Book Review: Getting Everything You Can Out of All You’ve Got by Jay Abraham Review

In Getting Everything You Can Out of All You’ve Got, Jay Abraham uses his years of experience in marketing to help you, whether a business owner or employee, increase your profitable through several strategies that he outlines in the book.  One of the key concepts is that you don’t have to have a large marketing budget to get your message out.  The best marketers are those who can do the most with the least amount of money.

Abraham does an excellent job applying his key concepts to every business.  He utilizes real examples of how his clients have utilized these concepts in their business and how it affected them.  This book is broken down into 21 chapters which are his chief concepts and then he has several headings inside each chapter which make it easy to read and comprehend.

In reading this book I set out to learn how to grow sales in my start-up business.  It was recommended by Ray Edwards (rayedwards.com).  As I went through the book, I quickly saw the value and I started to note several action items for my own business.  I am now working on taking these action items and implementing them in SimpleBooks.  This book has application to any other type of business.

Take a Quantum Leap

Next Abraham assures the reader that you can become unbeatable.  He urges us to look at taking quantum leaps and not just increasing at a measured pace.  One way we can do that is by, “focusing on other industries’ successful practices, you’ll be amazed at how early you can adapt these ideas to your own business situation.”  Focusing on opportunities in our market places in which we see through other industries as well as looking at our own industry is how we make breakthroughs.

“Stretch yourself and start examining subjects, industries, and markets you’ve never been interested in before.  Why? Because you’ll get fresh new perspectives, ideas, and insights into segments of the buying market you’ve never thought about before.”

Test…Test…Test

In chapter 9 Abraham stresses the need to test everything in your business to see if it is doing what it should.  Marketing is not about creative ingenuity but instead about getting the maximum result from the minimum effort.  In order to do that we must test to see what works and what does not.

Abraham states that, “Failure to test, retest, and test again is tantamount to admitting that you aren’t the business person you should be.”  In testing we should test with smaller risk before taking larger risks.

This to me was one of the most helpful chapters as I think of what I am setting out to do in my business.  I now realize that I need to take the time to test and see what my clients and prospects want and what gets their attention.  There is often a tendency to assume what they want and not test it to see if our assumption is factual rather than just something we preconceived.  I look forward to applying this to my blog posts and seeing what you, readers, desire in both the type of posts and your response to the headlines.

Generating Referrals

In chapters 10-11 Abraham talks about developing referrals.  One way we do that is to “Refuse to allow yourself to become a commodity.  Instead focus on your contribution to your clients’ lives or business and the ultimate impact that results.”  When we are a commodity then we have no value over someone else how does the same thing.  We must add value to our clients and when we do this, then they will want to recommend their friends to us because they want to add value to them.

Referrals are important to our businesses because they tell us one, that our current clients are happy with us and, two they generate new clients who are often more profitable clients.  “A referral-generated client normally spends more money, buys more often, and is more profitable and loyal than any other category of business you could go after.  And referrals are easy to get.  Referrals beget referrals.  They are self-perpetuating.”

After discussing referrals, we are urged to go after out lost clients.  This does not immediately apply to me but I see the value in this.  Often we think those lost clients are gone forever but if they left for a cheaper price or some other reason other than quality, then they will remember how much value you added to them and a simple call from you can help you regain that client.

High Quality Prospects

“You need to target higher-quality prospects rather than a higher quantity.” (Chapter 14)  It is more important to gain clients than it is to have a large list of suspects.  So, “focus your efforts and attention on the markets, prospects, and activities that offer you the highest probability of a payoff and you’ll aways do better.”  Again, Abraham is telling us to get the most out of each marketing dollar by narrowing our target to the best prospects with the greatest convertibility.

The Wrap-Up

A main theme throughout the book is that our businesses should be based on quality and our marketing will branch from that.  We cannot expect gimmicks to work if we provide poor products or services.  Without providing quality then we are not adding value to our clients and our work can be replicated by another, so we turn into a commodity.

Once we provide our clients with value, then we can leverage that to get more and thus earn more.