Closer Composure: How to Transfer Certainty in Sales

So here's the thing. Entrepreneurs, leaders, salespeople, we all want to create consistent, repeatable, and scalable ways to grow our business and our income. And we want to do it better, faster, and more seamlessly. Why? So we can actually enjoy our lives, take vacations, and spend the quality time we want with the people that we love. How do we do all this without spending a fortune or running ourselves ragged? That's the big question. And this show is dedicated to the answer. Welcome back to the podcast. You probably heard of the name Tom Watson. Well, Tom Watson Senior, Thomas Watson senior, famously said, nothing in the world happens until a sale is made. And what I know to be true is you and I always want to improve our ability to communicate effectively and ultimately cross over the finish line and make the sale. So in the past, I've had Chris Voss, I've had Terry Shodeen, I've had Jay Abraham. And today I want to introduce you to my friend, Eli Wilde, who has done $100 million in sales, and I think you're going to learn a ton from it. So, Eli, welcome to the show, man.

Thank you. Excited to be here?

Yeah, super fired up. So we were just working on a project, Eli, for the people that maybe have not been exposed to you, maybe somebody has seen you in an event right on a stage someplace, maybe bought one of your products. Give my listener like a little just sort of recap, like, who is Eli Wilde and who are you as a salesperson?

Well, like many of you have gone to event seminars to get my learn on. And found myself 2005 at an event with a bunch of speakers, some good, some not so good. And I found myself about to leave and a large presence came onto the stage and energy shifted. And nowadays in sales, we're looking at the lodger, the logical deliverables and all this stuff. And everybody had that. But this man that got on did something very different where I became completely irrational in my decision making. I was so moved and I did something completely outside of my comfort zone. And I used all my money to sign up for an event that I had no intention of buying, obviously Tony Robbins. And I was so mesmerized by him and so fascinated with the experience of how I was sold, how he got me to do something that was completely unreasonable by accessing estate. So I just harassed his company for the next couple of weeks, called about 200 times, was committed to work there, got a job, and within a year, I was an all time top salesperson. And Tony became my mentor. I live with his Son and brother in law and just went on to do 3400 of the same presentation. In fact, the job that I had for Tony was the same job that Tony had for Jim Rohn when he got his start called the FSR Model Field Sales rep. And I had a sales background and an acting background, so I was used to scripts and memorization and talking to people, but I still didn't have that confidence. And when I got uphold of all these emotional keys from, you know, nlp, they still seemed kind of wonky to me. And a lot of the trainers weren't very good, but Tony was doing things so seamlessly. And I was like, whatever that is, I want it. And he just modeled for me an experience that really shifted my mindset around sales, communication, belief around what really happens beneath the surface of a script to get somebody into that buying state where I was sold. And so I spent the better part of 20 years now just studying that process and got a lot of reps.

You know, isn't it interesting? So. So Tony worked for Jim Rohn, and I know multiple people that worked for Jim Rohn that became extraordinary salespeople. My dad was the top salesperson for a guy named Earl Nightingale. Right. Lead the field. Started the entire motivational speaking industry way back in the day. My dad was like, selling records. And then I went out and sold for my pops. You sold for Tony. And now here we are on a podcast talking sales and influence. So 3,400 presentations. Right. And you and I used to compete against each other.

Yeah.

Kind of hysterical, right?

I would go to real estate companies just like you.

Yeah.

And I would sell people into Tony's events.

Yeah.

Oh, we just had this Tom Ferry guy here. I'm like, oh, in. This guy's the worst. You know.

So all my friends know out there watching, like, sales is sales. And whether you're selling real estate or you're selling insurance or you're selling title, you're selling mortgage, you're selling widgets, you're selling water. Right. The. The art of influence. The ability to get somebody who maybe started out as a no and get them to become a yes only when it's right for them. And it doesn't work if they don't want to buy a house, just to be clear. But like, the ability to overcome an objection, the ability to qualify better. The ability to, you know, help somebody get into a place where they're comfortable making a decision. Because especially buying a house or picking the house or choosing you as the listing agent for some. For Some human beings, that's just a hard decision because it's a big decision. So I want to know and what I want to spend my time on today is, so you've made 3,400 presentations doing that, and then Tony would put you on stage and you present there. And now you, you work with a whole bunch of people to help them make better presentations. What would you say are the, the 3, 4, 5, biggest, most obvious, money costing sales, losing mistakes that you see people making most often?

Well, one, you know, so my job, it's like many people here are taking people from uninterested to interested, committed to ultimately buying. So there's a sequence of events first of all, but even like you were saying, like not in selling a house, doesn't work with a house. But like, how could we even get that person? So say you say, hey, do you want to sell your home? Or hey, are you interested in moving? Somebody's like, no, I love where I live. So okay, what do you love about it? Well, it's great, great, great. Well, that's fascinating. It sounds like you got a good thing there. But I'm curious, what would you change about your home, your area, if you could? Well, it'd be nice if we had that. Okay, and what do you mean by that? How long. When did you notice that wasn't exactly how you want? So there's problem inducing questions. So we can even get somebody that's not interested to still be interested by opening that door with a certain type of question. And so I think a lot of times too, we prejudge. We think some people, some people might be ready, but like, oh, everybody is after that person. A lot of times we infect the conversation with our own insecurities, our doubts, and people become kompushy, they become compliant. One of the things that we go into, not just the language.

Hold on, say that whole part again.

Some people project their own. Say that again.

They get. So here's the way you break it down. And we, in our sales process, we have tempo management, question, control, call control. We have different things to do to really control the frame of that conversation. So while you, what you say is really important and whether people have done any kind of sales training, listing, whatever, there's a presentation and a script. But as I always say, and you've heard me say, two people can say the same exact thing and get a very different response. Absolutely. And so outside of even NLP stuff like what is happening beneath the surface, because when you're communicating, there's what you say what you believe about what you say, the conviction, but also what you believe about yourself, the person saying it. And you could say, oh, I believe in myself. But do you believe in yourself when you're getting rejected? Do you believe in yourself when you've got. No. What does it take to create a chip in your armor? And I think the whole aspect of self development, your mindset, your psychology and having a clear outcome, can't be overstated.

Yes.

And I think when it comes into a dynamic of a conversation, this piece of what is called collapse or, or, you know, overcompensating is what takes people out of what we call closer composure. Yeah, there's closer composure where you're centered and strong and so more than what you say.

Hold on. So. So let's talk about this, because if I was. If you're. If you're watching on YouTube, right. You want to stay in the middle, in a state of composure. And when you think about composure, you can think of an example of someone that is composed versus someone that is. Give it to me again. Somebody that on one side it's going to be, and on the other side it's posturing. Right, Posturing. So. So for the person listening right now, think about a person that you've seen, you know, get a little too much bravado, right? Like their ego starts to show up. To me, that's all the posturing stuff. Like, well, you know, I'm number one of my marketplace and this is how we do and this is how we operate. And I'm not saying you do that, but like trying to give the example versus on the other side where they just. Okay, yeah, right. They just crumble. So what creates posturing and what creates composure and what creates the collapse? Help me understand.

Well, posture and collapse are both based in fear. And so somebody's compensation pattern for the fear is backing off. It's like flight. And then the other one is fight, fight. So it's a nervous sensor or just freeze, you know, so we've heard about these. So these are trauma responses. And I think all of us have experienced our own trauma in some way. And it's one thing to sit in a seminar or an event and say, oh, I've dealt with it. But day to day, face to face with real human beings that have their own stuff coming on and not getting triggered. What happens to most people is they lose their composure. And part of what makes you effective is not just a salesperson or business person. As a person is your ability to be calm, collected, composed, and not be reactive. Instead be responsive to what's really showing up. And I think a lot of people, you know, with sales already, people are asking for money for something. It's like, and there's rejection and there's self worth issues. There's already so much on the line and this feeling of like, oh, I gotta make it. And then, you know, even their motivation to make money or to make a sale. So what's driving people? Like motive does matter. And in sales they say it's all about helping people. That's true. A lot of salespeople just want to get something and they can have some success. But I think when it comes down to it, like your motive and your intention as to not just getting a sale, as we've talked about, what precedes all action are thoughts, feelings, beliefs and reverse engineering. What are the beliefs that I need to install? What do they need to believe about me, about the process and about themselves? And so the context that we create in a communication is getting people really internal with our communication, where they're self evaluating, not evaluating me, my offer, the product, whatever. And so I've got questions that are designed to take people internal, where they begin to create a gap as to some pain and as to where things are, some dissatisfaction with that and really have a compelling future to where they want to be. And most people, like, if people commit suicide or they're just like kind of going through life, they don't have any compelling future. So sales as a service, we're enrolling people in a possibility that would not be possible without your thing. But before we can just give them the thing, we have to enroll them and pre frame them as to the possibility of what it can look like in their life.

So my friend listening right now, Eli is going, I know that's a lot. That's a lot.

Okay, well, I'm going to unpack it.

But if we, if we, if we break it down to the most simplistic thought, what I got is you got a script, you got a belief about the questions that you're asking, what it is that you're presenting, like do you believe in. So let's put in the context of you get a cold lead, someone walks into your open. I'm talking to my client here, right? Somebody walks into your open house, right? So you have your script. Like, you know, there's questions that you should ask, right. That are better than others. But do you believe in the questions that you're asking? And then you really said your belief in yourself, which I Think really plays into the whole identity issue. Like I watch every single day people in a good market or a bad market fail miserably. They get all the leads, they have a great team, they're on a great brokerage, they're a good looking guy, good looking gal, and they still fail. And I'm convinced that 99% of it is what they believe about themselves. And if we can get them to shift their identity to. To something a little more powerful, not fake it till you make it, but like literally shift their identity to being a little more powerful, then all of a sudden that script that didn't work in the past suddenly is magical. And they can set as many appointments as they want.

But you want to role play in one second. Let me just add this.

Okay.

Yeah, yeah. So a belief is a transference of certainty. You know, it's like, how do we transfer it? And so there used to be these two Cs that I used to teach as far as like what it takes. We're transferring clarity and transferring certainty.

Yeah.

And so that's transferred but a way of being. I added another C years ago.

Yeah.

It was curiosity.

Yes.

To be genuinely curious.

Yeah.

And even with just certainty, because it's so important. They say certainty sells and it's true. You imagine level one certainty would be like uncertainty and then there'd be like shooting fire cannons out of your butt. I'm the best, like really confident certainty, which is usually over posturing. But the highest level of certainty is just calm. Yes. Like if I ask somebody like, are you confident you can tie your shoes? You'd be like, yeah. It wouldn't be like, I can tie my shoes in the best of tying my shoes.

Like, watch me tie my shoes.

It'd be weird. It's more certain if you're just like, of course. And so it's that sense of resolve and calm energy that you transfer to make people feel safe is what is really going to create the context. And then the genuine concern and curiosity is what shapes the empathy behind the question that gets people to give you a vulnerable answer, which puts them in a place where you can lead them.

Yes.

Does it make sense?

And again, it goes back to the same thing that if you could take two salespeople, give them the same database, the same type of leads, and give them the same exact script call at the same exact time. Everything is a level playing field. One person will book appointments and the other person will say, these leads suck.

Yeah.

So talk to me about.

I want to role play, but I want to go back to if I said to you, you know, so Eli, I'm a real estate agent and this year has been, it's been okay. It's like I feel a little beaten up by it. And I'm just being honest. Like I know, you know, there's the industry is bipolar right now. It's the rich and the rest. Right? There's no, there's no middle ground right now pretty much anywhere in the world. Certainly for my friends that are listening, it's the rich. And yes, there's layers of rich and there's layers of the rest, but it's really bipolar. So let's just assume that I'm maybe in the middle, not where I want to be. Even if I'm deemed rich, I want to do way more. Yeah, I need to get better at my script. But if I had to pick like script belief about what I'm saying or my service or identity, which one do you think would have the greatest impact? And then help me figure out for my friend watching or listening how they can do that on their own.

You know, it's interesting. There's an NLP model, the Roger Dilt's logical levels of nlp. And it's like at the base there's environment and then behavior and then skills, which is all this is all skill building. Above that is belief. So it's more important because you can have two people. One person just feels like it's a skill gap. So they keep on reading books, they keep on going to seminars, but nothing changes because the belief inside of them is they're not good enough yet. They need one more thing. So it's a belief that's driving their behavior. And no matter how good the skill is, if they don't have the belief to enhance the skills, it's not going to work. Somebody else might have no skills, but they have 100% belief and they know that it's possible. And they say, look, market shit. But if it's only going to work for one person, that person is going to be me.

Yes.

And they go out there and they're congruent with that belief. That person is going to figure out the skills along the way. And so what becomes higher level than belief? It's our values. A higher level than that is our identity. A higher level than our identity. How does a man or a woman become a superman or a superwoman? Like Martin Luther King? Great guy, challenging environment. How does he become Martin Luther King? He had a vision and a mission and a purpose bigger than himself. And So I think a lot of people, as it relates to sales or business or real estate, it's what can I get to make me better? As opposed to being challenged saying, look, I see this is a something to make me grow. And without challenge, we don't grow. And so they're like, they have a purpose that's bigger than themselves and a purpose that's bigger than their fear. And so they act out of mission. And their mission can't be, I want to be the best real estate agent. I. I want to help the most amount of people.

Yes.

And so that motive does matter, and it shapes the certainty that are having their communication. And that's one of the biggest things I took from Tony because he really lived that on stage. And I was like, man, if I show up like that, more sales are going to come to me.

So can the guy or gal watching right now or listening, can they model the right identity and how fast would it take for them to shift? And I think about, like, my buddy Todd Herman, who I probably have a book around or someplace.

Oh, yeah, great guy.

Yeah.

Wrote the book. Yeah.

Alter ego, Right. So had Todd on my show. He became a great friend. And if you remember his concept, he's like, look, if you can use the four things, like the way you dress, maybe a pair of glasses, right? Like, he used to put the Walter Payton, you know, football card in his pads when he was playing football. Is like this symbolic, like, I am Walter Payton. So he had these four things that you could do that can basically shift your identity. But he said it will be temporary unless it becomes a routine. Yeah, you with me? Temporary. Unless it becomes a habit. So you've got to do it over and over and over and over. So you rewire your system until all of a sudden, you know, you're there. He talks about, like, Cary Grant before he was Cary Grant became. I started dressing a certain way, going to certain hotels, drinking certain cocktails, and then he becomes this character. Cary Grant.

Yeah.

How does my client shift A little bit here? Give them one or two things that they can do to start shifting their identity. They know what to say and they.

Know what to do. There's the basic stuff. Morning, evening, visualization, affirmations. Writing down your goals three times. That's great. But I think you know a lot of it. And our buddy Chase talks about this, too. It's rewiring what we have addictions to our dopamine. What is our access? What do we link dopamine to? And so, and for me personally, my real Name is Eli Will Hyde. And so in high school, like, I played football, Eli Will Hyde, and I worked for Tony Robbins. I felt like I was hiding behind Tony Robbins. And I read a book by Oscar Wilde called Picture of Dorian Gray. Really sat with me and. And I used to read all these books by Stuart Wilde. And it's just this theme, you know, just these brilliant books on, like, money and all these things and this whole concept. I dropped two letters out of my name. I didn't change it legally, but Eli Wilde. And our brand is this whole concept about being wildly, authentically empowering in the expression of yourself. And so wild influence our brand that it reminds me all the time. And I'm tied into the mission of how I want to be wildly, authentically influential and influential in this way that actually empires. That's what our brand's all about. So I have a consistent reminder called the name on my shirt, the name on my Facebook. So I'm like, always getting associated to that. And that comes back to somebody wanting to change their identity, going back up those, you know, Roger Dilt. So that means we gotta change our environment, everything.

Change your environment. They need to pick a model as an example, right? Like, it could be a role model. Could be. I tell people all the time, like, imagine if you thought about your favorite musician. And I was just like, lady Gaga is an example. Like, David Bowie, for me, was like my musical muse. So I'd say. I'd say Lady Gaga. And then I would say to my client, like, hey, do you think Lady Gaga is responsible for carrying the cord bag in and setting up the microphone and organizing everything? No. Lady Gaga just shows up and she's just Lady Gaga, right? Like, Beyonce is just Beyonce. She's not back there going a 1, 2, 3, 4. Like, hey, everybody, here's your steps. She is just being herself all the time on stage, presenting like a rock star. And we both know with her, she was afraid to go do that until she created Sasha Fierce. So I'm asking for the person here, obviously they can change their environment. Obviously they can create a model. Is there one more thing you found they could wear the shirt over and over again, right? Maybe it's a shirt you wear under your shirt. How many heroes of sports have we heard that they still wear, like, the University of North Carolina shorts under their other shorts? Is there something beyond that that they can do? They can start working on today?

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Find out whatever is the most limiting pattern and then prioritize a ritual and a habit around that. You know, for me, I was voted the quietest kid in school. Painfully shy. And I always had friends that were like good with the girls and all that stuff. And it wasn't Until I was 21, 22, I made it a point to go up to 10 girls a day and, and just say my name, flub, whatever it was. But I just made that a habit every single day. And I did it till it became normal. And still even now, whether I'm getting a coffee in the morning, I call it social lubricant, I just get talking and things like that. Cause it's not my natural thing, but I've conditioned it and I've worked on it so well. And I think for a lot of people a strength overuse could become a weakness. But people that like a James Earl Jones that had a stutter, the person that is like whatever your thing is that is really limiting your life, it is painful for you. You got to make that pain real and say I'm going to do something every day. James Earl Jones couldn't get a sentence out of his mouth, became one of the best orators in the history of the world, most recognized voice because it was so painful him that it just compelled him. I'm going to work on this like and same thing for me with communication. I did all the things, but it was so painful for me and I found the limiting thing and I found one thing I could do every single day as a standard and a commitment. And I conditioned it. And now I've talked to like a bajillion people.

I love that because I also, you know, I've always been, I think, relatively charismatic, well trained by people like Ron Arden and other, you know, coaches and mentors that helped me along the way. But same thing, like when I was a kid especially like moving from kind of one high school to the next, I did start to build this sort of like a little more quiet, little more reserved, wear dark glasses, put on a dark coat kind of hide, if you will, like through high school. But I realized if I was going to be in sales, that was a really bad strategy. So I literally would attack a weakness and that we just very similar to yours. I wonder if, I wonder if the person listening could acknowledge that if they have this fear, this anxiety. Was it James Campbell, I believe, who said the cave you fear to enter the most or the treasure that you seek? I've been thinking about that a lot as I think about, you know, me trying to create the next level of me right sitting here at 54, thinking about the next next decade of my life. What are the fears that I have? What are the things I'm afraid of? What are the things that I know if I just overcome them? So. So I think that, I think the person listening right now you're probably thinking about and I'd love to see it in the comments if you'd willing to share it. What is the fear that you're holding on to? It could be something as simple as making phone calls. It could be calling your own past clients or sphere. It could be asking for more bananas the next time you go on a listing presentation versus less bananas thinking of fees and all that stuff. There's always something. And to your point, I think when we attack that, it does shift your identity. Not just no longer afraid, but what I found is that when I do something like that, it just adds like this incredible next layer of confidence for.

Me that all of a sudden I.

Start to realize if I can beat that, what else can I beat? I can beat this and this and this and this. And then you start stacking those up over a decade and you have more composure.

That's it.

Yeah.

You have positive, powerful references of your, of your past. It's like proof that you are that person. Yes. It's like they say, confidence is doing what you know you need to do. And it's like undeniable proof that you are the person that you say you are. Because a lot of people do this identity stuff. I am, I am. And they're all pumped up, but they don't have references of things they've done to reinforce the identity. And so that's why as soon as you go, you, you read the book, you take the self development course, like right there, I think you have a window where you've really got to take some action, otherwise you default. And then in that place of getting some positive reinforcement for you, stepping out of your comfort zone, and then you become positively addicted to it. And I think that's the trend that gets missed for a lot of people. They read the book, they do the thing, but they're not immediately in the game long enough to see the reward. And that could take a little while. But you, you are your outcome focused, not process focused. It's a little bit of both.

I agree. So I was thinking we should link up the interview I did with David Goggins where I was like, so, David, how does somebody get over the fear of making phone calls? I can't. I could do a David Goggins impression, but I'm not going to do. I'm not going to say all the words that he said. But he was like, well, listen, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep. What you should do is make 300 calls a day, every single day, until you finally say to yourself, this is actually kind of easy. And then 20 calls a day looks really simple. Right. He was basically saying the same thing, like, you gotta. You gotta enter that cave where you have that fear, because inside that fear, that is the treasure that you seek. Okay, I don't know if we've answered the first question yet. You did 3,400 presentations. What would you say for the person listening? What were the two, three biggest like, man, I'm never doing that again during a presentation. Biggest mistake.

Yeah, I remember. So we had the same guy, trained all the speakers. And, you know, I was a really nice guy, got good rapport, and my sales were good, but I didn't really lean in. I didn't sell hard enough. And he was like, you know, you have so much rapport with people. You can push a little harder. That's why I'd push a little harder. Whatever. And he said this to me. He says, you don't know how far you can go until you've gone too far. So what do you mean? He says, you don't know how far you can go until you've been kicked out of a real estate office for pitching people. A month later, I'm in New York City and I got kicked out. So I would say, don't do that. Don't push too hard. Because I knew. But I was just like, I'm gonna be certain it was all about me getting a result instead of connecting with the people.

Exactly.

And so I didn't have what we call aligned outcomes and getting on the same side of the table. There's things that you can do with language that can create that bond.

Really, really key. Okay, but let's just stop right there. Aligned outcomes. When you're on a presentation and it's about you, when you're making phone calls and it's about you, when you're doing all that stuff and it's about you, it's not about the client. Right. This is what we always talk about. Like, in my world, it's not a sales call, it's a service call. I'm calling my past clients to let them know what's going on. I'm calling my leads because I promised that I would. Right. So it's a shift in the way you think about it. Right. Versus like, oh my God, I'm desperate and I need a deal. Let me call this person. And then they come across like with what I call commission breath. And that's bad. So aligned interest, for sure. What would you say is the number two biggest mistake reflecting back on all your presentations?

Things to absolutely avoid, I think, like setting an outcome for the call, like getting an aligned outcome. Like how you frame the call. Even, you know, say in a sales call, a lot of times they're asking you questions or in this dynamic, but whoever's asking the questions is getting control of the conversation. So it might even be something as simple, like, hey, John, here's how the call is going to go. I'm going to ask you some questions to see if or how I can help you. Not saying I can. I'm going to tell you the process to this. You can ask me any questions you like. And at the end of the call, just let me know if this all makes sense. So I set a frame around how the conversation is going to go. I establish myself as the question asker and I'm taking control.

Yes.

Also, I think in a sales context or sometimes too, even in a seminar, there'll be people there that will control the conversation. And so knowing how to interrupt and deflect, I, you know, building on this whole composure thing. Because I talked about over posturing.

Yes.

Well, sometimes you might want to do that, but it happens really fast. Speaking of posturing, there's superior, equal and inferior. And I'll cycle through these and I'll give you a bit. But I remember, you know, Tony Robbins took me and another guy to Vegas for a couple days and we just.

Did like role play.

And we did this crazy, like boys day, shot machine guns, did fight training with a Navy SEAL trainer. It was like really great. And he really wanted to instill in this concept of postures. And one of the mistakes all salespeople, speakers make, regardless of what they're saying, it's staying in the same posture too long. So one posture is talking down to people. Listen, here's how it's going to go. Another posture is in fear. Like, hey, I'm so honored to be able to talk to you. I can't believe this is here. Like, whatever you want.

Thank you so much for inviting me over to your home. I'm just so excited to be here.

And then a lot of real estate agents, posture of equal, hey, we'll be friends. Hey, this is my friend. And then they're like, they want to, hey, can you give me a discount? We're friends. You know, it's like, hey, can you commission? We're friends.

And.

And so you need to be able to cycle through all three.

So I teach the same thing, but I call it subordinate. Like, you're acting lesser than the person you're trying to influence. Could be on a listing appointment as a perfect example versus the peer. We use the same thing. And then I say, or you're the authority. And one of the mistakes that I acknowledged, like, I used to have clients, like, role play their entire listing presentation, and then they would record it and send it to me so I can observe it. And as you're watching this, what I would notice is they were spending too much time as the peer, Friend to friend, right? And then it was time to close. They would go authority over the top, and it was a break in rapport. So. So to the point that you got to kind of balance between the three or worse, for my friend watching, here's the single thing that I see on appointments, that it was just an easy little fix. And I tell people, so you're on the presentation, and you say to the people, all right, so here's what your home's going to sell for Eli. Looks like properties like yours in Miami are trading around nine, you know, $900 a square foot. Like, just some number like that. And so you're going through the comparable prices of everything that's sold recently and everything that's on the market and what price you're doing. And then. Then they'll say, so where do you guys want to price your home?

Yeah.

And I. And I literally say this to audiences. I just did this yesterday at a vet, and I said, how many of you have done this before? Like, every hand goes up. They're honest, right? They have enough rapport. And then I say, well, that would be like if, knock on wood, someone I loved got injured, and suddenly we're inside the emergency room, and the doctor's like Mr. Wild, we've done all the X rays. What would you like to do? No, I'm looking for the person to tell me what I need to do. They are the authority. How do we balance that authority versus peer and not go over the top?

There's a few things we can do. So one, I don't stay in one for very long. Listen, Tom. So right there, that's a pattern, right? We call it attention generator. So I'm grabbing your focus from the fate model. Listen.

Yeah.

The great thing about you is, and what I respect so much. I'm so humbled to even know you here.

Yeah.

You know. No, I went inferior. Listen, listen, Tom.

Yeah.

What's great about you and what I respect. I mean, I can't even believe I'm here talking to you.

Yeah, that's.

Yeah, But I think you're a lot like me. We want to learn, we want to grow. But in order to do that, something needs to change, doesn't it? So I went superior. Inferior. Equal. Superior. So my tone, my presence, and I'm moving people into that place. But also you could do that strategy, like you said, is not good. Where people say, so where do you want to go? I might pre frame their response. Well, you know, I can walk you through the process A to Z, let you know what it all looks like, but where do you want to go from here? And now they're gonna say, well, tell me about the process. But I see did that. Or I hop on a sales call with somebody and they're like, hey, you know, I don't know. Just tell me what you got. I'm just looking for information. Not a problem. Just curious what has you out here on the Internet looking for answers? You know, what's going on in your life that has you looking for information? So I write back, oh, you know, I don't know. I'm just, you know, kind of stuck. Well, typically when people hop on these calls, they're looking for this, this or this, which sounds most like your situation. They say, oh, I guess, a. Okay, what makes you say that? And now I'm getting a response out of them. So sometimes too, we might need to pre frame or preload a question and it gets in the prefrontal cortex and they're just. They're just going to say whatever thing. But then I make them own it. What makes you say that? Why did you say that? How did you mean by that? How does that. What does that mean to you specifically? Where does that show up so we can. We can probe into any of those responses, in a large sense we can control their response.

Yes, yes. So someone might be listening.

Oh, Phil Jones. I had Phil Jones on my podcast. Right?

Brilliant guy. Shout out to Phil. And people would probably, as they're listening to you at times go, oh my God, it's just over 1.

Like how do I, you know what I mean?

Like, there's just so much there and, and that's totally fine. One of the things I respect about you and you and I have had this conversation, like when I first learned how to sell, it was listening to Brian Tracy's psychology of selling. And I would just listen to Brian and I would say I must pre qualify every single person and then I must present my solution. And it was, it was fantastic. As a, As a fledgling 19 year old salesperson, you know, it got me a certain response result. Then I hired my first coach, Robert Stover. Shout out to Robert. And he started to teach me neuro linguistic programming based upon sort of the Bandler method with a little bit of Kenrick Cleveland. And all of a sudden I fell in love with that 7% of our communication, which is your language.

Yeah, right.

What you say matters. So the way I did it is I had to write, as I told you, 50 sentences a day and then meet him on a Saturday and submit all of my work. And he would review the work and he'd say, okay, I like this one, you should like this one. But what I found was after, like, I don't know, 27ish weeks after learning 27 different sales methods, tactics, processes, and each one compounding over and over again, everything changed for me. Like every time I was talking to someone, just matter if it's a friend talking to Brandon over here, like video. Hey, what do you think about this? I was starting to use the, the patterns. Naturally someone might be listening, thinking there's a shortcut. Is there a shortcut? Is there a shortcut to learning all that? You mentioned the fate method, all the different methods or strategies for influence.

The thing that you need to change anything is time, energy and attention.

Yes.

And if your attention and the time and the energy, if it's scattered. And Nowadays with like ChatGPT and like AI, there's so much brilliant information, but the integration of the communication is, it's dissipated. And so, I mean there's a big difference between studying and training. Studying you could read 20 books about 20 from 20 different authors and you actually produce an internal state of uncertainty because when it comes time to perform, you don't know which to do training means you do one thing over and over again, over and over again, over and over again. Then it's stimulus response, unconscious competence, you know, boom, boom, boom. And then it's just like wax on, wax off, paint the fence. It just over and over again, over and over again. And then you unconsciously are able to use. Use that in the fight of communication, you know, that's it.

So for the. So.

But yes, you got to just. It's just one thing.

It's so funny because, you know, how do you become a black belt? You do the same punch, you know, 10,000 times, right? And every person, my friend, listening right now. Have you ever been asked to role play? Have you ever. I want to see it in the comments. Have you ever been asked or told, you should practice your presentation? Just give me just a yes or no in the comments, wherever you're watching. And what I know is everyone will say yes. And then I'm like, well, and the vast majority people don't. So then I challenge them and say, so let me get this straight. Your average commission is 10,000, 15, 20, 80, 100, whatever. You know, big numbers, right? Selling houses, you have these large average commissions, and you don't practice the one thing that causes you to get that success. So when you get a prospect, whether you like it or not, I know it's not you, but someone you know wings it every single time.

It's crazy.

I was writing 50 sentences a day. I would be honest. I don't know, like, with my two sons that are now, you know, in sales and learning the business, I don't know if I would ask them to do that, But I think 10 or 15 sentences a day where even if it's just I repeatedly get this objection, I repeatedly get, hey, what's your fee? Or hey, another agent said they'd do it for less. Or, hey, I would like a discount because we're friends. And I would literally write down 10 or 15 ways that I can handle that over and over and over. Because if you only did that, if you only did that and you went from, like, I don't know, one and a half bananas to two and a half bananas, the incremental value of that over the course of your career could be hundreds, if not millions of dollars.

It's millions. I've talked to people that have been in sales for 20 years, and they can't handle an objection. I'm like, there's only like five objections. Like, I think about it a time and money, there's only five of them.

Yeah.

And you. 20 years. I was just like, it's like there's so much money. I mean, it's like, do you feel like if you trained on this, would it be worth, you know, and would you get all of them? No, but majority you can get if you just had like even the most basic framework.

I got to think about it.

Not a problem.

So watch how easy this hack is. You know, if you go to Revi, our site. So we built this AI tool and this is not a shout out for that because you can go to Revi, you can go to ChatGPT and go to Grok, you can go to any one of the large language models and you could say voice mode. Hey, act like a home seller who wants to get the most money for their home and they need to get it and they also want to pay a lesser fee. And I'm going to be the real estate agent and you be that home seller. Let's role play now.

It's so easy.

And you can role play with AI all day long. Now inside my app, one of the things we did for our clients was after the role play, it rates you 0 to 100. And you know, the typical roleplay role because we have, have like thousands of things happening every day. So you get it like probably like 82, 83 is the average. But then behind it, we have put in all of the influence models into our AI. So it says, eli, that was outstanding. You got an 82. But if you would have done this and this and this when they said this, if you would have done this, if you would have done this, if you run this when they said that, and then people are like, oh, like you should be role playing because you can do that. Like not with another human, which can sometimes be embarrassing. I get that. Like, I, I love it. I role play all the time, but I get it. So if it's embarrassing for you, don't sweat it. Do it by yourself. Do it with AI. But. But do it. That's the key. But do it. Okay, let's, let's switch gears. If I said to you the biggest mistakes, you said push too much. Which is basically you're saying unaligned in terms of outcomes. I do want to say I'm old school. Do you remember the seven penny game?

No.

Okay, so the seven. I don't know who made this up. And it could have been my sales manager, right? He said, I want you to have seven pennies on your desk. And when you're on the phone with the client, every time you ask for the order, I want you to slide one penny over. So it was like this physical trigger of like, oh, only two pennies in, only three pennies in. And I actually filmed, my wife, actually filmed me on the phone calling for my son, right, who's sitting next to me, some old leads. And he's a real estate agent in Hoboken, you, Jersey, right. So I was never giving out any information about real estate. Like it's, you know, yada yada, you're just having fun. And what he was blown away by was this one particular seller. I think I asked him like seven and a half times. Like, I just, you know, like, I totally get, I'm going to be in the area anyway the next, you know, probably the next, like two or three days.

Why don't I just stop by?

It sounds like you're home at 3 o'.

Clock.

Why don't I come by around 3 o' clock on Wednesday? And he's like, well, the problem is I'm going to have this going on Wednesday and that going on, well, you know, I could come as early as tomorrow, right? Just, it just, it was just, it was soft, it was elegant, it was never aggressive. I lost no composure. But I just, I just knew if I just kept him on the phone, like, he wants to sell. Yeah, you with me? He wants to sell. So it's not like I'm trying to convince somebody that doesn't want to sell, he wants to sell. But he had a complex situation. It was a multifamily deal, right? They're living in the front, his kids there, his mother in law's there. And then the back unit is totally, you know, packed with renters. And he's like, I don't know how to best show you the property. So he's, he's telling me, solve my problem. And the answer was, I can't really solve the problem unless you invite me over so I can take a look at the house and then you can have a conversation. So I want to just go back. You got to ask more. That's really the insight. So if we switched it and I said to you, okay, this, some of the mistakes are there. If you had to say two or three techniques that you would encourage people to take on while they're listening to this podcast, what are two, like maybe just two things that they could try, they could add into their repertoire.

You know, with us it sounds so airy fairy, but it's like having some.

Kind of pre call my last name.

So I appreciate that there you go, but we just, you know, would like get really clear. And I remember being backstage with Tony and kind of going through his ritual of what he would do before he got on stage. And I started to adopt some of that related to the visualization setting a clear outcome. And it's like. So there's four things that I would go through before a sales call presentation. One is getting really clear in my beliefs. Like it's not about me knowing like inside of my heart of heart, like inside of my soul, knowing that I've got value. Getting really clear in what I believe about the people, what I believe about what I'm going to say and knowing that it's going to make an impact that day. So I'm really there in a place of service. So my beliefs aligned physiology. Making sure that you feel good where you're not hunched over and you know, won 20 coffees. I'm on five today. But not too caffeine are you feel good and then having a clear outcome. Getting really specific in my outcome. And like you said, the outcome can't be just to make a sale because you have commission breath. But when I got really good in sales and I told you I did research, I got really clear in my outcome. But I realized that of course my outcome was to sell. If I only had an outcome to sell, I wouldn't be able to sell because people could feel that.

So.

So I got clear in what precedes all action are thoughts, feelings and beliefs. And so I got clear and I researched from a lot of people that bought from me and didn't. What are the thoughts, feelings and beliefs of a buyer? What are the thoughts, feelings and beliefs of a non buyer? And then you have to get really, really good at pre handling objections. And so people will give you outs all the time. And yes, you can. Objection. Handle like crazy. But as Cialdini says. Robert Cialdini the best persuasion is pre suasion. And so you have to train. Train not just to ask questions and go through a script because people will give you a lot of it could even just be a hesitation. Hey, yeah, okay, I noticed some hesitation. Can I ask what's behind that? Well, and then we're going to expand on it and we're going to find that thing and we need to reframe these limiting beliefs early on because if we do go through a call and then we make the offer and get an objection, we can handle it. But again, the best persuasion is so it's being trained to find limiting buying beliefs and getting really Explicit. What are the thoughts, feelings and beliefs of a buyer and of a non buyer? Listening for the thoughts, feelings and beliefs of a non buyer and reframing them early on to put them back into alignment with somebody that buys. Hey, when you said this, how did you mean by that? Okay. And could I challenge you on that? Okay, when you said that, well, does everybody. Is nobody selling homes right now or are you saying somebody. Okay, so the question is, what are they doing differently? Do you think they have systems? Okay. And so if you had more systems, do you think it's more likely you also could perform more like that? Okay, so you're saying it's possible.

Yes.

So now because we got it's possible.

Hard no to.

It's possible. So if I start challenging them early on in their best interest, not like, hey, I'm going to challenge you on that. So I can tell you, like, hey, can I challenge you on that? When we work with that A little bit? Because I feel like that way of thinking, thinking could be costing you some sales. Now they're getting coaching from me in a context where I'm challenging them in their best interest. I remember.

And that could be. I just think of my client listening. That could be like in the middle of when you say how much you.

Guys want to sell for your.

And they're like, well, we want this on price. And you know, it's this.

Yeah.

And the delta between the two people.

They'll go through the entire presentation. Well, hoping they'll change their mind by here. Right, right here.

They got it. Right. But instead of saying, I like that, actually. And what it felt like was more the subordinate, like, hey, can I challenge you on that? Like, can I challenge you price? And then because you know what I found? And you just shift right to, hey, what I found is great. As we went through the data, we saw the homes are actually selling for this. And you're telling me you want this.

Yeah.

And I, I can't see the difference as to why a buyer would walk in and say, every home is selling for X, but let's play. Let's play one and a half times X.

You're right.

So just kind of putting in context for my client. So you said four things. Beliefs.

Right. Physiology, outcome, and to be explicit in those outcomes. And the last one is rapport.

Yeah.

And a lot of times people think rapport is something you get by commonality. Hey, you're from this place. I'm from this place too. And it's weird and it's salesy and it's inauthentic as opposed to, you know, rapport is trust and responsiveness. And so I demand it. But also as a leader, because you're leading this conversation. Leaders go first. And I think to myself, like, what I respect about these people, why do I care about what do I love these people? Like, why do I respect these people so much? And it makes me feel better about the conversation. I give it first. And I realized for me a long time ago that I'm going to spend the majority of my life, 50, 60, 70 hours a week talking to strangers and selling them. I'm going to spend most of my life with strangers. I want to care about who I spend my time with. I want to care about the people I'm with in my life. And so even if most of our strangers, I'm going to force them to care about, you know, care about this conversation because I care about them. So I have great relationships with strangers. And so I. But it's, it's an internal state. I produce and then when people meet me, they meet you. They're like, I feel like I like this guy. It's because I genuinely like them.

Yes.

And it's like you could use this as a technique, like I'm gonna get people to like me or whatever. But it just like make people like feel like you care about them. If you don't, it's easier just to actually care about people. You know, like getting yourself what questions got to ask myself so that I actually are care. It'd just be hard to fake that. And some people do, I think, but it's just more, it's easier just to genuinely care about people.

I. It's so funny because I talk, you talk about like pre event routine, like always backstage before I go on my own event, get hired. And I'm like, okay, who am I talking to today? What's important to them? Where are they at today? And I do the spectrum of like always someone, someone might really need my help today. And so it might be over here is like the know it all, like the other end of the spectrum. But either way, my commitment is I'm going to contribute it. Like, like I'm like psyching myself up for them.

Yeah.

I don't need to get fired up. I'm like, okay, I'm in Fresno, California. The average sales price is X. This is what's going on inside this marketplace. Like, this is what they're up against. Like, and I just try and put myself in their corner. Yeah. So by the time I walk on stage. And I think for the person listening, think about the number of times you've gone into the listing appointment where it was a divorce couple. Like, that's like, that's not a happy sale. You with me and you, you know, so the person watching is like, oh my God. Right? Or the person that's behind on their payments and they're struggling, or the person that, my goodness. Like the military, it's a PCs, like in the military world, this is what happens. Like your spouse walks in and says, I just got a notice, I'm going to Germany. I'll see you in 30 days. And you're on the other end of that. You got to pack up the kids, move everything, get it all organized. Right. Like it's a. It's a challenge. If you just think about. They called you. This is what I tell people. Buying a house is fun. Looking on portals. Look at this one. This is awesome. Oh, let's go look at it. Right? Like the shopping side is fun. Selling a home and moving sucks.

Yeah.

I don't care what anybody says. I moved like five times trying to build a house in Corona del Mar. Moving sucks. But if you put yourself in the their. In their shoes and you say, okay, they're about to leave 25 years of memory, you only made of memories. They're about to leave the place they raised their kids. They're about to leave the place where, you know, grandma, you know, whatever. Like if you put yourself in that state, I think it just creates a very natural connection when you walk in the room, when you're with that person, versus, hey, it's sales time. Is that what you're saying?

Yeah, 100%.

So those four things. All right, so we've been jamming here for a little bit. I'm just thinking out loud. Like we talked about scripts, belief, identity. We talked about the four things. Outcomes. Well, you said belief, physiology, outcome and rapport. Always having a line interest. Push a little bit more. You said it as a mistake. But there's definitely. Don't just push once.

Yeah. And. But I frame. Just like we role played a little bit. You know, we're breaking down the presentation. I frame things in their best interest. Yes. And So I remember 20, you know, the economy, real estate, you know, got messed up. And there was a. They, they researched all these different type of salespeople. The relationship builder, the. This one, that one. But there was a book called the Challenger Sale because they found that everybody's sales went down except for one type, and that was the Challenger. So the context of the conversation became valuable because they weren't just trying to order take, and they weren't trying to get something. They were challenging somebody's thinking. And so they the. The response that most salespeople want is excited agreement. Oh, yeah, that makes sense. But my thought process that the target of my communication wasn't excited agreement, it was, wow. I never thought of it that way.

Bingo.

And so the conversation in and of itself became valuable. Here's. Could I challenge you on that or think of it this way? Or have you stopped to consider and are like, wow. So I'm getting these belief shifts early on and now they're seeing me as a consultant because I'm literally consulting them on how they think and I'm challenging their whole paradigm, which makes the conversation valuable, which puts me in authoritative coaching, like consultant type mindset. And now that makes the offer. But it's not like I'm doing it at the end. If I challenge the bejesus of you out up here and you're like, wow, thank you. I never thought of it. And now I challenge you in the sale. It's way easier. I can make an easier sale because of what I did here, as opposed to being nice and just listening. And now, hey, you know, they're like, let me think about it. Let me challenge you on that.

Yeah.

So it's, it's. The frame has to change. And that became the target of my communication.

It's so interesting. As you're saying, I'm going back to like Robert Stover. That's a pattern interrupt and a level shift.

Yeah, right.

Like all these techniques that we've talked about for years and I don't know, for my friend watching, actually, just for fun, what is the all time best sales book you've ever read or audio podcast? Put it in the comments and then we can, we can watch all this stuff later and see how people comment. All right, so this was a lot to unpack and I know we got to go right back into a meeting, but I wanted to do this show. If somebody wanted to reach out to you, can they go to your website? What's the best way for them to connect with you?

Instagram, wild influence.com or Eli Wild Underscore Sales.

Got it. Yeah, it's on all things Instagram, which I think, I think that's originally where I found you. Or maybe it was YouTube, I don't remember. But yeah. Yes.

All the above.

You should check them out at all the Above.

All right.

Thank you, man, for being on the show. Thank you for watching. Hey, as always, I appreciate you. Thanks for being here. I can't wait to read the comments. If there's something special you ever want on a show, you know, you leave in the comments below and I'll do my best to deliver. Thanks. Always remember, strategy matters. And now more than ever, your passion rules. See you soon. If you want more information about this episode, including my show, notes, mentions, links and everything else, make sure you visit tomferry.com podcast that's tomferry.com podcast thanks again and talk to you soon.