App Setter to Top Closer: Rhode’s Journey to Becoming a Top Rep

All right, guys. So welcome to the episode of Coffees for Closers. Today we are with Big Road, the Black Prince of Pif. Right, the page in full. Demon. So Rhodes, one of our top sales guys, and he started with us about six months ago, just wanted to come in. Never really done any sort of sales like this before and was willing to learn. So I thought it'd be a really interesting journey today to kind of go through exactly how he started, where he came from, and what he's doing now. So make sure you, like, subscribe. Send this to your friends, tell everybody you can. About 75% of you are not subscribed, you sons of bitches. So get in there and click that button. Let us know that you care. If you don't, you're dead to me.

And this would be a really good podcast for like the, the new up and coming sales reps that have just possibly come out of, you know, a 12 week course or they've done a little bit of study and they want to rip straight into sales. This should give a little bit of perception about what works and why we do things the way we do and how that's successful time and time again.

If you listen to this podcast, you will make your first million within three years. I'm going to repeat that. You will make a million dollars within three years of the first episode you listen to. We don't want pikers. We're not here to save the manatees. We're here to make podcasts. You really want this? You listen and review.

Put that coffee down.

So I wrote, thanks for being here, buddy. I really appreciate it. We were just doing some good stuff pre, pre record. So I think we'll just get straight into it. Like, how did you, how did you come about us? I don't even remember where this came from.

Yeah, well, I was doing like B2B and B2C sales, like completely different from this, like for the last nine and a half years. And I thought like, I knew sales, right? And then like, I want to say in November of 2019, like almost a year to this day, I was just like, this is it. I've hit a plateau. I got bored. And I was like, you know what? Like, let me see what's, what's out there. So I started. I don't know how I found like, Eli, but I, I found Eli and he was like, real charismatic. So I started following him and Eli kept talking about, like he had this buddy in Australia who was like selling these 30k packages.

It was referring to me by the way, not Matt.

Did he say he was really short, looked like a troll?

Because that was definitely what was real interesting was like, I think this is like, when you guys about to do this event. And Eli was like, he had his buddy who only asked six questions to sell 30k packages. And, like, I never thought that was even, like, possible. So I was like, let me see who the hell it was.

Yeah.

And it being Matt and I firm requested Matt. And I remember, like, I thought that you were gonna be very gorish, but like I said, I was posting stuff online and, like, Matt just had this. It's weird. It was like this. This, like, yeah, fuck it, I'm here attitude. And you would just, like, comment on everything. I was like, oh, he's. He's a real person. He's cool. And like, you accepted my friend request. And I was. Eli told me how good you were, and I was like, all right, let me just message this guy because he seems like a real person. Like, I messaged you and told you, hey, listen, I just quit my job. And this was like, January.

Like, yeah, we would have been organizing that event for March. And then coronavirus happens, which means.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I remember I messaged Matt and I was just like, hey, listen, like, I was doing sales for nine and a half years, but, like, you look like, you know, sales, and, like, I want to. I want to get down. And Matt immediately was hilarious.

Dts, you're down to sell.

Dts, you have messages down to pay.

In full with rude.

Like, immediately, like, you messaged me a booking link. And I was like, oh, I didn't know how that. But it was for. He's like, yeah, let's look like, let's chat. And like, off the bat, what stood out was like, you didn't try to sell me any bs. You were like, yeah, listen, I can definitely help you out. But listen, I'd be doing a disservice if I give you any type of high ticket account. Like, are you willing to go through this process? I was just like, yeah, I got some money saved up. Let's see what this ride goes. And from here, from there, it was just like, here we are.

Awesome. Yeah. So, like, I, you know, I was getting hit. I got hit up a lot. And, you know, people like, I want to close for you. I'm a. I'm certified. I'm a goddamn certified high ticket closer. I was like, oh, sweet. Yeah. I always say I hope to get certified one day, but, well, you know, if you don't have Much experience. Like you're not going to make any money, you know, so like, I'd rather you make a smaller amount of money than no money.

So.

So like if this is something that you want to do, like, you need to be prepared that you're going to take probably six months of doing like shit jobs, which is like follow ups, triages. And that gives you a lot of interactions, right? Cause sales calls are like actually kind of hard to come by at times, you know. And so it's, I guess it's the difference between playing golf and going to a driving range. If all you did was just play golf, you get 18 holes, you might have a hundred shots. You go to a driving range, you hit a hundred bucket, you know, hit a bucket of balls for a hundred, you get a lot out of that. You, you do that every single day. You'll become a much better golf than playing, you know, than playing an hour on an actual course. Right. So. But not many people took me up on this. I probably didn't make it sound very glamorous, but I didn't really care. I wasn't trying to sell anyone anything. And yeah, man, you just came in and you just did the work. And I think that like that, that graduation, we talked about this in the last, in the podcast that was just released actually, which was like, there's no course out there that can get you in 12 weeks to closing high ticket deals and making money. There's a couple of unicorns out there that could do it. Like, to be honest, you probably could have done some of those courses and done pretty well, you know, because you're. Cause you're good at what you do. But like, man, like that sort of gradation of skill and having all those interactions and getting good at the triages. Once you get good at the triages, you start to understand how to pull pain points and then get small commitments from people. Once you can pull pain points and get small commitments, it's a lot easier to then get more commitment and get more pain.

It was really funny though, because when you first started, there was some specific words that you would use maybe a little too regularly. Gotcha, gotcha. And there's little things like that that you don't get taught in the courses. Like don't repeat this same word a hundred times in the conversation because it just sounds robotic. And it was after time that those things slowly started getting out. The tonality started getting better. And then it got to a point it's like, okay, well you're ready to take Your first calls now, you know.

Yeah, yeah.

You sell almost identical to me.

No, seriously, like. But that's by design, too. Like, you asked something that really stood with me because I actually skipped one of the steps and I had to go back. Right. Because, like, I went from setting, and then, like, I took a closing account outside of sales Sniper. But then, like, I. I didn't understand something. Right. Because. And you told me during one of our first calls, she was like, there's a process. Setting, triaging, and then closing. And then I skipped the triaging and went to closing. And then I had to go back and get another account just to do triage. Just because what I found out was that, wait, I'm getting people on the phone on this outside account that were being triaged by somebody outside of me. But what I didn't understand was, like, okay, what was the true triage process supposed to be? So I couldn't tell the person who was triaging them how it's supposed to sound because I didn't know myself. So I had to go back and get a triage account with the other people just to kind of. Just so I knew exactly what I want to look for.

Yeah.

And then, like, go back to close.

So you couldn't figure out what they were doing right and wrong to improve that process to get to you.

Yeah, exactly. And like, that. But that. That makes so much sense to, like, the whole philosophy that you have of that, like, gradation of elevation. Because if you don't. If you don't know yourself what to look for, you can't tell somebody else what to look for.

There it is. Right.

Dropping bombs.

That's why you don't want to hire a guy to manage your sales team who's never managed the sales team or made a significant amount of money. Like, you're doing commissions. You only ever sold one product.

It's like hiring a business coach who went bankrupt.

Yeah.

Because he didn't pay his tax bill.

Yeah. Yeah. He should not. Yeah. There's a guy in Australia who's a business coach. He's a fitness business coach. And he's a fitness business coach because his gym went bankrupt because he didn't pay his taxes for three years. Got a massive taxpayer, had to shut it down. That guy's a fucking business coach. Right. It baffles my goddamn mind. But, yeah, man, like, I think there's some really important things for people listening because, like, dude, like, the lure of closing is, like, you can get paid $1,000 or $2,000 or even like, dude, like, some of the comms that I get For Jeremy are $7,500 a sale, you know, I mean, like, which is fucking batshit lunacy. Like, I even told him that and I was like, I can't believe you're giving me this much money to do a phone call, but I'm gonna take. And now he's offering us more. Yeah, but it was like, you know, like, the lure of that is so great. But like, honestly, the sales that I've had for Jeremy, none of them have been laid down. Sales, every single one of them was hard fought and they took a significant amount of skill and tactics to get them through. And like, most people would have closed none of them. So they would have made $0, but they would have just kept on plugging along because like, no, no, it's going to get better and. Or they start blaming leads or something. It's like the lure is there of like, you can make such a high return for such a low time investment, but like, if you don't do it in the right manner, like, you're just not going to be successful. Like, it's just not going to happen. People don't just lay down 30 grand because you've asked them to. That's why we've brought you into that new account. You know what I mean? Because those guys are just order takers. Order takers are not salespeople. That's an order taker. We can just have a VA go like, hey, if you really want to do it, just sign this, pay the money, you're done. You know, and 5% of people, like might just do that. But really, as salespeople, we need to be able to take people through a specific, very, very precise process that ticks every single box along the way so that we know we put ourselves in the best position to close that person. And so I suppose, like for you, like, I guess what are some of the, I guess the main things that you've learned? Like some of the big shifts that you've had over the last few months that have allowed you to really effectively go from triaging to closing. Like, what was that moment where it really clicked for you?

For me, it was like one, just have a conversation, but like, don't have a wild wild west conversation. Have a conversation that you know where you want to go, but be open to taking possible detours. All right? And what I mean by that is like, when both you and Marco had called me about that call, two calls that I had where I was just off, like Terrible. What you didn't do was, like, beat me up, but you also didn't, like, let me off the hook. You. You gave me feedback, but you also was like, hey, it's okay to relax. And, like, just, if you know where you're going, take them there. And for me, that was like, okay. It took a lot of pressure off of being, like, the industry closer authority, because a lot of folks going through some of these courses right now, the big thing is, like, be the leader, Be the. Be the person. Right. But when you kind of take that authority frame, sometimes you may forget that you're talking to a person and you may not hear them because you already have in your mind where you want to take them. So you're not listening to the answer. And that's what I was doing.

Yeah, I remember that call. You were sort of like, you were. You were really focused on formulating your next response, which meant that you weren't listening to the person, which meant that, like, you were asking questions they'd already answered.

Exactly.

And you were sort of going into things that weren't really relevant or not able to sort of form the questions in a way that was specific for them. So that had a consequence of them feeling like they weren't being heard.

Exactly.

And no one's gonna buy off that person. Like, it's just. It's not gonna happen, because, first of all, you have to know the real problem. And I was doing a roleplay session today with some of the fitness guys that we. That we coach, and it was like, guys, you've got to listen. You have to listen for these verbal cues that people give you, because language matters, you know, so, like, what language they're saying matters. And if they say something that's weird, you have to be able to bank that, like, that call that we reviewed where the guy said he wants to be at peace, or. I use the example stewardship a lot. You know, if someone is religious, you know, and you use the word stewardship, like, that has a much more significant connotation than leadership. And so these small, little. These small little cues that you can get from people give you an insight into what they're thinking and how they're thinking, and that's how you take sales to the next level. But you can't have a massive ego when you do that, because you have to be genuinely involved in the conversation that you're having. And if all you're doing is trying to formulate and you're listening to your own narrative, it just doesn't work. You know, that's why I don't like selling people while they're driving because they're not like they're not going to be listening to you a hundred percent. And also if you're doing that, then they're doing that because people just kind of like naturally like marry each other. Right. Let's talk about your results that you've had over the last sort of month. So you've really come into closing like a month ago. Is that about right?

Yeah, like full on closing. Yeah, about like, like a month.

Yeah.

Proper, consistently close.

Yeah.

You know, there's probably another, another three weeks of like build up and then things clicks. Like as you said that that pressure was relieved.

Yeah.

That made things click for you when you got it and then just like all of a sudden went from like 30% to 7% just because things made sense, you know.

Well, I mean, you got it. You got a paid in full today. The black prince of paid in full for, you know. You've been crushing it, man. Walk us through. Like, like, like how's it been going for you over the last month?

Like no complaints. It's been awesome. Like it, it doesn't feel like work like getting on the actual calls. It literally just feels like going through my process. Going through my process. And what I will say is very important is like one not believing what anybody says about you, right? Because on your best days, this is my personal opinion, on your best days you're not as good as they say you are. So that means you could always get better. And on your worst days, you're not as bad as they say you are. So it's like don't beat yourself up. So just keep in mind as long as for me, what I learned from you is detaching from the outcome of the sale, right? And as long as I do my process, for me it's a win. And like if I follow my process, then my process will be it will regulate the outcome. Like it will take care of that. But if I have no process, then I'm fucked.

Absolutely. You can't say I had a guy last night, man, like pulled out everything. And I have a follow up for today and I'm pretty confident that I'll get him. But man, like I walked away from that call, I was like, yeah, I didn't get the sale but I got a good quality follow up. But man, there is no way there is anything that I could have done. Like, so I was like, if I do that, and that's a standard call for me, If I do that, then like, you know, nine times out of 10 I close that person. Nothing's gonna hit it 100%.

It's funny, I was having this conversation today. They're like, how could I? You know, it was a tough, tough call. The guy recently got scammed, so had massive trust issues. He's like, how do I deal with that? I'm like, oh, well, to be honest with you, that's a bloody hard one to deal with. If you're not confident that you can get them take the follow up. It's like, okay not to close someone. You cannot get everyone. And when you accept that you're able to move forward and be better every single day because you know that it's, it's sort of. It is okay not to close it a hundred percent because it's impossible. You know, someone will say no eventually, no matter how good you are.

Yeah, exactly. You know, but the key is like, yeah, if you have that process that a lot of the things, a lot of the time people just don't have a set process. They take people through and they're just winging it. And I winged it for a long time and I did okay. And I was like, you know, you asked me maybe 18 months ago, I didn't like scripts. I thought they were like, well, I don't need scripts. I know what I'm doing. I've done this enough. You know what I mean? I've done enough sales to her. And then it's because I never had a really good script. Now I never sell without a script, ever. And you talk to like 90% of people who are killing it in sales, they have scripts. Yeah, right. That script, you don't necessarily have to follow it word for word, but it's like you need to be able to glance over and know where you are in the process. Because if you're constantly thinking about where you are in the process, you're not listening to the person. So it just gives you that element of you can just go, oh, okay, sweet. Next question. Well, just so I can understand the rationale, how behind why you might be looking to, you know, and it's just such an easy way to like, okay, bang, bang, bang. I take people through my process. I know my process works. So if my process doesn't work on selling an account, it's not, it's not me, it's the account. Like, I can, I can genuinely. I was talking to Mark about it today. We can genuinely say that now. If we can't get you sales, it's not us, it's you. Because, like, there's nothing that we're not going to do and there's. We will push people pretty hard in a very, like, supportive way. Like, it's not like we're yelling at people and doing cardo and smash, but we would like. Oh, we'll. Objection. People for an hour. No dramas. You know, I like it. It's fun.

If you put a proven entity and a proven system into anything, and that no longer works. So chances are that that one thing that was replicatable on every other system is probably not the thing that is needs to be addressed in most cases. Like, with anything that you do. You know, it's like if my. My mouse for my computer isn't working and I have a pair of batteries in the remote that works, and I go ahead and put that into the new mouse and the mouse still doesn't work. It's not the battery's fault. It's probably the mouse.

Most definitely.

That's a good analogy for you guys.

Yeah, it's a good analogy. Man, I love analogies.

Yeah.

I seem to be using them more than more. I'm doing, like, preemptive analogies these days.

I still, I still analogies, Like, I still almost every one of them. And I move things around, like. And that, honestly, that also too, is, I say, one of the biggest things that's so important. Like, you hit it on the nail.

Hit the nail on the head. I get what you mean. What advice would you give, like, being in the position that you came through and the process that you went through to get to where you are now? What advice would you give to new. New closers, people coming into the industry on how to go about things to get to the stage at which you're in now?

I would highly suggest, like, drop any ego you have, all right? It doesn't matter, like, where your background is, like, where you're at. If you got a guy like Jeremy Minor who is being chosen by Google to come in and, like, double their sales, and he continuously is, like, out there learning and training, and then a guy like Matt who is, like, doing 50k commissions and he's still out there going out and learning and getting mentored, and if you're not out there at a level higher than them, then that kind of leads you to. At least I would hope to believe that, okay, there is not a level you can attain to. So drop the ego. And, you know, like, speaking from personal experience, nothing Matt has told me has hindered my sales career.

Right.

Everything that you have told me to do was never from a place of ego. It was like it ended up helping me in the long run. And when I would go other places to go, actually see how it is, I always saw the contrast. If you're going to go learn from somebody, learn from them. Like, I wouldn't advise you to tell somebody, like, if you need help and you need, like, your car serviced. Right. And you go to the mechanic, I don't think it'd be smart to tell the mechanic how to fix your car. So if you're coming to somebody for, like, training, right. To make you better, it doesn't really make sense to tell the person how to train. You said you get better. Like, there's a reason you're going to them to get better. Just do what they say.

It makes sense. That's how I do. That's how I've always done it. I've always gone like. Well, like, I don't even try and adapt someone's methods. If I'm going to learn from someone, I'll do it exactly the way that they do it. Then once I feel really comfortable with that, I'll try and adapt it to my own style.

Exactly.

That's what I did with nabq. I did it. I did it down the line, and now I sell slightly differently. Like, I definitely use slightly different frameworks and I use a lot more analogies. And my objection handling is different than Jeremy's. But, you know, I do also realize that my objection handling is different because that guy just doesn't fucking get objections. Like, he's so good at consequence questions and getting it out of them that, like, he doesn't get as many objections. I'm not as good at him as that. Like, I've seen him sell. That guy's a fucking phenom. Right? But so I've adapted different strategies, and I'm probably better at some of those loops where someone did give him super tricky objections. I might be able to get out of them a little bit better because I've handled a lot more objections. Right. Because I'm not as good at sales. Yeah. So, you know, it's funny, right? We just got to kind of drop our ego, realize what we're good at, realize what we're not, and then get. Get people to help us. And I think that mad respect to you for like, willing to sort of, you know, go through a process and drop your ego at the door and be like, all right, cool, let's do it. I'm ready to go and I think that like, over the next three to six months, you'll be up there with the top income earners and Sales Sniper along with Will and stuff like that, earning those 30, 40, 50k a month commissions because you're fucking good at what you do.

Just as a FYI, Road Marco has expressed some concerns that you'll probably overtake him as like the highest earner for us. Like legit. Like, I had that conversation with him yesterday. He's like, oh, man, fucking like three months road's gonna be better for me. I don't know how I can cope with that. Good. So take that as a compliment as you will. That's about as good as. Another question for us is what do you find the difference? Like, what do we do differently at Sales Sniper that other agencies that you've.

Been with that don't Asking your wife. So what do you love about me?

Yeah, that's true. Like, I'm curious. Like, I want to know so that we can continue to do that and get better at those areas. What's the difference between Sniper and just going on an account by yourself? Like, why would you take a cut on some of your commissions to want to work?

Yeah, honestly. One, like, there's no real one reason. It's like one being just the culture, right? The culture that has been created here. For me personally, I have a relationship with like most of the guys. Dan, Marco, Will just not James, right?

Savage.

I forgot your name. No, but. But like, seriously, the culture that's been created here is so dope because everybody is allowed to be them, right? But also everybody is nurtured to be better. Whereas you go other places. Everybody, what I've experienced, everybody is pushed to be in one box. And if somebody doesn't fit into that box, then they're kind of like ostracized. Where it's like, Marco sells very different than Will. Right. Matt sells very different than Dan. Right. I steal everybody's stuff. I still everybody stuff and then make it my own. And nobody, from what I see, had like a negative ego. And like you guys foster that. But at the same time, it's not like Mama Bird where it's like that. This was so dope. When I went elsewhere to go with triage, Matt actually offered to review a triage for me. Right. You got nothing out of that. But it's like, how do you. Where else will you find that? Where somebody is more invested in your development that like, won't potentially benefit them monetarily. But it's like that to me, that's dope. That's like. It's like a family here, so you don't really get that elsewhere. It's just transactional. Where here, it's. It's. It's more about a culture. And to me, that's so dope.

Awesome.

Awesome.

I'll take.

Let's. Let's end on that. That's just, you know, if you're a great closer, you're looking for a good home. Fuck those guys. Come work for us, right? And. Yeah, man, it's just been. It's been fun, dude. Like I was talking the other day is like, going to work's like a footy trip. Like, our Zoom. Our Zoom calls are fun. I chat to everybody. I chat to Marco, I chat to James. I chat to everybody, like, a couple hours a day, you know, but it's like, we laugh, we're doing business, but, like, we're just cracking ourselves up because especially Marco, He's. He's been let off the chain. I don't know if his ego's getting bigger or if he's just saying his mind. Jesus Christ. Some of the shit that comes out of his mouth.

I'm like, dude, you have to delete that message. You can't say that. You can say it to me, you.

Can'T say it to them. You can't talk to us the same way. You can't talk to clients in the same way you talk to us. He's talking about their Facebook group. He goes, your group is death. Oh, wow.

He told.

He told it. He told someone the other day. He told somebody of the day. He goes, you know, she in that. That. I won't say he. She. That person, that individual on whatever account who runs a Facebook group. He told her, the way you set up your Facebook account, looks like a child did it.

Wow.

He's been listening to me too much. That's my fault. I say to him too much, and.

It'S like, that's how we talk to everybody. It's internal. It's internal chatter. It's just banter. Right? Are you gonna get us fired? Not really, because we're unfairable. But anyway, it's. Dude, I really appreciate you coming on, spending the time. I know it's, you know, late at night there for us, and I just want to say how much I genuinely appreciate having you on the team. Absolutely love your work, and I look forward to growing and, you know, the black prince of Piff is coming out. Look at the consulting world. Let's do it. All right, guys. Thanks very much I hope you enjoyed this episode. I hope the things that you took out of it were like, you know, make sure you have a process. Sales sniper is the best. If you want to see more of us, make sure you check out our YouTube channel, which is Matt Rider. Link will be in the description. Make sure you go to our Facebook group, which is called the closing code. And if you want to give us some cash, you can buy the closing code program, which is like a brain dump of a lot of things I know about sales. Plus I think six or seven roleplay sessions a week now.

I think it's possibly six, which is straight up a lot for all place.

It's silly towns. It's silly towns, right? So check it out, guys. And yeah, make sure that you subscribe. And if you listened all the way to the end, well done. If you listened already and have subscribed, you're fucking dead to me.

So thank you. Have a good day.

Put that coffee down. Coffee's for closer.