Sales 301: Advanced Sales Training From Selling $100s of Millions | Ep 781

What's going on everyone? Welcome back to The Game. We talk about making mo' money, helping mo' people, and in general, creating profits outsized for the efforts that we put in and maybe even making an impact too. You know what? I hate the impact term, but you get the idea, right? Like, you know, do good stuff, be good for the world, all that kind of jazz. Okay, so let's talk about selling shit. Okay, so last night I had an hour-long conversation my director of sales. I was talking to him about a frame that I was like, this is advanced sales. And so I kind of want to share that conversation with you to the best of my ability. And I was like, man, I wish I had recorded this. But you know what? Cameras aren't always there. Fundamentally, what I wanted to do was explain to him a different way of selling. Obviously, one-on-one sales, you got to know how to clarify whether they're— label them with a problem, overview their past experiences, sell the vacation, 3-pillar pitch, understand. Metaphors that can directly relate to the core thing that you're helping them overcome, then explain away their concerns and then reinforce the decision. That's sales 101. I'd say sales 201 is the AAA framework that I think I made a podcast about a month or two ago, which is in between them saying statements that might not be a purchasing decision, basically them saying, "Ah, I need to think about it," or, "I'm not sure. What about this specific thing?" A, acknowledge. Then A again, you associate their response which is another way of saying you qualify the question. You say, hey, it sounds like, right? This sounds like you're the type of person who is just like the people who are really successful because you asked that question. Or that's an amazing question and because of this reason. And so when the prospect thinks they're taking a step away, you actually say, no, actually you're taking a step towards. And then the final A there is that you then you ask the next question. And so that's kind of like I would say sales 201. And so what I want to talk about today is sales 301. So more advanced And I will probably do a better job quantifying this in the future, but I think the description will still serve you well. And that director went on, explained it to the framework of the sales team. They had a meaningful increase. That's why I'm making this podcast. So I will tell you a story to hopefully demonstrate the concept. I have an ad from years ago. It was the first ad I ever ran for Gym Launch where I'm walking around this very kind of sketchy-ish area. I go upstairs, through these barred windows and barred doors and show these two apartments. And these two apartments, which were empty, were supposed to be gyms. And so I was called out to sell gym memberships into a, quote, gym that was not a gym. It was two apartments above a convenience store. All right. In not like the best area. In doing this, I was like, oh my God, how am I going to— I'm like walking around this place like, this is absurd. Like, what am I going to say here? Like, there's no equipment. One of them has clouds painted. It looks like it was a nursery or something. And then the other one was peach walls. And so you get up to the top of the stairs, bars on both doors, it's an apartment, right? There's bars on the doors. So you open up the bar doors and then you have the door door. You open it up and they look completely different. And all it is, is you've got rubber on the floor, again, zero equipment. And then there's a kitchen and tile bathroom. It made no sense. So you're like, okay, what frame of mind do I need to get into for this to be exceptional? What would have to be true in order for this to be cool and interesting? All right, so this is the question, right? What else would have to be true for this to be a crazy deal or something cool or why it would be this way and still be valuable? I basically painted this picture in my mind because this was close to DC. This particular gym, so Washington, D.C. I thought to myself, okay, if I were a politician and I wanted to not be recognized, I would go to a place a little bit further away and I would want to go to a gym that wasn't open and had just all these little rooms and nooks where I could work out so that it would be more private. When people came in, they were like, "This is a bit odd." I'm like, "Oh, this was by design." I was like, We have many clientele who don't want to be recognized. And I was like, and you may recognize some people who come into this facility, but I would just encourage you if you do, like, don't go up to them. Because then I would just make a transition. This is a metaphor. Say, hey, so have you ever gone, you know, the gym and been like, I don't want people to stare at me, right? Because I'm selling to weight loss women, right? And I'm like, yeah, yeah, I wouldn't want that. It's like, yeah, and that's why we have these individual rooms set up so that you have that kind of privacy. Now you can go into the central area if you want to go talk, hang out, see people and whatnot. But fundamentally, when you're exercising, you're doing it on your own. You don't have to worry about other people's eyes watching. You can just be you and yourself trying to improve. People are like, "Oh, that's great." Right? That frame then carried through the conversation. This framing, I think, is incredibly valuable because it then tells you what else would have to be true. There's a book I read years ago that I think was called Making Them Believe. I wouldn't recommend reading it. I will just summarize it for you right now. It was basically about a breakdown of how the biggest scams in history were able to persuade. And to be very clear, I like to learn from everyone. And I think that there's plenty of things that you can learn from people who did something well for the wrong reason. Me personally, like, what can I take from this? That's good, right? And how can I help persuade people to do things that actually help them rather than hurt them? There's an ethical dilemma, not a skill deficiency. And just to be very clear, one of the core components of the book, and the book also talked about, it wasn't just scam businesses. It also talked about how a brothel, actually, no, this was a different book. I think it was called like XXX Sales Secrets. Anyway, I'm going between books right now, but this one was a whole breakdown of how one of the highest grossing brothels in the UK had their sales process set up. And so they talked to the maître d', I think that's the name or whatever, the lady who's in charge of her selling process. And so one of the things that she brought up, and this has actually been internalized for me for every single sales process I have made since, so maybe this is a writer downer, it has to be congruent. So if you set a frame, so I had this frame in the example I just gave that this is this kind of weird in the hood upstairs thing, but The reason that we had that, because it's like, what's the reason? The reason that people should spend lots of money here is that this is purposely exclusive. It's purposely off the beaten path. Is anything that I said untrue? If you don't want to be recognized, being in a more private setting is a better way to do that. Is it untrue for me to say you might recognize people who come in here? It's very possible. The thing is, is that I let someone's imagination fill in the dots, but nothing that I said was untrue. And so the idea is if you set a frame, you basically want to paint the edges of that picture and make sure that every edge matches the frame. And this is what I was talking to with my sales director. This is a portfolio company, right? If this thing were to be market value for a service like this, right, would be call it $50,000. Okay. So this is B2B. If this thing were $10,000, I said, do you think that you would sell out the capacity of the business? And he was like, yeah, for sure. It's not even a question. I said, okay, if you were to get on the phone and know that you were going to be pitching a $10,000 price point for this thing, how would you approach that call? How would you shift in your body language, in your tone, in how you present how likely you think that you're going to fill the slots and how good of a deal this is? He's like, "Yeah, it would probably change a lot." I was like, "Exactly." And the crazy thing is, is that that price is only meaningful to you. I really want you to take this in. This is advanced sales shit. This is how you become a savage. This is how your team puts up numbers that no one can touch. Because the thing is, and I was talking to this director, I said, "You have folk," and he's a great director doing really well. I was like, you have focused your entire career at getting better at sales. I have focused most of my career on making sales as easy as possible. Seems similar, and maybe you could make the argument that getting better at sales is making it as easy as possible, but that's not the point. It just sounded nice. And so I say it to you is that there are probably ways that you can simply make sales easier rather than getting better at sales. If we zoom out and say, what is sales? Sales is increasing the likelihood that people exchange money for your goods, right? That's fundamentally what it is. If we add these variables in, so maybe I'm undoing my very nice rhetorical device that I just said, but you have to ask the question, what else would have to be true if this frame existed? If this sales director gets on the phone and says, "Hey, this is a bargain. We'll fill up the slots. I have no question. So if you want to do this, then you should do it quickly because we will hit capacity." It's unlikely. I can't guarantee the future, but it's very unlikely that I'll even be able to get through the calls that I have for this week. I'll have to push people out and whatnot, and who knows. There's a different perspective, right? The tone, how they sit in the chair, how hungry, they're completely not worried because at this price, this thing's gonna go. But all of that exists between their ears. And so these are the, like, this is really like real, real. You may choose not to believe this. You could say whatever you want. My calculated, hard close rate for these in-person fitness programs when people would come in for a free thing was 83%. And I would make the argument that I closed everybody. Then some people just literally, I would just, I would run 6 cards, you know, it just didn't have it. Right. But the thing is, is like, I want to come in with the expectation that I sell everyone. Every single person should want this thing, all of them, and be desperate to get it. Because of how good of a deal this is. And so this is like, like, I think it's easier for people to say, what is your price? Cool. Cut it by, cut it by 80%. How crazy of that of a price would that be? Cool. Now just say the existing price as though you were talking about that lower price. This is how you really nail scripting. How you really nail tone is that you get into that mental space and you live in that reality. You have to be able to live there. Now, this is maybe a higher cognitive load task. I don't know. Maybe some people can't do it. But if you can, it makes you unstoppable because you really do live in an alternate reality and you're inviting the prospect to live with you in that reality. And they will accept the rules of the game there because they only know what you show. They only know what you show, what you put on display. And so the thing is, is that they're taking in so much more information than the words that you're saying, the pauses in between, the tiny little side statements, how desperate you are to make the sale occur. You can feel when someone doesn't need your money. You can feel when someone, even an employee, is like, yeah, we're gonna move out of these. Like, "If you want to do it, you should do it. You should do it now because I mean, it could happen, but it's very unlikely that we're not going to fill up the spots, get to our capacity very quickly." That changes how people act. And so it's great to have the words, it's great to nail the script, all that stuff. But the true savages just don't live in the world that the rest of the salespeople do. They live in a world of their creation. If you've ever seen The Matrix, and there's Matrix 2, Matrix 3, I love all the Matrixes, Matrixes, if you will, There's this one scene that I love, which is a really small scene that people don't really talk about, but there's a scene with the Trainman. And if you haven't seen the movie, basically there's one program that shuttles programs between the machine world and the AI reality of the Matrix. And so there's only one path that takes you between those worlds. And there's a program, the Trainman, who owns— that's his program. That's what he does. That's his purpose, his function in life. And so the Trainman program is really simple. It looks like a subway. It's just all white. There's a bench and there's nothing to it besides a train that comes with the Trainman on it. And if the Trainman doesn't come, you just get stuck in basically limbo forever, right? And so Neo, the protagonist, wakes up there because he has some sort of out-of-life experience, whatever. The Trainman shows up for somebody else. Neo tries to get on the train. And Neo at this point's like Superman. He's like super god in the Matrix. He's like cracked the code, whatever. The train man says, "No, you're not on the list. You're not getting in the train." Neo, assuming that he has the same Superman-like powers in the train man software, then says, "Listen, I'm getting on that train." He tries to take a swing at the train man, and the train man just destroys him. And he's like, "In this place, I am God. In this place, I make the rules. I say who gets on this train and who doesn't." And I'm loosely paraphrasing. When you become an advanced salesperson, you are the trainman. You are the one who sets the rules of that engagement, who sets the rules of reality, because you are the one who shows them what to know. And so it's all of the edges of the painting. It's all of the things that— what else would have to be true for this frame to be congruent? And the thing is, is that when you live in that reality, If you mess up even a corner of it, boom, it pops. You've lost the frame, it's gone. And so you have to make the whole thing congruent. One of the things from the XXX sales thing for the brothel was they wanted to have this high-end thing. And so they had a lady who was British answering the phone. It might've been the US, but anyway, I remember the British thing. The person answering the phone was British because it had a higher-end feel to it. They would get these envelopes that were like gold and black and had this mysterious feel to it. All of these details would keep the congruent frame of this is what a very premium establishment would look like. Now, what they're selling is relatively depraved activity, right? For the most part, banging strangers for money. And for those of you who have weak stomachs, the point here is not like I'm saying yes or no, good or bad. I'm not getting into the morality of this. I'm just getting into the sales process. That's all I care about right now. There is like a lot of you want to have like, I hear this all the time, like we were premium, right? But there's so many things that if you were premium are not true. You don't keep a premium frame within the sales conversation for a prospect because so many of the edges of the painting don't align. They don't make sense with that frame. And so the advanced salesperson gets into that reality and says, if this thing were 1/10 the price, how would I sell it? How would I feel? How would I sound? How would I pause? What would my perception of scarcity be? And then you say that, you use, you walk into that setting, but then you just say a different number at the end. Everything else is the same. Hopefully you're catching this. Think about this, continuing down the path. I was in person for my sales, but I want you to, I want you to hear and think about this. If you have an in-person sales process, which many of the people who listen to my stuff, home services, brick and mortar, this is especially for you. Basically, if you do any in-person experiences. So let's say somebody's walking out of your sales office, right? And they didn't close and somebody's walking in. This is where a lot of salespeople mess up, right? They're like, oh, I don't want to, you know, I don't want to be awkward or whatever. Every time someone left the sales office for the gym, especially if somebody else was coming in, I'd be like, oh, absolute pleasure. Can't wait to see you again. Help you hit your goals. It's going to be pumped. Let's rock and roll. And I would say that on the way out because I knew the person walking in would then make the assumption that I just closed that person. Now, the person would look back at me sometimes like totally confused, but then I'd already be welcoming the other person in and it didn't matter. But that subtlety, what else would have to be true? And so I'll give you a life hack, by the way. The most convincing you will ever be to someone is when they don't think you're talking to them or that they can hear you. So I'll give you a real-world example. So the other day I was on the elevator with Layla and there was a lady who was on the elevator too. I hadn't seen her before in the building. She seemed like a nice lady, whatever. She seemed intelligent, nice, whatever. We walked out of the elevator and I took 3 paces and I basically turned the corner so that I'm not in eyesight, but I'm clearly within earshot. And so then I looked to Layla and I was like, "She was super nice. She seemed great." and I said it at normal speaking level. And so it's very unlikely the person did not hear me. But how much more compelling— think about this, think about you're in the elevator, two people get in, husband, wife, you say hello, you explain pleasantries, and then they walk out. And right as they kind of walk around the corner, you hear the husband or the wife turn to the other one and say, "Man, that guy was super cool. That guy was really nice." How different would that sound? You'd be like, wow, Those people are cool. Like, they liked me. That was nice. It's so much more impactful, the communication and persuasion that happens around someone that they believe they are not the intended receiver of, that they believe they're being privy to. And it makes some of the strongest persuasion that you can sometimes engineer into a process. For my sales, for example, like I'd have clients coming in and out and I basically was like, hey, if I'm with somebody, Help me out. And so they would walk in, get a drink of water because they're in the middle of workout, whatever. And if they'd see me with somebody, they'd be like, I'd sometimes be like, hey Leah, should she do this? And I would just look at the prospect and Leah would just turn to them and be like, do it right now. Don't even think about it. It'll change your life. And then she'd go into the class. The person would just look at me and be like, fine, here's my credit card. That was it. And so it's like, not just how do we get better at sales, it's how do we engineer the environment so we have the mental landscape of the picture that I'm setting, right? But then there's all of the details around the edges, right? The reason that I'm a big advocate of having floor-to-ceiling testimonials is so that it's obvious that you're good at what you do. And so it becomes unreasonable for someone to question the efficacy of whatever it is that you sell. And so if someone were to do that, you could just like kind of like look around the room with your eyes and kind of shrug and be like, I mean, I think getting results should probably be the least of your concerns. And you can even hear how I'd say that with tone. To make someone be like, wow, he seems incredibly convicted on that. And you should be, right? But if you have a room full of testimonials, it makes it a hell of a lot easier. We have this, this reality that we want to set, this frame. And then what else would have to be true in order for that frame to maintain its rigidity, for it to keep the strength in the conversation that this is the reality, I am the train man, these are the rules, and then fixing the physical environment. To also be in alignment with that frame and that reality. Now, of course, for me, I had to fit the frame to the reality that I had, which was that I had this apartment building that had 2 apartments with barred windows, but I had to give the reason behind it. And I remember what, I mean, I sold into empty gyms multiple times when I would do launches. And so like, I would rent out a space, there would be literally nothing in it, vanilla shell. All right. For those of you know, commercial, like vanilla, there's nothing in there. White walls, concrete. And I would set up a card table with two fold-out chairs and I would hold court and we'd sell $100 grand out of there for a free weight loss challenge with no gym. And so the gym only existed in the minds of my prospects based on what reality I set. And so I bring this up because right now I'll bet you this may be one of those things that could take your sales to a completely different level. This is an order of magnitude shift. In terms of how good you are at closing, how good you are at selling. Because the best closers, the best salespeople, it's like they— people don't feel like they're being sold, they just buy. And so that's what you want to engineer, is you want to engineer the environment to maximize the likelihood of purchase so that you don't need to, you don't need to overcome obstacles. Because would you be overcoming obstacles if you were oversubscribed? Hear me out. Of course I teach that stuff because I think Sales 101 and Sales 201, it's good to know that stuff. But the Gs, the guys and gals who close, who sell way more, the superstars, they live in a different reality. They are the trained men. They set different rules of engagement. And so maybe this is, you can send this to your team, or maybe it's just for you if you're, you know, entrepreneur still selling. Ask yourself, what else would have to be true and that will change how you talk and make your environment match that reality that would maximize the likelihood that the prospect buys. And anything that does not match with that frame, you cut out. I look at sales processes and I would say that like the typical sales close rate, if priced appropriately, is somewhere usually in the neighborhood of like, call it 30, 35%. That's kind of like a benchmark. Sales is for like a phone sale for a B2B service, like fairly typical somewhere in there. I try to find ways of getting over 85% close rates. Now you're like, how is that possible? It's possible only when the person doesn't feel like they're being sold. I had over 90% close rates on supplements because it wasn't a sale. This is just what you need to do. I had an 83% close rate on people walking in the door because I didn't feel like I was selling. I was like, I'm just getting you signed up. You already said you want it. Why wouldn't you sign up? Obviously you are overweight. We sell weight loss. What's the problem? If you have that frame of like, well, obviously you're going to sign up, why wouldn't you? That's what everyone does. And so think about it like that. What else would have to be true? Would every other person— if every other person you spoke with that day had bought immediately, that week, that month, every other person before you get into the conversation with the prospect, How differently would you speak? Great. Then talk that way. Because all of that is you, not them. But they will take your lead. You will set the frame. This is, I am the train man. These are the rules. With that being said, you know, forward this to your salespeople. Maybe it's you. And if you found it valuable, let me know on the Gram or wherever it is that you share content. Means the world to me. I've been trying to make more of these audio-first podcasts, kind of like between meetings and stuff. I hope you enjoy them. Otherwise, have an amazing day and I'll see you in the next one. Bye.