Sabri Suby made over a million cold calls and shares his opening line: "Congratulations, you've been selected." He explains how sales skills work everywhere, from courting his wife to upgrading flights, and why conviction and directness matter more than you think.
Amanda Sabri Subhi joins me now in the studio. I really look at business as an incredible vehicle to really like make good and make change in the world. You know, doing sales and you know, for me that was just a huge, huge turning point in my life. Like I am going to, I often joke about, but, but it's true. I've got two daughters, right, both under the age of four and, and they are both going to be doing, selling. As soon as they can speak, they're on the telephones asking strangers for money. And the reason why is that just teaches you so much about people, about what motivates people. And you know, it didn't stop with me in that sales job. Like I went, I moved over to London, I used to work in call floors with 200 people on them, you know, and calling people from all over the world. And when, you know, I've made over a million cold calls in my life. And when you do that, you learn so much and you learn so much about people of all different races, ages, genders. And it's just like that in the trenches, down in the dirt, experiences of doing like research, of speaking with literally thousands, hundreds of thousands of people throughout my career. And that is just, that's just a lesson that I was very fortunate to have at the time. I didn't know it because it really felt like I was just getting my teeth kicked in all day long. But it's just having the ability to communicate and persuade is really the cornerstone of everything. It's in leading people, it's in convincing your partner or convincing your children to do things, convincing yourself to do things that you know, need to be done.
So what's like the ultimate opening line? Like how do you get somebody who's, you know, maybe sitting watching the telly or you know, having a snack or something, you call, you get them and, and now you gotta like get them to give you the time of day. What approach tended to work for you?
Yeah, it's a great question. My opening line was like, congratulation, Craig, you've been basically selected out of people in Toronto or wherever you are, whatever that suburb is. That was the hook, right? Regardless of whatever it is that I was selling. That was a cold call. It was, congratulations, your house has actually been selected to receive this. So and just basically assuming the sale from the very get go. Not like, hey, I was wondering if this, this person's in none of that nonsense, it's like bang, straight in. It's just something that's happening, right? So it's like, excellent, you've been selected. So what we're gonna basically go, what that means is for you is where we've selected a few houses and da da da, da da da. And we just get straight into the thick of it.
Amazing. And what's an absolute killer of a conversation that you maybe did when you were early in your career.
Oh my God, I've got so many funny stories. I was working on a call floor for a company called Sky Television in Lond. And I had an arrangement with my sales manager that, you know, average sales people would do would be two sales a day. And that was the average. And I was like, okay, I negotiated. I can do five sales. You will send me home, I will get paid for the rest of the day. And this is the commission that I kind of want to be getting. And he's like, yes, I'll do that. I'll agree to that. If you can do five sales a day, that would be amazing. And my best friend who was living with me at the time, also working at the same place, we would go to work together and I would do five sales by midday and I would be, I would be leaving. And I just never forget the look on his face. It's like, dude, like, come on man, you're gonna leave me here. So it got to a point where we would just have fun and I'd be like, I can close this next person in a Spanish accent. You're gonna send me home for the week paid. And he'll be like, okay, that's agreed. And I did it. And like it was, that was a crazy story. And the whole sales floor stopped and they were listening to me, you know, do a sales pitch in a completely Spanish. So that's an entertaining story for you.
I want to ask you one last question about sales is what was like one of the weirdest non work experiences and most interesting non work experiences where your sales skills either got you out of a jam or got you, you know, upgraded to first class and some, some flight. And what, what techniques did you use in that situation? Because, because I agree with you. Like when you're trying to get your girls to brush their teeth, you got to use some persuasion. For sure.
Yeah. The best and biggest sale that I've ever made in my life was probably getting my wife. And when I, when I met her, I met her and one of her friends and it basically, I don't know how it came up, but she basically told me that she had a boyfriend already. And like, I knew that, like I was interested in her. So I just saw that as like an objection that simply needed to get overcome. So, you know, most people just pack up shop, kind of leave at that stage. And I found a way to get her telephone number. And then one thing led to another. She was actually lying to me because she was sick of getting hit on by everybody that she has. So she just tell people that she had a boyfriend so she wouldn't have to deal with all of that. And then the whole courting and the salesmanship began from there. So that's the biggest one. But you know, everything from upgrading your flights to hotels, all of that stuff, like it is all a sale and it must always be done no matter what. And it's just whoever has the most conviction is the one that wins, right? So that's just. You gotta. It's like if you're going into an environment, regardless of what that environment is, like something is being sold and something is being bought, Whether it's an idea, whether it's a transaction for financial things, there are ideas being sold every single day. And whoever has the most conviction around that is typically the person that is the one that is going to get the outcome that they want. If you enjoyed this video, please like and subscribe. We're dropping a video like this almost every single day on YouTube and if you've got any questions, leave them in the comments box below with heysubrey and I'll do my best to get in there and get that answered.
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