Dan Kennedy breaks down four mechanical levers for zero resistance selling: positioning and takeaway (making prospects apply to you), using an advanced representative, qualifying prospects carefully, and a diagnostic-prescriptive model. He uses Tom Selleck's reverse-mortgage ads and college admissions to show how perceived authority and scarcity flip the dynamic so you're not another salesman.
You want the wise man at the top of the mountain positioning. I always say there's no line to see the wise man at the bottom of the mountain. But if you can get wise elder, wise statesman, wise advisor positioning, that's, you know, what you.
Hello and welcome to this month's masterclass. I'm Darcy Juarez here with Dan Kennedy and Dan, last month we started by diving into how you create zero resistance, a zero resistance selling environment. And so last month we talked about the mental aspects. And so this month I want to dive into the practical aspects. So can you start us off with what we should be thinking about?
Yeah. So there's four practical, tactical, mechanical things you can do to substantially decrease or erase the natural and automatic and common resistance in selling. One has to do with positioning and takeaway selling, which then requires a switch. The second thing has to do with some version of an advanced man representing you before you start selling. Third is all about selection and qualification of the prospect who's in front of you. And fourth is getting to a diagnostic prescriptive model. Who you are to the prospect either reduces or increases resistance. That now has nothing to do with product proposition, need, desire, it just has to do with who you are to them. In marketing and in advertising we understand this a lot with celebrity spokespeople, so some work and some don't. And it has to do with with who they are perceived to be by the prospect. So like right now, if you look at advertising on tv, the most successful celebrity spokesperson driven campaign is for reverse mortgages. And the spokesperson is Tom Selleck. And I can't think of somebody who would be more perfect for this. He is fantastic in these commercials. But if you think about Selleck and you think about his relation to the audience that is now responding to him, he's never really played a bad part. Selleck once said so John Wayne, years ago, John Wayne said it doesn't matter what the part is, I'm John Wayne. And Selleck once in an interview referenced that and he said I understood what Wayne meant and I've tried to make my decisions with that in mind. That not to really take apart that will damage Tom Selleck going forward. So everything you think of that you get associated with Magnum PI The Jesse Stone movies, now Blue Bloods, there's nothing bad there who were a disaster and it's because of who they were to the audience. So who you are to your prospect matters a lot. The first and foremost important positioning you don't want is as another salesman that automatically triggers enormous resistance. People don't trust salespeople, and they don't trust themselves with salespeople. So you have immediately triggered an enormous amount of oh kind of resistance. So anything that marks you as another salesman in the category of product or service that you are is, like, fatal, and you've got to get rid of it. The positioning you want is authority, so that your word means something about this, not just a word from someone selling. And number two, celebrity to your prospect. You don't have to be Tom Selleck. You don't have to be famous to the world, but you have to be viewed as having some kind of celebrity cachet to your prospect. One of the ways that sometimes done very successfully is somebody that gets one or two celebrity clients. And if they got them, they are one, two. And you want the wise man at the top of the mountain positioning. I always say there's no line to see the wise man at the bottom of the mountain. But if you can get wise elder, wise statesman, wise advisor positioning, that's, you know what you want. When we are selling, most salespeople are applying to the prospect for acceptance. That's their state of mind, and that's their process. Takeaway selling is a big switch. It has the prospect applying for acceptance from this person. So one of the best examples of that is college. So when your kid hits the magic age and the college conversation begins, what happens? At some point, the student applies, hoping to be accepted by the colleges they've applied to. They have to qualify to prove themselves appropriate for that college. Depending on the college, there's a lot of that. There may be a little of it, but there's always some of it. And there's manufactured urgency because there's always so many seats in the freshwin class. There's only so many dorm rooms with a window. There's only et cetera. So you're trying to qualify, you're hoping you get accepted, and you're afraid of just being late in trying to apply. So what happens? Can the acceptance letter come? And everybody is wildly excited. Dad is in the back of his mind saying, oh, shit, Harvard took him. This is 120 grand a year. There goes my boat. But it doesn't stop. It doesn't stop the sale. So this is a huge switch in selling. So takeaway selling requires belief in exclusivity. Certain people can get in here. Gi Hope I can present myself as one of those people. Scarcity. Oh, Only a certain number of those certain people can get in here because there's only. There's only so many chairs. There's only so many penthouses in the condo. There's only so many condos that face the golf course. So scarcity that there is a selection process. I'm going through a selection process to see if I qualify. There's required agreement not just that I want to buy, but that you want to let me buy. And there's having to ask to buy. Which, by the way, is the magic question.
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