A short YouTube training by Jeremy Miner explaining why many sales are lost within the first 10–15 seconds of a sales conversation. Miner identifies three primary causes—off-putting tonality, poorly paced questions, and use of common ‘trigger’ words—and gives practical phrasing and pacing techniques to reduce prospect resistance, increase perceived status, and keep prospects engaged.
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Did you know that most sales are actually lost in the first 10 to 15 seconds of any conversation you're in? And it's not because what you sell is bad or they might not be interested. There's certain things you're doing that you might not even be aware of that is quite literally triggering sales resistance in the prospect's brain. So I'm going to show you three reasons why that's happening to you and some advice on how to prevent that from you. So come over here to this vibe board. All right, Reason number one. Now, this is really, really important. Your tonality is way off. Now, why do I say that? Why is your tonality so important to you? Because your prospect survival part of their brain recognizes patterns, so it recognizes your voice. It recognizes voice or tonality first before the brain starts to interpret the words you're actually saying. How many times you've ever got a telemarketing call and they start off with, hey, is this John? Hey, John, it's James Keller with XYZ company. The reason why I call you was you're like, oh, not interested. And you don't even know what they're selling. You don't even know what they're offering. But. But the pattern, their voice, your brain recognizes. Salesperson, trying to sell me something, and instantly you go into fight or flight mode. So let me show you which tones not to use. Okay? If you come across and you have like a monotone tonality. So this, I always call this like the telemarketer tone. Okay. You don't move. So when you're calling, let's see, they're. You're either standing or even if you're. If you knock on doors or if you sell in person at a home or house, it's all the same. But if your voice talks like this. Hey, John. Yeah, John, it's Jeremy with XYZ company. The reason why I called you was because we were talking about XYZ and your voice sounds like this one pattern, this monotone voice. That's typically because your facial expressions, you're not moving your face and you're not maybe moving your hands. It could be whether you're sitting down or standing up, that's not really going to matter. But if you have monotone body language, monotone face, that's going to cause your voice to sound monotone. Okay? I always say you. Your facial expressions are the remote control to your voice, your tone. Okay? So you don't want to have a monotone voice like a telemarketer. Instant reaction Remember, your prospect's brain recognizes patterns, okay? Think about all the patterns most salespeople sound like. Now, the second type of tonality that triggers that resistance is you sound like you're too excited. Now, I don't mean be boring. There's a middle ground. But if you come across like, hey, how's it going? Hey, John. Yeah. I'm so excited to have this conversation. I've been waiting to talk to you about my XYZ thing, and you're overly excited. Think about that. What pattern do most prospects recognize from salespeople? They're too enthusiastic. They're too excited, okay? So you got to level that up. And number three, you don't want to come across with that timid, nervous voice like you're. You're timid. Like when the prospect says something like, oh, not interested, and you're like, oh, why wouldn't you be interested? Or whatever. You don't want to come across timid. You don't come across nervous, okay? They can pick up their survival part of their brain, okay? Picks that up, and it feels that anxiety, feels that nervousness. So it triggers their nervous system actually to kind of lift their guard up. Now you want to come across. Now, I'm not going to do a whole training on this. I'm going to give an overview. You have to come across more calm, more collective. Now, you still are assertive. Like, I'm talking to you right now. I'm assertive, but I'm collective. I'm calm, I'm relaxed, okay? I'm the expert, okay? So you want to come across like you're the expert, which you are, okay? So that is reason number one. The best. The best thing I can kind of tell you that would be like. Would be like a doctor. So when you go talk to, like, a top doctor, do they come across monotone, where they just talk like this the whole time and the voice fluctuation sounds like a telemarketer. Did they come across like, hey, I'm so glad you came to the office today. I'm so excited? No. Do they come across timid or nervous? No, they just come across. Matter of fact, they're the expert. They have high status, and that's why you respect them. That's why you listen to them. You want to come across in that same manner. That's reason number one. Let's go to reason number two. Reason number two is crazy, all right? Something you might not have ever thought about, that is the questions you ask, even if they're good questions, okay? If you Ask questions too fast. You give your prospect no time to internalize and think deeper about what you're asking. So when you ask the questions too fast, they're typically, unless they're a lay down, sayer are going to give you surface level, knee jerk answers are very short answers which are conversational stoppers. Okay? So the easiest example I could give to you, like if you ever notice when you walk into a car dealership or maybe a retail furniture store or whatever, and the salesperson comes over to you like, hey, welcome to the store today. How can I help you? What do you typically say? 9 out of 10 times, even if you're looking, you say, what? Oh, just looking. Because the question is asked too fast. Okay, now let me show you an example of how to pace it out. Now this is an example of what's called verbal. Write this down. Verbal pacing. Okay? You have to pace out the questions because it forces the prospect's brain to stay engaged, to stay focused. Okay? So let's say in that same scenario, prospect, let's say if you sold furniture or at a car dealership or whatever you do, it doesn't really matter here. And they walk in, I might simply say, hey, welcome into the store today. Are you guys just kind of, I guess, out maybe looking around? Are you guys just out kind of looking around today? Are you guys just kind of out, maybe just looking around? Okay, see, I'm just pacing it out. Okay, just pacing out a little bit differently than what you heard before. Yeah, we're just looking. Okay. And do you know what you're. I guess, do you know what you're possibly looking for? Okay, so I'm just pacing that out. That is called a verbal pause. See that? Verbal pause. Do you know what you're possibly looking for? Okay, see, I'm pausing. That keeps the prospect engaged. Okay, There's a lot of other examples I could give you, but reason number two, slow down on your questions. You have to intentionally put different verbal pauses before you want them to focus on something. So there's a specific word, like if you're asking what we call an NEPQ probing question. So if the prospect answers a question on, you know, some type of problem that they want fixed. And I simply said, well, can I ask why? Why so important to you now, though? See how I paused right before I said now though? Why so important to you now, though? Okay, now obviously I'm training you, so I'm emphasizing that more than maybe I would with the prospect. But I'm going to pause right before the Word I emphasize because that causes your prospect's brain to focus on, why now? Now it's a timing issue. Why do I need this? Or why do I need to do this now? That creates urgency as an ex example. You get me? Okay. All right. And then the third reason why salespeople lose sales so quickly in the conversation is they use what are called trigger words. Trigger words that every salesperson uses. So think about questions that every salesperson uses. Selling anything like, hey, how are you doing today? That is a trigger word. Okay? So when you ask your prospect, and I know that you. You. You know, your mom taught you to be polite to strangers. But in a business setting, if you start off a sales conversation with, let's say if you sell door to door, you knock on the door. Yeah. Are you the homeowner here? Great. How are you doing today? Most prospects are like, I'm good. But what's this all about? Because the prospect knows that you are, what, not genuinely interested in how their damn day's going. Right? Like, how many salespeople come up to you and say, hey, how you doing today? Do you sit there like, oh, they're really interested in how my day's going. You don't. You're like, oh, they're just trying to build rapport. Rapport with me to sell me something. So even if the prospect is nice to you, they're like, oh, I'm doing good. What's happened internally is their guard is going up. Their spidey system, survival part of the brain. Salesperson trying to sell me something. I need to be guarded now. Okay. So I'm going to show you a few words to change that. Hey, guys, Jeremy Miner here. Look, a lot of you leave comments wanting me to help you somewhere. So the easiest way to get a hold of me, the quickest way is to text me. So text me right now. It's 480-637-2944. So 480-637-2944. Listen, I started this company to help you learn how to close more deals. But do it the right way. Text me right now. Let's get back to the training video. Or saying words like, hey, John, I'm just following up with you, or I'm just circling back, or I'm just checking in. Okay? If you're. Maybe if you try to sell them the first time or second time and it didn't work and now you're following up with them three, four months later, when you use words like follow up, circling back, checking in, think about it from the prospect's point of view, put yourself in their shoes. How many salespeople that have ever tried to sell them anything use the same type of words Exactly. They know what that means. Okay, so I might relang you to like. Hey. Yeah, John, it's. It's Jeremy. Jeremy Miner. We talked three months ago. I just had time to get back to you. I know we talked about three, four months ago. You're looking at ways, I guess, to really drive more revenue into your business. And we were supposed to have another conversation, but we didn't hear back. Did you guys give up on scaling the company or what actually happened? So instead of saying following up, I might say, I just had time to get back to you from our last conversation. Now, what does that mean in the prospect's mind? Look, are experts who are really, really good at something available all the time? Yes or no? No, they're not. Because everybody wants them to do something. You're really good at what you do, you solve problems. Okay, so what that does is it creates. It's called situational status. In that situation, a lot of people are coming to you, so you're not always available. Okay, now in that context, I would use that term. I wouldn't use that if, if I'm calling a brand new lead. You wouldn't say something like that because that shows you don't care. But in a context where you've tried to sell them in the past, they didn't buy for whatever reason, now you're getting back to them. You want to act like you're busy, you've got lots of clients, you don't need the sale. You don't. You're not the one that has the problem. You with me on that? Okay, now, words like this, me calling, you calling, like an outbound lead or a cold call, and in the first 10 seconds you say, hey, do you have two minutes to talk about my XYZ thing? Hey, I wanted to take two minutes of your time to talk about A, B and C. Look, do you believe your prospects think you're only going to take two minutes of their time? Unlikely. Your prospects don't believe that. So instantly you're getting them to get their guard up and they're going to say things like, I'm not interested or call me back later. So what I might say is like, john, and I apologize, I've only got a few minutes before my next appointment. I thought I'd call you to go over and you can go in that way. I just had a few minutes before my next appointment. Now, all I'm doing there, that's called selling the exit. Okay? You're getting them to let their guard down because if they think you might only take a few minutes of their time. See, I just re. I use. I took this and I just re languaged it where now it looks like you're busy. You've got higher status, you got people that need your help rather than you're begging them to take two minutes of their time. Okay, now you're offering that you only have a few minutes of your time before your next appointment. Now, as you get into that conversation and you start, you know, getting them more emotionally involved, you start asking questions, you start building the gap from where they are to where they want to be, suddenly they lose track of time. You'll never have someone's like, hey, I thought you said you only had two minutes before the next appointment. They just, they don't do that at that point. Are you with me on that? Okay, so those are the three reasons why so many salespeople lose sales within the first 10 to 15 seconds. Give you a little bit of information on what to do about it. If you want more details, just text us. So we got a new number. You can text us questions. 480-637-2944. Myself or one of our sales trainers over here in these other offices will respond to you will take us sometimes a day or two. So be patient while we get back to you. And then because you're committed to mastery, go ahead and hit the subscribe button and let me show you what not to do with that once you subscribe. Because I know you're smart. You know, as someone who's committed to mastery, because you wouldn't be watching me if you weren't, that the number one thing that will determine how much your company pays you is what your skill level. So because you're smart, because you're a high level sales pro, hit the subscribe button. But do not share this channel with your competitors. So if you got a friend that says exactly what you do, don't show them this. You don't want them learning what I'm going to show you here. Only show it to people outside of your industry. Hope that helps. Talk to you soon.
