Optimizing Appointment Setting With NEPQ

Make sure we are not disturbed. Unique. Unique. The arsonist had oddly shaped feet.

Ah, fucking baby.

It's a disease, man. Hey, guys. What's up? Matt here. Welcome to the episode of Coffees for Closers. In today's episode, we are going to be focusing on how appointment setters and the sales process can be optimized using any pq. So if you're a business owner and or salesperson or setter, this is the episode for you for how to maximize and utilize NEPQ in that process.

Wonderful.

If you listen to this podcast, you will make your first million within three years. We're here to make podcasts. You really want this? You listen and review. Put that coffee down. Did you enjoy the shorter intro?

They might have to have.

They would have to have.

Yeah.

We're going to shoot a new intro while you're gone.

Well, I'm gone.

Yeah. All right.

I'm not sure how, but I want something new.

Okay. I'm all about it.

Yeah. Yeah.

So NEPKA or nepq as the kids say. Neuro. Emotional persuasioning questions is just a little.

Bit of history on that. That's Jeremy through and through.

Right.

Jeremy's thing.

Yeah.

He started at. He studied human behavior in university, so behavioral science, and then realized that all the sales tactics that he was learning from the quote unquote, sales gurus were basically the opposite. So they were designed to counteract human behavior. So it was like, if I do this, they'll do this. If I do this and then I'll counteract it through this and counteract it. So it was like quite an adversarial process, which is where you get all the boiler room scenes and all that stuff where it's like, you know, the guy's like the prospect and doing all that stuff, you know?

Yeah.

Like they're like, yeah, these idiots. And it's because, like to sell that old school way, you kind of have to think in that methodology adversarially.

Yeah.

Like they're the enemy and you're looking to, you know, you're looking to establish dominance. Yeah. You know, power posing.

Right.

So that's how sales was done for a very long time. And that's the reason why being a salesperson is regarded as, I guess, like a shitty job by a lot of people. You know, people like sales guys and. No, there's not a great connotation.

Yeah.

The avatar of the sleazy used car salesman is what everyone thinks of.

Right, Exactly. So any. So Jeremy came along and was like, well, there's better ways and just took a combination of what he considered really influential people and different sales styles and tactics and over the course of 15, 20 years, just kind of had a method that worked fairly ubiquitously across a vast swath of individuals and sort of industries to have what's really, I think is the only cross industry sales methodology that works no matter what you're selling.

Okay.

Like, you can use it in fitness, you can use it in large B2B, you can use it in SaaS, sales, oil and gas. Like, and we have like clients from everywhere. I got like, you know, I just did a training session today and it's like dudes selling window dressings and then the next guy is selling oil and gas CEOs into renewable energies.

Yeah, right. Okay.

You know, so it's like. And they're all getting benefit. We're all getting better results.

And that's what's interesting to me. Like, you know, everybody here, we sell mostly coaching and consulting stuff, right?

Yep.

But a guy came in when I very first started, maybe he's watching. Hopefully he is from a booze company and gave us a bottle of gin. I think you weren't here. And he came in and was like, he'd been on a call and he'd got a lot of value and he came in to give us a bottle of the gin that they had. And I was like, man, how do they like transfer the knowledge that like, obviously you teach general sales training.

Yeah.

And it has to cross industries because that's so different. You're not selling gin to individuals, you're selling it to you. He's a distributor that's going to bars and clubs and whatever. And it was quite fascinating to me that somehow he's found so much value in it that he thought it was worth coming in and giving you a bottle of booze.

Yeah.

That like, it applies to his industry as well as to every other. And nepq, you think, is the only one that really does that?

I think so. Like, there are, you know, if you have a look at like some of the more established sales training organizations, you've got like Belfort, which is Straight Line, which I think probably works pretty decently for I would say B2B and probably coaching. I would say it works all right. For. And that's probably a pretty common methodology. You've got some sort of consultative selling, which is like the Dr. Frame, which is like, let me see about that. Yes. Well, I think you should do this.

Right.

That's like Dan Lock's style, which I think is sort of only relevant to sort of a coaching and consulting type offer. Although I don't think it works particularly well unless you are the personality that can pull it off. And then you've got like Sandler, which is like a very traditional but still processed type of selling. But that's really only reserved for like your larger, more corporate SaaS, B2B type stuff. So there to me, there isn't, besides Jeremy's and ndpq, there isn't a methodology which translates as well across many and there's not any figureheads of any of those things that have been successful in multiple industries as a sales rep. Yeah. So you got Belfort, who's obviously tremendously successful at securities fraud.

Right.

But like, to be fair to him, like after that he was tremendously successful at selling because he was selling head like forex hedging and stuff like that. Like he was working for Goldman Sachs and a few other really, really large corporations and a very, very talented salesperson with a very distinct process. But like out. It's not like he's gone on and sold large fitness programs, you know, not that he couldn't, but he hasn't. Same thing with like Sandler. I mean, Sandler's dead, but so you know that guy. Yeah, I didn't want to say it. I thought it.

Yeah.

You know, so, yeah, like I don't know what that guy did. He was. Died a while ago. So you got Dan Locke who's kind of just like, I don't know, kind of doing his thing weird in suits and renting mansions that he pretends to own.

Yeah.

You know, so mean power to you.

Yeah.

You gotta do what you gotta do.

Yeah.

You know.

Yeah.

Fake it till you make it, Dan.

It's gonna take a while. So Jeremy is a legit, you know, superstar when it comes to that stuff. For me, I've been really successful in fitness. Not successful financially because I was an employee, but I was a very successful fitness sales rep, like a very high level one and in coaching consulting, been really successful. So like outside of that, like, you know, I can, I can help teach people the principles of how to do things and I can role play really well when it comes to like window treatments and all that kind of stuff because I have a good understanding of how to do it, but I've never done it. And I'm very clear on that. Hey, like this is not my wheelhouse. I haven't done it, but this is how I would do it. A lot of time they go, oh, it's like it's good. Like I'm very confident I could be a very high level insurance salesperson.

Okay. Right.

Because it's a very similar sale to what I'm used to. Anything where like there's a emotional payoff, that's the wheelhouse.

Yep. Right.

So I think where that comes from and one of the reasons why we're having this podcast, because somebody asked us in the YouTube comments. So if you want to ask us something, comment down below. Do it.

Yeah.

Was like, how can I help my appointment setter? Use any PQ in that process. And so you have to look at it as a singular process. You can't look at it as like segments. Right. Because the person. The way that from a marketing standpoint, there are five things that a prospect has to go through, five hoops they have to jump through in order to be a good fit for a sales process. So you've got to figure out where the marketing process ends and where the sales process begins. And it might not be that clear. So you've got unaware, problem aware, solution aware, brand awareness, and product aware.

Okay.

Those are the five levels of awareness that most marketers would pretty ubiquitously say are like the steps that somebody would take in order to be like an interested buyer.

I remember you saying once that that's like proprietary thing. Someone came up with that and they own those terms.

I think like I learned them from John Benson.

Okay.

But it might predate him.

Okay.

You know, like it might just be like, that's the.

So now it's the industry standard. No one's putting TM after that. Like everybody knows those terms and uses them.

Yeah, I hope not. You know, I'm pretty sure it was me. I made it up. I'm pretty confident. I mean, we can say I spell product differently. That's how I do it.

Yeah, right.

So those are like the levels of awareness. So they're unaware. They just don't know what's going on. They're problem aware. So it's like, oh, you're aware that, you know, you're not making enough money. That could be it. The solution awareness is like, oh, you're going to do that through getting better at sales. So like I would do that in a way where it's like, hey, sales rep, are you sick of not making enough money? Right. That's like, I'm making you problem aware. So I'm sales rep, I'm not making any money. That's a problem. And it's like solution awareness. Go to the next phase of the marketing, which Is like, oh, if you learn this methodology in epq, you can learn to do this, do this, do this, do this. And this is how we, this is a solution to your problem. Like, oh, sweet. Now there's solution aware. Now during that it's like now then there's like a nurture sequence which makes them brand aware. So, so it's like, you know, seventh level sales sniper, whatever it may be. Like we are the brand that teaches that solution and this is the product that we present to you to fix that. So someone needs to go through those steps and ideally they go through most of them, if not all of them before they even hop on a call. You know, the problem is with a lot of the, like the coaching consulting industry specifically, um, you know, if you have like insurance for example, they're, they're automatically aware of a lot of it. You know, so really what you're trying to do is try to hook them in with product Pro problem and solution quickly. They're probably aware of Merrill lynch and they're probably aware of annuities, life insurance.

Right? Yeah.

So the, the, you can have a shorter sales cycle. It's simpler. The reason why B2B takes so long is because you're, you're probably creating the problem. I just sold a really, I just sold a large customer into a B2B deal. We bought their stuff and then during the onboarding I just started probing this guy a little bit. And it was funny, he bought like yesterday and they were like, oh, it's funny, before we met you, it was like we hadn't even thought about these problems. I was like, funny that.

Right?

No problem.

Yeah.

But that took me five weeks to close.

Okay.

So because I had to take them from unaware to problem aware to solution aware, brand aware to product aware.

Okay, that's a really good point. So that happens at various scales. Some people can be made take through those five steps in a single web page funnel.

Yeah.

And in this instance, because it was more a B2B deal and you were, it was, you identified the problem, decided to expose it to them and then take them through the sequence. It's like a five week over the phone email.

Like I went to their office, I flew to Melbourne to meet them.

Yeah, right.

So multi channel process to, to get them through those five steps where sometimes it's, it's on a landing page. Here it is. And that's probably like a more simple product or a more easy to advertise. Certainly not a B2B type thing.

Yeah.

Like we have an SLO self liquidating offer. So like it's a seventh level one. Like it's 27 bucks and it bundles a few things together. That page is super long and there's a lot of psychology behind it because it's designed to get like the three or four different types of buyers. So the visual learners, the auditory learners, the people who want bundles, the people who need urgency, the people, you know, all these people that need different things. Like it's all in there. But that like the, the ad is designed like we do awareness campaigns to create just general problem awareness through like content. Then from there retarget those people into like advertisements that go specific, problem, specific solution. Grab them into the funnel, the funnel does the whole thing and they buy on the funnel. Then from there we take those people, call them, book them in, upsell them into higher ticket programs.

Right.

That's working great. We got 40 sales today, right?

Right. No.

So from that we had eight bookings.

Four sales at 27 bucks. You probably lose money on that, right?

No, have a 5 extra turn of ad spend.

Really.

So the average cart value is 67 because we have a series of bump sales.

Okay.

It cost us 12 to make the sale.

Right, okay.

Yeah, right.

Yeah, it's.

There you go.

So we're. And then printing money pat what's wonderful.

And then you're upselling those people further again after that.

Yeah, yeah.

But even then like the psychology, you can't upsell them too far and you can't give them. We have to give them our middle tier product. We can't pitch anything else because they've been delivered a lot of value in like a bundle. So like we've oversold the beginning. So then if we only did them to like the next tier product, like it wouldn't be enough to build enough of a gap to get the sale. Sure. But if we tried to take them to our big boy product, like it's, it's. They haven't had enough of us yet because they bought so fast.

Okay.

So we're dealing with a particular type of person that takes action quickly, you know, but then we deliver them almost too much value to where then we have to create quite a delicate sales process to where there's like, there's a very specific amount of time. We have to let them maturate through that process, absorb the content before we try and sell them the next thing. It's taken us about three or four months to figure out like we've made thousands of sales and we've only made about, you know, haven't upsold that many people until now because we've had to try so many processes to fix that. But that's the good thing about, like, not being in a hurry.

Yeah.

You know, so, so, but like, let's just say, you know, like that question. They're doing a triage in a sales call. Let's just say you're in a typical funnel and you have a shitty marketer or a business owner that doesn't really give too much of a fuck about these phases and all that kind of stuff. You're going to get a lot of people that are just product and problem and solution aware. They're not brand or product. Which is like, you'll know that because you get people on a sales call that say, who? You guys?

Yeah, what am I doing here?

And I used to get that all the time when I was selling, like, business coaching for tradies. How dare they?

You ever hit them with the don't you know who I am?

I know, right? I do these days.

Yeah.

You know, Anyway.

Okay. So they're just like, yeah, I got a problem. I know someone's going to be able to fix it. Is it you?

Yeah. And it's like the marketing was like, vague. It was nine steps to systemize your business. It was an e book download.

Okay.

It's like not even really problem aware or solution. It's like you have an unsystem. Like, what are the ramifications of an unsystemized business? Like, we haven't even. You know what I mean?

Okay, so tease that out a little bit. So in becoming problem aware, the part of that is like really teasing out the problem and. And the ramifications of not fixing the problem.

Yeah.

So at least mentioning it or like asking about it, you know? So, like, you know, are you. It's sort of like if you have a look at like the most verbose and obvious version, it's an infomercial.

Mm.

Like they're trying to get you through all those stages.

Yeah.

Are you sick and tired of fumbling over your water bottle? Well, here's a fucking straw, you dickhead. Right? You know, so those, they're designed for a specific purpose. So, like, they seem silly to most people, but some people are like, oh, I did spill water on, you know, and like, those people are buying the shit out of those metal straws. Whatever.

Right.

So, like, they're going through a purpose. But like, as. As we progress further down in just time in general, like, everything has to get more refined, you know, like Back in the day, that guy who sold the Statue of Liberty four times. People were just idiots. Back in the day.

Yeah, man.

We go back in the day. We're billionaires in a day.

Yeah.

Like, you just go and be like, hey.

I think, you know, one of the things. Because certainly not for these podcasts, but you've had my Jesus conversation about what I think happened there. And I think, you know, there's no photos even. There's. There's very little paintings that people could reasonably do. Like the way that you can hoodwink people. Like, if you have not personally experienced something.

Yeah.

It's an unknown to you. You can't be like, oh, I'm aware of what happens in Europe. Like, what's a Europe?

Right?

Like, you don't even have a clue.

Yeah, it's so like, you know, I think the more access to information people get, you know, I like, listen to podcast the day and it was like, with what's his name, the fucking astrology guy in Joe Rogan.

Oh, yeah.

Neil DeGrasse talks, which I, to be honest, I don't really like. I think he just talks up for a boast, bloviating bullshit of the time.

Well, he's been wrong on heaps of stuff.

And then.

And the way that he delivers things that he's wrong. The way that he delivers it is as powerful and as confident as the way that he delivers things that he's right on. So they're like, wait, there's no way to tell.

I hear him talking. I just got. Mate, like, you don't seem. You sound smart, but I don't like the things that you're saying. The things you're saying sound dumb, but the way you said it sounds really smart. Yeah, yeah, I'm sure he's smarter than me, but whatever. So, yeah, so he was talking and he was like, you know, information doesn't mean, like, you're wise. You know, I was like, that's, that's, that's a sort of a true point. But like, I think the more access to information people get inherently, like, the more, the more they intake, the better their sort of output is, you know, so marketing only gets harder. Sales only gets harder. But then people innovate, you know, people jump higher. The NBA gets better, more. Three pointers show that people just progress. Right? So it gets more difficult to do the stages. But that's why as salespeople like, you have to have an understanding of marketing. Otherwise you're. You're trying to. You're trying to kind of Wedge square pegs into round holes. Because you got people who are here and before you pitch them, you've got to get them to there and further, because these people who have done all of these are only appropriate to be in a sales process. They're not appropriate to buy because then they have to go through a whole level of like they have to have to build urgency. And there's all these other things that have to do to get people to part with money. Because parting with money is probably the most painful thing that people want to do. Because we've some, for some reason just tied all this stuff into a bunch of bullshit ones and zeros in a bank account, you know, of which I want. Yeah, right. So you know, like when, when I, when I was getting these prospects and I was my own triage or.

Right.

And in my opinion for that guy who said that like unless you're a hyper productive closer. Hyper productive, you should never have someone doing your pre calls for you.

Okay? Just.

It's a bad idea because like they'll never be as good. So it's sort of like.

But we have that here, right?

That's yes.

And on most accounts, yes and no.

Okay.

So like most guys will do their own triages. We may have some outbound people booking those triage. But it's like a two minute conversation.

Okay.

You know, it's. It's more of a marketing function.

Okay.

Than it is a sales function. So most. No sales guys do their own triages. We used to have it. So there was a triage department and I got rid of that because I thought it was stupid.

Okay.

You know, because that's a sales process. And what we found is the most successful people didn't want someone doing it. So. And there was a couple people who I had to fire who now have their own thing teaching people how to sell because they refused to do that. Cause they thought they were good enough. But they were actually like the lowest performer in the group. So I was like, you're fired. So we have people doing outbound, but that sales process, like you have to fulfill certain functions. So when I would get people in, they were just off a lead magnet. Some of them would book themselves. Then we had like an outbound team doing like two three minute phone calls just calling those people just to get them in. Because the volume of like required for that's too much. Like that would be like my full time job just getting that many people in. So I would get all the 15 minute calls, you know, Then from there I would try and figure out where they were. And then I had a process in between triage and sales call that I would, that I made. I custom made that process. That's what we do for all of our clients at Sales Sniper.

Okay.

We custom make that process to fill in the gaps the marketing hasn't done. Now, the great thing is we've been able to simplify that since bringing our own media company because, like, the media company does a really good job of branding and they have a branding assets and they do content and like the guys are getting retargeted and so, like they're in that trust building, brand building, awareness building phase the whole time throughout it.

Yeah. Okay.

Pulls pressure off the sales team.

So that's part of the retargeting sequence in that someone's seen the ad, they've clicked it, they're. They're gonna have a sales call.

Yeah.

And in that space between them becoming, you know, I guess problem aware and solution aware, you're automatedly making them brand aware.

Oh, they, they should be seeing testimonials on Facebook, Google, YouTube, Instagram. So that's probably just organically coming through their stuff.

Yeah. That's interesting. Right? So that's, I think what people don't like. You imagine my ad is done, I've got their email, phone number, whatever the.