Achieve Exponential Growth with Paul Ross’ Radical Sales Techniques

Welcome to the B2B Growth Blueprint podcast, where we talk with entrepreneurs, founders, and leaders at B2B services, tech, and SaaS companies to learn the systems and processes they've used to create success for their business. We'll also learn from marketing and sales experts, uh, to provide insights to help you grow your business. I'm your host, Mark Osborne, and the podcast is brought to you by Modern Revenue Strategies and their 10X ROI B2B Growth Guarantee. Schedule a free diagnostic call to learn the fastest path to double your B2B revenues in just 90 days. Hello and welcome to another episode of the B2B Growth Blueprint Podcast. I'm your host, Mark Osborne, and today I'm very excited to welcome my guest, Paul Ross. Now I'm going to read his bio to make sure I get it right. Paul is an author, speaker, trainer, master hypnotist, and master practitioner of neuro-linguistic programming, or NLP. And if you don't know what that is, stick around, it's going to be a very exciting conversation today. He's a very in-demand sales coach for all of those reasons, and, and you're going to see some of that today. For the past 30 years, He's taught tens of thousands of people the power of language to persuade, sell, heal, turn stumbling blocks into stepping stones, and turn pain into passion. Paul's speeches and trainings have motivated thousands around the world to discover their power to redesign their own incredible future. And we're gonna talk today about how that applies to B2B, uh, businesses. And I'm really excited about this conversation. Paul, welcome to the show.

Thank you. And before we begin our exploration together today of this amazing and challenging and even baffling mind, I just want to invite your audience to recognize that it's the very ways of thinking and feeling and believing and acting that stand so far outside of what you're used to doing that bear the potential of bringing you results that are so far beyond which you're used to enjoying.

Yeah, great, great opener. Great opener. So tell us a little bit about how you got to where you are today, Paul. What was sort of your path to getting there? And what really do you do on a day-to-day basis in working with folks?

Yeah. So my background is different and maybe a little controversial. I started out around 33 years ago as a somewhat controversial trainer and teacher for 30, 40, even 50-year-old men who've never had a date in their life.

Okay.

And I used NLP and hypnosis to get them to believe in themselves. At that, I mean, you have to imagine the pain and the lack of belief in yourself and the negativity being 40 years old and never having had a date. So I teach them to win at the Date, Mate, and Procreate game. And what happened? Yeah, what happened, Mark? It's around 2005. I began to receive emails from people with pictures of their family or their kids saying thank you. Well, the sweetest one I ever got purported to come from the kid who said, thank you for teaching my daddy the skills to meet my mommy. It was very moving. But I started to get emails from people. who said, guys who said, hey, thank you. I have a beautiful wife, the love of my life, and a great family. And I've been using the same stuff to massively increase my sales. Like I'm doing 200%, 300% better. I thought, hey, to myself, dumb, dumbass, go back, spend 6 months to a year and map this over into sales and selling, which I did. And then I started training people who were already very successful. I really, and I mean no offense to your audience if they're not doing it now, I only work with people who are doing at least $1 million because I am the most expensive coach and trainer you will ever be glad you hired. And also, I only work with people who are willing to think outside the box, disconnect the dots, and color outside the lines. I'm very unconventional, and you have to take on some really different ways of thinking if you're going to benefit as you choose to work with me.

Interesting. And so today you're working with, you know, business leaders to help them learn how to sell and how to communicate better. And we were talking a little bit before the show about how, you know, there's a lot of selling that happens in business even outside of that interaction with the customer, you know, and leaders and founders need to sort of sell their vision, sell their team on sort of performing, giving their full potential. Talk to us a little bit about, you know, sort of the importance of those other kind of sales environments and how they can impact that in their business.

Sure. Let me take a 30,000-foot view first, which is leaders have to do 2 jobs. They have to enroll their team in their vision. And yet at the same time, for power to be effective and really, really work, It has to flow in both directions. So the leader also has to create a vision that's not dependent on the events of the day or their feelings in the moment, but that's also open to feedback from their environment. And so that second part requires that they create a state in themselves where they really can hear information without going into reactivity, and they can emotionally regulate. So many leaders, if all they do is learn to regulate their own emotions so they don't fly off the handle or they don't feel defeated, that they stay neutral and in a state where they're outwardly focused, quiet in their mind, grounded into their body, and able to truly receive information, and then to acknowledge to their team that the team has been heard. It's really important because everyone wants to feel heard. Everyone wants to perceive that they've been seen. This is the way that you get genuine enrollment in your vision— not just exciting people, not just ensuring that their values match yours, but making sure that you go first. You have to be a leader for yourself first. And so the same tools I taught men to regulate their emotions— you can imagine Imagine just being 30, 35 years old, never having had a date, never even been kissed. Imagine how you have to regulate emotions when you jump back into the dating world. It is a big deal. So if I— because I've learned to do that with the most difficult people in the world, I can take someone who's already a winner and exponentially increase the results. And this is one of the things I think that really makes what I bring to the table unique. Because no one else has that experience of really having to work with that difficult a crowd and then bringing it, mapping it over.

Yeah, I mean, that's, that's definitely a big challenge. And so it's interesting to hear you say that one of the things that, you know, we focus a lot on working with clients is, you know, building systems. Because one of the things I heard you say that's so important is you want to sort of teach people how to respond and not react. Where reaction is sort of like an involuntary response that they're not sort of choosing what they do, but instead they're, they're being sort of directed by things that they might not do. And we find oftentimes that building a system makes it a lot easier to sort of remove some of that emotion from it so that you're not, you know, sort of reacting in a sort of a knee-jerk manner, but instead you can choose from a number of different responses because you've got a system that allows you to evaluate, you know, sort of what's happening in your business and potential responses to that so that you can then choose the one that makes the most sense.

Extraordinarily important. Now, I am not by any means an expert in systems. I only work with people who have successful systems in place. What I can do is teach you how to use this language that moves people on the unconscious level. So if your system is working really well, It rapidly gets you exponentially better results without you having to press down harder on the same button. Because even the best system, if you don't have the right people and you don't know how to move them in a way that speaks to them on a deep unconscious level, then you're just going to have to push harder on the same system. You only get exponentially better results if you do something radically different. And by radical, I mean right down to the root of what you're doing. So it has to start with yourself. It has to start with Regularly regulating yourself emotionally and then using language in a way that lets the person feel heard. So can I give you some examples of some of the words I would use?

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

So let's say one of your team members is being really reactive and having a less than useful response for them. One of my core principles is never accept the other party's first response as being written in stone. It's almost always a reaction or response to what they're feeling or thinking. Or believing in that moment, it's almost always subject to change. And so I always work with where people are at. When I did my therapeutic work, I learned as a hypnotist, if you want to change beliefs, start where they are, because you can't move people from where they're not. You got to start where they are and move them. So let's say someone's having a strong reaction. I would say something like, I really hear you. My experience of you in this moment is that you are feeling upset and you have a need to be heard. And for whatever reason, I'm not bringing that to the table, and I really would like to. So in this moment, if I could step back and allow you to find yourself truly feeling that there's a genuine connection here, what is it that you really want to get across to me? What is this truly about? Now notice those words. My, um, obviously you're not feeling heard, so that's a rapport. You're getting rapport. You're matching where they're at. And then you say, my experience of you in this moment. Notice I'm not saying you are, you're not. I'm saying my experience of you in this moment. Now let's back up and parse that. When I say my experience of you, It's saying it's being vulnerable. At the same time, it's just saying it's my experience. I may be incorrect. My experience of you in this moment— when you say in this moment, the implication is it's only in this moment. It can and will change. So do you see the power of those words? Language is powerful. Language structures consciousness, shapes decisions, and drives behavior. So my experience of you in this moment Is it obviously I'm not allowing you in some way to feel heard, and that's not acceptable to me, and it's not acceptable to you? That's more rapport.

Yeah.

So I would like to just extend the invitation to let me take a step back and really allow you to find yourself feeling comfortable telling me what's on your heart. Now notice those words. Find yourself. What does it mean to find yourself doing something, Mark? Did you ever just find yourself falling in love? Now, was that a conscious decision saying, you know, I'm going to fall in love today? The reasons I love Jenny or Joe— I don't know who you are, whatever— are because they're good-looking and I like the way they walk. No, it's— find yourself means that it's just going to happen outside of your conscious control or awareness. So it's going to happen whether you want it to or not, and it's going to happen in a way for your own reasons. So it feels like something you want to do. So when you insert those words, you say, I don't know in what ways you'll find yourself or allow yourself. Also notice when I say I don't know in what ways, what does that presuppose?

That it's happening.

That it's happening. And it's also presupposing it's going to happen in more than one way. So expands their range of freedom. See, I believe when you can expand the team member's belief in themselves and their belief in their deservingness and really unconsciously teach their unconscious mind to shift states, you're doing something that's heroic and something that's healing. You're actually assisting that person to, across context, believe in themselves more strongly and to feel heard. And coming from that place of powerful vulnerability I want to put those words together that leaders may have never thought of before. Powerful vulnerability, not weakness, not knuckling under, but powerful vulnerability. We all want vulnerability, but we always want the other person to go first. So when you can step into a situation not being invested in the outcome and give the other person radical permission to have their first response, a doorway opens. a doorway to grace. I'll almost speak about this in spiritual terms. Something opens and extends a deep level of communication on a profound level that people are hungry for, whether they know it or not. And that is the way to be a leader. Wow.

So clearly a lot— you have a lot of expertise around interacting with humans and the way that humans use language. And it's really interesting to me when in the B2B space, so often people think that, you know, the path to sales is just focusing on the logic of the sort of comparative benefits of different solutions or products or whatever it might be. Whereas we see that so often, you know, sort of the key to, you know, having successful sales and successful marketing communication is understanding that even though it's a business decision, it's a human being making that business decision.

Yeah.

And human beings still make decisions in sort of emotional and sometimes illogical ways. And you talked a little bit before when you and I were chatting prior to this about it's not about selling products as much as it's selling decisions and feeling about feelings about decisions.

Good feelings about decisions.

Talk to us a little bit about, you know, what that looks like in, you know, in guiding someone through a sales process.

Sure. Sure. So I would say something like this, and I did it at the beginning of our episode very sneakily. But ladies and gentlemen, as you go back, I don't know if we're— this is on video. I think it is on video.

Yes, it's on video.

As you watch and/or listen to this, listen to the beginning of my words. Take a pen and paper and slow it down and repeat it, and you'll notice the words I'm using. So I would say something along the lines of, before we begin our exploration together, Now let's look at those words before the word we. What does it mean to say we? These are what I call implied relationship words. Not before I show you the benefits and features, but before we, we begin our. We, our imply that we're on the same side of the table. We have a relationship before we begin our. Exploration. Exploration is a profoundly powerful word. For every exploration, there must be a leader. And for every leader, there must be— starts with the letter F.

A follower?

Followers. So you're presupposing and implying that they are your followers. You would never say it. You'd never say, now you're going to comply with me and be my follower. But through implication, the unconscious mind puts it together. So think about that. What's better than rapport? Compliance. And how do you get that compliance? Who's more compliant than the follower of a leader? So you're creating compliance unconsciously in a matter of 45 seconds, which is a powerful way to begin a conversation. So before we begin our exploration, Together. So now, we, our exploration together. That's 4 words. I'd like to invite you, not ask you, but invite you. What's the distinction between ask and invite?

Well, I, I, I think an ask, I, I'm trying to get something from you, whereas an invitation, I'm trying to give you something.

Exactly. I'd like to invite you to please share The questions, not ask the questions. Again, the distinction between sharing and asking is when we share, it implies a relationship. When we ask, it's me doing it to you, or you doing it to me. Please share the questions that naturally arise when a great decision is being made. Now, did I say great decision to sign the check or sign the contract?

No, it, it's just a good decision, which everyone wants that.

I left it vague. Now, when you're vague, they have to do what's called a transderivational search, which means— that's an NLP jargon term, I hate it— but it means the unconscious mind will hypnotically search for all possible meanings and will assign the meaning that fits the context you've pre-established. Now, we pre-established the context that we have a relationship, That they not only trust us, but they're following us. So the unconscious mind will fill in that blank—a great decision to sign a contract or a great decision to move forward with us. We're doing this all in the very beginning, the first two minutes. So you want to set up that frame—the frame that you're in a relationship and they trust you and they're following you—and then you can present the benefits and the details. features, et cetera, et cetera. You're far less likely to get objections when you set it up that way. And here's the other thing, you're far more likely to get a commitment where they take action rather than, wow, this is fantastic. This has been a great meeting. Let me talk to the right people and we'll get back to you. And then they never get back to you.

Right.

Or they say they go with somebody else. This virtually guarantees that that will never happen. So I invite your audience to stop and think, what would it be like for your business And all the— I can't be the one to say all the ways this would exponentially grow your business rapidly, naturally, easily, and profoundly and powerfully. But as you begin to perceive it and really connect those dots, you can see the value that you think to yourself, I want more, Paul. You see me using the languaging?

Absolutely. Absolutely. So I wanna Kind of call that out and kind of give our audience a chance to write it down because I'm a big believer in NLP and language patterns for persuasion. And what you laid out is certainly a masterclass there and it is an easily sort of learnable and repeatable opening for every meeting that, you know—

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm transparent. Let me be transparent, Sure. Transparent. But let me be transparent. It takes time. It takes me really taking you and your team by the hand. It's an intense amount of work for me. I, I do most of the lifting, but the, the client has to do lifting too. That's just the way it works. I don't know if lifting is a good metaphor or not. It's fun and it's unique, and I've come up with ways to train in a way that's fun. and gamified so you enjoy it. But it's like learning to speak a new language, but it allows you to communicate with an entire new world, an entire new population of people. So it's not easy in the sense that there's work to put in, but it can be massively enjoyable and fun. And it usually takes 3 to 4 months to get the mastery. You'll start seeing, seeing results in about 60 days if you're smart. You got to be smart to get this stuff. I mean, super smart and really, really strongly motivated. It's part of my screening process.

Well, I do though. I think in the next 3 to 4 minutes, they can have a real strong takeaway. And that's that opening script that you used. Yes. Which was around sort of building rapport, creating the implied relationship of being together, but also a leader-follower, and then opening the door to the conversation. What was that script again? Go ahead and give it to us.

Before we begin, our exploration together today. I just want to invite you to share the questions that naturally arise when a great decision is being made. Now, Mark, there's one more little piece in there.

Mm-hmm.

As a hypnotist, I installed— that just installed a post-hypnotic suggestion, which is every time they ask the question, their unconscious mind will take that whole series of suggestions and run it again. That the meaning of asking a question is not challenging the believability of their trust in you. The meaning of the question is I need— uh, um, the meaning of the question is, oh yes, a great decision's being made.

Me too.

So every time that they ask the question, the meaning their unconscious assigned is not I'm skeptical or I'm cynical or I don't understand. The meaning is, oh, I just need further understanding, clarification to justify the decision to sign and go with you that I've already made in the back of my mind.

Right. Well, and, you know, you're, it's the part of the process that leads to a great decision. And, you know, in sales, so often the biggest challenge isn't them saying no, the challenge is them not making a decision at all. We work with a lot of, you know, professional services firms and, you know, the number one thing that happens is that there's no sale because they do nothing. 40% of the time that you're not gonna close a sale because they're gonna wind up doing nothing at all. And very close to that, another 30% of the time, you're not gonna make a sale because they're gonna wind up trying to kind of do it themselves, which is also almost a symbol of not making a decision. And so the biggest issue that we face so often in B2B sales is just not getting a decision. And also very often the biggest challenge that, you know, salespeople face is not getting, you know, sort of a decision to move even to a next stage of the process. And so we really try to focus every sales conversation as a decision. And that, and that, so every conversation with a client is deciding, do you want to continue the conversation or not? Like, are we worth going forward with or not? And or not is a fine answer. And we always sort of open up with that part of the dialogue because that You know, creates a lot of— takes a lot of pressure off the client to sort of hide their cards from you. And so I love this framing that you used to sort of set up the conversation because then it leads them to a decision, even if that decision is or not. Because if they say or not, great, I can go focus on other clients.

It doesn't— and a keyword is focus because focus is the currency of motivation.

That's right.

Focus is the currency of keeping yourself motivated, keeping your values and your vision foremost, and for your team too. And so it's no sin to lose a sale. It is a sin if you're kept on hold.

That's right. Or you keep your hopes up.

And so to, again, to emotionally regulate in the— and to be interested in the sale but invested in your skills and Breakfast of bacon and eggs. One of the animals is interested. One of them is invested. And so you want your client invested in the decision of going with you. You don't want to be invested in that. You want to be interested in the skills and the process, joyfully interested in the skills, in, in, in the pro— invested in the process and in in your skills and just interested in the close in that particular sale. That's what creates championship and consistent motivation.

That's right. So such a great lesson for how to, you know, sort of frame things up to help people move forward to great decisions, which is so important. But very often in, you know, sort of enterprise sales environments, there's objections. And one of the skill sets that we work on in sales is sort of overcoming objections. Or handling different objections. And you and I were chatting before about this concept that you have of counterexamples that can sort of destroy some objections. And you gave me some great examples before. Talk to us a little bit about like what counterexamples are and how that overcomes.

Transparently, though, and I hope I don't offend the audience, I first learned this when I was struggling to date. Okay. And I had to come up with it. I had to answer the obvious objections. One of the biggest ones was, okay, give me your number.

Yeah.

And so I, I used to get that a lot. I mean, no disrespect to the ladies. I'm just saying it's, and it's a good answer if you don't wanna hurt someone's feelings.

Sure.

Give me your number. And so I would do a counterexample switch, and I would say, now, why would I put the burden of making sure we get to enjoy each other on your shoulders? Isn't that my work as a man? And then I just shut up and hand them the phone. Now, that's such a pattern interrupt. Counterexamples are a version of a pattern interrupt. You see, Mark, people think, feel, behave, respond in predictable patterns. When you break that pattern by saying or doing or responding with something unexpected, it creates a window of suggestibility. So when I did that switcheroo, the meaning was switched from Oh, I need your number to them, uh, saying yes, but, but trying to put the work on themselves. I'm lifting that burden from them. I'm doing them a favor. See? So here's how you'd use it in sales. If someone says, I need more time to think it over, I'd say, hmm, more time to think it over. I, I get it. But let me ask you, have you ever taken a long time to think something over? And it still turned out to be a horrible decision. And then I'd shut up. Now that immediately is something that's unexpected. They're expecting me to say, why? What do you need to think over? Or, okay, here's my number, take your time. So, and so you're breaking the pattern by creating suggestibility. You're also attaching pain to the objection, and the unconscious mind does not like pain. So it will create amnesia. You're literally creating objection amnesia. It's the equivalent to hypnotically saying, in a moment, I'm going to attach pain to that objection and you'll forget it completely. 1, 2, 3. You can't do that, but you can affect the same way. And then I would reframe the meaning. I'd say maybe it's not about time, but about the clarity you need to recognize you can move forward today. So thinking about it like that. Just have a heart-to-heart, human-to-human, and put out on the table what is it that, that, that really means. What is it that you need to understand to realize for yourself all the reasons that it's safe to move ahead? Now you've redefined it. You've been really human. You said, you know, help me understand. Help me understand what is that What does that really mean for you? At least put it out on the table so we can share that and see how we can come up with all the reasons you will think to yourself, yeah, you can move ahead today. Now, who's going to object to that? It's power through vulnerability.

Right.

But the whole time, you're literally, you're actually controlling the conversation while giving the appearance. And you can be vulnerable. You can do both. In paradox, there's power. You can paradoxically have the power of vulnerability and the power of leading and even controlling the Meaning of the conversation, the frame. You can do both.

Well, and it's not about sort of arm twisting or, you know, getting them to commit to something that they don't really want to do. So often in enterprise sales, you know, people resist change. And so our job as salesperson isn't sort of to talk them into something or to twist their arm. It's just to help them feel good about making a decision rather than feeling conflicted about making that decision.

Lead them to convince themselves to make the decision to buy. Yeah, get them in. I like to think of it as being a metaphor, being a stainless steel fist in a velvet glove.

I like that. I like that. So this has been such an interesting conversation, Paul. I do got to be mindful of your time, though, and we could talk all day on this. But tell us, what's something that's on the horizon for you and your business that you're excited Yeah.

So I met a gentleman, I can't get into too much of it, but we're gonna be doing an event in Tuscany. I've always wanted to go to Tuscany. You know, it's a beautiful country and we're gonna get a huge group of entrepreneurs and salespeople and leaders together and be co-teaching how to apply this radically. I, I'm not gonna swear on your show, but it's bat bleep crazy. What I do is bat bleep crazy. The Best compliment I've ever got is a former mentor said, "That guy's a genius, but he is bat bleed crazy." And so I love it. That's what I'm going to be doing. That's one big thing. And I'm also looking forward to expanding and bringing this. I see you can tell I love this. The one emotion I think that comes across is joy, and I intend to joy joyfully. take my clientele to exponential levels. I am not happy if I just get them 20% improvement. I'm not. That means I've, I've, it's not enough. I wanna see that 200%, 300%, 400% improvement and them biting their cheeks. You know, oftentimes I hear from clients, my team and I, we had to bite our cheeks to stop from laughing when we saw how powerful this stuff is. So there's a joy in this. I want people not only to get better, exponentially better results, but for my VIPs to have such joy and laughter in it. I think those 2 can really go together.

That's great. So, Paul, for anyone that's listening to this and really loving what they're hearing from you and maybe wants to, you know, maybe go on a trip to Tuscany with you or just learn how they can instill some of these things in their business, how can they get in touch with you?

There's 2 things. You see these QR codes. See, the old man has learned the young person's way. So when you scan that QR code, you'll get access to a free download of my latest book. Oh, you can't see it because my corny background, The Subconscious Sales Advantage. And it comes with a 10-minute video training on how to use counterexamples and 3 or 4 other methods to Methods to Crush Objections. The other way is if you feel you meet that criteria, if you're doing well over $1 million and you're able to think unconventionally, you can apply to work with me if you want to jump the line and get ahead of everyone, because I do— I'm booked like 3 or 4 months out. But if you want to get in line quickly, send me an email with the subject line I'm interested, Paul. And that email is paul@speakerpaulross.com. paul@speakerpaulross.com. And we will go through the vetting process and I'll see if you've got that state of mind. I'll dance with you a little bit to handle a trainer who's a little bat bleep crazy, but we'll get you exponential results.

Fantastic. Well, Paul, I've really enjoyed our conversation. I know our audience has gotten a lot out of it. Thank you so much for joining us.

It's a great honor. It's a great honor to do what I love doing most, which is to teach. I love teaching. Awesome.

Thanks so much. We'll talk to you soon.

Bye now. Thank you.

Thank you for joining this episode of the B2B Growth Blueprint podcast. We hope you've gained insights to grow your business. If you enjoyed this discussion, please rate, comment, Like on your favorite platform and share to others who will find it useful. Do you know a CEO, founder, or leader at an early-stage B2B services, tech, or SaaS company who would like to be a guest and share their story? Send us a note. Let's schedule a conversation.