. We learned how to close and speak. I'm curious to be like, when did you make the transition from

from the speak, getting paid to speak to actually selling? Because you're also one of the best platform closers I've ever seen. It's like you're a great speaker, but then you add this into it. When did you make that transition and not think of this as a scam, but like, oh, this is actually a cool business model. How do we do this? So my first seminar was in the year of 2000.

When I started teaching speaking and how it happened was people started to find out. They used to call me that college speaking guy. Well, you want to talk about a good marketing thing? You got to listen to your prospect. And I would say you have to speak prospect, right? So I kept hearing people say, oh, you're that college speaking guy. You're that funnel guy. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Or that potato gun guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I started to brand myself. James Malinchak, yes, that college speaking guy. That was my tagline.

Right. And so I sort of cornered like how to get booked and paid to speak in the college and university market. And people started asking me, hey, would you teach me how to do this? How do you can't get at the time I was making 100 grand a month.

Right. Doing fee paid speaking. People thought like they would say, oh, you speak to kids. I'm so sorry. Yeah. So sorry. Here, here's a nickel to go buy some food. Right. And they didn't know that I was actually crushing it. Right. And that there's budgets in the college and university market. And they get this money all the time because kids go to school and they pay activities fees and their state and federal funding. And there's all these different funding sources. There's money they have to spend on speakers. There's money they have to spend. Exactly.

So I just figured it out. That's why I was pretty good at it. And so people started asking me to teach them. Like, how do you do this and how do you do that? And so we go back to Dan Kennedy. I did a consulting with Dan at a National Speakers Association conference. And Dan, what was funny is I got this fax. Remember the fax days? He still faxes me. Does he really? Yep, we still have a fax machine. You have to have a fax machine just for Dan. Yep, I do. Me and him are the only two left. Isn't that crazy? Yeah.

But I got a fax. Somehow he figured out I was going to be at the National Speaker Association Conference. And I got a fax. Hey, this is Dan Kennedy. You're coming to, I think it was in Dallas. And it starts on a Friday. I'm going to do a mastermind the day before in my suite.

and if you want to sit in on it and then everybody will get like 15 minutes, then it's like $1,000. I'm like, who is this dude? This dude's nuts. $1,000 to sit in his suite? This guy is crazy. Russell, I kid you not. I said, all right, I'm going to do it. Just to see how crazy this guy actually is. And then I'll ask for the refund that he says you can get because this guy is full of crap. I'm like, I didn't even know who Dan was, right? So I went to that thing, and there was like 12 of us, and I'm going –

This dude's making 12 grand for four hours. That's pretty good. Right. And I'm like, I'm getting a refund because this guy's full of crap. Right. I mean, the first time he started talking, I was like, and Dan was the one that told me on my little 15 minute hot seat that, hey, you ought to package this up and sell it to people and teach them how to do it.

I was like, "What? What do you mean? Like in a seminar?" I had no idea what he was talking about because I was a fee-paid speaker. Yeah, that's the world you knew. So I could remember. And he told me about writing a sales letter and here's my ultimate sales letter book and all that stuff. And I was like, "Well, a sales letter? What the heck is that?" So I remember I didn't do anything for six months. And then I said, "You know what? I'm going to prove this guy—" By the way, I did not ask for my refund because everything he said made sense.

I just never heard that before. And I was like, my jaw was dropped. Like, wow, this is a whole way, a different way of thinking. So about six months later, I'm sitting in, I'm at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. I had a whole day and my goal was to go play basketball in the gym.

And I thought, you know what, maybe I ought to sit down and try the sales letter thing that that Kennedy dude talked about. So I went to the Bucknell University Computer Lab. I sat there, opened up his book, and I tried to write a sales letter for the college speaking success boot camp that I was going to do. And I did.

And I put it into a brochure, and I mailed it out because I didn't take credit cards back then. You used to have to mail me a check. It was $1,000 to attend. And I was like, I can't charge $1,000. He said, well, if they learn from you, can they make $1,000 speaking? I'm like, yeah, they make a lot more. He said, well, charge $1,000 and guarantee that they'll make the money back with the first booking.

So, okay. And I said, I'm going to do it, but no one's going to do this. So I'm not kidding. My first seminar I did in 2000, I marketed it just to prove Dan wrong so I could go back and say, look, you don't know what you're talking about. You're wrong. You're wrong. I had 12 people send me checks. To me, that was huge. I was like, what?

I just made 12. I didn't even know what to talk about. I didn't have a seminar. So I literally wore shorts and a t-shirt and I just taught them everything I did for the college university market. They loved it. And people started like signing up for another little 12 person. I did these 12 person ones and I'm like, this is great. I'm making 12 grand on a Saturday. This is cool. Right. And so that started to pick up. And then all of a sudden, here's how I got into selling. I got a phone call out of the blue was Mark Victor Hanson.

co-creator of Chicken Soup for the Soul. And he said, hey, I got this thing called Speaking Empire. I heard you're the college speaking guy. I said, yeah, that's true. He said, I want you to come and speak at my event. We're going to have like 500 folks. And can you teach the college market? I said, yeah, here's my fee. And there was this pause. And he goes, well, we don't pay fees. I'm like, huh?

And he said, no, you come, you speak, you talk, and then you offer them continuing education after. And I'm like, oh, what? I don't do that. And he said, well, you have like a little seminar, right? I said, yeah. I said, could I sell that? He goes, yeah. I said, it's $1,000. He goes, yeah, that's fine. That's what they can buy after. I said, okay, cool. I said, wait, you're going to have 500 people?

And he goes, yes. And Russell, I went like this. Oh, my gosh. I can't believe 500 people about to give me $1,000. 100% close rate. I didn't know this world. And so he goes, yeah. So you offer it at the end. And then, oh, by the way, I get half of what they buy. I'm like, huh? Like, what? Half? Like, what are you talking about? Well, he explained the promoter thing. I pay for the lights. I pay for the stage, the marketing.

And I thought, okay, $250,000 is still amazing. Right? Yeah. I said, okay. I said, I'll try it. I go down. I do the talk. Childress was there, by the way.

I did my offer at the end, which I didn't know what I was doing. I wasn't making an offer. I was talking, right? And I saw a couple other people say, now meet me at the back table. So I said, now meet me at the back table. And I went to the back and I turned. There's this long line following me. I'm like, oh, my God, this is amazing. People were coming up to me. They're hugging me, crying. That was the best talk I've seen. Great, you coming to my training? No, I'm going to go to John Childress. What?

Somebody else, hey, I took 12 pages of notes. Awesome. You're going to come to my training so I can really help you? No, I'm going to go to Dan Kennedy. Huh? One after another, 70, 80 people. Zero bot. Zero. I don't know what percentage that is, but that ain't good. I can make nothing from this trip. I know. Russell, I was standing there getting just mad at the audience. What's wrong with them?

And then I had this revelation that a mentor taught me when I was a young kid. He said, in every situation, you can be bitter or better. You can't be both. Which one are you going to choose? So my revelation was, oh, maybe 500 people aren't wrong. Maybe it's me. Because look at that line for Childress and look at that line for Dan Kennedy. And I got a long line too, but they're actually enrolling with them. No one enrolled with me.

So I enrolled in all those programs. And I went to Childress' first training way back 20 years ago. And I remember he talked for the first 30 minutes, and I realized this was my big aha moment. Oh, I speak, but I don't know how to speak. I'm speaking, but I don't know how to speak. And so that was my first entry into Speak and Sell.

And then I just became a hound dog. And I remember I went about two years with nobody buying, two and a half years. I couldn't understand like what. And then one day it clicked. I was speaking for Adam Urbanski. I don't know if you remember Adam. He gave me like a shot. He had a small group in Newport Beach.

And I did 32,000 in sales and I was beside myself. I was like, okay, I don't know what I just did, but I think I figured it out. How do I replicate that? Yeah. Got the video, watched it, studied it, did the same thing, and then went to like 50. And then about three or four months later, I did over 100,000. This is just crazy for me. I'm like, I did 100 grand, right? And then 200, 350, a million. I was like, whoa, this is crazy. Like that's how I got into speaking offer.

And so, yeah, I didn't know anything about it. I thought it was scummy when I got into it. And then I realized, oh, I get it now. I always teach, there's two sides of speaking. You've got fee paid over here, and you've got speak and offer over here. Fee paid, anybody can get paid. Speak and offer is like public events. Unless you're a celebrity or a shamu, right, you're probably not getting paid, right? So you're going to have to speak and offer. And as long as you have something that's going to serve them, help them change their life, transform them,

you're doing a disservice by not offering your great stuff to them. And now I have no, no problem. Yeah. That's my fan. It's like in a 90 minute presentation, you have the ability to, to give them the strategy, but for you to tactically implement that with them, it, it takes something extra. And that's the best of the ones who knew how to like take that. Like, here's the strategy plan. Come with me now. We're gonna help you tactically implement it and,

And it's fun. Oh, and you're amazing. You're amazing. I love watching you. Even when you were at my event years ago speaking, I was like, God darn, I got to train myself to talk fast. I figure I talk so fast people can't understand every other word. Like, I don't know what he's saying, but I should buy this so I can go watch the replays because I'm so confused. Like, slow down, Russell, slow down. You're amazing. You're great. Well, thank you.

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Okay, so I have a question for you. This is a selfish question now. So the first time I saw you speak to sell was Armand's event. And a couple things. Number one is I remember he introduced you and you came in from the back of the room. I think you were walking to the table. I can't remember. Like huge pattern. We're just like, what just happened? And then I watched you do your presentation and who

When you did your clothes, and I think I spoke after and I commented on it because your stack was insane. What you offer is amazing. And then you went all the way down to the point where you had everyone come to your house and hang out with you. And the offer was like two grand or something. And I was just like, you're letting people come to your house for $2,000. My wife wouldn't let me bring people to my house for a million dollars. So I want to talk about just how you create your offer, but then specifically the house part because I have in my head an idea for myself.

But I want to understand it for me so I can model it for what I'm doing. So when I started watching everyone, right, everyone was doing the same kind of offer. Buy my course, buy my course, buy my course. So I started, I don't know, probably before that Armin event, eight, nine years earlier, maybe 10, somewhere in there. I said, how do I make myself different?

How do I make it unique and different so that if they buy Russell's awesome course and program and they buy someone else's, they go, oh, I need James's too, not which one should I take? So that was the first thought process. I want them to take mine also versus a choice. And so in order to do that, I had to make it different. So I started thinking, well, how do I make this different? And then I started thinking, well, none of them give them an experience. Right?

So how can I give them an experience? And I thought, well, I literally, when I started, said, what if I build a house? And my offer includes come to my house as the cherry on top of the sundae, like the big crescendo, right? You get to come to my house. So basically you get, and the way I do offers is I put different modalities of learning. So you have the modality of self-education online, right? You have the modality of an intensive, come to my bootcamp.

And then you have a small, intimate modality of come to my house. So I have three modalities of learning. So when someone looks at my offer, they go,

Oh, I like to self-study with courses, right? I like to stop, write things down. So I got that modality in there where someone else in the audience might go, oh, I'm going to this dude's house, right? Because I like to learn in small, little, intensive. And then there's others who say, no, I'm a seminar type person, right? So that's the first thing. I want different modalities of learning in my offer to appeal to everybody in the audience. But I also want a modality to be like different with an experience. And that's how I came up with the house thing. Okay.

And so I could also use that to position against everybody else. Yeah, because it was the offer 2000. What's the price? Yeah, 1997. So basically, I make it very simple and brain dead. My seminar ticket was 2000 bucks, but you got two of those.

So you got the price back just in one seminar ticket. So now you get two seminar tickets. They can resell that? No, they bring us a guest. And you know why you have them bring a guest. Most of them are bringing a spouse. So you have both buying decision makers in the audience when you offer your upsell.

Right. Or they bring a business partner or they brought somebody who never heard of you before. But now that person is joining your upsell, your coaching, your mastermind. So that's why I always give away two tickets. Right. And and so basically I threw in my house to make it completely different. And I wrote this script because, you know, you're big on scripting. I'm big on scripting. Like I don't I don't say thing. It looks like, you know, actor Sidney Poitier said it best. The art is hiding the art.

And so it looks like we're just up there rambling, but it's scripted out. Like I've heard you so many times. You're a master at it. I know when you're going to last. So do I. Yeah.

Kennedy told me the first time, I know why I take my drink of water. I know when I'm laughing. I know like, yeah. Yeah. It amazes me. People like talk and make offers and they don't script it out. No, I'm just a free flowing. I'm like, you're going to free flow right into like debt. What are you talking about? So one of the lines I wrote was when I offer the house, here's one of the scripts I wrote.

There is nobody at my level that you'll ever meet at an event that will treat you like a human being and invite you to come to their house. They all want to stick you. And then I alienate everybody else. They want to stick you in some stuffy hotel room because they don't really care about you. You get to come to my house because we care about you. So there's one of the scripts I wrote. And that was to help sell the differentiation point.

And so, yeah, so that's how I created the whole Come to the House. And I got pictures of people playing basketball on my court and putt-putt golfing and their feet in the pool. What percent of people buy actually end up coming in? Because, I mean, at $2,000, you're closing a lot of people. What percentage actually show up? So we have – it depends on where they come from.

So I always say one of the most important things, let me tell you this. Jack Canfield walked into my event one time and he said, man, I heard, Jack Canfield, chicken soup with the salt. He said, man, I heard like you do like a couple million bucks in coaching at your event. What's the secret? I said, there's not one secret, Jack. There's like 75 things we do leading up to the event, right? But if I had to like give you the magic pill, what I think you're asking for, so I got the right fish in the pond in the first place.

I got a bunch of groupers sitting here. I always say you can't feed your family on guppies. You can only feed them on grouper. So I got people who already can afford it in the audience because I spoke and drew leads from the right place in the beginning. So that's why I'm very big on like your close percentage goes up the better quality of a buyer you have. And for me, a better quality of a buyer is somebody who's already in another program at the same price or higher.

It's not a brand new person who doesn't understand masterminding and coaching. So I was very strategic of which events I would speak at because basically I'm fishing. I'm pulling them from their pond into mine, and I don't want guppies. I want grouper. So I'll give you a quick example, then I'll go back to the percentage. If I'm in the right audience, percentage is high. So there was in South Florida a life coaching group for like three years that's been trying to get me to speak, 30 minutes down the freeway.

And so I always ask questions. Well, how much did the people pay to be there? It's like a monthly thing they do. They said nothing. I said, okay, so then yearly, they pay yearly membership and this is free, this luncheon you're doing. I know they don't pay yearly. I'm like, okay, so they don't pay to be there and they're not paying a yearly. They're all driving, so they're all local. And so I've turned them down. And they can't believe I'll turn them down because I can make an offer and keep 100%, but I don't want to because I don't speak to make a sale. I think I got this from Dan.

I speak to make a sale to get a client that buys from me for years. I've got coaching clients that have been with me 15, 16 years because they're the right client. My longest client came from speaking at a Dan Kennedy event. 16 years later, he's still my client. It's been over like seven figures that he's paid me in fees.

One person because he came from the right pond, right? So I won't go down the street to the life coaching group, but yet I got on a plane and flew to Edinburgh, Scotland to speak, you know, Brad Sugars with Action Coach. Great guy. I flew over there to speak at Action Coach. Why? There's 200-some people going to be there. They all paid $100,000 for Action Coach franchise plus royalties back every month. They all flew to Edinburgh, Scotland. They can afford a back-end program. Good pond to go fishing.

Right? So I always start with the pawn. I want grouper. So if I got the right grouper in the pawn, that 2,000 offer is very high, like a percentage, closing percentage. And then when they come to the house, the more serious people, the grouper, show up.

the guppies who aren't serious about business don't show up. So I want the right entrepreneur, right? That I'm speaking in front of in the first place, because that's a better show up rate to the house and to the event. Right. Interesting. How many people can actually come to like, how,

My house? Yeah, how many people can actually show up to an event there? Yeah, we fit like 20 to 25 in my conference room. I have a conference room I built specifically for doing that. And then is this like a one-day event, a couple-day event, multi-day? You know, it's crazy. It used to be one. And then I don't know, for some reason I got to be thinking I can serve them and give them more if I do two days, right? And so I turned it into two days and my percentage of upsell went through the roof. So, right, we average this is crazy.

And by the way, this is my funnel. This is something I really picked up from you. You're a genius, right? You did something that you made yourself the mountain peak of.

of funnels. I always say like when I'm talking to a coaching client, like what's your mountain peak? There's a lot of stuff you do, but what's the one peak you get remembered for and you create Toma top of mind awareness amongst everybody. And you did that with funnels, right? Cause every, every answer to everything I joke, I talk about Russell. It's true though. Yeah. Russell's like everything's a funnel, right? And you're, it's true. Yeah. Like you're the one that made me think that way. Like, Oh my gosh, I'm doing this wrong. Why do I give options on a website? It should be just one, one thing like, right. Yeah.

But like I always joke and say, yeah, you know, Russell's a master at this, right? You want to grow your business? You need a funnel. You want to increase your net? You need a funnel. You got a broken arm? You need a funnel. So you became that. I wanted to become the guy with speaking. I want to be known as the speaker guy, right? That was my mountain peak. And so I really honed in on, I'm going to just stay in my lane and try to own that word.

Right. So that when you think of like making money as a speaker, you go to James. I don't talk about monetize your message. I don't talk about all that. I said, look, there are better people who will teach you how to craft a story, how to walk on stage. You know, I don't do that. Well, you go to all them and learn. And when you're ready to make money, come to me. And that's been my pitch. One of my scripts. I want to own the mountain peak of speaking. And that's how I've coached athletes and entertainers. And people just keep coming because of that.

So my percentage when they come to the house is 71.6%. So you got me started thinking about funnels. So my funnel is first, find the right audience, grouper, right? Entrepreneurs. Secondly, over-deliver to do whatever we have to do to get them to the house, right? Move them through the funnel, right?

When they're at the house, I do nothing for two. And we treat them right. We pick them up in a Mercedes van. We bring them up. We have catered lunch and we take them back in the van. Like we treat them really well. All they got to do is get to Vegas and then spend two days of doing nothing but the napkin of serving. Like literally I put my heart into it and I coach them in like any question. And like, I'm just, I'm completely coaching serving them. And I'll have people who say,

Dude, like I can't believe I paid $2,000. Like when I first signed up at the event, I thought it was 20 grand. Yeah. Like I get to go to your house for two grand plus the courses plus the seminar? That's crazy. And that's what I teach. You create one offer. It's something I coined years ago, DAO, the Dow, the dumb ass offer. Someone looks at your offer, they should go,

I wasn't planning on getting this, but man, I'd have to be a dumbass to not take it. This is a lot of great stuff. So when they're at my house, that second step is to serve them and just go overboard and really fix them and help them. Not the fluffy stuff. I don't have an agenda. I just, okay, what's your problem? What's your problem? What's your goal? What do you want to achieve? And it's a small group, so I'm really helping everyone.

Russell, by the end of day one, they're asking me, is there a way you can work with me one-on-one? Yes, there is. Glad you asked. And then the next day, after I serve them for 8 a.m. till 1 o'clock, we come back after lunch. I literally, I don't even make a hard close or a hard pitch. I just say, hey, would it be helpful if you had, this is a script I wrote, would it be helpful if you had my marketing mind thinking for you, creating for you, working for you, figuring everything out and just handing it to you and telling you what to do?

Because there are three things I learned nobody wants to do. They don't want to think. They don't want to create. They don't want to work. Because now they've got to take responsibility if they mess up. So I take that responsibility off them. I'll have my marketing mind thinking for you, creating for you, working for you, figuring everything out, and just handing it to you. And you just follow the plan. And so they just naturally come to the conclusion, oh, my gosh, this dude served me for two days. I'm moving forward with him. But you really honed me in on the funnel aspect of it.

So it may not be the online funnel that a lot of people think is a funnel. There's different ways to do a funnel, but you're the one that got me and I keep it simple. And I've been running that funnel forever. That's why you see like social media out of all these people in my house. Yeah. So cool.

I wish we'd go like another two hours, but we have another event that you're here in Boise to speak at starting in less than an hour. So they're telling me we need to wrap up, but this has been awesome, man. I appreciate the secret millionaire stuff was fascinating learning the other side of speaking business and then figuring out how to create an offer like that. Again, it's got the wheels, my head spinning. Cause I'm just, I mean, right now there's more people selling courses now than in the history of all time. It's like, how do you make that offer next level? Like,

come to your office, like move them to the next Ascension event is really, anyway, that's a big takeaway for me. Hopefully you guys got some really cool things from that as well, but I appreciate you coming. Where's the best place for some who wants to go find out more about you and see, see all your stuff. Oh, it's real simple. Just go to www.bigmoneyspeaker.com where you find me in social media and, and primarily Instagram and Facebook. Very cool. And I just want to say, man, thanks for, thanks to you. You forget the funnels and the marketing, but you,

What I think you've done more for me and for all of us is you show us that you could be really successful in business and be a really good human being. I admire how you talk about your wife, how you talk about your kids, how you talk about helping people. And you taught me to be a better human being just by seeing what you do. And I don't know if

many people share that with you. So I just, you know, I say all the time, man, this guy's got this awesome company. It's like billions of dollars or whatever, and it couldn't happen for a better human being. And I truly mean that. So bless you and God bless you for what you're doing. I appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you, James. And I hope you guys enjoyed this episode. If you did, let us know and go check out James on his sites and appreciate you, man. Appreciate you, brother.