Jim Johnson (speaker) describes a sales mindset shift: moving from a presenter-focused pitch to a client-first, full-story presentation that explains the entire process from first contact through insurance, production, installation, cleanup, inspection, and payment. He shows how failing to explain "what happens next" produced the common objection "I need to think about it," and how providing the full A→Z narrative eliminated that objection and dramatically increased his close rate (from ~30–40% to 85%). The talk is practical and anecdotal, aimed at salespeople in insurance and retail contexts.
Questions this video answers
About 30–40%.
85% (overnight).
"Maybe less than 10% of the cases."
Chapters
One of the other experiences that was a massive mind shift for me was the actual sales process itself. So I started getting lots more inspections, more people being receptive to me, and I would get my opportunity to give a presentation. And I did like most other people did. I said, hey, I've got this valuable stuff. Here's everything that's wrong. You would want me to do your work for you. This is how we do your work. Sign here type of thing. And what I realized, I was still focused more on me. I was focused on me getting an agreement signed versus really truthfully serving them. And I kept getting the same thing over and over. And anytime I start getting the same thing over and over again, I really start thinking, like, why am I getting that? And I was getting a very common objection. The one that was, I need to think about it. And I have an extensive sales training background. I've been through, like, all the different sales stuff that you can imagine. And. And one of those things is whenever you start getting that, you need to assess what your presentation looks like. And what I realized is I was only giving part of the story, and that part of the story was the part of the story focused on me. I need to get this agreement signed. So let's get to there. Get this agreement signed. And what I was actually leaving out was the rest of the story for the homeowner. So I can remember this specifically. I had been signing at about a 30 to 40% clip of people that I met, and I wanted to increase that. Come on in. What we did, it was literally a free roof for the price of a deductible. But this applies whether it's insurance work or retail work. It doesn't matter. It's giving the whole story instead of just your story. And so I sat down with this homeowner, I went through everything, and we got to the end of it. And I'm like, hey, with your approval right here, I'll get to work with your insurance company. And I said, you know what? We need to think about it. And I went through my objection stuff. Okay, great. I completely understand that It's a big decision. Exactly what is it that you need to think about? Is it the working with your insurance company? Is it me or is it my company? So giving them three choices, all of them things that I could actually walk further on with the objection. And they said, well, to be honest with you, we're not sure exactly what's going on. I said, well, you have damage to your property. You need somebody to help you with it. I'm that guy. That's what's going on. Yeah, but what happens after that? And I would never forget that. When they said that, it clicked like why I had been missing all the other stuff. I didn't tell them what happens after we meet with the insurance company, what it actually looks like to work with us, how we were going to get an order put together. Really their only job was to pick out a color for their home makeover, how we were going to protect their home, how we were going to keep the job safe, how we were going to to install it, how we were going to clean up, how we were going to do a final inspection, how they were going to get everything paid for. Like all these pieces that need to be put together in order so that you had the full story from start me knocking on your door today to finish paid for and everything smooth and stress free so that there is nothing to think about. We have to really consider what that means. When somebody says they need to think about us and is it that they need to think about you because they don't like you? That's a possibility, but very rare. Maybe less than 10% of the cases. Then you have this other group of people that the money's either too much or they're. If you're in retail and they just truly can't afford you, or if you're in insurance, they're trying to take advantage of the situation with their insurance company. And then finally the third one is you just haven't given them the whole story so they can't tell you what's missing. These people were wise enough to tell me like something's missing, I don't know what it is, but I just don't get it. Thankfully they said they didn't get it. I'd asked that question before and nobody had ever told me that back. Once I understood that, I quickly adjusted while I was there. I said, oh, let me tell you exactly what's going to happen after we meet with your insurance company. So those of you in retail out there, like what's going to happen after they sign that contract today? What's it going to look like for them to truly work with you? How is it going to go with production? How are orders going to be happening? How is material going to get delivered? How is the entire process going to go from A to Z so that at the end of the story it says the end and everything is super clear. Once you have that down and you can process that, the objection of needing to think about it goes away. So now I have why I need to give a presentation in a way that makes it clear for everybody. Again, this is thing of not understanding why we're doing something, so it takes the purpose out of it. We start just repeating what it is that we've been taught without any reason for it, no purpose behind it. Once we understand purpose, we have understanding which allows us to act with wisdom in the choices that we make out there. It changed radically. My closing percentage went from 30 to 40% in the insurance world to 85% overnight. Like literally 85% of the people, if they had damage on it, they were my customer. That's the difference between having a great presentation that truly serves your client, making the picture clear for them, versus the short version that serves you of trying to get an agreement done as fast as you possibly can.
