30 Years Of Influence And Persuasion Experience In 40 Minutes

This episode is everything that I've learned about influence, persuasion and enrolling high ticket clients. It's 30 years of my experience in about 40 minutes. So if you've ever wondered how do you charge 50,000, 250,000, $500,000 or more for a soft service or go from getting paid for doing to knowing to actually being and then also going through the enrollment process. So what's the process? What kind of questions you have to ask for people to raise their hands and say, I've been looking for someone just like you. I already know I want to work with you. How do we start working together and do that in one or two calls instead of the usual 7 to 20 some connections or touch points. So all that and more and how to go from face to face to virtualized, digitized and dematerialized businesses and be able to scale that with your sales team and more in this episode of Capability Amplifier.

Hey, this is Mike Koenigs and welcome to another episode of Capability Amplifier. This time you'll notice that no one is sitting with me. I'm going to do a solo episode today and this is going to be an episode where I'm going to pack over 30 years of my experience selling over $60 million worth of products and services online and face to face and scaling them as well as in one episode. So I'm going to give you as much value as I possibly can. And some of the things that we're going to talk about in this one is really how I have been working with Dan Sullivan doing something we call the free zone frontier. If you're not familiar with that, definitely check out the what is the free zone frontier In a previous episode. The short version of this is Dan and I started a project. The whole idea is he wants to generate a minimum of a hundred leads per week for the sales team that are pre qualified hand raisers who want to enroll in one of the three programs. He also wanted me to be able to teach and make this system in this content available to other members of Strategic Coach. And all of this came from a moment that he and I had together that we called the Civitas moment. That is also another episode we called the best pitch you've ever heard. If you haven't listened to that, definitely check it out. But here's the short version. The equivalent of saying I love you in the world of sales and marketing is for someone to show up and say, I already know I want to work with you. How do we start working together? And it feels like I'VE been looking for someone just like you forever. Our timing is perfect. I'm ready to go. And in the old days of traditional sales, we know that it takes X number of follow ups, X number of connections, et cetera, et cetera, to close a deal. I say BS to that. I think it's important to get your marketing and your messaging nailed and be able to create a replicable and a scalable system and also to use automation to do that. So what I'm going to do inside this episode is guide you through really all the most important stuff that I am doing with Dan. I do with a lot of my clients when I work with them with the Superpower Accelerator. And I'm going to give you some actionable steps. In fact, one of the things that I'm going to share with you is a cheat sheet. It's a hot sheet that goes over all of these concepts. It's organized and structured. And I'll tell you how to get that right now so you can get prepared. And that is, and I do this all the time when I am working with a client. This is step number one, critically important. As soon as you connect with someone, if you're not talking to them on or through their mobile phone, let's say you're doing an enrollment through zoom or you're on a traditional landline, I will say, hey, if it's okay with you, I'd like to record our session together. This way you can use this. You'd be able to rewind, go over it again. If you want to share this information with someone else, I'm also going to give you a real time transcript. Would that be helpful? I've never had anyone say, no, that wouldn't be helpful. I'll say, well, in case we get disconnected, why don't you just give me your mobile number right now and I'm going to text you my direct contact information. That way, as soon as we're done, I'm going to text this information to you. Well, they're blown away with the idea that they get a transcript and a video. And of course I have got a legitimate reason to engage with someone with mobile and I'm providing value first, which is another critically important to this process. So what I'm going to do right now is give you a number that you can text and, and you can text this. It's basically text the word value V A L U E to the number 858-43-45316. That's also in the notes that I'm providing you. And you'll get a link that goes to all of the notes, the show notes, the exact same ones that I'm using to do this show for you right now. And you're going to see how this process works. Okay? So that is a simple automated system. I'll tell you more about that as we move along. So let's get into the meat of the conversation here, which is big idea number one. Beyond the transaction and over to the transformation. Now, it is my opinion that no matter what product or service you're selling, whether it's business to business or B2C, B2B, you are selling a transformation and not doing a transaction. And that mindset alone is the single most critical part about doing higher ticket elevated sales. Being in a zone where I like to work with people and help them craft premium offers that are three to 10 times more than anything they've ever done before. Now if that might sound impossible to you, it isn't. It's all about positioning, it's about packaging. It's also about crafting a great message and also putting some sort of prestige inside here, some mystique. Okay? And every business is capable of this. I don't care what industry you're in. So that requires you being in a different mindset, a different level of self worth and self value. In other words, you are going to attract exactly who you deserve based upon the words that come out of your mouth, the messages in your marketing and how something is positioned. And the way to get yourself into a mode is to think about being values driven all the time. What I call a servant mindset, that in itself isn't unique, but putting yourself in the servant mindset and realizing that you aren't delivering a product or a service or some sort of a deliverable or some sort of fulfillment. You are in the business of delivering a before, during and after experience and a transformation. And that's why I talked about going beyond the transaction into the transformation. And the best way of doing that in this one concept, if you can fully embrace this and embed it into your full being, is turning your delivery into creating and capturing irrefutable proof of an experiential transformation. And I'm going to repeat that again because it is so freaking important. It's turning delivery into creating and capturing irrefutable proof in an experiential transformation. So for example, when you are part of Strategic Coach, you've got signature program, you have the 10x program, and then you've got what's known as the free zone frontier. Those are the different tiers of membership. Now, when you are at the Signature program, you are learning a new vocabulary. For example, you're learning a new way of thinking. You're getting exposed to a whole bunch of tools, a new mindset, also a way of managing your time and the big outcome. What Strategic Coach is promising is freedom. What Dan calls the four freedoms. Freedom of time, freedom of money, freedom of relationship, and freedom of purpose. Those are all soft concepts. But every step of the way, every quarter, when you meet, you're being introduced to these concepts and, and you're experiencing little transformations. And it is very common for someone to have an idea or two and then be given a tool that they can bring home. And by implementing that one or two small things, a transformation occurs and you wind up with an extra day off a week, for example, or a bump in your income. But here's what's most important. Most of these people, most members, experience the transformation before implementation. And that's really what an experiential transformation is like. Much like in the world of weight loss, for example. This is an old story I heard many, many times, but it's about the number of people who would buy hiking books, for example, or camping books, or weight loss books or any kind of book. And they'd buy the book and they'd never read it and they never do what's in the book. But the act of buying felt like a commitment. It felt like the first step towards a transformation. And who are you to judge where someone experiences their transformation? And I have experienced this myself where I had had people who had enrolled in huge programs with me and never finished them. Now they're good people, but the experience of investing in knowing they'd be accepted was enough of a transformation for themselves, as crazy as it sounds. And if you've been in the business of providing services, you know that there's a certain number of people who complete. They might have the best of intentions or they'll be like, nah, I'm good. One interaction was enough for them to experience a transformation. And those that I know who get really, really focused on saying, oh, I'm so frustrated because my client doesn't X that is an attachment that you have without understanding the transformation that they really bought. So just to kind of wrap this up, here's again what is really, really important. I said this in the very beginning. Your own mindset of self worth and self value in getting exactly who you deserve as a customer is a direct reflection of your ability to really understand what it is you are delivering and what experience, what transformation they're actually buying. And the only way to properly understand that is in understanding and capturing the irrefutable proof of what someone experiences. That's why it's so important to capture a testimonial along the way. Now, in another episode, I will actually teach you my mechanism and my methodology for capturing testimonials and being able to reflect that message back to your perfect ideal customer. But the bottom line is understanding that your own mindset will affect your ability and your willingness to ask for what you are worth. Okay? And all that is again, embedded in rethinking what it is you're delivering. So the next thing that is critically important is again, no matter what it is you're delivering, I don't care if it's an Apple computer or a car or a trip or a vacation, or what category it is that you fulfill and deliver. And I've got a framework for that in a moment is having a framework, right? So what I found is that the easiest way to create trust with a prospect that wants to invest with you, or a customer who has already made a commitment, or someone who's going to become, after the transformation has occurred, become a referrer. Which is the best way to know if you're doing a great job and they make introductions to you for other people who they believe can have a transformation as well, is to be able to communicate the fact that you have a framework. So some sort of a system, five step system, a ten step system. So whenever I'm working with someone, I make certain that we can communicate that as succinctly as possible. So, for example, the framework that I use is four steps. It's market model, message, medium. Now what do those mean? Well, first of all, the market, meaning you need to know who your ideal client or customer is. And then your model is, what's the offer you're going to be providing them? In my case, I always make sure it's three to ten times the most expensive product in the marketplace. That's the premium offer. And then the message is, what is the story that that market needs to hear in order to raise their hands and have what Dan and I call the Civitas moment. The I already know I want to work with you. I just have a couple of questions. It seems like I've been looking for someone just like you forever. Our timing couldn't be better. Okay, that is the message. The medium is how are they receiving it? In other words, are they going to read it Are they going to listen to it, are they going to watch it? Or are they going to, I don't know, have it psychically transplanted into their brain, for example, whatever it may happen to be. But knowing that I can carry someone and bring them through a process in that transformational framework is what gets them to say, ah, this is awesome. So I'll give you a for example, this is a framework example that we're doing with Strategic Coach right now in the free zone frontier. We've identified, for example, that there are about eight different industry types that invest in Strategic Coach. Now again, I'm making some big boxes, generalizations here, but for example, there's financial advisors, there's insurance, there's manufacturing, there's professional services, there's real estate, there's coaches, consultants and advisors. And then there might be banking and then there's technology based companies, software, service, and then there's other ones as well. So if you're one of those people, for example, you'll fit in the other. We also know that there are two clear distinctions mindsets that pop up here. One of them are quick starts. Those are people on the Colby scale who fit into the quick start category, make a decision based on gut. I'm a quick start, for example. And those who are fact finders, those who want to know all the details up front before they make a decision, they hesitate, they ponder, they might take days or weeks to make up their mind where quick start, boom, just tell me what I need to know and I'm ready to go. And I want to get the result, I want to get the transformation. Other people in my experience who are fact finders are much more process oriented. They want to know every detail what they're going to be doing in order to make a decision and feel comfortable, can't treat one the same way as the other. So their buying instincts and buying behaviors are different. Okay, so the whole point is there is a mechanism for guiding someone through that process and capturing the stories in a way that can influence and persuade. Now there's something else that's really, really important, which is if your framework or your system works really, really well every time someone's going through it. Again, this could be the receiving a computer and opening up a box. That is a framework, that is a system, that is a delivery. Apple is amazing at that because everything's boxed and packaged a certain way. It smells good, it feels good, there's something magical about the opening process. I think Amazon does the same thing. But ideally your system, your process sells people into your program and keeps it in them as well. So for example, one of the ways that I sell people into my service is actually teach them my framework. I talk about it and I openly describe what we're doing in real time. So they experience a transformation and an aha going through it. And therefore they want the whole experience as a result of that. And I've learned that from a long time ago when I used to teach and I used to present and sell from stage. So here's another very, very important part, and this is critically important, anytime you're selling a bigger ticket offer or a product, is that you are projecting your audience into a hero's journey. Okay. Donald Miller has a book called Story Brand, for example, one of the oldest, oldest concepts in the world, but it's a happily ever after story. So what you want to do is project your prospect or customer into a future paced version of them after having a transformation. So I'm going to give you the best example of this, which is also known as the Dan Sullivan question. It's what the sales team at Strategic Coach is taught to do. I've used a variation of this before I even knew about Dan. Now I like his better, which is he asked the question, if you and I were sitting here three years from today, what needs to happen both professionally and personally for you to feel satisfied with your progress or happy with your progress? Now I do a variation of that where I say, now let's say you and I started working together today and I show you how to increase your prices three to ten times. I help you craft an amazing story that attracts right fit clients and customers to you raising their hands who are already pre qualified and ready to buy and show you a means of automating that process to bring you consistent, high quality, high value clients in a way that's scalable and replicable. So if we did that and we were meeting three years from, so then that's basically what we do. So you build the transformation into the story and allow someone to imagine what life will be like in the future.

Most entrepreneurs, in my experience, virtually all of them are very future paced. And we love the future. We love the idea of transformation and we certainly love to hear stories about our favorite subject and that's us. Okay, so when someone gets to paint a picture of a movie they're participating in, they're going to be raising their hands and saying, yes, I want that. So the whole idea again is presenting your client, giving them an opportunity to craft a movie starring them as the hero where you are the chosen mentor, advisor, Yoda, guru, whatever that is. You are the chosen one, the leader with a magic formula, a magic wand, which is your system, it's your framework and they can see themselves in that. Let me give you another powerful framework that I use. And I learned this from one of my mentors years ago. It's called the Mary Kay formula. And the Mary Kay formula is a three step system. And every time you're having a conversation with someone, you've got to project your prospect and allow them to project them into having experienced success. In other words, a mini transformation before the purchase. And it is, is it easy? Does it work and will it work and can I do it or will it work for me? I'll repeat that again. Is it easy? Does it work and can I do it or will it work for me or will it work in my business? If you answer those three questions in a way that resonates, you're going to have a yes. How do we do it? Well, we go back to the first thing I brought up, which is the notion of capturing irrefutable proof. In my experience, if I can share with someone 1, 2 or 3 transformational experiences with someone just like the person I'm talking to, they're going to nod their head and say, yep, this sounds great. Because it makes it easy for them to project themselves into the movie of their own transformation with you or your brand or your business as the guide. Let me give you another framework that I use now. It turns out virtually every product and service, there are no exceptions that I can think of fall into one of three categories and it is get paid or selling money at a discount. The next one is get laid or become more attractive to an audience, a member of the opposite sex. It's a status sale or live forever. In other words, you're giving someone higher quality lifestyle, get paid, get laid, live forever. It's super easy to remember. And what I've learned is that every product or service has a primary that they're focused on. So if I were going to again use Strategic Coach as an example, the big thing that I believe Strategic Coach sells is freedom and lifestyle, okay? Which in a way is a blend of all three. So freedom and lifestyle is work on your business, not in your business, have a lot more time off, have the four freedoms, freedom of time, money, purpose and relationship. All of those combined certainly fit into someone's interpretation of get paid. In other words, make more money, get laid. In other words, be more attractive. It's a status sell. If you don't have to work as much and you're making more money and you have a higher quality of life, that is lifestyle, and then live forever. Well, if you aren't so stressed and you're not working in your business all the time, you're going to have a higher caliber and quality of life. Here's what's important about that. Once you really understand that framework, that category, and you can appeal to all or any one of those and know what message to share with your ideal audience at any given time, boom. It makes it so much easier for them to raise their hands and buy. All right, let me give you another little framework. It's sell the hole, not the drill. Sell the sizzle, not the steak. But here's the most important thing about that particular framework. Whenever I'm listening to someone, I say, so tell me about your business. What do you do? They'll start out and say, well, I've got an eight step system that lasts for 12 weeks. And I'm like, no, that sucks. Here's why no one wants to buy work, no one wants to buy steps. It's like, what do you get when you go through the steps? In fact, if you're selling money at a discount, if you can sell time compression, then you got a lot better sales. What I say is I will guide you in 48 hours through a transformational experience where you walk out with a better understanding of your perfect client or customer. A story that's going to attract them and bring them to you and be replicable and automatable. A premium offer that's three to 10 times higher than anything that you've sold before, and the clarity and confidence to talk about it right away and getting featured in a major publication in 48 hours. And that's something that most people never do in their entire lives or it would take them six to 18 months to do on their own, if ever. Right? It's a pretty attractive offer. I am not selling work. I'm saying you show up in a conversational way, I'm going to get you to the promised land, okay? That's the transformational experience. So being able to communicate that you get the whole without the work and you get it instantaneously. You think, magic button, silver bullet, magic wand, or unicorns pooping gold dust all over you, bringing you wealth and riches for the rest of your life. Yes, that's an exaggeration, but that is what all of our brains are tuned to want and love, even though the majority of us are cynical. But deep inside if you've crafted a story where someone gets to experience them in a transformational movie about them with a guide who has a system, they're much more open to hear this possibility and push away the cynicism because deep inside we all want to believe as long as you're doing it ethically, this is a framework to get you there. All right, so what I will also share with you is that what I typically do. And again, there's a variety of frameworks for the sales process. I'm going to just give you an overview of one of them. So the Dan Sullivan process, which is taught inside Strategic coach, it's called the DOS system. All the salespeople are taught this. It's something that's extremely powerful. So it's dangerous. Opportunities and strengths, the way this is framed. And again, inside the conversation, you open up with the Dan Sullivan question, which again is a future paced version of you in a beautiful happily ever after story. What are the dangers that you're facing right now in your life and your business? What opportunities do you have facing you or in front of you right now that are great, that you're excited about, or the ones that you can't take advantage of because, because, because, because, because it's for some reason, there's always a reason why we can't. And then strengths. Tell me about your strengths. Dan Sullivan calls it your unique ability. For years I've called it your superpowers. All basically the same thing. It's if you could spend 100% of your time doing one thing, what would it be? Okay. Again, all those are transformational, future paced questions. Now, when you are armed with the answers to those, it is extremely easy to craft a transformational experience starring your prospect inside of them. And with the right amount of tweaking, the right amount of capturing transformational stories that you send all of your clients through and being able to replay them back in video or storytelling format, one of those is going to resonate with the heart, the soul and the mind of a right fit prospect. All right, so I think there is something else which is I don't think this will bother most people who are watching this or listening to it right now. But if you are a person who's just starting out, never had a business, have been surviving on wages for a long time, you gotta spend your time and put in your dues and change the way you think. In other words, a $10 skill set is not going to get you to the promised land quickly, but the way to get there is by taking what I'm sharing right now and sell for someone else who does have a transformational experience or a journey that is high value. And being able to learn how to listen and tell these stories and present the transformational experience equips you to be incredibly valuable. I happen to be of the mindset that every organization should be driven by its sales first and foremost. And you can talk about culture, you can talk about values every step of the way. I think they're the byproduct of great leadership. And without sales, none of that can exist in the first place. So it's nice to be an idealist, but idealists can be broke idealists who never get anything done. So it's my opinion that being able to craft that right fit story, the sales are what you're doing face to face and one on one. Marketing is everything that happens to line up the perfect sale. And I would rather be a marketing driven organization. But without sales, it's hard to have a marketing driven organization as well. That's just a philosophical construct for you. I shared with you the concept of money phone. Now, the reason I shared that with you earlier, first of all, is I wanted to again give you an opportunity to get this framework if you're enjoying this. And I know I'm moving along quickly right now. And you want the framework so you can follow along with this and review it later on along with the transcript of what I'm sharing with you right now. Make sure you pull out your mobile phone and text the word value to 858-434-5316. It's 858-434-5316. I'm gonna give you one more big concept, and it is about influence. So in order to influence and persuade, and I see this in a lot of youngsters and in a lot of people who positively suck at marketing and sales, they do one of two things. I could probably pick on a hundred of them, but these are the two big ones. One of them is when I ask them, so, who's your market? They'll say, well, it's everyone. And I'll say, you suck. Okay? Because there's no such thing. And everyone's friend is no one's friend. I don't know about you, but I always hated the teacher's pet. Teacher's pet pretends to be your friend and then they're going to narc you out first chance they get in order to kiss the teacher's butt. Okay? They're absolutely untrustworthy. And I think humans are inherently distrustful of someone who tries to be everyone's friend. It's just not possible. But polarization has an immense amount of power. That doesn't mean you have to be a jerk to anyone. But I think it's critically important that you know how to attract and repel the right fit people. But here's the reason I brought that up in the first place. You need to learn to communicate to an audience of one and tell a story to a perfect one so that more like them will be attracted to you. And once you nail one, then you move on to the next one and the order of preferences. Someone who is most likely to succeed is a check writer with plenty of funds and has ideally invested in products and services like the one you've sold before, so they already understand the potential transformation. In other words, the best people you want to sell coaching services to are people who bought a lot of coaching in the past. So sell to your competitors, customers, and that makes your life so much easier. And then you go on down the line. But the next big idea is that I see people projecting their own projections and their own desires to the client. And this is again why we circle back to my original concept that your job is to deliver transformational experiences and to capture those as social proof, the before, during and after. And here's what's critically important. And here's how I do an enrollment conversation. I open up with the conversation and someone reaches out and says, hey, Mike, really want to talk to you about crafting my message, getting my offer out there, creating a premium brand. I'll say, great. I'll ask them if they've watched, like my initial video, which gets them in the right mindset. And they know what this is about. They've provided an application. So I've researched them. I know something about them. And by the way, my sales pro does this for me now, so I don't have to do all of it. It's been replicated. But what is important is I have listened to lots of people go through this and I listen to them very carefully. And at the very beginning, I ask their permission, is it okay if I record this session? And if you can give me your mobile number, if I don't have it already, I text them my contact info. And then I say, if you'd like, I'll give you a transcript of this too. I use a tool called Otter AI. It's O T T E R A I. And I turn on my transcription with them in real time. And then I ask questions. Now I carefully am Reading what they're saying while I'm listening. And I also have a history of talking to a lot of other people. Now, this is the most important part of this at all. I never project and use my language and my words to describe their experience. I use their words and their terminology and their phraseology and that of other people who have paid for my services in the past. And I reflect that back to them perfectly when I describe what the experience is going to be like. And this is why someone will say, oh my God, I've never talked to someone who understood me so well. It's not about me understanding you. It's about me reflecting back to you what I hear in a way that you understand in a way that is appealing to your own values. So the point of this is, if I were to project my desires and my wants on them, I immediately lose my ability to influence. Okay? And I have seen that happen time and time again. They're like, I don't understand why I'm not closing. And without exception, either they don't have any transformational stories that are meaningful to share, or they're projecting on the prospect. And I will also say that we live in a world right now where feelings matter more than facts, where politically correct BS has an enormous amount of power and to me it's a form of psychic violence. But I will also tell you that people will interpret you projecting on them as being tone deaf. It is in fact somewhat the same. So the fastest way to create peace is to ask great questions, reflect back to the other individual in their own language, in their own words, and based on their own values. What you heard in painting a future paced story of them as the hero inside of it. So as soon as you judge, you lose the ability to influence and persuade. And projection is the same as judgment. It's nuanced, but it's still the same. So here's what I want to do. I'm going to summarize this for you right now. But before I do that, what I'd like to ask you for is if you've enjoyed this episode, please head on over to Capability Amplifier. You can leave me or Dan a voice message there. Also head on over to itunes and give this stars. And please leave a comment. And if you can think of one or two people who you think could benefit from this, either on your team, in your business, a friend, a business associate, maybe someone in a high level group that you belong to who could benefit from this conversation, share it with them. That's one of the best ways that we can grow as well. So now I'm going to get into the summarization. So number one, you can get the notes to this entire thing by texting the word value to 858-434-5316. You'll also see how I do communications now with my team. This by the way, I will reveal the tool that I'm using to do this inside the show notes. That's a little incentive to go there. So number one, focus on the changing from transaction to transformation. Know that all persuasion and influence is based upon a future focused version of your audience's transformation and in my mind, a transformational experience. Because every product is embedded within it, a transformational experience and you want to project your customer, your prospect, into the future paced version of themselves using your product and service. The way to gain trust and confidence in you and your product and service is to show that there is a framework, one that delivers clarity and leads that individual to the promised land. And everyone buys clarity, a plan and a guide. And what we all want is the good life, the promised land. And deeply embedded into our psyches is a story. It is the transformational journey, the hero's journey as Joseph Campbell called it. It's also what is known, if you look it up in Wikipedia, as what's known as the chronic Christ myth. In other words, every biblical, whether it's Christian biblical stories or any other stories based upon that, the story of the Buddha, for example, in Hindu traditions, there's multiple variations, many, many Native American traditions, many stories that have predated Christianity. I believe that we are just wired at our core to believe in polarity, in other words, good and evil, the promised land, the good life, just by the nature of being a soul set inside a physical body. And when you learn to communicate on a multi dimensional plane, appealing to all of these states of mind and states of being, you have unbelievable influence, persuasion and control of a conversation. And the only ask I have for you is is that you use this knowledge in a way that's values driven, that delivers value in transformations and transformational experiences. And don't abuse the privilege of these tools. So my name is Mike Koenigs. I hope you've enjoyed this episode of Capability Amplifier. Please again leave comments. Share this with your friends. Give it a five star rating on itunes and stay tuned for the next episode.