Skyrocket Your Sales with the Power of Words

Before we begin our which implies relationship exploration. Exploration or explore is an incredibly powerful word. Listen, for every exploration there must be a leader and for every leader there must be a power. Exactly. So the power of suggestion and through the power of implication, in their subconscious mind, they are stepping into the role. Because people always want to find a frame or a role to operate from. It's very uncomfortable to not know what relationship you're in power wise with somebody else.

Hey everybody. Welcome to Contractor Radio. I am your host, Jim Johnson, the contractor coach. And I'm also the head coach at Contractor Coach Pro, where we help contractors become better leaders, build the processes they need to grow and scale their business and help them find that personal and financial freedom that they were chasing whenever they started their business. The whole idea is to be somebody that creates a vehicle that works for you instead of you working for it. If you want to find out more about what we do, head on over to our website@contractorcoachpro.com click the Assessment button, take the assessment on your contracting business and we'll do a free coaching call with you. It's not a sales pitch, it's an actual coaching call based off of your assessment will help identify the two or three things you should do next in your business. And if you like what we do and you want to be one of our clients, that would be great. If not, at least we've served you well that day and helped you along your way and hopefully helped you achieve that success you're looking for. Today's episode is going to be absolute fire. I have a gentleman on today that is in that lane of things where he's going to be a bit contrarian when it comes to what we think about with sales. He's a neuro linguistic master. He is a master hypnotist. He is a practitioner of all things sales. And I am super excited to bring this guy on because I got to talk with him a few minutes before the show and I'm already like, heart rate up. Let's go, man. Cause he is bringing some fire to our conversation today. So you're going to want to listen to this whole entire show. He has guaranteed me that this is going to be one of the best shows, if not the best show that we've ever done. Welcome to our show today, Paul Ross. Paul, how are you, man?

I'm doing fantastic. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to do what I love most with my clothes on, which is the teacher.

That's a great start to our show. Great stuff. Sounds like a Perfect fit for our show. So, Paul, tell us a little bit of the story. Like you're now this pretty renowned guy that goes around, speaks, teaches, writes about these approaches and sales and the master of language. Really like understanding what that looks like, what all created that to where you are today.

You don't know this because I like to spring it upon my guests, but I used to be a coach. I used to coach pickup and seduction. I was a pickup and seduction coach.

What wasn't there a movie about that?

There was a movie, Magnolia, starring Tom Cruise. And there he is over my shoulder. Tom played a character that I created. He played a character based on me. And so I never met him, never saw any money. I like to spring on the host. So I coached men on how to meet women, how to be more attractive using their language, how to create language conversations who are actually intriguing and emotionally evocative. And after about 3, 15, 20 years of doing this, I started to get emails saying, hey, here's pictures of my wife, pictures of my kids. Thank you so much. And by the way, I'm using your stuff and I've tripled my sales or I'm using my stuff and I'm the number one person in the corporation with 500 people. Thank you very much. I thought, holy sh. Can I say, can I curse on yourself?

Oh, yeah.

Holy shit. Let's look into this. So I went back into my mad scientist language lab. It took me like two years to map over the same principles. And now I've been teaching this for. About teaching and speaking on it for about 15 years. And I love it. I'm in love with language. I have an ulterior motive today.

What's that?

My ulterior motive. And whenever I speak, whenever I teach, whenever I coach, whenever I train. Yes, absolutely. I won't get my clients fantastic results. And my motive is I want my clients and students to fall in love with the same thing I'm in love with. I am in love with language. I'm in love with this nearly virtually magic power to structure consciousness, shape decisions, drive behavior. I've seen it turn stumbling stones and stumbling blocks into stepping stones and pain into passion. Change lives. It is the very foundation of how we move through the world. And so that is what I'm here to talk about today. Spread some mind blowing knowledge. Be totally contrary to what everyone else says. Because if you're doing what everyone else does, your audience, if you're doing what everyone else does, then it becomes a race to get to the customer first because you're just doing what everyone else is doing, and you're not very memorable.

Just like you're another one of the guys. You're kind of a commodity. Where I think people, they don't want to buy a commodity. They want to buy something unique and different. So of your approach, or what happens.

Is I only work with people who are doing at least a million dollars. I just God bless anyone who's not. I don't have time to do it. But here's the thing. If you are doing the same thing that's been working for you and all you're doing is trying to do it more, you'll just move the needle a little bit. You're not going to see exponential growth, maximum money, and minimum time without doing something radically different. So you need someone batshit crazy like me to come along and go, no, no, let's turn everything upside down and do what people are telling you not to do.

Wow. What are some of those examples of things that people say to do? And you're saying, no, maybe we should do something a little different.

Well, let me just talk about something. So we've all heard that you need to have your prospects know like and trust you, correct?

Well, usually I hear people say they like newbie salespeople especially, or people that aren't well trained and say they need to like and trust you. We kind of introduce them to the knowing part. Like, they got to know you too. But it sounds like you got something a little different there.

Well, what's even. Let's take that apart. What's even better than the trust part of know like and trust you is to get your prospects to trust themselves. Because nowadays your prospects no longer trust their own ability to make a good decision. I'm going to show you why I'm assuming this is going out as a video.

Yeah, yeah, it's going out as a video.

Reason why your prospects don't trust themselves anymore. I'm not saying you shouldn't get them to trust you. Although there's something even better than trust. We'll get there. But you need to get them to focus and to trust themselves. Here's why they can't. It's the smartphone. Because of this smartphone, people are constantly scrolling. They don't have the attention span that they used to. So you don't have the time to build rapport that you used to do because people just can't pay attention the way they used to.

I have one question about that. Would you say there's a part of that also that there's so many options out there now.

Yeah, I was about to say that. There's so many options that a confused mind doesn't. Well, there's a time to confuse your prospects artfully. But a mind with too many options has no reason to choose one over the other. So again, it becomes a foot race to get there first. So you need to have some ways to get your prospects to focus and to trust themselves. And you need to do it quickly. And I have some words that I'll teach today on the show. I'll give away some secret sauce that you can use to get your prospects to trust themselves immediately. That's the first thing you need to know. But let me just do one more thing and then we'll get to it. The other thing you need to understand, this is a radically different way of understanding sales. You are not selling your services as a contractor. You're not selling a product. Listen to me. You're always selling decisions and good feelings about decisions, and those are not made from the conscious mind. They're made from the subconscious mind.

So what do you mean by that?

Okay, people don't make decisions, really make decisions based on logic, facts, numbers, data. Those are important. But we know they make the decisions emotionally, and they make them based on beliefs. Everyone will teach you that your prospects make decisions on emotions. That's true, but they make them on beliefs. What did they believe is possible in the world? What do they believe is possible for them? What do they deserve? Never underestimate your prospects inability to buy from you because they don't think they really deserve it. Do you understand? They don't think they deserve to have that nicer home. They don't think they deserve to have whatever it is you're being hired to contract to do for them.

So how do we flip their head from not deserving it to deserve it.

We will build on that. Let me get in the show. But these are some of the points that we really need to hammer home. These are the bedrock foundation understandings. I teach my new book on Amazon, which you can get for seven bucks and you can read it in one sitting. In one sitting, in one hour. I designed it for that.

So we're going to. We're going to put a link to that book in the show, notes and everything, so everybody can get to it. I want to. I want to hear more. Tell me more.

Well, so one of the things I would. I would do is I also want to go beyond trust. I want to get trust. But what's, you know, what's better than Trust, this is going to be really controversial. Compliance. Getting your prospects to comply with you and view themselves as your follower, not just their client or your client or your customer, but as your follower. So what's the typical presentation? Typical presentation pattern is. Well, before I show you, let's say you've done your qualifying questions and you've done all that good stuff and you say, before I show you this proposal, I just want to ask, please ask questions that come up and so you can know that this is something that you may want to move forward on today. Something along that. I don't know the exact pattern that you teach, but something similar. I would never do that. I would say the following words before we explore our plan together today. So before we what does we imply? It implies a relationship. These are called implied relationship words. Before we begin our. Not my presentation. Before we begin our. Which implies a relationship. Exploration. Exploration or explore is an incredibly powerful word. Listen, for every exploration there must be a leader. And for every leader there must be a power. Exactly. So through the power of suggestion and through the power of implication, in their subconscious mind they are stepping into the role. Because people always want to find a frame or a role to operate from. It's very uncomfortable to not know what relationship you're in power wise with somebody else. So immediately on the unconscious level, they're viewing you as a follower. Now, does a follower question the authority of the leader? No. Does the follower fail to fall in line with the leader's ideas? No. The follower is going to follow before we begin our exploration together again. Together is an implied relationship word. We're stacking these suggestions now. I'm a hypnotist. In hypnosis there's a law called the law of compound suggestion and that simply says each suggestion multiplies the power of the previous one. So rather than doing one suggestion, we're stacking them together really closely in time. Before we begin our exploration together today, I just want to watch this word invite you. Not ask you, invite you. Do we extend an invitation to someone who we don't have a relationship with or not about to begin one? No. I just want to invite you to please share the questions, not ask the questions. What's the difference between asking and sharing?

With sharing. I share with somebody that I have a relationship with.

Exactly. Share the questions that naturally arise when. Listen to this bit. A great decision is being made and I just nodded my head a little bit.

I love it.

I love it. Now notice, did I say a great decision to sign the contract is being made no, it's too specific when you are vague. Here's the principle. Whatever you can get your prospect to imagine for themselves will be perceived by them as being their own idea and therefore they will not resist it. And one of the best ways to do that is to be vague. When you're vague, they will fill in the blank. So it seems as if you're describing exactly what they're looking for. When in reality you're not saying anything. You're leaving it up to them. I'm not saying a great decision to sign the contract. Am I saying how the decision is going to be made?

No.

Why it's going to be made? No. When it's going to be made? No. I said today. But that could be anytime today. And then I do this. I give the slight little head nodded and if I see this back, I know I've got him.

You got a follower, you got. You got a relationship going right away.

In the space of. So I've skipped rapport into the realm of them wanting to obey me.

So. So do you think body language is a big part of the sales process? Like knowing.

I do. And I'm not an expert in body language. I simply. There's certain things I know I've been trained to look for by one of my mentors and teachers. His name is Chase Hughes. Chase is the go to expert for this. But you'll probably not get a hold of him. Chase is busy with his own stuff. You can get his stuff. But what I've learned, I've been trained to look for is blink rate. I don't want to get too much into it, but if the blink rate increases, it means they're anxious or having an ab reaction. And, and also if they do this and unconsciously do this, they're protecting these vein, these arteries here, or if they do eye cover, that sort of thing. But listen, I don't want to get into body language.

No, that's okay. Well, let's talk linguistics. We'll get him on at some point.

Yeah.

So the whole thing is we're selling decisions and good feelings. Can you get into that a little bit deeper? What you mean by that?

Sure. So look, your prospect ultimately is not buying the. Buying the contracting. They're buying what the contracting is going to bring them. They're buying. It's like say, saying the old saying, don't sell the airplane, sell the vacation. Do you understand what I'm saying? Exactly. So you've got to get them to imagine in their mind already having made the decision and feeling Good about it. But you can't do that directly. You have to use vague language. Now, I'm about to unleash a torrent of vague language. It's going to sound like a lot of gobbledygook, but this is what I teach my clients over, like a 90 day process. So I'll take on a client, they have to apply to work with me. I have to see that I can really help them, et cetera, et cetera. But I want to play with you. Okay, I'm just going to play with you. All right, so I'll say something like, you know, before we proceed with our interview today, I can't be the one to say all the places you might stop and feel a sense of growing focus the more you listen. But as that takes place, I just want to say, I don't know all the ways you can imagine a time in the future already enjoying what it is I'm presenting, looking back on this moment as having been the start of it. But I know that sure will feel great, won't it? So as you're thinking about it that way, let's proceed forward with this marketing presentation. Here we go. Now, did I say anything specific there?

No, not really. I just kind of ended up feeling like there was warm and fuzzies.

Right, right. Did you get a sense that I was matching your experience somehow, that I was saying things that made sense?

Yeah. I didn't feel like it was gobbledygook, but it really was more emotional than anything else.

Exactly. I also gave you commands and suggestions to focus in on me, to imagine a time in the future when you already had made the decision to go with what I was going to present and feeling good about it. So there's a lot of hypnotic phenomena. And please, I encourage the audience to just take a breath, relax, and remember a time when you stepped into a new adventure with a sense of excitement that something wonderful was about to happen, even though you didn't know what it was. And as you continue to feel that way, as we're having this dialogue together, I feel good knowing that we're stepping into something you can see yourself using. So again, I'm just using vague language. I'm not being specific. If I said, you know, I think as I unveil in about 10 minutes the ability to destroy objections, you're going to like it because you'll immediately see that will apply to the situation you'll be in about 10 days from now with Client X. It's too specific. I'm being Vague. And when you're vague, remember that rule. Whatever you can get the prospect to imagine for themselves will be perceived by them as being their own idea. One of the ways to do that is to be vague with your language. Now, there's a time to be specific. When you present the actual numbers in the contract, the length of time it will take, the estimate, the elements of what's included, then be specific. But there's a time in the beginning where you don't want to be specific, where you want to make the message unclear, maybe even be a little bit confusing. This is totally contrary to what everyone else teaches. But again, if you do what your competition is doing, your prospect, I'll put it this way, a tactic identified as a tactic disarmed. If you're doing what your competition is doing, there's no reason for them to pick you because they've heard it before. And it's just a matter of who can get your competition, who can get your prospect first. So my biggest.

I think most people know when they're being sold nowadays. There's been enough information out there. They know the tactics. They've seen the tactics. They know when somebody's building rapport. They know when somebody's solving their problem. They know, like those type of things are going on out there and there's enough information about it. We've been around long enough.

That's kind of skip rapport if you can and get straight to compliance and then viewing you as their follower. Now, some people may think, is this manipulative? I think, hell yeah, it is. And it works.

I was going to say, is it wrong?

Listen to me. There's nothing wrong with being manipulative in the service of your client. By manipulative, I don't mean the following. I don't mean lying about facts, concealing material facts, pushing down on pain points. I don't mean that. I don't mean coercion or any of that stuff. I simply mean to move the other person's subconscious or unconscious mind with deliberateness through the use of your language. Can I give you. I'm being very wordy here.

Well, I feel like that's almost a responsibility. If you truly believe that what you have to provide to them is your responsibility to get to them so they're not with somebody else, that would do them a disservice.

And if I can even build on that response, you see, for me, sales, as I teach it, is not just about suggesting your ideas into your prospect's mind. Check out the real batch of crazy Idea, it's about expanding their minds to include your ideas and new possibilities. May I give you a metaphor?

Sure.

Let's say your prospect has bought this very expensive vacation in Hawaii. And they're in a top of the line hotel room with a wall to wall, floor to ceiling bay window that looks out in the beautiful, crystal clear, pure ocean. But rather than looking at that, they're turned around and, and their eye is glued into that little keyhole camera and they're looking out in the hallway because they're afraid someone's going to come to get them. We take them, we turn them around and we show them that possibility of everything that's right in front of them. And so for sales, the idea of a salesperson being someone who expands the mind of their prospect to see possibilities, looking at it, it makes you feel good. Because hear me out. When you expand your prospect's view of what they can have in their world, that doesn't just stay with what you're selling, it also generalizes out into every context of their life for your prospect and even heroic by changing their sense of what's possible for them. Making, expanding their mind to include new possibilities for what they can have, what they deserve. That's a heroic thing. You can walk away not just with the sale, but feeling good that you've genuinely changed to life.

There's a, there's a lot of gurus out there, I'll put that in air quotes that say giving too many options or creating too many things to think about is a bad idea.

Yes.

Sounds like you're telling me that, like hey, we want to expand your mind. Like hey, all things are possible.

Expand their mind and then through that expanded mind put what your service is. I'll give you another metaphor. Let me give you a metaphor. So I have a sheet of gold foil and a sheet of cardboard and I want to conduct the current of electricity. This is not a trick question. Which one of those is going to conduct the electricity? The cardboard or the gold foil? No. Exactly. Consider your prospect state of mind to be the conductive medium and your pattern, your pitch, whatever it is you're going your words to be the electricity. Do you want your prospect in the cardboard state of not trusting themselves, not believing they deserve the best, not trusting their own decisions, being bored, unable to focus? Or do you want them in the gold foil states of focus, of viewing themselves as your follower, of believing they can make a good decision, of believing they deserve what you have to offer. Which one do you want them in? And if you don't set it up through your language, they will default into that cardboard state.

So it sounds like if I'm following, well, I want them to trust their own decisions. Okay. I want them to deserve what it is that they want. Right.

Yeah.

I want them to be compliant a bit and follow me.

Focus on you, too. Totally focused on you.

Totally focused on me. And then this idea of, hey, see what's in front of you, not have your guard up. Is that a fair assessment?

See, See what's in front of you through the lens of believing it's possible for you and, and it's worth it and that you deserve it. One of my mentors used to say, you know, broke people ask, can I afford it? Rich people say, am I worth it? And so get them to answer that question unconsciously. Unconsciously. Before you've even presented the actual facts, data, figures of your pitch.

So you're doing all this before you ever, like, present the thing?

Yep.

So I'm going to give an example. And this may or may not work. I don't know, but I'm a roofing salesman. Let's use that example.

Okay.

I'm going to, you know, show shingles and various different options of that, and I'm going to talk about their benefits and all that other good stuff. I'm going to tell about our system and how awesome it is and the way that we put things together and the various options there. And then I'm going to give a price. But before I get to any of that, I'm doing what exactly?

Well, of course you always have to ask your qualifying questions, seek out their needs, etc. Etc. So don't assume that people think that you deserve to hear that. Instead, I want to give a little something that puts them in a state where they feel eager to share. You understand? I would say something like, so before we share our. Before we share our conversation together today about just what it is you're looking for, I want to encourage you to please share the questions that naturally arise when a great decision is being made. And I would actually tap on the contract or point to the contract, because now it's anchoring all of those thoughts, all those feelings to the contract. You get it? It's a sneaky little thing we call anchoring in nlp. Then and only then would I begin to do the process of asking the qualifying questions, ferreting out their needs. Do you understand what I'm saying?

Right. And these qualifying questions vary. Are you looking for a shingle that lasts longer? Are you looking for Something that's more affordable.

I wouldn't even say it that way if I could.

Yeah, go ahead.

When you stop and you naturally imagine just what it is shingles will bring for you. I'm not sure whether it's X or Y or Z, but if you would share that with me, it would really help me to show you just exactly what it is, you know? You're looking for this.

That's good. That's really good. I like that. That one's going to go in the hip pocket. I like that.

I know. Remember, this is like learning a new language. Now, with the right guidance, you can pick it up. My whole thing is I don't work with clients for more than 90 days. And my. And I say, if I can't improve your sales by 30% in 90 days, I'll give you your ROI back. Wow.

Yeah. Well, I can already tell. You can. Like I'm not. That part doesn't surprise me in the least. Well.

I can't always, and here's why I can't. If you want. If you're someone who wants to stick to what's working for you and you're unwilling to step into something that's radically different, and if you're not coachable and if you don't have a sort of mindset that says, hell, yeah, I want to beat my competition, I want to crush my personal best, God bless you, you can't pay me enough because it's not fun to work with people like that.

Yeah, I'm going to ferret that out before we ever engage.

I'm in a place in my career where I can gracefully and kindly say, no, thank you, we're not a good fit. Maybe I can refer you to someone who's a better fit.

I don't think enough people understand or give the value to how important important language is. The words that you use, the tone in which you use them, the amount of space you leave between words. Those things. People have not put enough effort, I don't believe, into learning what would be your I give exercise to do one second.

Exercises to do is to get the pacing and the cadence correct. So as you continue to listen, I'm not sure just exactly what that smile allows you to recognize a much deeper and more suggestible part. Even as you're thinking, what is he doing? Is beginning to take hold, isn't it? And that feels really good.

Hey, I have noticed that hypnotists talk like that. They have that cadence to what they do now.

You don't have to lean on it that I'm leaning on it. So your audience can recognize it. Right. It's very subtle. My first book, I have it around here somewhere. It's called Subtle Words itself. But subtle is significant. Subtle is powerful. The unconscious or subconscious mind means the same thing, picks up on subtle cues.

So what's happening in the subconscious mind as a client is going through the sales process? What's happening there that we may not realize as salespeople?

Subconscious mind is sorting through. This is important to me. This is not important to me. I can imagine myself already having had this. I can imagine this matching what it is. I value what it is. I believe I deserve what it is. It's going to allow me to avoid what I can say about myself once I have it. Look, I'll tell you something. People buy transformation and status too. They're not necessarily buying the shingles. They're buying the status that might bring them with their neighbors. The status will bring them with your wife. Don't ever underestimate people's desire to look good, not just to be attractive, but to have status over other people.

You're selling a lot, whether you're selling a bathroom or you're selling a roofing system, where you're selling fence or whatever it is that you're selling. Like, can you imagine when your neighbors come over, what it's going to feel like when you see the look on their face? Like that type of thing. And I'm sure you're going to reword that.

Somehow you want it even better than that.

Yeah, I would love it. That's why I said it. I want to hear the better version.

Say, you know, as we're sitting here talking, I don't know all the ways. You can easily imagine just what your neighbors will think when they come over and see how beautiful this is. Did you hear what I said? I don't know all the ways. When I say all the ways, what does that imply?

Implies there's more than we can imagine.

That's right. And they'll begin to picture multiple ways in their head. I don't know all the ways. Your neighbor and your prospect now is not just seen one way in his own imagination. He or she is stacking multiple ways, which makes them even more compelled to make the buying decision. It's not that the old stuff doesn't work. It's I'm coming along and saying, look, you can junk a lot of it, but if you're going to use stuff that's already working for you, great. I'm just coming along to strap rocket boosters on. And by the way, I'm just going to invite you to do one thing. If you don't believe I can get crazy results, go. This was not for a contractor but was for someone who ran a sales coaching business. Same principles, though. I increased his conversions by 646% in 90 days. That's insane. But if you go to PaulRoss results.com put the link in. I'm asking, please, as a favor to you and your audience and you'll see 646% increase in 90 days. That is not typical. That's extraordinary and extreme. But even 30% in 90 days, if.

You'Re making this guy sold. Sales coaching.

Yeah, he sells.

You coached a sales coach?

I coached his whole team.

That's pretty awesome.

Yeah.

And I'm sitting here going, man, I have a feeling Paul Ross could actually help us. We think we're pretty good. I'm sitting here learning a few things as we talk.

For sure. Happy to set up an appointment.

We can calendar I'm getting sold while we're here.

You know what? I'm just sharing what I know.

I understand.

I'm sharing what I know. And I don't know just exactly where inside your mind you might powerfully and easily see yourself 90 days in the future with that pile of money, looking back and thinking, wow, today was the beginning of me working with Paul and building this bridge to my river of revenue.

Yeah, this show's a good show. That's what I'm trying on. This is a solid.

So one of my most favorite things. Please.

I would love to. I've got a million things I got to ask you.

I love crushing objections.

Crushing Jackson, I was just about to ask you about that. This counterexamples thing.

Well, I got this learning pickup, teaching guys to pick up women and learning as.