92: A Mastery Lesson on the Process of Selling ANYTHING! with Ben Chaib

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Discover exactly what it takes to become a successful entrepreneur and what's possible through entrepreneurship from the greatest minds in business today. Welcome to the Founder Podcast. Here's your host, Nathan Chan.

Hey guys. Welcome to another episode of the Founder Podcast. My name is Nathan Chan. I'm coming to you from hometown Melbourne, Australia. Reppin. Okay, I just had to mix up the intro about today's guest. Wowzers. This is probably one of the most dangerous podcast episodes that we are going to release. I just know that if you use this stuff it can be absolutely game changing and explode your business. One of my favorite quotes from Mark Cuban is sales cues all and this couldn't be more true. Now I'm just going to leave you with that. Benji Heaps, an absolute sales weapon. This is an extremely dangerous episode. If you are enjoying these interviews, please do take the time to leave us a review. That would help more than you can imagine. And now let's jump into the show. The first question I ask everyone that comes on is how'd you get your job, Ben?

You know, for the last 25 years I've been in a position of vice president of sales and marketing and you know, I decided I started, I guess you would say I started in the sales business when I went into Insurance about 25 years ago and transitioned from that industry to multiple different industries. I went into design works and has always been in the, I guess selling business, right? You know, just really helping people grow and, and try to get products out to market. Then I went into the education space and really launched my career. But what I was really excited about and is seeing that I've noticed a lot of entrepreneurs were struggling with their performance in sales and generating revenue. And then I think for me, Nathan, is there was an article written when I noticed that they were talking about Jordans. To me, this is a pivotal moment. Last year, read this article and they're talking about how Jordan's had a billion dollars in sale and how Michael made $90 million. So I went back throughout my career as a VP of marketing and sales and noticed that I generated a billion dollars of revenue for the companies I worked for, but I didn't make $90 million. And that's when I said enough's enough. And I went out and launched my company, Sell and Succeed to really focus on helping entrepreneurs and small businesses and medium sized business revenue. And by doing so, it really has taken off for us and it's been an exciting ride over this last year and we've really done well.

Yeah. Wow. Okay, that's interesting. So in terms of as an entrepreneur, then you could say you're kind of new to running your own business or you've either run other businesses. I'm really curious because you seem quite senior, man. You're crushing it, dude. And you know a lot about sales. You've taught me a lot. So I'm really curious.

Yeah, I would say like Gary Vaynerchuk talks about entrepreneurial tendencies, right? And I've always had the entrepreneurial tendency for most of my career, but never just went out and launched something for myself. And then last year was the time where I just hired a coach, a business coach, spent a lot of time really contemplating it and I just said, I need to go for it. You know, I'm not getting any younger. I have six kids, seventh on the way. And I just said, I've got to do it. If I don't do it now, I'm not going to do it. So I just went after it. I've been inspired from people like yourself, Gary Vaynerchuk, many others that really just pushed me over that edge.

That's amazing, man. Because, you know, sometimes people reach out to us, whether it's through our support or just to me personally or someone in our team. And a common thread that comes through even when I just speak to people is people say, you know, it's too late for me. You know, I'm a, you know, I'm 40 years old, I'm 30 years old, you know, 50 years old. And you know, I have kids, family, I don't have time. You know, I've got a day job, I'm locked in. You know, what do you have to say to people that are on the fence right now, that don't have time. It's always seven kids. That's a lot of kids, man.

Yeah, seven kids. I own consulting firm and so does my wife owns consulting firm. You know, well, she's going to be my wife, loving my life here. But she's. We both are in consulting independent and just decided to go for it. She left a big COO job for a makeup company to launch her consulting firm. So we both said it's just enough's enough. And I would say, you know what? Yeah, it's scary. It's absolutely scary. It's nerve wracking. But what I hold true to is the numbers don't lie. And I've always been consistent in my life in sales about the numbers and understand the value and how to monetize your momentum. That that's the only thing that keeps me sane. If I'm out there prospecting, talking to enough people that I'll win if I stop, I won't. But I've done it for everybody else and that's what I've learned. I think that's the hardest thing is we are great at doing things for others, but we're not great at doing it for ourselves. But we deserve it more than others. I just had to take that, you know, that ownership, you know, and go for it.

Yeah, I see. So I'm curious. This might be an interesting discovery session. But you know, you're very, very good at sales, Ben. So you know, when you started out, what is. Can you, can you work us through the process of how you've built up your business? Because I know you're doing some amazing things not only for your clients, but your own business and your sales master. And that's where I really, really wanted to get you to come on and share with our, you know, the sales process and how you take some like a prospect or even find a prospect and take them into, you know, make them a paid customer, make a person a paid customer. So can you take us through, you know, how you've, you've built that business up in the past year?

Sure, absolutely.

And also your process, your sales process.

Absolutely. Well, first off, I. What I did focus on is what I was great at. And then I found ways to generate revenue and the things I'm great at, which is sales and teaching sales. But then I took all other things that I'm not great at, which is marketing, building, you know, like you've referred some great people to me on the technology side, but anything that I'm not great at. I didn't spend any time on. I just doubled down on my strengths, and so I really focused on what I'm strong at. So, like, if someone's strong at marketing, but they're not strong at designing things, I'd say hire someone to design and go market your products. Right. If you're strong at sales, but you're not strong at the back end of your CRM, go hire someone to do the CRM and focus on talking to prospective clients. So that's what I did. My partner, she's strong at consumer analysis and trend analysis, and that's what she focused on, and she didn't focus on anything else. I think you have to focus on what you're strong at that's going to generate your money, and then you have to start investing in the areas that you're not strong. I think that's key. And a lot of people get scared and say, hey, it's like the chicken or the egg, right? The cart, horse. What's first? If you focus on your strengths, you can make money on your strengths. What I've always taught people is the sales process, in which I'll talk about this right now, is you've got to make a sales process natural in you and authentically you. You have to understand that you're taking your potential client through a journey through your conversation. Right. And when you're leading them through this journey, you know, it's important to understand that it requires a lot of listening and asking questions. And a lot of times, Nathan, people go so fast in giving their pitch that they don't know enough about their client to even know if what they offer is right for their client. And that's what I really focus on, is really teaching others how to find this. So would you like me to get into that sales process?

Yeah, I would. But before we get into that, how did you find clients for your new business?

Man well, how I found clients for the new business is I went to Facebook and started learning some things, investing into understanding a little bit about Facebook marketing and how to target audiences on Facebook.

Yes.

And once I did that, I actually found a person that I hired to take care of my Facebook marketing. It doesn't cost a lot of money. I mean, I spent less than $500 a month on a great Facebook marketer.

Yeah. Wow.

I just. I expect high amounts of work from people, and I was able to find a very skilled person at that price range. But I learned more about Facebook marketing first, how to target an audience, and then I Just stayed in. You know, I think first I created my avatar, who my ideal client was, and then we focused marketing only to that ideal client, not everyone in the world. And I just started getting customers. I did a webinar, and honestly, Nathan, webinars was my biggest weakness because I like interacting with people. And my first webinar that I did generated over $100,000 in revenue.

Yeah. Wow.

And. And I was scared to death. I did not know how to do a webinar.

That's crazy. That's. That's a pretty good first webinar, Ben.

Yep. Yep. It's. You know, I did. What I did is I wasn't selling a product in my webinar. I was selling to get on a. What I call a strategy call. And my whole mission during my strategy calls was to offer a lot of value to the potential client and then only work with the ones that it's a good fit. And I didn't go into these strategy calls, which a lot of people do to make them sales calls. I went into it to make sure I offered a lot of value, and the person walked away with the aha moment that they had real value they can go to use in their business to start having success. But what was interesting is after my strategy calls, a majority of the people start asking, how can I work with you? Because I really went in there with the genuine give, and then they wanted to work with me.

Yeah. That's interesting you say that because a lot of times, and I've. I've gone through this phase, and now. Now I'm not too bad. I'm. I'm quite comfortable with selling and because I believe in, you know, what we do at founder. But I think when you first start to, you know, when you're first getting into this whole sales stuff is, you know, is you feel like a scammer. You feel it's scary to sell. You feel guilty. What advice do you have to people that are just getting started or, you know, they're starting their business in there and, you know, they need to. They need to go out and go out and get sales, because I get something that I love. What Mark Cuban says, he's like, sales cue is all. And it really does, you know, like, if your business is struggling, you get out there and hustle and start selling. But how do you bridge that gap between inside of you not wanting to be this kind of person that's really salesy? You don't want to be one of those slimy, salesy car salesman kind of guys. What advice do you have for people to shy people away, to not be afraid of selling?

Well, I think first you need to have a lot of conviction in what you have to offer. You have to be convinced through and through that what you have, whether it's a product or service that you have to offer, that it's going to help your client, and that without a doubt, that they're going to lose out if they don't hire you or do business with you. Because what you have to offer when you ask all the right questions. Again, this is not about pitching. This is making sure that you uncover the needs of your client and you find out that what you have to offer fits that need and narrows that gap that they have. Only then, when you're thoroughly convinced there's really not selling, it's about asking your clients the right questions to uncover if there is truly a need or a gap in their life where they are compared to one they want to be where they want to be, and that you can fulfill that gap. If you cannot fulfill that gap, it's okay to let them know you can't and refer to someone that can. And what I have found is when you have that kind of mindset, you generate more sales.

Hmm, that's really interesting. So, dude, take me through this sales process, this framework that you have. You showed me this diagram last month. It was killer. I loved it. And you started taking me through it. I was like, dude, let's save this for the podcast. We'll put it in the show notes. Take me through it. And can we use. Can people use this framework for not only just getting on the phone, but also if they want to do webinars to sell, you know, like a SaaS business product or anything at all?

Yes.

Sales, presentation, whatever, in person, on the phone, webinar. This applies to. All right.

This applies to all. The difference is how you would go about. If you're not talking to someone you're doing on a webinar, you need to answer the questions in the webinar. Right?

Yeah.

But the framework itself answers to all. And I think what's key in the framework is to know that it's an eight step. It's called the S8 process.

Yep.

And I'll walk you through each step in the process. Okay. But like I said before, it's taking a customer through a journey. And also, Nathan, I'll. I'll send you something that you can use that anyone can download to walk them through the process. So after they listen to your podcast, if they want to run with it and go on it on their own. They can do something, they can start generating revenue from it.

Awesome.

Because I just know if they learn how to do this, they'll make more money.

That's what it's all about, man. You know, customers growing your business.

Absolutely. So, you know, what's important is one, you have to be great at listening and great at asking questions. Because your client's needs and issues, they vary so much. Right. And what our job is to do is to determine the root issue and address it appropriately for each client so they can make a decision for himself or herself. Is this a good fit? So what I'm going to do is take you through the process. There's a lot of open probes which I'll talk about throughout the process. And open probes are basically how to get your customer to engage, how to get them to speak more. And I'll share what those are throughout this process. So the first step in the process is called share. Share is about listening to stories and building rapport. Because when you're first talking to a client, Nathan, it's about connecting with them. It's about building trust, making a friend, showing an interest, making them laugh, finding a common ground. And you know, how you do that, it's really getting them to open up so they speak more freely and they can build a connection. You know, it's asking them, tell them about what they currently do. Asking them, you know, tell me about what you currently do. You know, what else should I know about what you currently do? And when you get one word answers, it's when you go in. Do you mind elaborating a little bit more on this? Can you share more with me about what you currently do? It's getting them to open up. What happens is we've got to get our customers to feel comfortable with talking with us. And a lot of times what we do is we go in there pitching and our goal in the sales process is to really, when you have your offer is to determine the person you're talking to if they qualify to see your offer. Because not everyone does. Because you can't help everyone. That's the reason why there's so many different offers out there, right?

Yeah.

So it's getting them to open up, you know, look, establish rapport, listen to their stories, build that rapport. And when you get short worded answers, it's, you know, getting them to elaborate. Tell me more about that, that open probe, getting them to speak up a little bit more. The second step in the Process, Nathan, is suitability. Suitability is about confirming a basic need and seeing if that client qualifies for your offering. You know what your offering is. This is not the time to share your offering with your client. This is the time to understand their needs and to see if they qualify for your offering. So it's making sure there's a good fit between your product and your customer's needs, understanding their needs and what they're trying to accomplish. Asking basic questions like what is your current challenge and what goal are you trying to reach? How long you've been trying to reach this goal, or how long have you been trying to find a solution to fix the challenge you're going through? Understanding what avenues they've already explored. It's these kind of questions that really start to give you the ammunition to see if it's going to be a good fit. And I recommend when you're asking these type of questions, you take a lot of notes because you really want to understand your client's needs. You know, asking them what do they think they'd be using the solution for, you know, using the developmental probes. When you get one word answers, Nathan, this is where it's key. Every time you get a one word answer, it's about, can you share a little bit more with me? Do you mind elaborating a little bit? Tell me more about that. You want to get them to open up? You want them to share more? Because what's interesting is the more you get your customer to share about their problem, the more they're selling themselves than they need a solution. That's key.

Yeah.

So if you think about it, when you're talking to someone about Instagram and what's the challenges of getting out there and why are they looking to using it? What happens if you just be quiet and let them speak? They start selling themselves why they want and need a solution. It's amazing.

Is that called future pacing?

Yeah, I guess that's the technical term for it. It's future pacing. But to me, what I found interesting is I rarely have to ask a client if they want to do business with me. They usually tell me by the time I get through the eight steps, they usually asking me how can they get started with me because I take such an interest in that client and what they need that it makes me. And that's what I train everyone on too. And that's what happens is, you know, like one client I'm working with right now, it's an $8 million company, we' pace into 25 million and we just started working together two months ago.

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So the second step was suitability. The third step is called significance. Significance is when you really uncover the problem and discuss the implications of an action. This is where you start to understand their motivation and what it's costing them for not finding a solution. See, price is only an issue, Nathan, in the absence of value. And between these next two steps is where all the value is built in your conversation. It's having them recognize how important it is in their life and the pain of doing nothing. How important it is to find that solution and the pain of doing nothing help them realize where they are and, and if they don't make a change, what are the consequences of that inaction? So some of the questions I usually ask people is, you know, what's motivating you to pursue this solution? You know, why is it important to you? What will change if you move forward? See, this is what's interesting when you ask a person, what will change if you find this solution? If a solution existed that was able to generate more leads for you, what would that do for your business? This is where your customer starts to build value. They might tell you, well, bring me more customers. Okay, how many more customers do you think if you had a solution right now that would bring you? Like if I was in marketing, right, and I generated leads, I was a Facebook marketer, I said if there was a solution that existed that would allow you to get more leads through Facebook, what do you think you do for your business? This is where your customer will start building value in a solution. And then if they say, well, bring me more customers, well, great, well, how much is that customer worth to you? Then they're going to give you a dollar amount. Okay, so how many more customers do you think it will bring you if you had this Solution, get very specific of what it's going to do to their business once they have this solution, the more specific you can get and narrow it down to a dollar amount. This is the true value of your offering.

I love that. Because then it becomes a no brainer.

It does. Because usually what happens is they give you a value. Like one person might say, each one of my customers is worth a thousand dollars. If I had the solution in Facebook, I'd bring in 10 more customers a month. Well, that's $10,000. And if I am a Facebook marketer and I only charge $2,000 a month, well, it's free to hire me because the person's going to make $8,000 profit on that investment. They know that in their head. As long as you get them to verbalize it. It's true. If you start verbalizing it and you tell them the value of it, that's suspect. So you got to get your customer to verbalize it.

Gotcha. Gotcha. Because if you say it, then that means they're being sold to. And people don't like to be sold to, right?

No, they don't. They love to be sold on their own ideas, but they don't like to be sold. So they're happy to sell themselves. They would love to convince, they love convincing themselves why they want something and why they need something, but they don't want to be convinced by anyone else. Because every time we purchase something, don't we justify it? Yeah, we always do. Regardless of the purchase, regardless of you're buying shoes, a watch, a car, a toy, it really a widget, it really doesn't matter. You always justify it. So the greatest salespeople really get the person to sell themselves on the idea, the reasons why they need this solution, this widget, this gadget, whatever it is. So I think in significance, it's also to understand what's kept them from pursuing this before pursuing a solution. Because you need to understand what have been the hurdles in their life. And you need to know what's kept them from moving forward. Because if that thing still exists, you have to overcome it. But they'll let you know what this kept them. And then. So what happens if you do nothing? What happens if you do nothing? That answer that that person gives you scares them. If they say, well, I won't be able to accomplish my goals. And then you have to follow with, how does that make you feel? Because you got to remember, Nathan, people make decisions, buying decisions, because they're emotional decisions, right? So you're trying to get Movement, motion. And I said, you cannot get any customer to move towards a direction until you put an E in front of that word motion, which is emotion. If you don't have your customer emotionally engaged, understanding how they feel, what are they thinking? They will not move forward. Or if they do, they have buyer's remorse. Now you notice we've went through share suitability and significance, and I still haven't shared what I do.

Nice.

So that's the importance of these steps. So the next step after significance stretch, it's helping them imagine the possibilities, getting them to think big. Imagine the future. With this solution, create a vision, the value of making change. Move them forward towards their goals. So this is where you can say, well, what would your life look like once you learn X or have Y? Or just help them build the vision. And you've got to make it visceral. You've got to get them to give you the details. Great. If they say, I'd make an extra $10,000 more a month if I learned this or had this or they said it really improved my business or improve my team's performance, you got to say, okay, great. Once you get that dollar value, it's not enough to know what it's going to be per month. You need to know what they're going to use it for. Because it's not the money, it's the use. What does that allow them to do? Now you're making it real for them because now they're putting. They've already started spending the money in their head. They're saying, I'll be able to reinvest my business or I'll be able to hire a person or give a person a raise. Then you're able to get deeper in it and asking questions like, tell me, how does that make you feel? Why is that important to you? You get them to really buy into this idea that the solution has provided this value in their life. It's asking questions like, what opportunities will open up for you once you've mastered this skill? Or your team has mastered the ability to do X, whatever it is that you're selling, what opportunities would open up? How do you believe your life or your career will be different once you complete X? Or once that solution is involved in your life or in your business, Once you find that right solution, how will this improve your income per month, per year? It really doesn't matter. Because what you need to do is once you understand this and they've put a dollar amount to it, you can ask them what they're going to do with it. But what's important is not take it to the month, take that monthly, make it a year, and ask the question. So you plan on being in business for the next five years, 10 years, 20 years, how long you plan on being in business? They're always going to give you a time that's longer than five years, usually, right?

Yeah.

So if they say 10 years, the value of your product or your offering or your service is basically that monthly amount times 12 times 10 years.

Yeah. Wow. This is killer, man.

So that becomes. Now you can start to see. I talk to a lot of coaches. I have a lot of coaches and clients as clients of mine. And this is where I learned that coaches undervalue what they do for people. And I show them you understand that you're making a difference. I deal with people that do marketing and they do Facebook marketing. I really try to show them how they can build so much value in their offering. Or people that do team excursions to get team performance. Getting people to see the value in what you offer. If that solution existed, I always say, so if there were a solution that would allow you to do X, what would that mean to you and your business? Because you've identified their problem. Now you're saying, if there's a solution that exists, you notice I always say, if there's a solution. I didn't say, well, I have the solution that can fix that. No, I said, if a solution exists that will allow you to go from X to yes, what would that mean to you? What happens is they start selling themselves on why they need that solution. They're selling themselves this whole time on why a solution will really change their life. But it's still not time to pitch. You go from stretch now. So we've covered share, suitability, significance, Then we hit Stretch. Now we go to select. Select is where you learn their options and why they want you. This is where you get them to verbalize that they've looked at other options, but they see you as the only option. Now, this is when you get them to sell themselves. On working with you, it says, how long have you been thinking about finding a solution? What did you like about the people you were working with before? Who else did you look at? What didn't you like? This is where you start building the ammunition. So when you give them your solution, you have all the things that are important to them and none of the things that aren't. What's kept you from pursuing this or kept you from completing this? Finding the right solution before now. And then it's okay to tell them, look, you can get these types of services other places. Why are you interested in working with me? I ask that a lot. And what happens is they start selling. Well, you really listened to Ben.

This is crazy, man. I'm laughing because this is so powerful. Please keep going. This is crazy.

Yeah, yeah. Because once they. Once what happens by asking them, why are you sitting working with me? They sell themselves on it. I don't have to sell them. I don't tell them why I am. They're going to start telling you why you're so great for them. You've listened to them. Well, I've looked at your website or, you know, I've heard a lot about you. They start selling themselves, then they start identifying the things in other places that did not suit their needs. You got to say, tell me more about that. How did that make you feel? You really need to uncover these things. It's so amazing. Sometimes I spend so much time in select that the person I'm talking to says, okay, just tell me, what do I got to do to work with you? Because I'm getting them to verbalize all the things they did not like with the other person they were working with. I'm not talking negative about the other person or service. I'm just getting them to identify why it didn't work out for them. Because if they verbalize why it didn't work out, they're more thinking, man. The person I'm talking to right now will work out for me. So after I get through Select, I go to spend. Now, spend is not a place where you're trying to say, this is how much it costs. Spend is identifying the financial resources and their willingness to invest.

What does that mean?

All right, so if you look at it, it's assigning a value to your program before you even ask for the investment at the end. So as an example, if I talked to a person and they said, well, you know what? If I had a solution that will really improve my sales skills, because that's what I do, right? They said, if I had that solution, I'd increase my revenue $10,000 per month. And I said, okay, so how much is that a year? I make them do the math. I never do the math for them. I literally say, go get your calculator. And I wait, because if I'm not there physically, I'm on the phone. I have them do the math.

Did you do this on a webinar too?

On a webinar too. What I would do is I'll ask the questions live, you know, and then I'll take the average of all the totals that people are giving me and just say, hey, can we all settle at this number? And they said, yes, of course. But what I'm trying to get them to do is create a value. And if I can take it from $10,000 a month to $120,000 a year, I ask. I say, you know what, Nathan, I got a funny math question for you. If I was standing in front of you right now with $120,000 cash, would you give me 30,000 for me to give you 120?

Of course.

Of course. So what did I just find out? Their willingness to invest. Now, because that already got them in the head space that they need to invest to get. Because they just talked about a solution to give them. Now they're thinking in their mind, it's already seated. This can be $30,000. But then I ask them another funny question. I said, okay, you know what? Let's say you only had two hours to come up with the $30,000. How would you do it? This is where people start telling you, I'll put on a line of credit. I'd write a check for it, take savings, take a loan out, put it on my credit card. You start finding resources. They have. Sometimes I have a client says, well, you know what? I just can't do it. So I said, you'd let $100,000, $20,000 walk out the door because you just couldn't figure it out. And they go, no, no, no, no. I figure it out, and this is how I'd figure it out. It doesn't matter what they say. I just want them to think. I want them to communicate to me what they could do. Now, my offering, I always use a ridiculous amount, usually double or triple what my offering is.

Yes. Why?

Why? Because what I want to do is when I give an offer, they already were seated that the offer could be more. But I come in at $20,000, and I just use a $50,000 example or $30,000 example. They thought they got a discount, and it makes. There's less apprehension to invest and get started now. And what this also does for you, as you're learning and you're building your business, it starts giving you what your true value is. So for me, as an example, when I first started working with me was $3,000. Then working with me just started increasing to 5, 6, 7, 10, 20. And it just continued to increase because I started seeing the Value I was bringing to people.

So it helps build your confidence.

It does, it helps bring a lot of confidence. Because once you see when you start taking a person that was only doing $10,000 a month and you get them to $158,000 a month in revenue, it's a big difference.

Yeah. Wow. This is really amazing, Ben. And what I'm doing curious about is how can you apply this to if you were selling software like on recurring, like let's say for, as an example, like a Dropbox, you know, let's say, you know, it's only like $9 a month or you know, $200 a year. Like what about software and some other different things, not just so much personal coaching or one to one type kind of stuff. When you're working with people, I think people might be curious around that too.

Alright, so let me give you an idea. I have a. One of my clients has a SaaS product. It's artificial intelligence, right. And when I work with that client, what they were charging per month was around twelve hundred dollars a month for their product. Okay. And they were getting clients at that much. And I showed them and I went in there as an example and I took the same offer that they had and brought it to $8,000 a month.

Wow.

And they were like, how in the world did you do that? And I said because I'm asking the clients, the people that you're having me talk to, if a solution existed that did X, what would it mean to their business? They're giving me dollar amounts that are 20, 30, 40, $50,000 a month. So investing $8,000 to get to $50,000 is a no brainer for them. So you've got to make sure if you have a SaaS product that you've got to be able to ask the questions in a way that your customer sees that if a solution existed, that's the SaaS product that would make their life more convenient or make them more profitable. You've got to find out how much more profitable.

Gotcha. And what if your local brick and mortar type business or selling a physical product.

Well it depends on what your physical product is, right? So the whole goal is to find out with whatever you're doing what value it adds to your customer. That's the key. So if you're selling an automobile, you got to figure out how it creates value in their life. Whether it's their ego, prestige, mileage, whatever it is. If you're selling a widget, how does that widget bring value in their life? What does it mean to that person? You've got to understand, I can usually almost every situation. That's the reason why I do the strategy calls in almost every situation. When I learn about someone's business, I can see how you can create a monetary value in your offer, meaning that your customer sees value into it. So that's the key, is you've got to find out how it helps your customer. So let me give you an example, one that I, that I deal with a lot that people didn't understand how to create value into it. Fitness, right? You know, fitness coaching.

Yes.

Okay, so fitness coaching, people trying to get in shape. People are like, well, it's getting them healthier. No. What does being in great shape do for a person? Besides being healthier? What else does it give a person?

More energy.

More energy. What else does it give a person? If you are in the best shape of your life, you're thin, you're clothes fit good. How do you feel?

Feel great. You live longer too.

Live longer?

You would live longer. Do you.

Do you feel more confident?

Yep.

Okay. If you feel more confident, could you. What would that do for your business? How many more presentations would you go on? How many more people would you talk to? How many more videos would you be in front of? Whatever it is, right?

Yeah.

You start to do that, then what happens is they start to monetize that because it gets their creative juices saying, oh, if I was in front of more people, I was on the stage more, I was talk, talking to more people, I'd get more money, I'd get a raise. If I was more confident, I'd probably ask for a raise. I could do more. I can sell more, I can be more. Now you know what? Fitness has now generated more income for that person, not just made them healthier.

I see.

Now that created monetary value for that person. Now guess what? It's done. Now it's saying $1,000 investment in the fitness coach makes sense. I mean, why do you think Gary Vaynerchuk has done that? He's hired a person because it helps him in his life and in his business. He's quantified it. Right. And I think that's a lot for all of us. It's a lot for any one of your clients. If you can help quantify what a solution would do for them and how they can monetize that in their own brain, in their own life, and what it would mean to them, that becomes a real value of what you have to offer, and that's how you can start raising the prices.

I see. Awesome. Well, look, we still got one more step, right?

Yep. Well, we've got two because we have start. It's okay. So we went through spend, then we have Start. Start is about confirming the intent and clarifying timing of success. Start is not about when they want to start the program. Start is when they want to see the outcome. The easiest way I can say this is no one wants to start a diet, but everyone wants to be in shape.

Yes.

Okay. So starting is about getting them to commit to moving forward, focusing on when they want their desired outcome, their desired success. And then you start to reverse engineer when they should get started with the solution. Because if they want to desire success tomorrow, they're already late. They know that. But if you tell them when they, if you start asking questions, when they want to start a new program or when they want to start with a new business or start buying a new widget, it's never. But when you ask them when they want to start seeing the outcome, that solution, the result, it's always today, yesterday, and then that. What it does to your customer starts to realize it's costing them money not to move forward now.

So is that urgency? Sense of urgency?

Yeah. It creates a sense of urgency without you having to use scarcity as the model you can use when they want the outcome and what they're going to lose out on. Because if they just told you that whatever a solution is means money to them per month, every month they go out without having that solution, it costs them money. That's the other thing. Every day, because I've reduced that dollar amount that they said it would make them to a daily amount. And every day they don't make a decision. That's what they're losing out on.

That's very powerful.

And then the last step is called solution, which is selling and closing the deal. This is where you take all the information you gathered in the seven steps above and you just, you repeat back. You say, nathan, so let me just make sure I understood this correctly. You said, here's what your problem was. This is why. This is how long you've been looking at it. This is what it would do for you if you found it. This is what it would mean for you monetarily. Am I right? Am I missing anything? And you keep on going down using their words. Yes, yes, yes. And at the end you go, okay, so did I catch everything? They go, yes. And says. Then I go, nathan, do I have your permission to share with you what I do? This is where the wall goes down, they're like, of course. Then I take everything they said and I show them how my solution fills in the gap and answers all of their concerns based on their words. And what happens is during this time, I really slow my speech down, my pattern down, my tonality changes, and I really spent some time and I said, okay, so this is what you said your problem was, this is how I can help you. Let me tell you what we would do here versus what you did before. And what happens is by me using my tone and I slow down this way, it gets that person a little antsy. And I do that on purpose because I want them to start to finish my sentence and just say, so what do we need to do to move forward? Or how do we move forward? Or what does it take to move forward? What are the next steps? You get your customer to that point before you even ask you're in. And then, of course, the cardinal truth is, depending on the type of business you're in, sometimes it requires a proposal, Sometimes you can do it all at one step, right? But if it requires a proposal that you're going to give a person, I always recommend you document everything that you talked about. You send it to them in writing. Just say, I want to make sure that we're aligned and this is what you need. They say, yes. Then you get back on the phone with them to talk about price. But when you give them price, you give them price, and you're quiet, quiet, quiet. If I tell someone how much it costs to work with me, I immediately be quiet. I just tell them the dollar amount, and then I shut up. Because I've already handled everything. We've already talked about everything. We always talked about how I can help them. But once I give them the price of what it would take to work with me, I shut up. Now, it's very interesting because this time when you be quiet, and we've all heard this rule, but it's so true. When you're quiet after you give the price and you don't say another word, you're giving your customer the time to think about how to make it happen. As soon as you say, but we have payment options, or we can do this, you've lost your customer. The first person that speaks loses. And I don't mean that in a competitive way. It's just a figure of speech. If you speak first, you'll lose the sale. If you let them speak first, they lose the ability to not move forward. They're going to move forward.

So how Would you do that? Like, I always want to bring it back to one to many, because I like to do these interviews as well to help benefit me. I could be selfish sometimes. So when we do webinars to selling courses or founders club or any of our products, educational products, how's that work?

Well, well, this is what I would do. Like, first of all, you have to handle all the objections that come up ahead of time, right? So when you're doing one, many, and you're doing all of it, and when you're talking about the value, I think you and I talked about this one time. I said, well, if you had a solution that was creating your followers, right? And you asked people if you. If you generated 10,000 more followers and you had a product offering that you gave to your followers, how much do you think you would make? They start giving you dollar amounts, right? Then what you do is you settle down on $1amount and you say, okay, so based on the 50 responses, our average dollar amount is $5,000 a month. If you sit there and say, if you have $5,000 a month, would you be in business one month, two months, 10 years, whatever. You start getting people to give you time. Now you can quantify the value. If they said a year, it's $60,000. They say 10 years, it's 600 grand. Right now, everyone in the group is starting to say, wow, this is big. Maybe I was going too low or maybe I was going too high. And they just start to realize how valuable your offer is. So every day they don't make a decision, because I build it all up front. Every day you don't move forward, this is what it's costing. You guys have all said. We all agreed that $5,000 a month would be the return if this solution existed. That's what everyone in this call said, right? Because you'd have your feedback on your webinar. So if you've already said that, and we know that it's that dollar amount, every month you move that, you don't move forward. It cost you $5,000 if you take it and you reduce it to every day. Right. You just take the 5,000 divided by 30, whatever that dollar amount is. Every day you don't make a decision, it costs you X. Great news is our product is only X dollars, which is usually less than what they're investing in.

Yes.

So every day you don't make a decision, it costs you more money than to invest in a product today.

Gotcha. And what about the silence part?

What do you do after that silence. I wouldn't justify. I guess where it's different in the webinar is this is what it costs to get involved. Get started down. This is how you do it. You know, this is how you do it. Get started down. Here's the cost. And then you go. Go into Q and A if you'd like and let them go into Q and A. Right. But I don't believe in really. I think you handle the objections up front before you give the price.

Yes.

Then once you give the price, that's where it is. You don't need to justify the price after that.

Gotcha. So within, within your system, the eight steps, which part do we handle the objections?

Well, that's where you get in. You would handle the objections in significance and stretch.

Yes.

Okay, so significance is cost of inaction, right?

Yes.

Stretch is getting to see the value of it. Then you go into spend is, you know, investing, you know, testing their willingness to invest. But right there, you could sit there is where you can put some of the objections that, you know, people will have in those three areas. You might be saying to yourself, can I really do this? But as you noticed earlier, we talked about this is how much you would be making per month if you do this. So the question is, you can't afford not to do this and really start hounding in on those things.

Gotcha. And then after the silence, what do you do?

I guess on the one to many, when it's one to one and when I'm talking to people, it's very easy for me to be silent because I'm just dealing with one person. But on the one, the many, I think what you would go into, the silence would be significance to having just Q and A's.

Yep.

You wouldn't be talking about your price. You're just answering their questions, which has nothing to do with the price.

Gotcha.

But what's interesting is you just say, all right, we're going to go into Q and A, but here's the buy box at the bottom there. Go ahead and get started. Who has a question? And you just be quiet and let them. You can't talk over it. You've got to let.

Let it sit.

Yeah, you got to let it sit. Because if you start talking, you start justifying. They won't buy.

And why. Why won't people buy if you start talking? Why?

Because. Because you haven't given them enough time to process. You've interrupted their processing. You've given them something else that derailed them to think about Interesting. Right? Now, if I told you, if I was talking to you, Nathan, we're talking about a product and you talking about hiring me for my services. And I tell you the price. And then I said, so how's the weather over there? You see, it totally distracts and takes away from the moment. But if I let you sit with it a little bit, you are going to either ask a question, which then means it's great on my side, because all I need to do is answer your questions, provide a solution. But if I talk, I don't give you time to think about it. You know what's great, Nathan? The longest I've been quiet with a person, one on one, was 30 minutes straight.

You're kidding me, right?

No, I'm not. And I was talking to another salesperson, that's why. And a person. And a person laughed on the phone. And they said, I guess, you know the deal, right? Because that's what they said. And I guess. And I said, I guess, you know, you lost. So let's go ahead and get started.

That's hilarious. Because all these sales things, like, you know, I. It's so funny the way you broke it down. Like I have experienced. It's. It's funny because ever since I got into this whole stuff, you really opened your mind up to understanding the sales process. So when you go to buy a car or when you go to. To buy anything, you know, even if you walk into the shop somewhere, you can see what's happening and you can start to see it, which is. Which is, you know, when you're speaking to someone on the phone or when you're speaking to someone to, like a consultant. And if they're good, you can see a few of these bits and pieces that you shared. So this has been amazing, man.

And I always say it's great when I go. When I go purchase a car, it's the funniest thing because I go in there and I let them say price. And I just look at them in their eyes and I move my body. I'll shift in the chair. And they talk. And I'm like, I got them. If they talk first, I'm gonna get a better deal.

That's killer. All right, well, look, dude, this has been amazing. You've shed so much gold. I cannot thank you enough, Ben. We have to work towards wrapping up, but I have to hear about this case. Study this. You know, you work with many different clients and. And what you do, and you've just shared a small portion of your whole system around Sales. But how. I'm really curious. Tell me about this business, how you're gonna take them from 8 to 25 million. You train a sales team.

Yeah, I'm training a sales team. This team has about 10 people.

Yes.

And they were. They were around 18 to 20 transactions a week.

Yes.

And their average transaction was about 50 grand.

Yes.

And we've just taken that transaction to about 34 a week. Only in the last couple weeks. And really, what I focus on when I focus with sales teams, as I look at the behavior before I teach them tactics, I really get into their hearts and who they are. Because, you know, if they have a lifestyle they're trying to accomplish, before they can have the lifestyle, they have to have successes, which is achievements. Right. And this is what I train on. And before they can have achievements, that all comes from actions. And in order to have great actions. And actions are breaking down into, you know, like the tactics that you're doing. Right. Getting on the phone, talking to people, having interviews, doing. Talking to customers. But what happens is people lack the courage and commitment to stay consistent.

Yes.

So I get into, well, why aren't they consistent? Which comes from feelings, but feelings are rooted in beliefs. So then we get into the foundation, which is what are their beliefs? And I start building them up from the ground about where their beliefs are. And I've always learned with teams in sales, it's not about tactics. I really believe it's about state. Where are the mainstays your state of mind is? And I really get them into that state. And each person gets into a positive state differently. And so. But that's where I focus in, and I help them understand where their belief system is, and I get them to be a better them, a better person. And it's amazing. I teach them these other skill sets, but when I get them to be a better them, they outperform anything they've ever done using the same things they've always done. And I've been able to take teams and turn around companies in 60 days to where they've doubled or tripled their revenue on a per monthly basis just because I get them to focus on the inside, the inner communication they're having with themselves so they can stop blaming everything else around them and start taking personal responsibility for their actions, and they start performing better. And then I teach them all the sales conversations and process in between it all. But I really get them to be a better theme. And it's amazing. I've seen in my career, I've seen the worst reps become the highest performers because they have the willingness to learn and to become a better person internally.

So it's not so much the sales. It's not so much their sales process is broken. It's the mindset.

Yep, it's the mind. And like, for me, look, I'm a big hip hop lover. I love it. I used to dance for the fat Boys years and years and years ago. That's a little bit of my history and tone loke. But what's amazing is I really focus on a person becoming better to them and getting in the right state to me, my state. If I listen to hip hop, I have a lot more confidence, a lot more swagger, and that's what we get them to focus on. We help them build their core values, which is about commitment, congruency, confidence, and communication. When they build that, they'll be better at everything they do. It doesn't matter what they do.

Mm. Love it. Awesome. Well, look, dude, this is. This has been an amazing conversation. This has been probably one of the most dangerous conversations I've had on the podcast in the sense that if people actually use this, it's gonna change the game for them so much. So, look, I just want to say thank you so much for your time, Ben, but before we wrap, where's the best place people can find you? And we work out that diagram stuff.

They can visit me at my website at selland succeed.com or send me an email at benselland succeed.com those are the best ways to get ahold of me.

Awesome. Well, look, thank you so much for your time, Ben. I really appreciate. This has been an amazing call.

No, thank you.

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