The Secret Framework To Closing More Sales

What's going on guys? Michael Elliott here. I'm excited for this one today. What if I told you that every single sale that you ever make moving forward will follow one specific exact line? I have closed over 100 million in deals. My upwork profile has half a million earnings on it. And I've used this one same line to convert all of these individual customers every single sale. This goes back over a decade for me. I have been in the trenches. This advice comes from somebody who knows how to close deals. Believe me, in this video I'm not going to be giving away a bunch of cheesy psychological tactics, closing tactics that you can use. I'm going to be telling you the cold hard truth that draws out the entire sales process sticking to one line and one line only, with implications based off of your actions at each individual step. This is the only sales framework you will ever need to close a deal, especially in the AI arena. Let's go. So you hop on a sales call and this is the opening to your sales process, right? No, that's wrong. Sales begins way before you start talking to an inquiry, right? And this is where a lot of people get wrong. The truth is, is that for example a lot of you out here, freelancers using upwork communities, Facebook communities, cold email, etc, the thing is is that here, whatever your strategy is, you have to add value prior to the conversation. What that value is depends on the industry you're in. If we're strictly talking AI scoping, for example, that would be an AI audit. You would audit their business head to toe, you would speak to them, you would look at their tech stack, you would look at solutions. Hopefully you've got things in the background. If you haven't and you don't have experience and it is your actual first, first sales call, then the value can be research and analysis. Maybe you test out some competitors forms and show the business that you're working with, their two way SMS agent that they use and how they should be implementing it. There are lots of things that come into this, this, this section, but ultimately the individual that you're going to be end up speaking to, you might not even end up speaking to them if you don't add value at the start, which is why I've added it to this, to this flow because the added value here sets you up for success later. This will probably add like literally I don't know, 60, 70% to your close rate. If they already know the sort of quality they're going to experience before they end up in a relationship with you and before even speaking to you sometimes. Now, I do have to caveat that by saying this line can, can change. But we'll go into that why in a moment because sometimes the first call might be a trigger. If someone messages you on upwork or you get an inbound lead, you have a conversation at that stage straight away. But I wanted to make sure that nobody missed out on this. Free audits offers free audits. Spell that wrong. Audits looks like a U. Free audits. So, you know, free audits, free value, free anything, free something. Give them something that shows them that you're not just a menace to something society. And you're trying to squeeze every pound out of the individual. Okay? And at this stage, the reason why I like this stage is because if you cannot help said individual, you should walk away. Right now I'm a massive believer in delivering on what you say. Like if you say you can do something, you better be able to do it, except for unforeseen circumstances. So when you're adding this free value and you're scoping the project out, for example, from an AI point of view, you will be in a position where you know what size of a project this is. It gives you indicators on how to quote. It gives you critical feedback from the inquiry of what you've actually produced. Because if they then go on to get on a call with you after that, then you know that you're in a. You're in a strong position. But that's pre open, okay, so that's pre. That's before anything has happened. So I'm going to move this over here and we're going to take it as if there was. Take it as if there was the sales call first, which is the most common way, frankly, right now during the opening stages, it's a little bit of a battle and you have to be prepared for whatever comes during this initial phase. Okay? Now this is actually the easiest thing to get right because all you have to do is be yourself, but you have to be an assertive version of yourself. The first 30 to 90 seconds on a sales call, you can win or you can lose a project. And the reason for that is because it's all about appearance, confidence, the way that you speak. Do you take control of the conversation? Are you overly salesy and pushy? Are you a good character, friendly character, someone who's easy to speak to? I aim to make somebody laugh in the first 90 to 120 seconds. That's my aim in my brain. So you can take that, make Them laugh, giggle, whatever, just build some sort of rapport with the individual in this, this period. Rapport is so important. But what's interesting, and I told you we were going to go deep into this, but what's interesting is the way that you build rapport is actually something completely different. You need to be. Listen, I'm just going to be straight with you. If you haven't got any charisma, you're going to struggle sales percentage wise anyway, right? Unless you have charisma, confidence and you are able to sit on sales calls, no one could put that in you. That comes from repetition and being confident in your work. So that you need, that is a skill as and within itself and you need to work on that. No one's going to be able to put that into you. But by following these best practices and sticking through the points I'm going to give you moving forward, you will build that confidence because you will know the flow of a sales inquiry call and how you should be tailoring your process. So the report is the first 30 to 90, 120 seconds. The first two minutes max of an, of a sales call is extremely, extremely critical. And the way that you can help yourself if you feel like you, you are unaware is research. Research is preparation. Fail to prepare, prepare to fail.

Right?

Everybody's heard that phrase previously. If you research the business, like I mentioned a moment ago, the competition, the understanding around what they're actually doing, right, and what they're trying to achieve, let's say it's AI, they need support. They've mentioned their sales pipeline is crumbling at this moment in time. How do we help them? Well, the way that you help them is by doing exactly what they've asked and also adding additional scope from what you have identified yourself. And you can't possibly do that unless you research the project. So you go in depth inside of the pro, inside of the business. I'm talking 15 minutes here. Look at the people, look at the directors, look at the structure, look at some key and core, I don't know, awards that they've won, things like that, things that you know that you can build a rapport with that client with depending on the seniority of the person you're speaking to. Okay, during that, that's going to help you with the rapport during the opening 30 seconds, not because it's mentioned in the first 30 to 120 seconds, not because it's mentioned there, but because you know that you're prepared to speak to that individual about the business. You know what they do. You know who they are, you know who they serve, you know who their audience are. You already know all of these things. Okay? And then here comes the trick. You segue. You move along the opening line slightly and you focus on strictly business. You focus on strictly business. Okay? So you, you do a complete 180, but you do it in an extremely professional way. You don't just. If they're talking to you about the, I don't know, the New York Knicks game that's just happened, you don't cut them off and say, right, it's time to discuss this. You don't. When does that plateau, which there will be of chit chat when there's that plateau and you've built the rapport and you're happy that you've built the report properly, that's when you segue. You have to take charge. Okay, so you ready to jump in? Yeah, I'm ready. Okay, great. So. And you hit, you hit them with that. And what you are doing is effectively at that stage repeating back to them their own issues.

Right?

And this will become a common theme that you understand, right? You repeat back to them the their own individual issues. If that's an upwork brief, if that's an inquiry that's coming to your business has left a description, the research that you've got, you can piece together what, what their issues, some of their issues are. You know, Kevin, I understand that you're struggling with your sales pipeline and your sales team are feeling overwhelmed. There's a lot of data entry there. I understand this, but can you elaborate a little bit more once they've elaborated? Right? That is a crucial moment because everybody wants to talk to you about them. Everybody is happy to speak to you about them. When you ask them a question about their business, right? Let's say you're talking to a CEO, they want to talk about their business. If you're talking to a CMO or you're talking to an exec, or you're talking to someone who's employed, they want to talk about their position, their department, why they're so important. It's natural, it's human instinct. So when you ask that question and you segue into strictly business, but you do it in the most polite manner possible, and they don't even know that you've changed the conversation flow at that stage is when you need to. This is the most important, critical thing, right? This is the most important, critical thing that anybody will ever tell you in sales. You need to be quiet once you've asked those questions. Your only job is to listen to what that individual is telling you. Because when they are talking to you at that exact moment, they are explaining exactly what their problems are and the exact reason why. They've reached out in expanded detail from what they have given you previously. Now with that information is a gold mine inside of there. They're explaining how they have a high sick rate with sales staff and their HubSpot system. You know, nobody knows where the deal is if somebody's off or the round robin system that they're using. Their sales team are arguing because good inquiries always seem to land on a certain person. You hear all of this stuff, right? You hear all of it, everything. And what you'll find 90 of the time is that because you've done your research, you've built the rapport and you're in a good position with the client and they've just opened up to you and you've listened and you've taken that information in. Your only job now is to repeat that back to them, right in it, not read it back to them in a sales oriented way. Use your brain. You're thinking now, okay, so he's got all these issues. I know that we can automate this, this and this. This might be challenging, I've never done that before. But repeat what they've said.

Right?

And by repeating what the individual has said to you, you can't go. You cannot get it wrong. The only way you can get this wrong is if you repeat. If you mention something to them at this stage that they haven't already explained to you as being an issue. And in here, you need to flex your muscles when you're repeating back. So let's say the client comes back with three individual pain points. Let's say it's manual data entry. The sales team aren't following up leads properly and the sales team are arguing that inquiries aren't dispersed efficiently inside the company.

Right?

Divided out like in, in terms of, in terms of their sales reps. Let's say those are the three things. So you have those three things to go off. Well, straight away a light bulb should go off. I'm just gonna draw some of them. And that was not going to look like a light bulb. A light bulb should go off. Is this how a light bulb looks a bit like something else? But I'll do. When it comes down to, when it comes down to the, the light bulb moment, this is where your brain thinks. So they've explained exactly what their issues are. Your brain should be firing everything Inside of it should be firing. Like, how am I going to help this person? It's easy for me from experience to do it. As a beginner, it's going to be very difficult for you to be quiet and listen because all you're going to be focused on is sell it. So you're going to think you need to speak, you need to, you don't, you need to listen, you need to listen. That is how you sell, you listen. And when this light bulb goes off and they've already told you their issues and you know how to solve them, there are many opportunities of how you could sell them at this stage. My one of my personal favorites is to show them the exact solution for another business if I have it. So I'll show them at least part or if it's related to what they have. Like I have a huge amount of HubSpot automations that I can show people. So someone's using HubSpot and I get on a call with them straight away, boom. It doesn't matter what they say to me about HubSpot, I can show them 50 builds, 80 builds, 100 builds. From a HubSpot perspective that will help them save time and increase their appetite for, for automation. Don't go too far from the original points here, but that is important, right? This is effectively your chance of demonstrating your ability to be able to solve their problem. And what they don't want to hear is, oh, I can just do it. They want to see and hear your experience about how you can fix it without gloating. Nobody likes somebody sitting there talking nonsense about how they've done this and this and this and this and this, you will blow them away, you will lose them. Make sure you focus on keeping them activated. Ask them questions at every point. If you show them a flow, if you explain to them a flow, does that make sense? Do you think that would help your system? Like if I could have a two way SMS and email agent that would automatically respond to inquiries for you, conversationally warm them up. And I can see that your business is in the holiday home industry and what you want to find out is what their budget is, where they want their holiday home to be, you know, do they want finance or not? You want these questions? Okay, if I could build an automated flow that could ask all those questions for you and you literally just have a transcript of that sms, an email conversation, would that assist you? Oh yeah, Mike, that would be amazing. Green light, you've done your job. You've, you've, you've, you've got them through to from the building rapport stage. The presentation slash repeating back to them stage has gone extremely well and now comes another obstacle. And it can use the analogy of what I've just mentioned there, right? One of the biggest things that you're going to face during, during a sales call, during an onboarding call, during. Well, not an onboarding, onboarding slash sales call, not an actual onboarding call, but an onboarding slash sales call. The number one thing that you're gonna, you're gonna let me have a drink. Apologies. The number one thing that you're going to run into is that objections are going to start to happen. You're going to be in a position where objections happen naturally with every single sales call. It's very rare you get one that just goes through. There are objections. What are these objections? Well, these objections are their disbelief in either you or the system.

Right.

They don't either. Don't believe what you've said here during your light bulb moment. You haven't captured them strong enough in order to do it because you've led them the right way and you've got the answers and you've given feedback on the correct way to do it.

Right?

And during this, this period of time of objections, this branches out into many, many things. Cost, value, implementation, meaning team usage, replacing of. One of the biggest things you'll see, especially in the AI arena at the moment, is that everybody's scared about, everybody's scared of AI. Like robots are gonna, gonna take their jobs. It's not gonna happen. Like when it comes down to, when it comes down to automation. When it comes down to automation. Automation is designed to assist your team, not leave you in a position where you're, you know, relying 100 on the AI. That's not what we're trying to achieve here, mate. Kev, that's. This is not what we're trying to achieve. What we're trying to achieve is an A90, 95, 98 success, weight moving, hours of time from your business saved. And there have been many, many, many, many, many times, right? There, there has been many, many times when a client has been worried about the implementation, the adaptation of the team, of how they run and run into it. And you say you ask them about that. Well, you already know about their day. So they've told you something, haven't they? You've remembered this information because she's smart, unlike mine just was a minute ago. You remember this information and they've told you that they have to actually manually enter, you know, Manually enter X and you say well if I can, if I can make AI automatically input X, does that wet your appetite? Does that mean that you, you would, you would come on board? Does that mean like if I can, if I can stop that from happening and prove conceptually that it's bulletproof? Because manual entry can be bulletproof. You just need fallbacks. If manually enter that data, they will say yes because they don't want to have to enter that. Can I save you set your 7 to 10 hours a week of manual data entry. How would that feel? It would feel absolutely fantastic, Michael. You won't believe how much that would help me. Well guess what? I can do it. And that's how you get over the implementation. When it comes to objections, this is when it comes to objections it's very objective. Individuals will have different objects objections based off of a lot of individual things. But I'm going to stick with, with these things and I'm also going to put setup cost here set up specifically on its own.

Right.

So from a costing's perspective, right, Cost is a big one. What's it worth to my business? Well, you, you're increasing their average employee profitability per hour. So you can be confident when it comes down to costings that actually I'm going to make your team more efficient. I'm going to stop you off into an employee, another tax member that like for example in the UK you'd have to pay additional national insurance on now etc. Etc. Hiring should be at the bottom of your list, sir. You know, automating and making sure your business is as well oiled as possible, ready for scalability, that should be the focus. So that's where you handle the objections. Cost is about time saved. Do not allow them during this negotiation objection phase to come back to you and come back to you and push you into a corner where it's time versus how much you're paid because you, they're not paying for that time, they're paying for the last 10 years experience that you've got.

Right.

But you should be controlling the flow of the sales call that. Well that this doesn't become a thing, this doesn't become an issue whatsoever. So that leaves you in, in a position where you know, you, you're kind of, you, you, you're kind of in a, in a flow where objection handling effectively is reverse back onto them because of their issues. Well I can fix you X and Y, you know that they're broken or we won't be having this conversation.

Like.

You just Run through it that way. Okay, now let me extend this line somewhat if it's going to allow me. Yeah, lots of drawings on here. Let me get rid of this. And I'm going to extend this line because it does need to be extended. And what we're going to do is we've just gone through the. Come on, be like that. We're playing. You're playing. When it comes to sales, it's cat and mouse. So you're playing a game effectively.

Right.

Fundamentally you should be professional at all times. And you shouldn't need me to tell you this. But like you, you have to have something to offer. If you don't have something to offer, stop watching this video like I don't want you to to. You have to be able to solve these problems first. That's why I am so bullish and approach sales in this way. But this one single line of approach gives you the ability to close deals at a hugely successful rate. And especially. I'll show you something special at the end. But when it gets down to this, we handle the objections, repeat back. So they repeat information. They give us information. We listen. We focus on strictly business. We listen with our ears.

Right?

We listen to the listen and repeat. Objectives will come. Sorry, objection. Objections will come. Whether it be this call on the same call or another one. You want to try and move through their objections as fast as possible. I added setup fee inside of here because in certain services, depends what you're selling. If you're selling AI. If my approach is 50 and then 50 of one completion, I think that's 100% fair on everybody. And I always like to be fair. So 50, 50 for. Especially when you're dealing with large numbers. Like there's a lot of trust either way. If you're doing 100k project like you know, they give you 50k but you've got to do 100k worth of work before they pay you. So it's. It's difficult with this focus and with, with this and every other objection. Focus on your focus on your value. Like never forget your value in this conversation because people will be good negotiators and sometimes they'll try and drive you down on price. They will try to question and query implementation and guess what? Do you know what you need to do on every single sales call? You need to be willing to walk away and forget that it ever happened. And you'll make more sales if you do. Because that confidence that you have when you walk into a sales call with that attitude is, Is contagious. The client can feel it. It's confidence. It's not arrogance. Don't be arrogant, no one. If someone's arrogant with me, I would hang up on them immediately like you. So should you. Don't. It's not arrogance, it's confidence. You're confident. You're confident enough that you can go on and get another sales call. They're coming. It doesn't matter whether this is your first one. You know now that you've got a way to get people on calls, you should go on that call confident that you can deliver their processes. So whatever you've pitched them, as long as it's fair and inside the real world realms of cost ins, you'll be fine. You just do what I said, listen, handle the objections and move from there when it comes down to next steps. So you've handled all of their objections. You've handled from a repetition perspective. You've repeated everything back to them. You get to this stage, then the question is, what's next? So, and this does depend on business, but I'm going to stick strictly to AI. The next step here is for a scope, a scope to happen, a scope slash audit.

Right?

And when it comes down to I can't tell you at the amount of audits I've done, the amount of Google Ads, SEO meta, you know, AI related audits, even company audits, you could, you could argue in my career, the amount of audits that I've done in terms of time would be quite frightening. That would be quite frightening. Let's try and get this better. Still the same the time wise would be quite significant, but it's paid off every single time because it improves your hit rate. You go that one extra, extra step and it all comes back to this key thing that right at the the start and his value. So not only do you add value at the start, you handle the sales call extremely efficiently, right? And then you add value again, going one step deeper. And at this stage, if you get to this point with a sales inquiry along that one line, right, then your ability to close them should be. Well, is significantly higher, factually, like significantly higher. Not only have you provided value before you've got on the call, you've provided value after the call and during it.

Right.

You've also added value here because you've explained to them how you would fix the solutions and etc. Etc. In a very confident yet not arrogant tone, just confident and, and respectful tone. Your brain's light bulb has gone off. You've handled all of their Objections. You've, you've now gone and offered to scope and audit the project. This is great because you now have the opportunity to do many things. One of them being look, let's put, draw some eyes. Let's see if we can draw, draw some eyes. That was a better circle. And they are eyes. I've had some people mention this to me before, that they are eyes, right? They are eyes. So when it comes down to what you're looking at, right, in terms of the approach that we're taking from a, from a perspective of, of the scoping of the audit, we get to look at their three problems not drawn in enough. We get to, we get to zoom, zoom in and have a look directly at their three issues that they mentioned.

Right?

So we have a look at, directly at those. We scope and audit those three things for the client. But guess what? These three issues live inside of a bigger box. And in here is where the magic happens. Because whether it's now or later, you should never oversell. Don't ever try and oversell somebody. They want three of these solutions. Take those three solutions. But you have an opportunity to also cast your eye here.

Right?

And let's do this. Yeah, it's like a lizard. But yeah. You have one eye on their business problems and inside of here there's so they mentioned like sales and nurtured, nurturing handling. But in here you've got HR problems, you've got training problem HR and training, you've got cold outreach. So lead gen, you've got after sales, after sales or after sales, slash upsell opportunities. And all of these things their client doesn't even know is wrong when they originally speak to you. But you get to see it all because you get access to audit. And at that point you audit it all. Okay. And then you make a decision on whether you should, whether you should close that, whether you should pitch that idea or not based off of the conversation you've had with the client. You start with three issues but then you already know the others and then you can go into them later on a long term retainer. You should be setting the long term retainers during your inquiry process. 100. You need to make sure that you're explaining that well, like me, I won't work with someone if it's just a one off build. It's like it needs to be a long term relationship in order for me to work with you. Because that's what I'm looking for. I'm looking, you should be looking at that because you want the Monthly recurring revenue to be guaranteed. Obviously they can leave, but that's very highly unlikely if you deliver a service like mine. So they can leave, but the point is you build up your monthly recurring revenue part without having to go through the sales cycle again. And you can deliver tweaks, optimization, scalable elements inside of their flow, give the client exactly what they need whilst going. Whilst going through it. But something that I have missed. Okay, let's grab all of this. Let's move you all the way up here, right? Let's move you all the way up here. Delete that. Draw this down here. Okay, now from, from a value perspective, you. We've added all of this value. Okay, Now I. This is like a joined line. It could come here or it could come after the scope and audit. Depends what you're selling. It depends where you are. Obviously I'm in the AI arena, so we're probably going to have to put a stop point here during this period. Now, I can't explain to you how important this period is. You, you tell them you, you're in control of the call this entire time. Cannot stress it enough, right? You are leading. Leading doesn't mean speaking. You listen, you pull out the right points. You then speak with authority around what it is that you're trying to. To discuss. You then go away. You get access to scope and audit it. You get sandbox, sandbox access, whatever to audit their flows or they. Or if they don't want to give you access, you would end up producing flows, etc, produce whimsicals, produce flow diagrams of how it's going to look. Make sure you scope the project. I've got a video on scoping that I'll add to the end of this, which is really important because you need to scope a project properly or you end up doing all of the stuff that's inside of this box that I've got on the screen here. Everything inside of this box. You end up doing it for free because you get sucked in by not having clear scopes initially, but for sticking on tasks. Now, because this is the sexy part, right, when it comes down to closing a deal, you let's say this is called two. So this is call two. And you start the call exactly the same way, 30, 220 seconds. And then you ask what their thoughts were. Okay, Kev, so I've gone through and audited your brief. I've put together some whimsicals for you that showcase to it. You confirmed that you'd seen them. I've gone into real detail, like I've gone underneath the hood. I've also come up with a couple of other issues that I've seen whilst in the back end of the business. And those issues in the back end of the business are actually really, really crippling that those teams. You can see the way, you've obviously seen the flow diagrams of this, but can I just ask, the way that I normally kick off this, this second call is to ask for your thoughts on what I've produced. So tell me what you think to the solutions to your problems. Do you think that they. That they. Sol, I think I've hit the nail on the head, but I'd love your opinion on what that is. Silence. You don't say anything after that. You let the inquiry speak. And when the inquiry speaks, you repeat this process, they're gonna have different objections. This time. It's more going to be in relation to cost. Okay, so you've been silent. They have spilled. Is that positive? Is that negative? What did you do wrong? What did they love? What didn't they love? Should you push for the additional work or should you stick to the original work? All of these things come out with you, come out the way I've just given you. The example on the video is a great way to do it. But, you know, you could have mentioned like, I've also added bonus content inside Edge to showcase some other areas you're weak in. But let's stick to this. It depends on your gut and how you feel about the inquiry.

Right.

And the size of the business ultimately, because big businesses want you to fix those problems. Trust me. So in that you do the same rapport building, it's easier than last time. You should have a better understanding about him and you or her. And you should be able to use that as the technique. And once you've asked that for that feedback, you rinse and repeat. So repeat. I promised you it was going to be one line, so it will be. It's just got lots of explanation and drawing alongside it. When it comes down to this, you ask, you wait, let's draw a weight node. You ask, you wait. It's like a weight loop. It's like a loop node inside of N8N. Once it's successful, you carry on, right? And the client answers, if they say they haven't seen it, you've got to switch a task up. You're then presenting, which puts you in a different boat, but you should be comfortable to do it because you built the flows anyway. But this moves us through this. They've at they've told you everything. You've gone through the, the steps that are required, right? You have gone through the, the object objective. I'm not trying to make you seasick. I'm trying to get it the right height so you can see it. Let me check my screen to make sure you can see this. Yeah, so you've got the, the value. Just try and zoom in a little bit more. 39 is too much. Here we are. There we go. So when it comes down to this next stage here, we've repeated the, the with the same level of confidence, with the same dominance. We've answered and batted away their objections because you've done. Remember, this is a call. So what have you done? You've done your research again. So you've researched before the second call and you already know what the objections are because everything in your brain, everything you've got from an automation perspective, it keeps in touch with these inquiries you give. You say your audit will be, will be with you within 48 hours. You do it in 24, so you look like a beast. You send it over. You're then in a position where it's like, okay, you got that call. You get on this second call, you ask them their thoughts. You wait. Once you have the answer from that, there's only two things it can be. I haven't seen it. Presentation, then follow the rest of the video. I didn't like it. Why didn't you like it? What were the issues? These solved your problems. I must have misunderstood you initially because these solved the issues that we spoke out or they like it. In my situation, it must. It's been years since anybody's turned around to me and said that they didn't like the proposal of what you'd put together. It's more about costs. That way they get caught because they're like, you know, well, can I afford it or not? But you're going to get a positive response more often than not. If you don't, you have to use your sales skills and techniques to calm them down. Listen, answer, listen, answer. Listening to your best friend. But once you get to this stage, right? And it comes to closing, okay, Once you get to this stage where closing becomes the, the big, the big, the big thing, right? This is the hardest thing to do for people who don't do it regularly is to close the deal. But for people who do it regularly, it's like Santa, the beach. Because you're confident, it's shown, you've done a good pitch, the conversation has gone well, you've asked their thoughts, they're giving you the green light. Everything looks, looks good. You talk them through the flows naturally. You just explain, basically, not a full presentation, as if, like I haven't seen it, but you explain like, this solves this amount of time. This is going to save you X amount of time. You know, this is gonna, this is gonna save you X amount of time. So you work it all out and you've pitched it, as in it's gonna save you 100 hours a week or whatever, 80 hours a week. You then say to the client, so you would be happy to move forward with the proposal based off of what I've put together. The only thing we need to discuss is commercials. The answer is yes or it's no. Silence again. Wait for them to answer. It can only go one way. If it's no, dig deeper into no. If it's yes, now's now. Showtime. Now I'm going to give you some advice I don't need. But whoever blinks first loses. Okay? If you go silent and they go silent and you blink and you speak, you have lost. When you ask them a direct question, you've asked the question, so you're waiting for an answer. There's no reason to ask anything else. Don't feel the awkward silence. Don't feel the awkward silence. Just spend some time looking at them, looking in the eye. Look at the flows. Maybe if they're on the screen. Just keep your attention. Just wait for them to answer you.

Right?

Yeah, they'll say yes quite quickly. Most of the time, to be honest, it won't be. This won't be the sticking point here. Right? Here is where the sticking point comes. And this is where money is discussed. And this is always the backbreaker. And there are many variables that come into this. Who are you talking to?

Right.

So if you're talking to the executive, the chief executive officer, you can make a decision so you don't have to worry. If you're talking to a marketing executive, he's got to go away, get permission for the values, etc, you should always try and go as high up the field as physically possible. Something I do in my life now is dumb out who it is, what it is, whatever I'm doing. I try to go straight for the person that's accessible, that's in the highest position because I know that it's going to get me my answers faster. And that's just what I do in life in general. I go for the try and aim for the highest person to speak to and I advise that you take the same approach. So you know, you can't always do that with an inquiry. But the point is, is you go there during this sales call, they've probably brought on the decision maker because it should, you should have done your job and primed it as an onboarding call. Explain that. Like on the next call, we'll make a decision whether we're going to move forward. This, when it comes down to money, this is another thing that you really need to do. And this is a bit of an emotional thing because you need to always.

Always.

Remember and you're going to stick with me while I do this. Remember your value. This, this here is exactly, is number one. It doesn't matter how much money someone puts on the table.

Right?

The way that I approach it is that I'm nobody's dog. Like I'm nobody's pet. So if you remember your value, remember you are nobody's pet. You can't be bullied around in these arenas. And that is something which is very, very, very hard to do, especially if you're a newcomer. But it's something that, yeah, I have had calls walk away during this period where I could have made some profit by taking them at a lower cost, but I remember what my time was worth and my time, what my time is worth is what I've quoted you, but I've kind of said that in the incorrect way. It's not about your. Your value doesn't come from your time. It's your, it's the. What I should have said is it's like your time spent historically. It's like your, your search history. It's your, it's your history. Your what? Everything that took me to get to this stage at this point right now, you cannot punish me for being inefficient if I was for being efficient.

Right.

And pay people more when they're inefficient. Doesn't work like that. The way that it works is that I'm best in class at what I do so I can deliver you the best quality service that you require.

Right.

This is how much it's going to cost you. I can knock it out of the pot, but I've had three other quotes and they are less than half the price of yours. Well, that's because they're doing half the work. They don't know how to scope a job out properly. And you're going to be, you know, falling into that category, unfortunately, that puts you where you know, you, you know, you do it right. Pay once you do it wrong, you pay twice and it's, it rings true across all of this. But the key under underlying message is to remember your value at all times, whether it's your first client or your last. Never forget how much you are worth like inside because that mindset will convert more clients than it will scare off and it will give him the, your ability. Now I'm not saying you can't be flexible on pricing, right. When it comes down to this, especially if you're early on, you're going to quote something lower and the chances of this happening is probably a lot less than what you've, than what you used to or maybe not know what you're used to, but a lot less than what you're, you're, you know. Well later on when you're quoting bigger retainers to mid sized companies and they need, need coercing into the. Okay, I say coercing except you should it never. You never, you're not coercing anyone. You're just sort of trying to make them understand that's not what you're trying to do because you can solve their problems. I said right at the start of this video, if you can't solve their problems, stop watching, walk away because of that. So on that sales call, you eventually ultimately pitch them on a value. I can fix this for seven and a half thousand dollars.

Or.

$1,500 or whatever. You've quoted them 50% up front plus 50% on completion.

Right.

And that's it. And it would go like this. Me a moment. Right, Kev. So we've gone through this now. Thank you for the feedback about what I've put together in terms of the, the whimsical and the flow diagrams and stuff and that we're in agreement that it will help the business. Ultimately. That's what we set out to do. We set out to help the business generate more inquiries and that is critical to, to this. So moving on. Obviously the final thing that we've got to discuss is the commercials like you've said. Yes. And you agree that these, these solutions are going to, going to help the business. Obviously there's a lot of input and impact from my side that comes into this. Not only am I spending a lot of my own time on the individual project, I have a lot of experience in the field so I can make sure that it's built properly, but I also have to deliver the scope of work in eight weeks. And I think the best way for us to approach this is by looking at the commercial value Looking at the, the, the time frame that you want it delivered in and then, and then pulling this out. My quote for me to be able to fix all these issues for you and to save you those 100 hours is 7,500usd and the terms of that are 50 up front, 50 upon completion, makes it fair for everybody and then everybody's protected. But that seven and a half thousand dollars is for the exact scope of work that, that I've provided for you previously. Everything you see will be complete. It will be fully deployed into the business and I will be available for two weeks after to ensure that everything is, is running. But if I'm being honest with you Kev, my job and my aim is to get long term clients on long term retainers because when I get you on a long term retainer it allows me to have the most impact to the business. Like we're hitting some of your core and key points up front here. But over the course of the next three years, businesses that don't leverage AI are going to go extinct. You're going to want a partner in that journey and I want to be that partner. So 7 and a half thousand USD 50 up from 50% upon completion. What do you think, Kev? Silence. You don't say anything. You wait, you wait till they respond. One of the key things here as well that you can do is you can watch their behavior and you will know if you've over or underquoted very quickly. But over and under quoting isn't necessarily, doesn't necessarily mean you should quote every project on its merit. Like I have morals. Like I quote every project on its merit. I'm not here to scam anybody like, and I never have done ever in my entire life. I am here to generate revenue from businesses that are looking to pay for a service that's a fair reflection of my time. So I know that's why I can be confident about remembering my value understanding when, during negotiations when this, this period hits. And I've quoted, I've not, I've done my research. I know how long it's going to take me. I know that I want to make effectively $3,000 profit out of the project because the other four and a half thousand is my time or I want to make four and a half thousand out of the project because the other 3,000 is my time, whatever it is, right? You, you, you know that already. I know I can provide the value. So you sit there and you wait and when I tell you, you let your dinner go cold until they answer Right. You do not go anywhere. You read the room, you watch the response.

Right?

Couple of key and core tips, reminders. If they say yes immediately, like right off the bat, like I'm talking, instantly you've underquoted. So you, you've done. There's an issue with your scoping. Either that or the client just really, really firmly believes in you, which can happen, like that can be fine. But I, I would get a bit nervous if someone's saying yes immediately to you during the sales process because you're probably biting off more than you can chew, or the client's expectations are more than they can chew. And you probably want to remind them that it's only what's in the whimsical and what's in the flow diagrams that we're going to be building. When it comes down to that conversation of that sort of standoff that no man's land of asking them about the pricing, you just look directly at them and you wait and you read the room, you read the, the eyes tell you everything you need to know, right? If you're looking at somebody, you can tell everything. If I'm emotional, you can see. If I'm angry, you can see. And you don't see by throwing tantrums as like 5 year olds. You see because you look at my eyes, you see how, you see how angry I am. That's why. And it's the same thing when it comes to sales. Read the eyes, read the person. If they look shot by the, by the quote, it's on you. Do you negotiate a lower quote that, that, that fee, but they're going to tell you back the issue. Well, that's way more expensive than what I expected. Well, do you know what, Michael? That's a little bit more than what we were hoping open to pay. You have a decision at this point of what to make. Do you stand your ground? Do you stay firm or do you look at being flexible with your pricing? That's that all of those decisions are for you. But you don't blink. You wait. They answer. It's either a yes or a no or some long busted. Is that a word? Some long drawn out. Is that a word? I need to find out Some, some long drawn out process of, long drawn out process of, of, of of steps of like their concerns. But that's okay. There's no, there's no issue. All that does is effectively extend this line a little bit longer.

Right?

The closed deal just takes it, it just gets stretched. That's all that happens. The closing, the Closing is getting stretched out because the client's not in a position to move forward. There's a few things I'll share with you at the end, but you get to this point, the client says yes, you've closed the deal, money's in the bag, right? You get the agreement signed. All this should be automated contracts over, you know, you've got the little agreement drawn up. Let me know if you guys would like a template and that's draw up an agreement for an AI solution or any of the sales sort of processes here. I can give this, I can give stuff away for free. I need you guys to tell me who's watching what you want because I can't give it you unless you do. So comment below and let me know. But you draw up the contracts, you get them signed, you've won a client. But remember the key steps around here and here, all inside of here, where you're listening and repeating, there is one important thing and it's all about long term. So sales is a big thing because you want them on a long term retainer. Fixing their issues now is just a temporary fix. It's a plaster actually. Keeping ahead of AI solutions. You're going to want to do that. You're going to want to make sure that you remember that your retainer is going to be related to the amount you charge them to set the whole thing up. One of my favorite approaches is to offer a specific set number of new flows to be built every month. So like if it's one flow, it's this, if it's two, it's that. If it's free, it's that. And it depends on how big aggressive the business is of which one they will choose. And it leaves you in a position of being able to do it. But ultimately at that point you've closed them. Now if you don't close them, you should have an automated funnel that follows them up, chases them up. Sometimes there are decisions to be made. Corporates will not especially like working with corporates with the most amount of money in the planet, millions in cash reserves will take time to make a decision because it impacts the business. It's important. This is invasive. You let somebody in on the inside that's going to restructure things for their whole teams and departments. It's invasive. You have to understand that. You have to understand the human nature of it. But during that sales process, you have to put your foot down. You have to make sure that you're in a strong position from a closing point of view. And Ask them if they're happy to move forward. And when you ask them with that agreement, as I've just sort of demonstrated, ask them if they're ready to move forward. If they say yes, get the contract to get your automated flow going. That gives the contract over, it's the invoice over to get them signed immediately, 50% up front, 50 upon completion. That's the only fair way to do it. A couple of tips from me. If you're getting to your closing stage and you're every. Every inquiry you're speaking to, you're struggling to close, that means one of two things. You're either not selling properly, should record every sales call and watch it back. You'll see issues of where you went wrong. Even I do it all the time. I watch them back. Like I see where I went wrong, where I missed an opportunity. Should I say that's the big. That's the big one. And the second one is where you're getting your inquiries from, which is often slept on. They think the close rate is the issue, but is it the quality of the inquiry? That's the issue. That's for you to decide. I've just taken you through step by step how you can close over 100 million in deals. I use that exact process workflow myself in order to do so. If you like this sort of content. If you want me to tap into the sales side more, I can go a lot deeper than what I have in this video. Like comment, subscribe, let me know, let me know if you want copies of templates and stuff that I use when I'm sending projects out. Maybe you want example whimsicals and stuff, things of flow diagrams that I've produced. Whatever it is, I don't know, can't give it you unless you ask. Like subscribe and I'll catch you on the next one. Cheers, guys. Thank you.