Revolutionize Your Sales Approach: A Conversation on Sales and Persuasion with Eli Wilde

Well, hello and welcome to the 7 Figure Agency Podcast. I am super excited. We have a special guest with us today, Eli Wilde from Wilde Influence, um, one of the masters of sales, persuasion, speaking. Um, I've been following him for quite some time and I'm super excited to bring him to you guys here today. Uh, Eli, thanks so much for being here. Thanks for sharing, sharing with us.

Thank you, brother. Excited to get into it.

So let's start, I guess, just tell us a little bit about your background cuz not everyone knows kind of how you developed your, your your skills and your influenceability. So just kind of tell us a little bit about your background.

Long story short, I started in sales at 23 selling dental products over the phone to dentists. And I think we've all had that experience the first time hearing our own voice. You're like, ah, do I sound like that? And I had a manager who also commented the fact that I sounded terrible, not just like the tone of my voice, but insecure mumbling and really, really shut down. And I had a script robotic, all of that. And so I worked on my communication. I read all these books on sales, and I worked on my voice. I worked on everything. I got into acting, which they put— do on-camera classes right on your face. So you really see all the insecurity in the eyes. And even though I worked on things physically in my presentation, in my communication, I knew there was also things inside of me emotionally where I didn't feel connected. I wasn't present. I didn't have that empathy, and I was more self-conscious instead of being conscious of the other person. So I found a body of work called NLP. It helped me a lot, started to have some breakthroughs. I mentioned to a buddy some of the things I was learning, and he said, "You should check out Tony Robbins." I was like, "Who's Tony Robbins?" Next thing I know, I get the books, the CDs, then I'm jumping up and down and drinking the Kool-Aid and walking on fire. And after that event with Tony, it was magical for me because it really opened me up. I basically used his formula, Ultimate Success Formula, to harass his company to get a job there. And I called the company about 200 times within a period of 2 weeks. I was like, they're going to give me a job or put me in jail. Fortunately, they gave me a job, and, uh, within a year I was the top salesperson. The same job Tony had for Jim Rohn, um, I had for Tony. Basically being dropped off in a city every couple months, not knowing anybody, knocking on doors, ideally sales-based organizations, car lots, real estate, insurance, anywhere I could get in to do a presentation, and then I would sell people into Tony's events. And I saw Tony speak and I knew I wanted to be good. And Tony said the problem with most speakers is they don't get enough reps. Even if somebody's good, they speak like once a week or once a month. If you're a great preacher, maybe once a week. He said you need to speak minimum twice a day. So that's speaking anywhere, anywhere you can get in. So it was just a matter of reps. And after a year, I'd gotten pretty good. Tony's son wanted to be a speaker, and he said to his son, it's one thing to get a— be a speaker and get claps, but that's not influence, that's not conversion. He said, at the end of the day, people ultimately vote with your dollars, and that's how you find if you're good. He said, you also need to be around somebody who's hungry. So he said, find the best person, live with them. Fortunately, that was me, uh, and Tony's brother-in-law joined the company as well. And I had so many questions about sales and influence and Even though everybody in the company thought I was the best because I worked really hard, I had people I couldn't convert, people I couldn't sell, presentations that didn't go well. And other people said, you know, oh, it's okay, nobody could have got them, they were just bad people. But my mind and my standard was always like, I wonder if Tony Robbins could have sold that person? And it was, for me, it was obviously yes. So I had all these questions for Tony, and because of their proximity to his son and brother-in-law, I'd say, hey, I had this challenge. Can you ask Tony this? Can you ask Tony this? And Tony would send back these voice notes that were so profound on all the aspects of communication and connection and pattern recognition within a person, also alignment and challenge that were just so mind-blowing that changed the way I saw communication, saw myself, saw people, allowed me to connect to people with what's behind the mask and begin to create processes on how I could do that more effectively. Just like he does in the interventions, we'd have like almost these sales interventions and the talks got really, really great. You know, 3,400 presentations later, started to review and create systems within my own communication style. And because my sales were always 3 to 5 times higher than my peers who had the same script, same product, same price point, same people, same everything, other companies started asking me, what am I doing differently? And so that became really what we've been teaching the last few years.

Wow, amazing. So you had the opportunity not just to learn from the best of the best in Tony Robbins, but work there, be a top performer. Would love to know, like, what were like one or two of the biggest lessons you took away in your time working with Tony Robbins?

I'll share this one statement that was so profound. I worked for him for a few years, then I came back to him in 2010, and basically he did a contest. Long story short, I won. He took me to Fiji for 5 days, and I got to ask him like a bajillion questions. But I asked him this one, this one question about how he saw the process of influence and sales. And he said something to me that was so profound. I recorded it, I transcribed it, I read it every day before all my presentations. And this one statement that he said, it was the foundation of all of it. He said, to influence someone, you must be connected to that person. You can't influence somebody and judge them because if you feel they feel judged, you're going to lose the connection. He said you need to be able to step into their world and appreciate their story, but not buy into their story. That's a unique balance— to step into somebody's world and appreciate, to make them feel appreciated, but not buy into their limitation. If you buy into their limitation, you've added no value to their life. The added value you offer representing me and our partnership with these potential clients and customers is that we don't buy their limitation. He said, I don't buy the limitation of how long they can go without food, how late they can stay up, how intense they can feel, or what they can achieve. And because I don't buy into their limitation, and because I'm willing to go there first, and because they feel that I care, I can influence them. And it was so profound for me that, you know, to step into somebody's world and appreciate their limitation, but not buy into it. And if I buy into their limitation, I've added no value to their life. And there was people even in Robin's organization that would join the company as a speaker, and to be a dude like 6'4", 6'5", a stud. I'm like, this dude's gonna crush it. And he would end up, end up sucking. And then there'd be some, you know, like a small guy or a small girl who had no confidence but had a heart. And I'd be like, I, I don't know about her. And then she would like destroy it. And even in the training of our people, even in training the people that, that I was working with, I saw that I had certain judgments of people. That even a judgment, this person's gonna be really good, or this person's gonna be bad. And that spilled over into my sales. Like, because you might have somebody maybe struggling financially, and you're like, ah, then they're like, I don't know if I can do it. You know, there's people that I wasn't so sure about that would get results as a speaker or salesperson, and and they blew my mind. And then some people have been a massive disappointment. And so I always see people through this positive expectation. I see the best for people. And how I believe that every, like, every yes person has a no person inside of them, and every no person has a yes person inside of them. And so it's about peeling back those layers. And through what Robbins was teaching me, I was looking to not just sell products or push people into a process but to really— the term has been bastardized these days, like discovery call. But discover means to uncover what's already there. And I think as we peel back the layers of fear, complacency, laziness, whatever it is, procrastination, there's something there that is meeting somebody's needs. And so your filter through how you see communication and people and yourself even becomes that much more empathetic. And so you're looking not just to make a sale or nail your script or get somebody to do something. You're, you're looking beyond the surface and recognizing these patterns and then creating patterns. You know, we say there's pattern recognition, pattern utilization, and pattern creation. And so at the highest level, I'm helping somebody create new patterns of thought, feeling, and emotion to basically take their life in a different trajectory. But in order to do that, I've got to establish trust. Rapport, responsiveness. I've got to be able to get this level of responsiveness where we're having a deeper-than-surface-level conversation. It's what we call identity selling because at the end of the day, people don't buy products or services, they buy states or identities. And so I'm getting them to access some part of themselves where they're going to do the thing, buy the program, ultimately to be a better father or leader or to access more of themselves through my product or service. And so it's really just became about peeling back the layers and and looking for that. So my filter and my lens massively changed through that process.

Love that. So really just understanding you need to meet that person where they're at, right? You gotta really empathize with them without accepting, oh yeah, you're like, this is the reason you shouldn't do it, right? Still holding your frame, so to speak.

Yep, 100%.

Love it. So our listeners or viewers are digital marketing agency owners selling retainer-based services, as you know, I know you work with a lot of agencies, a lot of coaches. If you were to think about like what, what are some of the big mistakes you see agencies make when they try and sell their retainer services? Anything come to mind for you?

You know, it's interesting. I'm, I'm in this online space and now everybody's doing these crazy guarantees.

Mm-hmm.

It's, and you know, I, I think one of the things that's missing for a lot of the digital, digital agencies and how they go about it is we've all heard of a unique mechanism, so we got to get out of the commodity game, but it's really got to be unique. And so there's something there in the uniqueness. And so we, we teach in our speaking and selling a lot of different frames. Um, and this is something that Tony said to me, says, outside of the connection that you have to your audience or prospect, the most important thing is the pre-frame. And when you look at a really great hypnotist, they can get somebody to go to sleep, uh, or do something crazy And people think that it's the countdown from 10 to 1, or there's something in the process, but there's so many things that have happened in the preframe. What does that mean for a salesperson? It's what's happened before they hop on the call, before they go through the product. And Huthaway did a study years ago that said that, I think it was something crazy, like 53% of customer satisfaction came not from the product itself, not from customer service, but from the sales experience, how they were sold, or a better word is how they were enrolled to the process. Because even if you have something that is a discounted, cheap, guaranteed product, they're signing up for the wrong reason. And so they're not enrolled. We've not done a proper discovery. But also when you do a proper discovery, it's not just because you will get those people, just tell me what it is. And so, and you can have those conversations. When I get those, I tell people the price right away. Because I'm not going to be combative with them. And you can do the whole, you know, well, you know, it might be appropriate if I ask you just a few questions to see if what we're doing can even help you, because I don't know if this is right for you yet. You can disengage, you can do some stuff in there. Um, but there's, there's a lot of nuances that you, you want to be aware of. But at the end of the day, we have to be able to have that deeper level conversation so that they're enrolled and not just realize they're buying a commodity. But on the flip side, what somebody's offering does have to not be a commodity. Like, it does have to be unique in some way. We were breaking down a presentation I did recently with, uh, Ed Mylett, and it was a bunch of famous people speaking on stage, and nobody knows who I am. I often ask this, you know, I'm doing my third event with Alex Hormozi. Some people probably know him, and, you know, a lot of times nobody knows who I am. I'm doing the re-pitch instead of Alex this year at the Gym Launch event, and I've got— I'm about to speak, start like a speaking tour I'm the least known person, but I'll be the most memorable when I leave. But part of it's because of how I frame the audience within the first few minutes and nobody sees it. But when I'm on stage, for example, with all these motivational speakers, I know that I can become a commodity, Tony Robbins guy, this and that. I'll do things right at the beginning. Like I said it, this one, we were breaking it down. I said, I know you guys have gotten a lot of motivation. That's great. Listen, I'm not a motivational speaker. I'm a trainer. This training is going to be far different than every single training that you, that you've gone through this entire weekend. And if you really pay attention and commit to what I'm— so then I start challenging them. So I'm changing the frame of the relationship. Also, I'm not only different from people in my industry, I'm different from the people that you've seen on stage. And so I've got to establish some uniqueness in my communication where this is different. And so as soon as people can see that you're different, and that can be in your style and the brand story, a lot of that When a hypnotist does it, there, there's a lot of things in that pre-frame and how they're communicating their authority. There's a certain way they move, their appearance. There's a way that they have confidence and connection, and they put the person at ease. The highest form of confidence isn't pumping yourself up in the chest. It's making somebody else feel safe and safe enough to the point where I can now challenge you. And so there's a lot of things in the nuance of how they can change the prospect or the audience's perception of what they're doing. Because there's a lot of agencies out there and they're all doing the do this and this, or, you know, you get this or you don't pay, you know. And so that— and, and like trying to take the easy way out, right?

Rather than building the value and getting them bought in, just saying, hey, look, you know, guaranteed, let's try it for a couple months, give me the credit card, let's see how it goes.

Yeah. So there's got to be something in that, the brand story, that makes the offer and the agency more attractive, I think. Otherwise, we're just competing after the same. It just becomes a commodity.

I love that. I think it's a great insight. I think a lot of agencies, especially newer agencies, have used that as their crutch, and it leads to higher churn. It leads to bad reputation. It leads to other problems and the frustration of the team, like, you know, not getting to get the right clients with the right expectations. I know you've got a lot of great thought process around pre-framing. How would you approach pre-framing an appointment with, let's just say, a roofing company or an AC contractor that is looking to hire someone to help generate more leads and sales? Obviously, we want to ask the right questions and show the gap and ask for the business eventually. But when it comes to the pre-frame, how would you approach that in your model?

You know, from just a tactical perspective, there's things that people can do before the call. You know, maybe sending them homework or case studies, things like that. But ideally, and this is a page out of the book of The Ultimate Sales Machine from Chet Holmes.

Huge fan.

Such an amazing book. There's so many things they did before the call to, you know, to build that connection with the Dream 100 or whatever it was. There's a lot of things that they talk about in that book that begin to establish that credibility and leading with value. He called it education-based marketing. And, you know, even on with the follow-up, you know, it's realizing that people and buying cycles have gotten longer now, you know, they're getting longer and longer. And so to have a process for that when, um, you know, I'm good friends— I coach one-on-one a guy named Jeremy Miner who's really great, and he had a mentor, Michael Oliver. And there was a company when I got wind of what they were doing I was the first one to promote Jeremy 'cause I thought he was really, really great. We talked a lot about strategy and he's helped me a lot with our process. I was coaching a company, there was a big company, like an 8-figure digital marketing company that went under that those 2 sales reps had gone through, but they had a 22-point sales process in this company. There was 22 touchpoints before they even asked for the sale. So it could have been an email, a book, a gift or something like that. and now we're kind of going back into these longer touchpoint sales cycles and leading with value where it's not asking for the sale, it's education-based marketing, or it could be a PDF of like Think and Grow Rich or something that is relevant to the buyer. And even in that follow-up process, it's leading with value, and you want— the salesperson needs to be clear, like, what was the objection? And maybe, hey, we just created something that is actually going to save you time, or you know, this is, this is a proven way where we feel that we can get you in, but your investment back faster. And so like, I just hired one, um, I don't know if you know Matt Ryder down in Australia, like Sales Sniper and all that.

I am familiar.

Yeah, yeah, great guy. And he, he's the one that was CEO of Jeremy Miner's company. Um, he connected NQL, right? Like N something, NPQ. Yeah, basically it's, it's just some questions. You know, and they're, you know, the questions have been around for a long time, but it's, but they're really good. And, you know, we, we were teaching those same questions maybe, you know, 10, 12 years ago. So they're not, they're nothing new, but he's, but he, but he made it in a thing and he, you know, he put it, made it into an IP. So now there is a, uh, an X factor. There's a indoctrinating people into not you, but indoctrinating people in your unique mechanism. So that's what he's created and that's what a lot of salespeople, so that, you know, we, and you remembered it for the process, not just Jeremy. But we hired on the agency that initially blew up Jeremy and it's been a great process. Like the amount of onboarding stuff they gave us, the systems, the process, examples of what's worked that I can model. So they just front-loaded the client experience because even when you get your first dollar from somebody, That is when uncertainty is the highest. So it's like, say you onboard somebody and there's like, it's like an hour goes by and they've not gotten the email. They're like, where's my email? I'm gonna cancel. Like that moment. And it's gotta be from the salesperson or have them connected to like a VA or something like, hey, here's, you know, here's John, onboard him right away. Like we're gonna get you this and this and this. And that's gotta come really fast. They might not go through it for a week, but they've got to get it really quick. And then there's got to be touch points within the program and the process where they're like, hey, here's where you should be. We, we just dialed this in in our speaking course. Every week they have like, here's what you need to master, like, here's, here's where you are, here's the homework, here's where you get feedback. And then if they don't do it, because a lot of times they don't do it, they start getting emails like, hey, I know that you want this. So they see that we're supporting them Like, we didn't just get them into our process and take their money. So even inside the program, they're like, holy shit, these guys are like forcing me to get a result and have better skills. And that's what coaching is, that's what support is, and that's what I think that agencies need to do more of, where we're aligning with our buyers, our customers, to get them a result. And that's where we begin to become coaches, and we support them in their procrastination, their laziness, their fear, because they might not feel good about their, their marketing assets. And so they don't wanna put 'em out there. And so sometimes it's supporting them in that conversation to help them get a result. So we're becoming more like consultants now, even as salespeople. And that's what I did for companies. That's how I got into bigger companies like salesforce.com. It was because of the relationship. And they knew that I wasn't just gonna be, it wasn't like a one-night stand type of scenario where I sold them and I was out. I got into other divisions of the company. I got into, talked to heads of the company and all these big companies, even in Silicon Valley. Is because of that initial engagement, but also the follow-up, and people felt that I cared, and that created more referrals and systems. So I was building a book of business, and that's what I think you need to do as a salesperson or as a company these days. The client delivery and support needs to be so great, and then that gets people talking about what you're doing that's different. And so that's the X factor that we've always had, and I think it's what all companies need to do more of.

I love it. So kind of going back to a lot of great insights there, but the kind of the, the pre-frame, get them some testimonials in advance once they're scheduled, have them do some homework in advance. One thing we moved to is unpacking our model and having them rate themselves.

So for—

we work with plumbing and HVAC contractors, so the video is 5 minutes before the meeting and it's saying, hey, you've got to drive leads, maximize conversion, and optimize ROI. Here's what we're going to do to drive leads, website, SEO, PPC, whatever, right? And I have them grade themselves. So coming into the meeting, our sales team can say, hey, so where was the gap? What's the big opportunity? And they're already thinking about the problem. And they're also kind of pre-framed with some of the examples of what we've done for other plumbing and HVAC companies. So I love the way you unpack that for us. Yeah.

And just, just for everybody, for like a tactical example of like a linguistic model of preframe. Like when we work with, you know, bigger clients that are doing like millions on challenges and events, we look at their presentation a lot of times or what they're saying in a video like that, and we begin to add these frames, preframes, reframes, uniqueness frame. We've got like 20 of them that we install into the presentation that will always double, you know, a lot of times double or even more the conversion of presentations that are already doing 7 figures. And so for example, Um, something I might say, so you're about to see category of one, time, money, pre-frame, um, category of— I'll do category of one, reason why, time, money, and then reciprocity. So what every speaker and sales program has failed to mention is what I'm about to share with you. And the reason why nobody else is teaching this is one, because most other agencies or sales courses, one, they don't know how to do it, or two, they know it but they don't want you to know it. That's why you keep on coming back. This took me 10 years to figure out and over $100,000 worth of my own money. However, I know you can't survive without it, so I want to give it to you now. So what— so right now, so COO means category of one. What— because what— and I said it twice— what every other program has failed to mention is this. And now I select— giving you a reason why, just like in Cialdini's work, the because frame. If I give people a reason, because it's 20 times more likely to be believed. And the reason why nobody else is doing this is because one, I'm basically saying they're dumb, they don't know it, or two, they know it, but they don't want you to do it, they're unethical. This, however, took me 10 years to figure out, time, and $100,000 of my own money, money, to figure out. However, I know you can't survive without it, so I want to give it to you now, reciprocity. So that's what I mean by a linguistic representation of a preframe. And now whatever I say, where it's data tracking, it could be something really basic, but now the way that my mechanism or my content or whatever it is you do for your clients is framed, we call this the POV or the perception of value. And so when salespeople, and I've worked with a lot of salespeople in different companies, they'll have something really good, but the perception of the value isn't that good. So it's seen as commodity. So what we're doing a lot of times on stage or through the marketing, we're changing the perception of value. And so we, for speaking, we call this the trust trinity. We're building trust in you, the presenter or communicator or company, trust in the process and the product. They're two different things. And then there's trust in themselves. And when you have an audience, even for those listening now, whatever I'm speaking about, I know that about 80% of the people listening to me have an inferior mindset. They're like, yeah, it works for others, but for some reason, because I'm busy, 'cause I'm not beautiful on camera, whatever. They have some reason why they don't think it'll work for them. And then 20% of the audience has a superior mindset where they think they can do it, but they don't need you. So that's why the mechanism is so important because the sweet spot is where people believe that it's possible, but they believe that it's only possible through you. And so there's, we're kind of putting into people into this buying pocket and the mechanism is part of that. And then we're also future pacing to get people enrolled in the possibility. So these, these are what I'm just— so people can get an understanding of these frames. There's some tactical examples of what it, what it sounds like and looks like.

I love it. Powerful examples there. And kind of a couple things you've said a couple times that I hope everybody's catching is the unique mechanism, right? If we're selling digital marketing services like with website, SEO, pay-per-click, bottom line, we're going to generate leads and sales for you. They've heard that a million times, even if you're niche-focused, right? And it used to be That was the unique mechanism. Oh, I work only with plumbers. I only work with roofers. There was a time that was unique enough to make you stand out. In today's market, you need to say, I work with plumbers, for instance, and I've got this unique methodology that we bring to the table that's different than what you've tried in the past. And if you can get them to accept that preframe, either through your pre-sales process or on that call, you're gonna have a much higher likelihood of them not just saying yes, but them actually saying yes and sticking with you long term.

Yeah, yeah. I, I explain sales as a, a logical understanding of a very emotional process. So as we unpack that and reverse engineer, you know, I did, I did the same presentation for Tony 3,400 times. Wow. The same exact freaking presentation. But based on the audience, I might have 8-figure people in the audience that all own companies, or I might have a network marketing company where people are making like $500 a month, or, you know, really really, really challenged environments, like bad parts of town. And, you know, I was— I had a— I had like an hour to get all their money and 4 days of their life and hotel and travel. And it was not like I'm following up, like I needed to be able to do all of that on the spot. Um, there were some companies I followed up with for sure, but it was a pretty direct sale because we were only in the city for a couple months. So I had a really short sales cycle, and I started to actually get a little bit smart after about 1,000 presentations where I would interview people that I sold. I would interview companies that went really well and some not so well, but especially the ones that went well. I formed a relationship and I'd say to the boss or the owner or people that I could tell when I went there were not open to me being there at all because I was a salesperson selling salespeople who didn't want to be sold and they knew I was there to sell. So I never had a friendly audience. Like people talk about, oh, this person shut down. It's almost weird for me when somebody is open to me even now, because I'm used to just, I'm used to only like angry people who don't want to be there. They're forced to be in some meeting or something. But I started to interview some of the people and companies that went through my presentation that were really enrolled in me and really trusted me by the end. And I've started asking this question, and I would suggest a lot of your folks do this as well. I started asking people, at what point in my presentation did you know you were going to buy from me? At what point did you become open to buying from me? And it was never the offer. They're like, hey, when you, when you slowed down, you looked at me and you asked that question. Or, I saw that person was really resistant and how you handled that situation. I got an experience of who you are and I, I was like, wow, I, I trust this guy. Like, I like this guy, I want to do business with this guy, like whatever. And when I signed up for Tony Robbins' event, it was twice my rent. I was broke. He was supposed to speak for 2 hours. He spoke for 4 and a half. And at the end of it, he just, he made this offer and I go back to the room and I didn't know what I was buying. I didn't know much about the event. I'm good friends with Myron Golden as well, who's I think a brilliant presenter. Oh yeah. I saw him present and it was $55,000 for like his inner circle thing. And I was like, I don't even know what I'm buying. I was just like, can I learn from this person? Can I trust this person? And did I get a good experience with him? I didn't even know what I was buying. And I, $55,000 on the spot. And I was, I think a lot of times we do need to have the description of what they get, but I don't think that's all of what sells people. I think a lot of people put stuff and you see these webinars with like a stack and it's like 1,000 things and a bunch of bonuses and it's overwhelming. You know, when we look at offers, like what are the 3 to 5 things that somebody needs to really understand and make it simple and make it really clear? And also the delivery of those core elements needs to be really solid. And so I think a lot of times people, especially in this digital marketing space, there's so many companies online, it's overwhelming. And, you know, we're all hit up with ads and it's gotten very noisy. Alex Hormozi does a new tactic and then everybody's doing the same thing the next week. And so it's— I think it's just become, you know, there's a principle in NLP called modeling. You find somebody to do, you know, that's doing well and you model what they do. It's a double-edged sword too, because it takes you away from your own authenticity. And so more importantly than modeling what somebody does, It's to model somebody's belief system and their mental syntax of like the process into which they see a situation or a problem or a customer or a process. Like, how are they view it? Like, what are the steps and how they think? And what do they believe about themselves, about the person, about time, about money, about possibility, you know, about problems? And, and those belief systems end up basically being infused and indoctrinated in our market of the people that buy from us. And so we really have to own ourselves first. You know, we say we can't, we can't give somebody a dollar if we don't have one, and we can't give somebody a strong belief in anything unless we have it ourselves. And I think we— the highest form of sales is basically about transference. I'm transferring a belief to you. And so what makes that possible? How has it become possible through all of our relationships, you know, and there's relationship-based selling. It's, it's this connection and trust and empathy and somebody seeing something in you that they want. And when I started doing coaching, um, this may be like 2015, doing life coaching, 100% of the people that I coached all made way more money than me. A lot of them made 8 figures, and I was making like, you know, maybe a couple hundred grand a year. And what am I going to hard close this person, like step up, like don't be a little bitch type thing? They would just laugh at me. I was coaching 50-year-old men and I was in like my early 30s. And, you know, it's just that whole putting people down, logic trapping them, all of that. There's, they're just going to be out. And so I could form a relationship. And we've heard this law of rapport, people like people who are like themselves or how they want to be. Maybe these 8-figure people saw like a hunger and a compassion and a sincerity in me where even though they were more successful than me financially, there was something they believed in me that would make their life better by being in relationship with me. And I think that's the same thing spills over into our company, um, and into our culture. People feel like they'll be better version of themselves by having a relationship with our brand and, and through me specifically. And so now they're able to take some of the coaching and take some of the feedback and go through the process that they need to go through anyway but now with a different sense of openness and a different sense of excitement and hunger to actually do the work to get a result. Because we're basically co-collaborating with our, with our prospects, with our customers, not just throwing information at them. But especially something like an agency, there's a lot of back and forth. And it's not just the back and forth of you do the work, it's making them feel good about what's being done. So that way, if they feel good about it, even if it doesn't work out— and a lot of ads don't work out you know, but they see that it's a process. And because of the trust, they're not going to like ask for a refund or start going crazy right from the start because they feel good and they're indoctrinated in the process. They feel that they've been a part of the process and we're all on the same page. And we've also set proper expectations because, you know, we're running ads right now. We just started them a couple months ago. A lot of things don't work out, but it's about testing. So it's, it's getting them to to realize like some of the truth of what's actually happening and making them feel good about the process.

Love it. I think you made a really strong connection there between, yeah, they're gonna justify with logic, but they're gonna buy based on the emotion and kind of how you build that trust. Would love to let, like, if you think about a typical sales call, what are some examples of the types of questions you could ask to develop that trust and that empathy in the sales process?

You know, there's— get into a little bit of NLP here. Just like even in the beginning, this is an example of— in NLP, there's something that's called presuppositions. And there's obviously some questions that shift people's focus. But say I even get on a call with somebody who's like, I can tell right from the start within a second, they're like resistant. I might say something like this, you know, John, happy to connect with you. I have to say this really quick. I just got off a call with a guy who was so shut down and just like so defensive. And it's— it, it pains me because, you know, people like that are just never going to be successful. Anyway, I'm happy to be connecting with you. Um, and if I could ask, at what point did you think you'd even be open to possibly getting some help with your ads? So when I said that first thing, John was really closed off, and you know people like that will never be successful. I'm creating an association to people that are closed off, unsuccessful. Now, is that true? Somewhat. Um, but if I can create that association, and now he's automatically— there's something, and I know we talked briefly about Chris Voss, um, in that book Never Split the Difference. He talks about labels. And so even if I go to a hotel and I know I need to get a late checkout, I'll maybe, when I connect with the front desk person, I'll say, oh, you're so helpful, you know. And I'll— she has that positive label of helpful. She doesn't want to lose that. So I'll come back in 2 hours and say, hey, you know, I, I'm almost embarrassed to ask this because I know it's, it's really extreme, but you were so helpful. Um, I actually feel comfortable in asking you this. Is it anywhere possible that I could get, you know, checkout around 3 o'clock? And she doesn't want to lose that label of helpful. So, at what point did you think you were open? You know, it's— at what point did you think you were even open? And so that, that's not going to get— it's subtle, but I'm labeling them open to the possibility of even getting some help. Wow, smart move. And so also creating a positive association. Well, you know, I saw this and that. I knew we did— smart move. You'd be surprised how many people know they need to fix something, but they kind of just pretend it's not even a problem. I'm glad that you're actually proactive in what you're doing. Now they're proactive. That's— we find the people that are the most successful with our program, or actually any program, or any part of life, are always looking for ways that they can, you know, move things forward. Or they might— and they might go into, I tried this agency and I tried this agency and it didn't work. And so now they're defensive. I might say, wow, you know, you sound like the kind of person who just never gives up. Like, you've had so many challenges with your ads and being shut down and all of that. You'd be surprised how many people, like, they just kind of give up. But I can tell you're not that way. Have you always been that way? Or is that something you developed over time? So now they're taking the label of they never give up and they always find a way. And then there's— here's how we tie it in, and it's a double bind. Have you always been that way, or is that something you developed over time? Whatever, whatever they say, either one, they're owning the identity of somebody. So we call this identity selling. Now they're owning the identity of somebody who always finds a way to get what they want. And isn't going to give up like those other people who fail. So we're starting to create labels and identity to who they are that's going to put them in more of what we call a buying state. And to really look at— obviously, I've been obsessed with Tony Robbins for years. I think this guy's the GOAT. NLP, all of it. Tony took the process of NLP and understanding somebody's internal representation system, for lack of better— that's what it is. Joshua Nelson, um, he broke it down to just a few elements, an emotional state, your emotion, cuz people do things for emotional reasons. And so we have buying states and non-buying states. If we unpack the recipe of any state like depression or anger or fear or buying something, there's a pattern of focus that we can control through questions. I can ask you about what's great, what's challenging, but there's a syntax of questions. There's a pattern of language and meaning. And there's a pattern of physiology. At a Tony Robbins event, he teaches this, so he has people jumping up and down to open their physiology. On a sales call, we're not gonna get people jumping up and down, so we can really look at what they're focused on and the meaning they attach to it. And I think that's what a lot of sales scripts and processes miss, is not just the questions you ask, because I could ask you a question about the best day of your life, the worst day of your life, about your shoes, and now you're focused on it. So the questions, whether it's connecting, background, situation, probing, Clarifying, transition, commitment. There's all these different types of questions that we teach, but they're put into a certain syntax and all calls are not the same. Some people wanna jump around and all of that. We need to be aware of where somebody is in the process to get them to be open, you know, 'cause they can't be closed until they're open. And a lot of people lose the sale right in the beginning. So they need to be open right at the part. And we're creating openness, we're creating connection, we're getting into the problem, how long they've had the problem, the duration of the problem, the impact of the problem, you know, we're getting into it and there's little nuances that get somebody even more open, but also the thing that people miss is the pattern of meaning. And we've heard this before in self-development that nothing has any meaning except for the meaning that we give it. And whether it's an ad process not working, they might make it mean that all ad agencies suck or that God's punishing them or they're not supposed to be in business or that online marketing doesn't work. There might be a disempowering meaning. And so we really look at a lot of the patterns of meaning and reverse engineer that process because the objections that people get on the back end were often left in the unsaid on the front end. So there's little things like, I'm really busy, time, whatever. And so there's, there's things that we can do to, to change the meaning of what is the perceived limitation before the— so we can prevent the objection ahead of time. And I know a lot of people teach objection handling. You do need to be good at objection handling as well, but I think that a lot of people have a great discovery and it's going really well, but they've not challenged the prospect at all. And now when they get an objection at the end, now they start challenging. It feels like hard closing. Even when I speak on stage, my— I connect with the audience, but I said, this is different. I'm not here just to motivate you. I'm here to actually challenge you. To push you to that limit, because I believe that in life, in order for your life to change, your business to change, two new things need to happen. One, something new needs to come into your life. That could be what's discovered in this presentation, but also something new needs to come out of you, a new commitment, a new standard. So my— I'm doing this push-pull, and I'm challenging the audience, and they're getting comfortable with me demanding a response and challenging them from the start. And now at the end of my presentation, when I, I'm basically creating commitment and consistency and I'm getting them to be indoctrinated in commitment, in process, in enrollment, and becoming more and doing more. And now when I ask for the sale at the end, it just feels like it's just a continuation of what I've already been doing. And in a sales call, if we're not challenging people up front, if we're just letting them talk, if we're not digging in, if we're not breaking beliefs here, and then we try to do it at the end, it's— it feels weird. But the context like the frame of the conversation, it is like a coaching call and they get an experience of what this is. And even, you know, when they're talking about what they did in the past, I'm like, okay, why'd you do that? Okay, what was the thinking behind that? Okay, you know, can I make a suggestion just to make sure that doesn't happen again? Because, you know, there's of course a process, we can help you, but this is a two-way street. You know, we're gonna be copiloting this plane with you and we need to make sure that we're looking at the same dials in the cockpit. You know, and so you're making some of the decisions based on emotion, not data. So, so I'll, I'll indoctrinate them right here. And I read a great book, you know, post-2008 after the economy did what it did called The Challenger Sale. And they found there were all these different personality types of salespeople. There was relationship builders, there was, you know, you know, all these different types of people, but it was the challenger. And the definition of this was that the conversation, the sales conversation in and of itself, was valuable. And when I would do coaching with people or even sell a company into, you know, a program, they, they would say, wow, this conversation— they were like, I would have paid for this conversation because the conversation was— because I was basically changing their, their thought process and offering insight, and that became valuable. So I think the sales process needs to do more of that. And we need to feel comfortable challenging people, getting people open to being challenged early in the call. And then when we do it at the end of the call, it feels— they're just like, yes, more, please. They feel— they felt good about being challenged in their thinking. We offer insight, and now the offer just becomes an extension of that, and they're on board.

So good. And that's why I really wanted to have you on, because I think most of us as digital marketers are really good with the technical side of the equation, right? We get it. We can really paint the picture for where they're missing the boat, how we can help them, how we can help them accomplish their goals, but we fail to connect to that emotional aspect. And kind of asking those questions the way that you did, I think, is just a really powerful insight.

No, yeah, yeah, that's, that's the process. And so it changes the, the frame through which the salesperson sees the conversation and sees the prospect, you know. And so it's not, not being needy, it's really looking for problems, you know, like looking for problems and having a, you know, this frame of where you're challenging them. And I often give this, this analogy, you know, it's people, they lean on objection handling a lot, a lot, and I think you need that. But the analogy I always give people, the metaphor, is imagine if you're like a guy wants to marry a girl They meet, they spend some time together, and they've gotten engaged. They were in this connection stage. Now they're in this engagement stage. And now it comes the day to get married. She walks down the aisle and the preacher says, hey, do you take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband until death do you part? And she goes, I got to think about it. And the dude calls me and he says, Eli, I've got an objection. What should I say? I'm like, I can show you what I would say to handle this objection now. The best I can, but I think you probably missed some things in the engagement stage. There's probably some things. And then, so there's initial connection stage on a call, there's an engagement where you're getting into their problem, to the, to what they want, what's occurring, you know, the consequence, you know, you're, you're building the value. And there's a lot that's happening in that engagement stage. And then there's the natural commitment stage. And so if you don't have a good engagement stage Things are bound to come up where, where you didn't do a proper discovery and they have last-minute jitters, just like this woman in the example, because you haven't fully engaged the person, you know, given them an experience of what the relationship is going to be like once you commit. And I think, I think we all secretly want to be challenged. I think that we all want to grow. I think it's why healthy people go to the gym. And build some muscle, to have some demands being placed upon them so they can grow physically. But I think salespeople and business people and digital, you know, I think all people have a need to be challenged and stimulated and educated and pushed a little bit mentally and emotionally as to who they are in this process. And I think that if we can like actually coach owners, companies a little bit on the psychology of how they're doing things and why they're doing things and to be associated in that, they'll get a different experience of you and that will be part of the X factor of what that agency does. And it creates a relationship, a relationship of responsiveness, a relationship of trust, a relationship of leadership in this conversation where now you're leading them through a process and try to, instead of pitching them a process.

Love it, love it so much. We've got a unique mechanism, we've pre-framed the call, we've built trust, we've challenged throughout, I know we're running out of time here, but if you think about any tips on asking for the sale, closing the deal, enrolling, as you say, enrolling versus closing, any tips on that enrolling, that final process?

Yeah, a simple one is this, and one of the kind of rules is you shouldn't make offers that aren't asked for. So you'll have basically opening stage, you know, you have problem, solution, consequence, all of that. And then there might be a transition statement. I know, Josh, we've gone over a lot. Um, I think what we can do here can def— it can definitely help you, but I mean, I can walk you through the process A to Z, but you let me know, where do you want to go from here? And they say, oh, show me the process. So now they're asking for the process. And we, we break this down into the offer. We call it dynamic pillars. So you want to have like 3 to 5 kind of pillars of your process. Um, I think people overcomplicate that. They'll have a pitch and they kind of read it. I use the prospect's words, and there might be parts of the process that aren't relevant that I just won't even cover because then it's confusing. So it really needs to feel like a customized solution because, you know how you said you've got this? Well, that's why with this, that can help you with that. Does that make sense? Okay, how do you see that helping you the most? You know, and I'm just curious, if you had that, what do you think that would do? If we really tighten that up, what do you think that would do for the revenue, the process, whatever, being able to get that, that form of feedback? Okay, so we're, we're kind of building value and we're gaining commitments throughout the process. Do you, do you see why we did it that way? Okay, how do you see that helping you the most? Do you think it'd be more on this or that? Oh, it would definitely help us with this. So now we're, we're having dialogue around the pitch, and it's a conversation, and it feels customized based on what was covered here. Um, I think a lot of people have these great pitches, but it's like they read, uh, like they just go into pitch mode and they just read off of a PDF for like the next 6 minutes, and the prospect just tunes out. Yeah, so it's, it's interesting, and I I think there's a time and place for it because, you know, some of these pitches that we see, um, a lot of people don't want to hop on calls. So I think sometimes too, having, um, a proposal or offer— a lot of people do this, they send like a PDF in the DMs. And when I did a— I did an NLP for sales program, it was $2,000 a few years ago, partly because I had a lot of requests for it, but I just got a $350,000 tax bill. So I was like, oh, let me, let me just see if I can cover this. And I signed up about 200 people in 2 days. So I made, you know, several hundred thousand dollars, but I just sent people a PDF and it was really well described. Then I put the price in it and I said, talk to me if you want, or just say I'm in. And so it was really, but there was really good copywriting in it. And that's, that's different than the conversation. And if I was selling something much more expensive, we would have that conversation. I might send that to them where they know what it is. And we might talk about price on the phone. I'll say, look, you know, everything we do is customized, which it should be, you know, a variable, variability there, like they should go through stuff or not, but it needs to feel customized. So it depends on the price point as well, depends on where somebody's at, depends on the volume, um, because sometimes it is a volume game. So the strategy through which we go through it is— changes a bit, but in that conversation it could feel super customized. And if you do just send something like a PDF, which I know a lot of folks do, it has to be really great copy, you know. And in mine, I told a story right from the start, but the story was a good story, you know. And one of the things that we say to people, whether they're speaking or selling on the phone, your story is never about you. And so to make, make the story really feel aligned with the prospect— because when people hear a story, it goes in one of two buckets: so what or me too. And so to have trust built through the story, some— something maybe controversial right there, something unique, and then pull people through our process where they get experience of who you are and what you do, and then they become more open. So yeah, the pitch needs to be really good, but ideally, especially for a conversation, it needs to feel customized and it needs to feel like a conversation, not a— not a monologue.

I love it. So many great insights. And just kind of coming to the end there, Making sure that it's not you, "Hey, this is what you're going to get. Yes or no?" But like asking, "Where do you think we should go from here? Does this make sense? Do you see how once we get that dialed in, that's going to improve things? Hey, would you like me to walk you through how much is this going to cost and what it's going to look like?" And getting their buy-in every step of the way is so, so important. Ilya, I want to be respectful of your time. Thanks so much for coming on. So many great insights. For our listeners that want to learn more about you and kind of what you do and how they can plug in with you, what's the best way for them to connect?

Um, wildinfluence.com. We have a ton of free stuff on there. Uh, Eli Wild underscore sales, um, is my Instagram, and I post on Facebook. I'm pretty, pretty active on Facebook. That's where we connected. Um, yeah, and we're always doing events here in Miami. I got one, I think, in June. So I'm around. We're starting marketing, so I pretty much made it really hard to find me anywhere for the last 10 years. So now we're actually starting to do some marketing and build the brand. So, we're posting a lot. So, social media is where to find me.

Great stuff, man. Eli, thanks so much. If you got value, be sure to drop a comment. Connect with Eli on Facebook or on Instagram and wildinfluence.com. Thanks so much, Eli. We'll talk soon.