How to Make More Sales Without Feeling Salesy

Listen, in life, nothing moves until we get a yes. Can we agree on that? That nothing moves until you get a yes. Unless you get a yes of approval for the people around you, your spouse, the people you work with, the company, the team. Until you get someone to say yes to buy your product, to buy your product, your course, to hire you as a consultant. Unless a yes happens, then sometimes this can just be a dream. I don't believe the way to master get getting a yes is just mastering a sales presentation. I think that can get you out of Egypt, but I doubt it'll take you to the promised land. A sales pitch or a sales presentation without heart behind it, without passion behind it, without caring behind it, without truly believing in what you do, it falls flat. You'll dabble in this space if you don't have heart, if you don't feel that you're truly making a difference, then I really don't know how to teach someone to sell with just a robotic do this first, do this. This is when you anchor, this is when you sell, this is when you drop the price. Those things exist. But when you do that with a heart, with a caring, we're knowing that if you don't get a yes from somebody, you're doing them a disservice. Everything changes. The best way to master your message is to really be vulnerable and be you. I think so many times I know when I started, I gotta tell you, when I first started, this is 27 years ago now, there wasn't the Internet and I don't want to get into the. That's how old I am. Just the truth of the matter is there was no Internet. I watched Tony Robbins, I bought all his stuff and I'm like, I'm going to be in this business. There was direct mail and infomercials. Everybody's like, why would you do an infomercial? Why would Tony do an infomercial? Because we're old and there was no Internet when I started in 1998. There was no other outlet, There was no other. So here's the thing. I get excited. I want to be in this industry. I'm like, I'm doing this, I'm going all in. Like so many of you had self doubt, insecurity. I'm not Tony Robbins, I don't have a following, I didn't go to college, I don't have a lot of money. All that crap was in there. And the other part of me was, you're meant for more. You could do this shit. Don't listen to that voice. Anybody else have those two voices or is it just me? I had both those voices, but I went for it. So I had never been on camera before. I was a collision shop guy who worked on apartments and houses, and I was going to teach, right? I had a used car lot, Dean's Auto Sales. Pretty cool. I sold, you know, I had like 10 cars out front at once. And I got really good at communicating with people to buy cars. What I realized at an early age, and this is some of the stuff I'm going to share today, is I was. I hated being a car salesman. I didn't want to sell. So I remember I used to go out and I would just have a conversation with people looking at a car. I just talk to them. It's, hey, what are you looking for? How many kids do you have? Where do you live? And I remember getting to a point where I was just like, you know, these cars probably won't fit that growing family of yours, but there's a great spot down the road. And I remember I found this way to build where people wanted to buy from me. In fact, I'll just tell you a funny story. I'm digressing today. Please excuse me. I don't have a lot of notes. I got notes, but this is more of a conversation. I promise I'll get to the point of strategy and tactics. But as a joke, my dad used to come work from work with me on a Saturday to help sell cars. And my dad had been selling cars on and off for 40 years or 35 years. And my dad honestly didn't. He was a salesperson. And we used to joke it'd be on a Saturday, I was probably 19 years old, and somebody would pull up outside and they'd be looking at one of my ten cars out front. And I'd say to my dad, hey, you want to go out there and scare him away or should I go out and actually sell them? And I remember my dad, he's like, you little bastard. That's exactly how my dad talks. He called me a little bastard. So I hope you don't mind my language there. But the truth was, my dad would go out there and talk, and I would go out and listen, and I'd outsell my dad about five to one. So I'm thinking, the day I'm going to shoot my first infomercial, I want you to know I didn't have all the money to do it. I used some credit cards back then to do an infomercial and pay for the media. It was like a quarter of a million dollars because I had to pay 100,000 to produce the infomercial and hire a company. I didn't know I could do it myself. And then the editing. And back then, it wasn't digital. Like you could film on a phone. They came cameras that looked this big. They came with a dolly. If you guys ever seen the dolly. It was like a truck on wheels. They brought this thing that was like a thousand pounds and put it on tracks. It was crazy, all the money I was spending. And I watched so much Tony and so much Carlton sheets. And I'm like, those guys are good. I'm just this guy from upstate New York that works on car. I was working on a car this morning. Like I was working on an apartment last night to midnight. So I got to be like them. And I remember, like, I'm talking to you like this. And the camera went on and I became something. I don't even know who it was. I was a mix between Tony Robbins and Carlton Sheets and maybe some other actor. And this weird voice came out and I got cottonmouth. It was just the most awkward thing you have ever seen in your entire life. Because I thought, hey, no one would buy from me. I'm an introvert. I'm shy. I have a high pitched voice. I'm in my 20s. I have a New York accent. I think I got to be somebody better. Oh, my God. It was the most ridiculous thing you've ever seen in your entire life. I don't know who I was. It got so bad that I couldn't do it anymore. I've told this story before. If you've heard it, I'm sorry, I apologize. But literally, there was a bottle of tequila at my house from Christmas, like the year before. I'm not a tequila drinker. Not that tequila is not amazing. I just don't drink tequila. It was in my house. I said, I know what I'll do. I'll go do a shot at tequila, calm my nerves. And I could get into who I am. And I went and did a shot of tequila. And I came back and I just had a little fuzzy head because I'm not used to doing a shot. And I just messed up even worse. So I sent the entire crew home and I'm like, God darn it, I had so much money in. So know that. I'm not trying to be funny. I'm being realistic. But now I want to be realistic again. The crew left. I had already spent the money. I had already Booked the crew. I'd already booked media. I was obligated for 250 grand when 250 grand was like $25 million to me. Borrowed money, beg, borrow, steal. And I sent them home. And I'm like, man, you royally screwed up. You completely screwed up. Your sister was right. Your dad was right. I was literally hand to God on the back of a piece of paper writing down how long it was going to take me selling cars and renting apartments. How long it was going to take me to pay off the 250 grand. That's what I was doing that night. And then all of a sudden I'm like, would you Jesus, like, stop? That's going down that right? Remember that? Those two voices I was letting the voice of, you're not good enough. You're too young. You're not Tony Robbins. You don't have money. And I'm like, no, no, no. I got back into the no, you're meant for more. You could do this. Stop it. And I remember having this conversation with myself and I literally said, I gotta be me. I don't know any other version of me. I can't try to be Tony Robbins. I can't try to be Carlton Sheets. I can't stand up any. So I hunch a little. When I talk too much, I'm like, I just gotta be me. I got a New York accent, I got a high pitched voice. And the next day I remember just saying, eff it, if I gotta pay off the 250 over five years, I'll just flip more cars. I'll do it, but I'm just gonna be me. And I went the next day and I just got to be me. But long story short, I went out the next day. That's a clip we have here. And I was just me. And if you look at it, it is horrific. It is New York accent, high pitched voice, my vocabulary, not that it's much better today, but it was terrible. And simultaneously it worked. And I think it worked because I was just me. It didn't work for everybody. Some people might say I'm not listening to a young New York kind of guy, but it was enough to start this career and get off the ground. And ever since that day, I've been trying to just find ways to be more of me. I hope you guys feel that this is me. I don't have a vast vocabulary. I don't try to say words that other people do. I don't use a lot of slides. My team has been dying for me. For years to use their fancy. We have the most amazing graphics team. And what do I usually do? They build all the slides. And what do I do? I get up and I go to the whiteboard. I don't know. I'm just a whiteboard guy. Maybe because I'm older. So I just had found a way to be more and more of me. And the more I get to be me, the more my business grew. When I tried to memorize a script, it didn't work. When I tried to use words that weren't mine, it didn't work. When I tried to find a sales pitch that was a proven model for getting people to say yes, it didn't work. But when I decided, thinking, who do I want to serve? Who do I want to help? When I started understanding what keeps people up at night, what are they afraid of? How would I help a friend? I would speak from the heart. What are you going through? What's your experience? Where do you want to go? And I just started leaning into. I know it sounds crazy. Caring more. I just started leaning into understanding more. I started leaning into meeting where people are, meeting people where they are. And I started leaning into, if I have the solution, that it's my job to sell them, but if I don't have their solution, it's my job to push them away. And that's where most people screw up. They think, I got to sell everybody. No, no, no. You got to sell the people that need the thing that you have. And if it lies even an inch outside of that, how you protect your reputation is to say, God, I'd love to help you, but that's not us. And all of a sudden, you have this integrity, and it's an internal integrity. It's this level of confidence to go, oh, I can get even better and better in this specific la. Sam.