In this 17‑minute instructional video, sales coach Angelo D’acunto shares three concrete analogies he’s used throughout his 17‑year, multi‑seven‑figure sales career to help prospects overcome mental blocks and answer difficult questions without resorting to combative tactics. He first explains why analogies work – they act as short, visual stories that let listeners see errors in their own logic, make complex ideas simple, and let the prospect remain an observer rather than a target. He warns against the common mistake of forcing the prospect into the story. He then walks through three specific analogies: 1. Usain Bolt Analogy – compares a prospect’s motivation to a sprinter running for a gold medal versus a casual run at a YMCA, prompting consequence‑of‑inaction questions and clarifying the prospect’s “gold medal.” 2. Penthouse vs. Ground‑Floor Perspective Shift – uses a high‑rise view versus a low‑level view to illustrate how a prospect’s current perspective limits information intake, helping salespeople reframe “think‑about‑it” objections. 3. Teacher/Dyslexia Analogy – shares a personal story about being a dyslexic student who needed a different teaching style, positioning the salesperson as a guide who can provide the right “teacher” for the prospect’s unique needs. He also briefly mentions his 6‑week, 14‑video course on building analogies and encourages viewers to comment if they find the content useful. The overall message is that well‑crafted analogies are a “cheat code” for beginner and intermediate salespeople to ask probing questions, shift perspectives, and close deals without aggressive selling.
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In this video, I'm going to give you 3 analogies that I've used over the course of a 17-year sales career, making multiple 7 figures that I think just make it easier to ask difficult questions or to get prospects to shift how they see things. A lot of the time prospects are stuck in a rut with a particular thought pattern and you try and tell them that they're wrong or you get combative and it just ends up falling apart. But with analogies and well-placed analogies that are constructed in a particular way, you can get someone to see The error in their own thought process, and you don't really have to do much challenging or be super charismatic or have any kind of crazy word tracks. They're all pretty simple. In this video, I'm going to teach them to you step by step. So what are analogies? Analogies are essentially short stories that are designed to, I guess, make someone see the error in their own logic, or designed to kind of make a really complex and difficult thought process or thing Simple. Okay, so one of the cool things about analogies is that, you know, same as like parables, right? Like they sort of transcend culture and they can uncover like an underlying truth that I think people can connect with quite deeply. And I think there's sort of no better example of this than how Jesus taught with his parables, you know, like, you know, throwing seeds on different types of grounds. Like these are things that we can visualize and with varying levels of intelligence, We can understand the point that's trying to be get across, and we can take them and we can put them into our own lives. And that is why analogies are an incredibly powerful part of selling. I've been selling with analogies for a long time in my like kind of affordable group. I have an entire 6-week course. I think it's like 14 videos or something like that that goes over constructing analogies, selling analogies. So if you want to go there, there'll be a button somewhere and you can go and join that. Um, another reason why analogies work is because people make themselves the protagonist, and this is why you can really challenge people using this type of sort of communication without it getting combative. So like, there's an overweight person that's coming to a gym, you're like, I need to go away and think about it. Now, every single decision that they've ever made has caused them to be in a state where they are ultimately fat and unhappy with the results and outcomes that they've got. And going away and thinking more is the last thing they had to do. They should have done it 5 years ago. Why would you wait another 2 days? Like, that doesn't make any sense if you actually want to get fit, healthy, and get the outcome. And so, you know, going at them and saying like, yeah, but you've been fat your whole life, so you're just gonna go away and think fat things, fatty. Get your fat ass back here. Like, that's not gonna be helpful to them because they're just gonna get combative and defensive and And then you really have to kind of navigate your way through that. And that's just not something that you really need to learn how to do or should be doing on a regular basis because combative selling just isn't a good style. I don't think it leads to refunds, et cetera, et cetera. But what you can do is you can shift their perspective through a different way of thinking. And so that's where analogies come in. And I think that they're a beautiful tool to use, especially for like beginner and intermediate salespeople, to be able to like set up and ask difficult questions without having to really rely on really, really precise word choice and tonality. Because like you don't need to sell with analogies, but they are a bit of a cheat code, and it's something that I used for a long time to set up difficult questions. Okay, and the fact that people make themselves the protagonist, I think, is one of those key things. Like if I'm talking about— like if you're watching Marvel and you're seeing like Thor— So if you're watching Marvel and you see Thor, like you place yourself as Thor, like you identify with that character. But like, you're not fucking Thor. Like, you're just the sales guy on Asgard that's like, you know, and I'm the sales guy and sales coach in Asgard that's like, you know, making money, right? It's like, that's what it is. And all you can talk about is money. But because we identify with protagonists, then what I can do is I can give like a story arc and a problem set and a way of thinking and an overcoming, and I can go through that whole hero's arc without talking about the prospect specifically. And if anything, it's a good thing to not— and I'll talk about in a second when I go through things to avoid— but it allows the person to connect the dots themselves. And so it ends up being them convincing themselves, I think is pretty powerful. The biggest mistake that you will make in analogies is putting the person into it, right? So, and I'll show you some examples of that later, but you don't want the person to think that it's necessarily about them. Okay, because then they're gonna start to think of it differently. You just want them to be like, like, like an observer of the story. Okay, first person, third person, stuff like that. Okay, so the first analogy that I'm going to teach you is my Usain Bolt analogy. It's really, really simple. There are some real long ones that I've done in the past, but I'm going to boil these down to some real simple ones that you can use. And the point of this analogy is to get someone to— it's a 2-part thing. One is to set up asking consequence questions. I used to find asking those sort of cost of an action It's quite difficult, so I wanted a way to make it easier for myself and to make it in their benefit to answer. And then another way is, the other thing it does is it helps you get a more indefinite solution or a more precise solution because it makes it in their benefit. So the analogy goes like this. Okay, so let's just say we put Usain Bolt on a 100-meter line, you know, and he's at the local YMCA. Like, he's gonna run pretty quick, he's a fast runner. But let's just say I put him on the 100-meter line and it's the gold medals on the line, it's the Olympics, there's millions and millions of people watching, and you hit that gun. Boom. And you go, he's gonna run faster because like he knows exactly what he's running for, right? He can taste it, he can feel it. It's led up to this point. All the people are watching. It's a huge moment, you know what I mean? So he's gonna run even faster. Now, you know, if I released a lion behind him, he'd probably run even faster again, right? But like, what is that gold medal for you? What are you actually chasing? So that's it. Pretty simple, pretty straightforward. So what I'm doing there is like Usain Bolt in 100-meter line, he's gonna run quick, but at the local YMCA, like, he's only gonna run so fast. Nothing's on the line. There's no you know what I mean? There's no like benefit, right? But for the gold medal, to be crowned the world's best, you know what I mean, in front of all those people, just, you know, you kick it into another gear, right? And people can identify with that. And so it's like that allows me to go, so what is that gold medal for you? What are we chasing? Okay, because we know that you run faster when there's something on the line, so therefore it benefits you to tell me what's on the line so that you can run faster. Now that little thing at the end that I did, which is like, yeah, but if we released a lion behind him, then like he'd run even faster. That sets up my consequence question, okay? Because I find sometimes, especially for beginner and intermediate sales reps, the cost of inaction questions, they skip them because they can be quite awkward. But if you have a reason to ask it, okay, well, now we know the gold medal. What's the line though? Like, what's the line that I go release? Like, what happens if you don't do anything about this? You never figure out what to do, and you don't get a chance to even be in the gold medal race. What happens then? Okay, so you can see how that then allows you to do that. It's really simple, really straightforward. You're going to put it somewhere In sort of your solution awareness phase, okay? Now, the next one is usually used to shift someone's perspective. Let's just say I'm in objection handling and I've gone through all the logistical stuff and I'm shifting into fear. This is like the cheat code that I use to sort of control where they go after that initial like logistical so that I can be in control, okay? And so, it's like penthouse and ground floor. So, let's just say they go, oh, this all sounds really good. I just really— You know, money works. Just we need to go in and think about it. I go, okay, but that makes sense kind of based off where you're at, right? But the only problem is like if you're always making well, that makes sense kind of based on where you're at. The only problem is that if you're always making decisions based off where you are, it's the only the only place you can ever be. Is that does that make sense? Let's just say you're at the penthouse and you're really high. You can see a lot, so you can intake a lot of information. But if you're at the ground floor, you can't see anywhere near as far. So the amount of information you can intake is much less. So if I had to get from one place to another, I'm in a much better position if I have a higher perspective because I can intake more information. Okay? But to get that perspective, you have to make the decisions of the person that got to the penthouse. So like, what are the things that you feel like you need to do to put yourselves in the right position to where you can kind of make that shift? If we can make a perspective shift, that's the first step into overcoming a think about it objection. It's like, so we have to feel, then think, then do. So the first thing I have to do is Get them to like go, okay, it's not that I need to go away and think about it, it's that I need to think about it differently. Like, that's the first little door that you have to open. Without that door, there's no other doors opening up, right? The first little door that has to open. Okay, so that's for that one. The next one is like a teacher one. This one's really good for kind of earlier in a call when you're getting people who are like I don't think I need anything. Or let's say you're trying to do upsells or you're trying to sell buyer leads of low ticket into high ticket stuff like that. It's usually used more towards the beginning of a call when people are a little bit like, oh, what's this? I think I'll just give this a try on my own. Okay. So now I like to pull from experience because I think that they come better. So what you want to do is take the, I guess, the framework or like the outcome of the analogy, and then from there kind of insert your own stuff. But like for me, ADHD and dyslexia, right? So If someone, when someone tells me that, I go, yeah, that makes sense. You know what I mean? Now, would you say that you've kind of tried things in the past and they, you know, you've given it a red-hot crack, right? So let's just say we're selling weight loss. It's like, well, okay, have you tried different diets in the past? Yes. Do you feel like you gave it a good, a good crack? Yes. Almost everyone's gonna say yes. And so it's like, okay, cool. So if you tried everything in the past, you know what I mean, but you did it the right way, it just didn't work out, then maybe there's something going on like me I'm dyslexic, right? And so I was in all like the low— the lowest classes when I was a kid until a teacher came around that knew how to teach me. And then I went to the top of the class and I ended up graduating salutatorian, like all that kind of good stuff. And so it wasn't that I was dumb, it's just that I hadn't been taught the way that I needed to be taught. And it wasn't even that the teaching style was wrong because it was right for almost everybody but not me. Right. And so would you be open to maybe considering that it's not that there's anything wrong with those diets, but maybe that, you know, you're just one of those, say, 2-3% of people that react differently to things or need some tinkering, and you just haven't found the right teacher yet to come in and teach you the right way? And most people are going to be like, oh, because what that does is it actually makes them into a special little snowflake. So cute. It's like too cute almost. It's not that they're not motivated. It's not that they haven't tried. It's not that they, like, you know, haven't just given it their best. It's just that they haven't found the thing yet, the tweak, the person. And it's probably true in a lot of cases. A lot of times people, especially in weight loss, just need someone to guide them, right? And so what that does is it allows you to, to sort of open it up into expanding into larger problems, and you can do it from a place of like personal experience. It's about me, not them, right? So they can identify with my education and they can transpose that onto their weight loss journey. It's very easy for someone to do that. You know, smart people, dumb people, everyone can do it. This is the power of analogies. Like, you can super non-combatively like just get someone to think of things a little bit differently, see a bit of a different angle. And you can kind of ramp it up. So if you like this kind of content, let me know down in the comments, and, uh, I'll speak to you soon. Bye.
