Why 90% of Sales Pitches Fail And How Top Closers Think Differently

Most people choke because they're scared. They're scared of rejection, scared of looking dumb, scared of not knowing what to say. But if they're really convinced what it is, is right, they'd fight you for it. Welcome to big hitters. I'm Larry Weddell and today we're going to cut through the fluff and we're talking about the thing that matters, the skill that people get paid the most to do that. The most valuable to companies worldwide for all time, sales, marketing. The skill you've got to have or you, you know, personally or someone working for you, you got to have somebody who could sell that stuff. And so, you know, it's like, you know, people title this stuff, like how to build an unstoppable sales mindset. You know, how to build, you know, they get all these zingy things, you know, to go with a book or something. Let's just talk about building a winning sales mindset. You know, let's get our minds right looking at sales. And the sales is sales doesn't care if you're good enough good at it or not, but if you're not good at it, you're not gonna make any money. I read a book by, I would actually went to a course by a guy early on, he said the timid salesmen have skinny kids. That was the title of his book, I forget the author now that was like 40 years ago. But the deal is you got to get excited. If you're not excited about your product, you can't sell it. I mean, if it's not good for you, it doesn't make sense to you. If it doesn't have value to you, nobody else is going to be right. So let's get your mind right and then we're going to talk about getting your words right. And then you gotta get your targets right. And you know, you're not gonna listen to a 10, 15 minute, 20 minute podcast and like know everything you know about sales, but you could get yourself mentally organized for sales success in one podcast just by thinking through this stuff. And so that's why we're gonna at least start the ball in that direction. Are you ready for that? And so you've got to want to master this. If you're serious about building a seven figure business, you gotta sell. In other words, you have to offer it to people. You got to own the sales process. You got to develop a killer mindset that turns you into a machine. And you know where you're going to keep on going. Because really, listen, once you Start selling. Once you start offering this, taking your product to the market, it doesn't matter in any one presentation if they say yes or they say no. Because what you got to do next is you got to go on to the next one. And so you get a mature, you cannot have an immature, frail, fragile, amateur, half butted approach to sales and making presentations. You know, it's not something you're going to do one time. I mean, this is a lifetime, is an all the time thing. Because if you got a great product, you want to keep getting it out there, or you want to build a system that keeps getting it out there. You want to get an army, hopefully you get an army, you get outlets out there to get it out there to people. And so that starts with you being sold on what you're doing. And it's not about being tricky Dicky slick, it's about being solid, it's about being legitimate. You want to be convinced that what you're selling. See, everything comes from this, folks. Everything comes from this. Your attitude, you know, if you're with another company, you came in as a salesperson for them or whatever. Have you done your own research? Is it good enough for you? Have you asked all the skeptical questions? And you know, if you're a founder, of course you have. But you know, let's talk about, you know, this is where the killer mindset about sales and growth, because you've got to kill excuses, you've got to kill reservations and reluctance and all these negativities that come in timidity. You gotta be solid. And most people choke because they're scared. They're scared of rejection, scared of looking dumb, scared of not knowing what to say. But if they're really convinced what it is, is right, they'd fight you for it. So the thing is, do you believe enough in what you're doing and what you're selling and what you're offering to someone to fight for it and to say, I know you think that, I know it appears to you all right now, but why not look at it this way? Why not change how you look at it? Because maybe if you looked at it this way, you'd say, wow, this is totally different than what I thought. And you'd see how it could change your life. And so that's what you want to do with people, is get them to see that this could be not just something for them, that's something wonderful for them. And so you got to stop thinking about selling and start thinking about solving problems. You're not A pest. You're a darn problem solver. You're going to make their life better. And so when you're convinced of that, you don't flinch, you don't apologize. And when you show up, you show up with confidence, you're clear, and that allows you to win. So the first thing about getting yourself into a winning mindset and a winning sales strategy for your business or for your opportunity is to be sold on it yourself, that this solves problems. This is great. And that way, when you start talking about it, you know what'll happen. You come alive. The thing is, when you start talking about your product, are you just reading features? It does this, it does that, it does that. You know, features don't sell anything. Passion sells. And so the thing is, if it's something that could really make a difference in their life, when you start talking about it, you're going to be dialed into how this can change their life. And all of a sudden you're going to come alive. And you might stumble and fumble on the words and you might not say the presentation the same way every time. And you know, you might ad lib a little bit and you know, you might cut it short, you might go a little long, but mainly you're going to get your point across that this could be something great for them. And it's your belief that it could be something great for them that's going to allow you to communicate, explain, answer their questions. And so it all starts with you and how you look at this thing you're doing. You know you're going to change their darn lives. You know, you got an answer to a real problem they've got. And you're not going to flinch, you're not going to apologize. And when you start talking about it, you won't have to tell yourself, come to life alive, you know, show your path. You just naturally say, you know, they'll pick up on the excitement. If the excitement's not there, don't go, don't make the appointment. And so you're not just selling a product, you're selling peace of mind. You're selling a solution, a shortcut, a win. You're showing people how to get ahead. So mindset flips the switch from timidity to boldness. It's something you have to refresh periodically. And yourself personally or if you have an organization, you have to sell the dream. That's why they call them out selling the dream. The dream is not just how much money you're going to make, but you're selling the dream and the mission to your team. It's like how we're going to impact the world, how we're going to make things better for people. And so when you, if you're a founder, you got a business, a small, medium, large group, your number one job is to get yourself excited again about what you're doing and then get your people excited about it. But if they're not excited about it, what they're doing, you're not excited about it. You're going to be a dude. You're not going to win because you don't believe in it. Are you starting to, you know, the, you know, the, that's why, you know, at a car dealership, what do they do at car dealerships? Every morning, successful car, they wash the cars. They go out there and wash them. You get the dust off of them, they make them shiny again because overnight dust can come in. It could rain. You have the rain spots on it. But at a car dealership that's successful, those cars are going to be clean, they're going to be shiny, they're going to be spending the effort. They're going to, you know, the parking lot's not going to have trash in it. It's going to look great. You know, your showroom is going to look like a showroom. It's going to have a sparkle to it. Everything looks better with a sparkle to it. And so that's what you want to do with your attitude and the people's attitude towards your product, your solution. And you want to take that sparkle and transmit it to the world at large. You know, you're going to use the social media, you're going to use whatever you're going to use direct contact, whatever it takes, whatever your sales method is, and all of your sales method is you've got to communicate not just the facts, not just the features, but the passion, the fun, the solution, the energy of it. And so your mindset is going to flip that switch and allow you to go from being timid and going through the motions and technically sound to where you know from good to great. Because that's where you want to be. You want a chance. You want to have the attitude that allows you. Greatness is never guaranteed. If you want to have a winning attitude, you want to have an attitude that allows you the opportunity, the chance to be great, to be the best, to be number one. And that's the attitude that caused you, if all else fails, to still win. And so confidence isn't magic, it's Math. Once you get the attitude right, then you gotta get the words right. How are you going to say it? I know when I got started in sales, I went into financial services. I believed in the concepts, I was totally convinced it was right and everything. But I get in front of a client, it'll be like, ah. I couldn't get the words out of my mouth because everything I think to communicate to them, I would have in my mind. Oh, they're going to misunderstand that, they're going to think I'm doing this. And I would have the objections before I even got the words out of my mouth. And so what I did, because there was no other training, we had a company that had some great salespeople in it. And I got myself my little recorder and I went over there and I said, I need 10 minutes and here's the situation. You're in front of a client, they're here, they're there, you want to go, what do you say? If it was you in that situation, what would you do? And that's what. I recorded it. And then I went to my office and I wrote it out word for word because it's only like a 10 or 15 minute answer they were giving. And so I go to my office, as I spent my time doing, I would transcribe. We didn't have AI to transcribe for us. I could learn so much quicker. I would transcribe, then I would make it into a long form outline, then I make it into a short form outline, and then I'd make it into a one word outline. And by then I didn't have to look at it anymore because I'd been over it so many times, it was mine. And I knew what that person, that great salesperson would say in that situation. And I just went through all the kind of situations you'd run into in sales, you know, the main variety. And I had, I trained myself for that by asking people, you know, breaking it down step by step. So you've got, that's how I got the words. I got the words in here so the words could come out here. But you've got to be able to say it, you gotta be able to communicate it, you gotta be able to get it across to people. And there probably are people in your industry that are doing a great job of this that you can learn from. But I was so curious about this that I wanted to be. I was so bad at it early on and I knew it was such a profitable thing to learn. I tell you, there Was a long period of time, years in Atlanta, Georgia where there was no bookstore that I went into that. The first thing I do is I go to the sales and marketing and business shelves. There was no book that I didn't own and have read. And most of them outlined because I knew their information. One of the first things I learned early on, ideas are a dime a dozen. The people who use them are priceless and phrases. You know, the thing you know, you find people like the guy that had the Hustle newsletter. And so Parr, he's got Hampton now. He does the. He and Sean Perry do the My First Million podcast. Fantastic. Two fantastic guys. But Sam talks about how he did. He started a newsletter he wrote himself, himself every day and turned it into a million subscribers. And then he sold out for a zillion dollars and took the big payday and moved on to other opportunities. But he did it by. He said he wasn't that great of a writer, but he was infatuated by great writers. And he went in there and he started a swipe file and he would read great copywriters. He would read great writers and see how they phrase things to get the words, words to come out of his mouth or the words to come onto his newsletter that sounded like it was written by some of these high priced copywriters. And because you know, the words didn't care who used them. Sam got so good at writing because he was reading great writers and he was noticing how they phrase things, how they explain things, how they. And also you find the best people marketing on social media now, they pay more attention, like on YouTube, they pay more attention to the ads on YouTube than they do the content on YouTube because they know the big time people on YouTube spend a fortune and put lots of time into this energy of creating these thumbnails and these, you know, their content and everything. And so they want to see how do they phrase it, how do they sell it? You know, they pay for this stuff and it obviously works. The successful one that works. What phrases are they using that I can use? And so that's how they build and improve. You know, we talk about how do you improve? Well, you copy people, you copy winners, you know, in all sports, in golf, in basketball, in the Tour de France, in racing, you know, any sport, what people will follow the leaders and copy the leaders. And Scotty Scheffler is the number one golfer in the world right now today. He gets a new putter two years ago and he practiced, you know, his putting was not as good as the rest of his game. And now he's crushing everybody because that new putter took him a while to get used to it. But I think it's a mallet putter from Scotty Cameron. But don't take my word for it. You can find it on the Internet. But anyway, zillions of people have figured that out and bought one. And so that was good news for Scotty Cameron because people follow the leader. And, you know, Scotty Cameron did a good, had a great product, you know, has lots of great products and attracted the great, you know, the great golfers in the world. They use it and then everybody follows. And that gets into another thing of, you know, in sale. Once you get the words right, then it's a matter of who your targets. Well, how are you going to sell? Well, you go after the big fish, you go after the small fish. There's different reasons to, you know, you want consistent sales, you don't want to go after have everything your whole year based off making one or two big sales because then you spent so much time invested in getting that sale. And then maybe an accountant or lawyer comes in. You know, the thing about accountant law, you're, no offense guys, but they make their money by saying no, and they make their money. I'm going to get my accountant to look at it. That's a sign you're not going to make the sale. I'm going to get my attorney to look at it. That's a good sign. That deal is done. Because an accountant or an attorney makes their money by finding things that they can say make you feel like, aren't you glad you came to me and I found this thing and saved you from wasting money on salsa. So if it gets to the accountant or the lawyer stage, no offense, guys, usually it's a deal killer. You're dead. And you run into that with a big, the big sales lop. I'm not saying not go after, but, you know, basically you start to earn the right to have the big ticket sales by having lots of sales. And there's a lot more people on the way at the bottom, on the way up that can buy the smaller ticket things than there are. And a lot of those turn into people who could buy, you know, if you've been a big help to them, they turn into people who can buy the big ticket things. But once you get, you know, what you want is regular sales coming in. You want a regular flow. And if you zero all your efforts in on just big ticket things, a lot of times that's not so regular, you know, that can be up and down. But get something for, you know, have a menu of products that covers the gamut of the people coming in, you know, the small, medium, and large. You know, you want to have something that'll fit everybody. But when it comes to the bigger ticket things, sometimes it takes a while to build up your reputation up to the point to where you can bring the big fish in and to make that happen. So you have your target market. Cause now we've gone from getting your mind right to getting your words right to like, where's it going to go? Well, you have your markets, and then you have how you make that happen. You have your sales systems, you have your methods, you have your playbooks, and you develop that. If you started the company, you develop that by finding what works for you and turning that into a system. And if you're going to work for another company, they probably already got the playbooks in place. And if they've got playbooks that are not working, then you go out and find who in the industry has methods, sales systems that are working, and you start to incorporate things that you see there that are missing in your system. You start like plugging the leaks, plugging the dam, plugging the holes and fixing it step by step. You know, get those jigsaw puzzles all in there so you have a complete picture. And so you don't. You don't want to be winging it. You don't want to be. You have. Your every call is, you know, a new adventure. You know, you want to know. When I go in, here's what I do. When I first go in, I try and establish rapport. I try and get myself smiling. I try and break the ice. I try and find something we have in common. And I'm not going to give you a sales course right now, although I could. There's plenty of people that, you know, make their living doing that. I don't want to step on their toes, but it's not that terribly complicated. But the first thing you want to do is you want to make friends with the people. It's easier for them to receive ideas. And if they like you, you know, the thing is like this, a simple sales course here. They're probably not going to buy from you. If they don't like you, they don't like your company, then they're probably not going to like your product. And so you start with a smile. He said, get intention out of your face and let them. Let them know you're glad to Be there. You're glad to meet them, you know, because people like people who like them. You know, I used to in my office, people would bring me potential recruits all the time. I got this great recruit I want you to see. So I say, okay, bring him in. And then we'd talk for a few minutes and they would leave. And they come up later and say, what'd you think of that recruit I brought, you know, what'd you think of that prospect I brought in? And I said, well, what did they think of me? And they said, oh, they loved you. I thought they said, well. I said, well, then I love them too. But usually I could tell from the way the conversation went whether or not we hit it up or not. And so you're looking for people you hit it off with and that you can not make a one time sale and they drop it. You're trying to start a relationship with these people. And so the first thing in relationships is you got to like them. You know, like Sandy Weil at one time was ahead of, you know, he was illustrious career. But he worked his way up to one time. He was CEO of the largest company in the world at the time, which was Citigroup, late 90s. I'm not going to argue it with you. But he was. And then Citigroup, he retired. Citigroup went into a nosedive, but they're doing fine now. But you know, companies go up and down but sit. When Sandy was in charge, they would, they would do great. But Sandy had a thing. He would not merge with another company, buy another company, do a deal with anybody unless he had that person come over and have dinner at his house with his wife, with Joan. And if Joan didn't like them, they didn't do the deal because they had to get along and joke a smell of rat, you know, Joe, Joe had that, Joan had that Geiger counter, you know, that vibe, you know that, that so many times the ladies have that we don't, you know, men will not have. And so Sandy was smart enough and he was successful and so you learn from success. But he was smart enough. Like if we're not going to get along, if the vibe's not right and this guy can't get past or these lady can't get past Joan, forget it. We're not going to do business, you know, we won't be able to do business. It won't work long term. So the thing is you want to, when you're doing sales, you want to have a system. And the system where you can meet people on good terms, get to know them, start a relationship and then when it comes down to making the sale and you're not winging it, you know the first thing you give the relationship, then you're going to show them some of the things, identify some of the problem areas and here's how you know we can go about solving it and make it comfortable for them to do business with you, but do it in a way where they will stay with you. You know you want them, you don't want to be telling them they're all wrong and everything. You want to point the options to them and make it easy for them to say I like what you're doing better than what I'm doing. I want to go with you. So you make, give them room to do that. Don't make it seem like they're just a bunch of dummies for what they're doing now. You know, you add allow because you want them to stay with you once they come. You want them to stay and buy more and you want them to talk to you, want them to be euphoric about doing business with you so they'll talk to their friends about you and you get more business that way. Which leads you into the last part of this thing, targeting, which is referrals. So we talked about getting your mind right, getting your words right and then your targets. And see the last part of targeting is the best which is referrals. Word of mouth, friend to friend to friend. The happiest customers are sitting the way you look at your happiest customers are sitting on your next 10 deals. But the thing about that is you know you, you need to ask them and you need to make that a system and you use those. It's not who you know that's going to make you successful, it's who they know. A satisfied customer is somebody you can go to again and again for referrals and advice and they can point you in other directions for improvement of your product for other markets. Another thing, you can kind of bring them into your team. So anyway, enough about that. I hope that's been helpful for you. If you want to hit a million, fantastic. We need more successful people. But start acting like a million dollar closer. Not just a million dollar thinker, wisher, hoper. Start acting like a million dollar closer. Build your confidence, sharpen your tactics and most of all stay in the fight. You know, and believing in it is cause it causes you to stay in the fight. So if this episode is hit home, subscribe, share it. Get back in the game in a big way. I'm Larry Widell. This is Big Hitters, where winners are.