Transcription
[Music] [Music]
Well, once again, welcome back. Welcome to session number four. Now, I've got a question for you, and you know I've got to ask you this question: Did you do your exercises? Even if you jumped ahead, or if you didn't jump ahead, I've got to ask you. It wouldn't be doing my job. Did you do your morning rituals? Maybe I'm your morning ritual. If I'm not, I hope I am. But also, did you do your morning rituals? Did you make your power moves? And did you ask yourself your empowering questions and direct your focus? I hope so.
So, if you did, great! Congratulations. Let's move on. How does it make you feel when you do it? Does it make you feel powerful? Well, I've got a secret for you: You ain't seen nothing yet. Give yourself a few days of this, and you'll be unstoppable.
Well, listen, I'm excited about today's session because we're beginning what is the heart of the program: the 10 Steps to Sales Mastery. And what this will become for you is like your morning ritual or your success ritual for effective influence. You do this, and it'll become who you are. It'll be amazing.
Now, as you know, Tony is an expert at modeling. Looking for the strategies and tools and their proper sequence can be used to consistently produce a result, a great result. These 10 steps are designed to help you produce the result every time you're with a client, or a spouse, or a child, or whoever it is that you're influencing. And what's important to recognize about them is that each step is an essential part of the process. You can be a great closer, but if you never engage your client in the first place, you're not going to produce the result. And you can engage and enroll them in wanting to follow through, but then you'll fail to compel them to actually take action. And it all adds up to the same thing: zero. So, you've got to have it all together. When you put it all together, it all works like magic.
So, there are 10 steps that Tony's going to walk you through, and they're divided into three overall phases. And if it helps you, these steps are summarized in your workbook and your power tools flashcards. Now, let's get ready to cover the first three steps in this session, all about preparing and engaging your clients. Remember, that's just the first part. So, be sure that you participate actively. And let me share with you what that means: Do the exercises. That's obvious. And when Tony asks you to yell back the answers, do it. Yell back the answer. You know, it's like I said, you might look crazy to other people doing it, but that's okay. Because my philosophy is, it's better to look crazy and do something different and get the results than do the same thing over and over again and not get results. So, yell back the answer. Fully engage. Use your entire physiology as you do it. Put a smile on your face and act as though he's talking directly to you, because he is. And I'll be checking in with you at the end of each step. So, you're going to want to have completed the homework before I get a hold of you. And once Tony gives you the overview, he'll start with step one as the main part of this session, titled "Prepare and Do Your Homework." So, let's get [Music] [Applause] started.
Well, we've worked pretty hard, and we've done a lot of research, if you will, and we've created a tremendous foundation. We studied, really, what is it that makes people buy? And we now know what it is. We know it isn't the traditional things we've heard, but that people really buy states. And that your job, in mind, is to be an effective motivator, somebody who finds a real want and ignites it, you know, experiences it, develops a little hurt, and also somebody who helps people to justify. We spent a lot of time on managing ourselves, learning how to persuade ourselves so that we can persuade other people in a very deep and impactful way.
But I guess the real question now is, how do we take all these individual ideas and put them together into an order that makes sense? Something you can do easily, quickly, consistently to create the level of result you want in the selling situations on a daily basis. You know, it's not only important what you know, but it's also important what you do in terms of its order. The idea of syntax is an important distinction to make. If you're modeling successful people, you don't want to just do what they do; you want to do what they do in the order in which they do it. A good example would be opening a vault. If you know all the right elements, you know all the right numbers, but you put them together in the wrong order and sequence, you will not get the same result. You won't get to the treasure. If you're going to create something that you've made from a recipe and use all the right ingredients, but you put it in the wrong order, you will not get the same result.
So, we've created an order for you, and we're going to be able to now pick up some steam. We've spent a long time on the foundation. Some of the subjects we're going to cover now, now that we're putting them in an order, we'll be able to get through in five minutes. You'll already have a foundation because you've already talked about some of them, and you'll now it'll make more sense because you'll see, "Oh, I see how that relates to something else." So, what we're going to share with you now is the foundation of what I think you came here for: the program, 10 Steps to Sales Mastery. And what you're going to find out is you've got 80% of it right now. The 20% is putting an order and making some more distinctions. So, let's do that now.
The first thing we've done to help you to memorize this and remember it is I've chunked my perception of the sales process into three phases. And the three phases of selling are: Number one, we must engage the prospect. We've got to get them involved with us. Now, that's going to have several points. Think about what would it take to engage somebody without me even telling you the steps they're involved in engaging. What would they be? Do you want somebody to be engaged with you in conversation? Well, there's a couple of things. One thing is, you obviously have to get their attention. You have to make some contact with them. And obviously, you have to get their interest. And those are some of the steps involved in engaging.
The second phase is, once somebody's really there and they're engaged with you, you now got to enroll them. And again, think about enrolling somebody. If you're going to enroll somebody in a course, if you're going to enroll somebody in school, there's certain information you'd have to know. You'd have to qualify them, and you'd have to make sure that for you to enroll them, that they felt pretty good about your school and your product, and they were feeling pretty certain that it was the place they wanted to enroll. And those are some of the elements here as well.
And then, after you've got them engaged and they're enrolled, now you got to compel them so they want to do it. Now you got to push them over the edge. You got to make sure they actually show up and they don't just enroll. So, those are the three phases.
So, what I'm going to ask you to do is some silly things, if you will. I'd like to ask you, if you would, with me, to just do something rote. I want you to just say these over and over again till you know them. I think you'll find it quite fun and quite easy. For starters, there are three phases and 10 steps. So, the three phases of selling are: Number one, what? Engage. Number two, enroll phase. Number three, compel. Pretty simple.
So, let's now take those three phases and chunk them down into 10 steps. Phase number one is called what? Engage. Great. There are five steps to engaging. We've got 10 steps total. So, again, remember this: There are three phases to selling, 10 steps. It'll help you to chunk it down, if you will.
So, the five steps of engaging are: Number one, you must prepare. You must prepare. That is, you've got to do your homework so that when you go there to communicate with someone, you're ready. You're ready to make the sale. You know who you're dealing with. You know what your product is about. And we're going to tell you six keys to preparing so that when you go in there, you're really, really ready.
Number two, you got to turn on. Which is turning on your state, turning on your emotion, turning on your physiology, turning on your passion, really putting yourself in a peak state.
Three is, you got to make contact. If you're well-prepared and you're all pumped up, but you don't talk to anybody, you've got a problem. And that's how a lot of salespeople are, aren't they? They get all pumped up and they don't do anything. So, make sure you got to make contact. And we're going to talk about not only how to make contact, but you might want to add something to that: Make contact and get their attention. That's actually the full step: Make contact and get their attention. If you don't have their attention, nothing else is going to matter.
Step four is connect and become their best friend. You want to create rapport. And then finally, step step five is create strong interest. Create interest, create interest. Because again, all we're doing in phase one is we want them engaged. We want to be engaged and we want to be engaging and have them be engaged with us. So, we've got to know something about what we're going to do and be prepared. We've got to be turned on. We've got to make contact, connect with the person, and get their interest before we ever try and present something to them. Does that make sense to you?
So, we've got the first five steps. We're halfway home. Let's go to phase two. Phase two is called enrolling. There are two steps to the phase two to enroll somebody. You've got to probe for problems and magnify the hurt. Doesn't that sound wonderful? Sounds horrible, but it's what we've got to do. Some people call this qualifying, and we could have called it qualifying for short if that helps you, you can do that. But I would say, probe for problems and magnify the hurt. Because what we're doing when we're qualifying, yes, we're going to find out, do they have the authority to buy? We're going to find out, do they have the money to buy? Do they have the desire to buy? But we're really looking for is, what are their deepest needs that we can help match or meet? And what are those needs that are not being met that they have some pain about, so we can help motivate them and really get them to take the actions that create a better quality of life? Much like the businessman I talked about earlier, we've got to find what that person's needs are, even if they don't think they're there. You can usually find them. Not always, but usually there really is a need.
So, step six: We want to probe for problems and magnify the hurt. And again, some people say, "God, magnifying the hurt, that sounds like you're doing something terrible wrong." If you want to motivate anyone, you've got to get them to focus on and see something in a way that motivates them. Anybody who's ever been motivated to do something is usually got something pushing them. They may not want to admit that they say, "No, it's all for these other reasons," but usually there's something there. Again, our country is here because we had enough hurt to make a change. There's a lot of ways to look at this. Make sure that you have positive feelings about this. And if you don't, then all you're going to do is limit the number of people you can effectively motivate. So, probe for problems, magnify the hurt.
Step seven: Create conviction and test close. Now, creating conviction for me might be like building, or the selling process could be perceived as this leverage where what we're trying to do is get lots of emotional reasons to buy now, and logical reasons to buy now. And we're trying to get enough of that so that what happens is we kick somebody over the edge so that whatever the objections are, get catapulted out of there. So, creating conviction and test closing. What we're going to do with a test close is we're going to take a look and see, are they ready to buy yet? And if they're not, we're going to probably do more, add more, what? Conviction.
Now, last phase and the last three steps. Phase number three is compel. Step number eight is, we want to make it real and assume the sale. Step number nine, convert objections into commitments. And finally, step number 10, make it easy.
So, these are our 10 steps. Forget about the phases. They're just designed so that while you're selling, you say, "Okay, have I really got them fully engaged?" If I'm engaged, it's because I was prepared. Absolutely. I was in a situation. I was turned on. I was in my best state. I'm in a situation here where I've done what? Made what contact? I feel, and they feel, what? Connected. And I've got their, what? Interest. So, okay, then I need to start enrolling them. How do I do enroll that? Well, the first thing I do is what? Probe for problems and magnify the hurt. And then, once I've done that, what do I do? Create some, some what? In other words, I'm giving my presentation, giving them reasons to buy now that I know what reasons they want. And I'm soon as I'm doing that, I'm test closing, so I'm seeing, "Hey, are they ready to buy yet?" They may be ready right now. Finally, if they're now enrolled, what I got to do now? Just get them to feel what? Compelled. How do I do that? I make the presentation real so they really know they're going to get what they want. And if they have any, what? Objections, I convert objections into commitments. And lastly, I just make it, what? Easy to buy.
So, those are the steps. So, what we're going to do now is we're going to take each one of them piece by piece and show you exactly how to make those real for you as well.
Step number one: Preparation. It's the thing that the average salesperson does very little of, and a master persuader consistently does before he meets the client or the prospect. In fact, the reason I call them a client is master persuaders usually think of them as a client, not just a prospect. They know enough about this person that they believe that they're going to be their client shortly. Shortly meaning as soon as they meet them. Now, what do I mean by preparation? I mean, do your homework. Now, most salespeople don't even think in terms of homework. But I want to give you what I consider to be six very key and important things you want to do so that you're better prepared. And let me tell you why you want to prepare. Because I know that sounds so simple, "Be prepared. I'll remember that." But it's probably as important as anything else you're going to do. The lack of preparation is what I think creates call reluctance. Meaning, why don't you call on people? Why is it such a heavy duty thing? I would say it's because you don't know who it is you're calling on, or you know who you're calling on, but you're a little concerned about whether or not you can handle the objections and the problems. You're not ready. And so, what a lot of people do is they just, you know, go out it half-heartedly anyway, or they don't make the call in the first place. I'm saying, let's go for a balanced, strong approach. And here are six very simple steps to preparation.
Step number one: Absolutely know who the customer is and anticipate some of the needs or hurts they will have. In other words, what you want to do is find out as much as you possibly can before you walk in that door about those wants. Find out as much as you can about their values, about how they spend their time, their energy, their money. Now, how can you go about doing this? Well, a good friend of mine, Harvey McKay, phenomenal man and a brilliant salesman. And one of the things that Harvey taught me is he taught me what he calls his McKay 66, which are just 66 questions that he demands all of his salespeople be able to answer about any customer they're going to call on. Harvey's been extremely successful in the printing business all over the country. And the reason is, he really knows who he's dealing with. He knows everything from their birthdays and their children's names to where they went to school, to what are some of their favorite colors. I mean, the amount of information that his people get is rather astounding.
Now, you might say, "Well, Tony, I'm not in that kind of business. I'm not in a sales business where I go sell something one time and I have their business forever. I can't spend that much time." Well, maybe you won't do the McKay 66, but maybe you can do the "Robins Half Dozen." Maybe what you can do is come up with a few key ideas that you can find out that are useful. And I need you, obviously, to adapt this to the kind of selling you do. If you're doing corporate sales, you might have, for example, a long sales cycle where you sell over a period of weeks or months. Or you might be one of those people that's right there on the spot, you meet somebody, you have to grab their interest and close the sale. You still have to be prepared for that person, also.
So, here are the ways again. Number one: Find out who they are. Now, you say, "But Tony, if I'm on direct sales, I don't know anything about them. There's no way to find out." Oh, yes, there is. Even if you're selling door-to-door, there is. What if, when you knock on the person's door, and let's say that person rejects you, you say, "Well, let me ask you a question. Could you help me? Could you tell me a little bit about your neighbor here, Mr. Jones? Is that his?" "No, no, it's not Mr. Jones. Who is... what's your neighbor's name?" And they tell you all about the neighbor, saying, "Do you think this person could have any benefit from this?" "Why?" Now, first of all, they're happy that you've left them off the hook in the first place. Second of all, they may very well be able to tell you, "You know, it really doesn't meet my needs, but I think Mr. Jones would, and here's why." Now, you walk in, you say, "Mr. Jones, guess what? I just met Mr. Williams here, your neighbor, and he tells me all about your needs about this and this and this." Well, how'd you know that? All of a sudden, you've got more rapport, and you're better prepared. Does that make sense?
Now, if you've got someone that you're calling on, and you know who they are in advance, now's the time to prepare. And there's lots of sources you can go to. First source, of course, is always a referral. Always. You want to be working as strongly as possible from somebody else. And what you want to find out is, "What do you like about this person?" Find out what they like about them, because what that'll do is it'll prepare you emotionally to like the person, and you'll go into the situation expecting this person to treat you well. You'll know something great about them, and you'll be able to share the compliment later on. You'll say, "You know, I talked to Mr. Jones, and he told me how blank you are." And now you've done several things: you've built rapport, you've given the person a compliment, and you've given them a reputation to live up to. All just because you prepared a little bit, found out a little bit more about them.
In addition, you don't want to just find out about what people like about them. Ask them, "What do you think about our product? Really benefit them?" And begin to find out a little bit about the benefits that could be achieved by their using your product. So, the more you can know about that prospect or customer before you meet them, the more powerful you're going to be. And it'll get rid of all this call reluctance stuff that you have, which is, "You know, I don't want to call him because you don't know anything." Get to where you know it.
Harvey McKay talks about in corporate selling, one of the things that he does is he checks all kinds of sources. He doesn't just go for a friend. He'll go to the newspaper morgue, and he has a friend there, and he'll call that person up. You make a friend, somebody you can call over there. You can pay them, or they'll usually do it at no charge, and say, "Listen, can you run me off all the material on this particular person?" And all of a sudden, you can find out by reading a couple articles that, "Hey, this gentleman is really an avid golfer," or "This person just closed this particular kind of deal." And what it'll help you to do is find some problems this person may have, as well as some interests they have that you can help to support and making things work.
Another thing he does is he talks to stockbrokers, bankers. Many times he'll go to everything from, you know, annual stock reports. He'll buy sometimes one stock in a company he's going to sell to, so that he gets all the information about that company and some of the key people he's going to market to. So, there are a lot of areas to look. But number one key to preparation is: Know who you're selling to and anticipate possible needs, desires, wants, and problems they may have, and how you can help fulfill those before you even walk in the door. One caveat: Make sure you're not so certain about the person and their needs that when you walk on the door, you don't stop to find out their needs currently as you meet them.
Here's key number two to preparation: Make sure you absolutely thoroughly know your own product and the advantages and benefits it has. As many advantages and benefits as you can possibly put together. And later on, we're going to have you actually create lists of advantages and benefits so you're knowing what they are, can run them off. And I don't just mean the ones you normally think of. I want you to dig a little deeper. I want you to have such a list of advantages and benefits that you have strong feelings about that you can overwhelm the prospect with advantages and benefits once you know what their specific needs are. So, you've got to obviously know your own product.
Number three: Know your competition. Make sure you know your competition. That's part of preparation. That is, be clear about what the competition is and what are the advantages you have over the competition. That's real important. You know, some people say, "I don't want to know what they're doing." Yes, you do. You want to know exactly what they're doing. You want to know all their advantages. And never knock the competition. Never knock them in front of the client. You can knock them within your own mind, that's fine. You wouldn't be selling your product unless you felt it was better. But don't knock them in front of anybody else. It lacks class and status. We've all been guilty of it at times, but pay attention. You don't need to do that. It's not going to make you any better. It'll probably make you look worse in the eyes of the customer or the client. But make sure you know who they are and what your advantages are over them, so you can be very elegant about it. So, they have a lot of great things. Here are some things that I think we supply that no one else I know of supplies. Makes sense.
Fourth key to being extremely well-prepared: You've got to know all the potential objections that come up for your product and have answers ready in advance. Here's another reason why a lot of salespeople do not follow through and don't really go for it. I mean, why wouldn't you cold call if you knew who the person was or had a general idea of their interests, and you knew your product cold, and you knew it was worth tons more than what you were going to ask for in return? You believed in it 100%, and you were in a position where any objection they could give you, you were thoroughly prepared to turn around. In fact, you look forward to it because it was fun. It gave you a chance to be creative. Wouldn't that be a lot different than how it maybe has been in the past?
And I'll tell you a few of them that are obvious that people have to be able to handle. "Think it over." That's a critical one. And I don't mean just the traditional way you've learned to do that. We'll talk about some traditional ones when we get to the closing step of the 10 Steps to Sales Mastery. There'll also be some other ways to handle that are much simpler. But do you know how to close that? Do you know how to close it at such a level of certainty that, hey, when somebody gives you that objection, there is no fear in you? There is no concern. In fact, it's exciting because you go, "Oh, great! I know how to deal with that."
After you know how to "think it over," you've got to take things like "no need." And in fact, I've already shown you one way to deal with "no need." Agree with a customer. Do you remember that? They say, "I don't have a need." Agree with them. "Boy, you've got a lucky person here working with you. They're lucky to have you as a client. I think they must be doing a good job. Do you mind if I ask you a question? What are three things that they're doing that really are great for you?" Get all excited. "What are three things that need to be improved?" Boom. So, a way to handle "no need" is shown. There is one right, but do it elegantly, not the traditional way we've all been trained in.
Another one to handle, of course, is not just "think it over" and "no need," but you've got to have "cost too much." You've got to be able to deal with them saying things like, "Well, the competition's product is less expensive," or "I've been dealing with Brand X forever." So, you've got to have enough ways. Somebody says, "I have no money." You've got to be able to handle that objection.
So, what you need to do is brainstorm out every possible objection you can possibly imagine that a person could have, and have down cold a half-dozen ways to handle it, so that when somebody does it, there is not one ounce of fear. By the way, most salespeople are so afraid of the "no's." And yet, if you look and interview the best salespeople in the world, Marty Shaev says this: that until you've gotten at least five "no's," the selling process has not even begun. If you're hanging up on the second or third "no," you're wasting your time. People got to at least say five "no's" before they're serious about it. And he says, besides that, the more "no's" they get, the kinder they usually get. If you're kind with them. Interesting.
See, somebody said something in this course that I thought was really valuable. One of the participants came up to me during one of these breaks and said, "Listen," he said, "you know that stuff you taught about reciprocation?" And I said, "Yeah." He said, "You know what reciprocation is? When somebody gives you an objection, he said that starts the process. When they reject you, it starts the process of reciprocation." I said, "What do you mean?" He said, "Well, think about it. If your kids come to you and ask you for something, and you say no, and they come back the next day and they ask you for something, you say no. They come back a third day and say no. Pretty soon, don't you start feeling like, 'I hate to keep saying no to these kids,' don't you usually kind of like try and give them something back at some point?" Has that been your experience? Yes or no? In my experience, it usually is. So, I believe that with customers as well, that there are a series of similar processes. It's a great way of explaining it. But I've noticed that if you keep working with somebody, and you're still really nice, they tend to get nicer as you get beyond the fifth or sixth "no." And pretty soon, they don't want to object anymore. And if you get enough hurt and enough logical reasons to support you, many times you can kick them right over the edge. But again, you've absolutely got to know every objection that could possibly come up, have answers ready, and be effective in their delivery. What do I mean by effective with their delivery? I mean, they can't just be rote. You've got to believe what you're talking about. And they can't just be words. You have to have a voice and body communication process that's consistent. When you say something, your voice, your body, and your tonality all match.
Fifth key to being extremely well-prepared: Not only you got to be prepared in terms of knowing your prospect and yourself and handle the objections, you've got to be able to be willing to expect the best, but prepare for the worst. And the reason I say that is that in life, a lot of people say, "Well, you know, you got to expect the best, and that's what life's all about." I agree. But I believe in a balance. And there were a lot of times I was expecting the best, and the worst happened. And so, I suggest to you that what you really need to do is expect the best, 'cause your state is everything. Your expectation walking in makes a big difference in how you communicate to someone. But I think you also should prepare for the worst, in that you should be prepared for them not to support you and know how to deal with it so it's not a surprise and you're not all upset.
Where this really works for me most is, I would say, put yourself in a state before you get to that person, part of your preparation, where you expect to really meet their needs and you expect them to treat you well. Because people many times live up to the expectations you give them in your own mind and in the way you communicate. But also, say, "Be part of expectation is having a really good plan." Like a good plan for your day, as an example. Will you expect it to go perfect? But if I were you, I would also plan for the worst. I'd plan for people to cancel appointments. Now, when I say plan for it, I mean have an alternative ready. I don't think that's being negative; I think that's being intelligent. Because too many people, they expect their day to be a certain way, then somebody cancels. And is that invariably going to happen in your sales career? Yes or no? You better believe it. So, instead of getting all upset about it, see, in life, if something happens and you know it's going to happen more than once, and every time it happens, you get upset, then you're always going to be at the effect of things. Instead, say, "There's going to be a percentage of people that are going to do this. I don't like it, but it's what's true. So, let me have a better plan." And the plan is, maybe you've got a list of calls to make. So, when that inevitable appointment cancels, you can pop on the phone, and your time is well used. You're expecting the best, but you're prepared if the worst happens. That's the process, I think, of preparation.
Step six: Make sure that you create demand. Let me clarify what I mean by that. Hopefully, you're beginning to pick up that this course is not just about learning how to sell. That this course is about teaching you how to be a persuader, someone who can really influence. And if you think of yourself as even more than just selling, you're thinking of yourself in terms of influence, you need to start thinking about being a marketer. And the distinction is, a marketer is the kind of person who looks at how to create a demand before they even get there. That's what marketing is. I mean, think about it. It's not just going out and persuading somebody; it's before you even get there, hopefully having you already have a want for your product.
I'll give you a classic example, again, Harvey McKay, 'cause he's got some really great examples. Harvey has this example he talks about where he says, um, in studying marketing, that he's from Minneapolis, and he helped build the big dome there. And, um, when they built the dome, they destroyed the old stadium they had. And so, there's this prime land available in Minneapolis, and no one was building anything. And if they build something there, obviously there's tax revenues and all these jobs. And so, when all of a sudden, General Motors was coming out with this new plant that they had, sure enough, people in Minneapolis were fighting all the other cities in the country to try and get that, I think it was the Saturn plant, and they did not win. So, they were pretty disappointed.
Along come these four brothers from Canada, the Grimian brothers. The Grimian brothers, if you're not familiar with them, are the people that built the biggest mall in the world. They call it the Eighth Wonder of the World. It has like, uh, this fantasy hotel built into it, I forget, like $50 million hotel or something like that. It's hundreds and hundreds of shops. It has this huge set of lakes inside of it and an amusement park, all in a mall. It's in Edmonton, Canada. Phenomenal, phenomenal place. And they funded the whole thing. Well, they come along and see this thing, and they come to Minneapolis, and they approach the governor of the state of Minnesota and say, "Look, we'll come in, we want to build this mall, we'll do all these things, we'll pay top dollar, we'll do a whole thing. $1.5 billion is what we're going to be generating. A project of that size that'll create 40,000 new jobs right at, you know, union scales. Would you like to do it?" What do you think the governor said? Well, of course. I mean, that's incredible. And he got all this excitement.
But they made a major mistake. They didn't prepare for a standard human emotion. And that human emotion is, if things appear to be too good to be true, people, most people think then they are. In fact, you and I have been conditioned that if it's too good to be true, it probably is, isn't that true? Well, their deal, by not making people have to work for it, by not creating any demand, what happened is the governor got excited. All of a sudden, he realized he was out on this limb, and he began to think, "Well, God, this seems too good to be true. There must be a catch." Now, he could never find one, but that scared him even more, 'cause he said, "There must be a catch, and I don't know what it is." I mean, why are they giving us everything we want? Why aren't they demanding? Why aren't they fighting us for this thing? And by the way, the answer is, is because they're so successful, they figured, "Hey, even if we give them top dollar, we'll still be successful." So, they didn't make them work. And the governor started to get concerned. "Well, what if I put myself on the limb, get behind this thing, and it falls apart? Then I would look like a jerk. That could be political suicide." You know, "What if people get upset?" And sure enough, they almost lost the deal. And the reason is, because they didn't think like an intelligent marketer. They didn't prepare.
Preparation would have looked like this: What they could have done is they could have created a demand like General Motors did. They could have said, "Look, we may come here, we may not come here. We're looking for the best spot and for the best possible deal." Then they would have had people fighting like GM did. So, you've got to realize value. The value of anything is all based on perception. And a lot of perception comes from demand, doesn't it? I mean, think about it. What is the price of gold? Goes up and down depending on demand. The price of stock goes up and down based on demand. And demand is just how much perception. If you want to be good, you need to create yourself as being in demand. Years ago, I did that. When I started doing therapies, I charged more than anybody else, and I made it harder to get to see me. And it was unbelievable. I did that 'cause I wanted some time. I ended up having more clients than I could possibly see.
So, think in terms of preparation. And the preparation in this case could have been, you know, exposing some of the unions, or exposing in the newspapers that the Grimian brothers are looking for a place to take a mall, and this is one place they were considering, but they didn't know if there was enough community support. And sure enough, watch what happens. They send 40,000 jobs. The union people come out and say, "We want those jobs." People in the community say, "We want that thing." And if they had a fight for it, they would value it more. Remember commitment and consistency. Make sure you create a demand.
And you say, "Tony, why can't I do this?" Well, the first five steps, you can absolutely do. Step six, you may not always be able to do. But I want you to think about it. Is there a way you can create a demand? One way to do that might be to go in and do a poll for a company. So, that's how we create demand from the bottom up. We don't always just go to the person who's the CEO. We go to the people around the CEO and expose them. So, all of a sudden, there's all these people saying, "We want this program." Rather than go to the CEO, he may say, "Well, you know, Tony, your program's great, but, you know, I don't want to shove it down the throats of my people." Ha! We're better prepared. Be creative.
So, what are the six steps? Make sure number one, you know who you're dealing with. Make sure you know what some of their needs and wants are, if you can, upfront. Number two, really know your product and anticipate all the advantages that you could give that person. Number three, know your competition. Know your competition. Four, make sure that you know all the objections that can come up and have answers. Five, make absolutely certain that you're in a situation where you expect the best, plan for the worst. And six, make sure that if there's any way possible, you create some demand in advance. And one way to do that in a simple way would be have the person who gave you the referral call them and tell them all the great things about it already. You're starting to create some demand.
So, that's called Step Number One: Prep. So, you're prepared and you're turned on. What's next? Obviously, you need to make contact. Make contact and get their attention. You know, you don't want to just make contact, you've got to make sure you get somebody's attention as well. That if you're going to get their attention, you've got to be able to trigger them. And one of the ways to do that, of course, is ask them some questions or make a statement, make what we call a "big fat claim," and then back it up. But he said, "Listen, sir, if we could come in here and do something for you like increase your sales by approximately 20%, put this much money in your pocket, you'd certainly want to hear about the possibilities, wouldn't you?" So, immediately you get something to grab somebody's attention. This is critical, and we're going to show you some ways to do it.
But let me very quickly, in this step, it's a very simple step. Let's go through some of the key elements. I'll tell you the first element, and that is, the more you make, the more you make. That's the key to context. And I hate to be so simplistic, but I want to make sure we don't pass this up. Because again, too many people learn all these great closing techniques, but they don't talk to anybody. If you're the worst closer in the world and you talk to enough people, you're going to get sales, and probably more than the guy who's the best closer in the world and doesn't talk to but a few people.
When I first started out in selling, I was not that good. And there was a contest, and it was to go to Hawaii. And at the time, I, God, I'd never been to Hawaii. I thought, "Wouldn't that be incredible?" And I wasn't exactly flush, and hadn't come from a very financially flush background, so traveling wasn't real high on our list. And I really wanted it. But, you know, I was in this competition with these other sales guys. Two of them which were like incredible, and they had like a 70, 75% close ratio. They go out and talk to 10 people, they close seven of them. I go out and talk to 10 people, I get one. And you know what most people say? "Well, I guess I'm going to lose." Not me. I'm what you call committed. So, what I do? I prepared. I turned on. And I told these guys, "I'm absolutely going to kick your tail. I'm going to be in Hawaii." Which I thought I was just this crazed, excited new person. Which sometimes these people don't know what they can't do, and they do real well. And, you know, I wasn't just crazy and excited, I wasn't just shooting from the hip. I just decided I would do better than them. Because, "Okay, he'll probably go out this month, knowing what he's done in the past, he'll probably call on maybe 50 people. So how many sales is he going to get?" And I said, "Okay, I need to call on how many to get more sales than he does?" If he's going to call on 50, he's going to make about 35 sales. I've got to make 350, 351 to do the thing. And literally came from that place. And now, you know what happened? I didn't have to make that many calls. I got to about 200 calls, and it already beat him because I got better, obviously, and I went way beyond my goals.
So, I know this is simplistic. I know we've heard it a thousand times. But the bottom line is, the more you make, the more you make. And it isn't like if you double the number of calls you make, that all of a sudden what happens is your income just doubles. It's not like that. It's synergy. If every call you make, you make it level 10, that as you really are going in at a peak state, you will become so much better as you do it. I mean, the average salesperson many times comes to me and says, "What would it take to be a master like you?" And they give me this nice ego stroke. And I said, "Look, I'm no master. I'm a master of certain material, just like you are. But if you want to be as good as I am in certain areas, it's not a question of how long I want it to take, or you want to take, or how long it does take. It's a matter of how much time are you willing to put in? How many cheffer are you willing to put in?" Some people want to get good at something, so they do it once a week. Some people want to get good at something, and they do it once a day. Some people want to get good at something, and they do it 15 times a day. Well, the guy who does it 15 times a day is going to get more experience in a day than the average person does in a year or two or three. That's what I've tried to do with my life. I've tried to pour more into a day, more into an evening, more into a situation, so I can get good fast. And so that's what I'm going to ask you to do as well in this course. I've already asked you to make the commitment to double the number of prospecting calls. If you learn nothing else but develop that habit, just imagine what happened to your income and your skill level.
So, very quickly, here are five key elements, five keys to being effective. Number one: The first thing you got to do is know that every top persuader that I've met have specific prospecting goals every day. There were a few of them that had weekly goals, but almost all of them had them broken down to the day. And so, my challenge to you is to set a specific goal that you never break, just like
Uh, certain things you won't pass up for. Most of you, you won't pass up eating or sleeping. It's a certain number of calls that's realistic that you, you absolutely can get to. But you do them every day, or you do them every week. It's got to be specific, and it's got to be every day or every week with no exceptions. You got to develop that habit and that discipline.
And by the way, prospecting, making contact, and getting people's attention will become fun for you because you start to figure out creative and outrageous ways to do it. It becomes entertainment. It becomes play for you. But you got to do it enough to get good at it. It's like I was talking to someone here earlier, and they were saying, you know, the other night I decided to start working out. You know, I heard you talk about your commitment and so forth, and I decided to work out, and I felt so good afterward. I, I get this high. Of course, you get this high because what happens? Your whole body changes. Now, you always knew that. But how come you can't get yourself started in the first place? It's because most people are short-term thinkers and not long-term thinkers. Think about it. In the short term, it may seem hard to exercise. But how do you feel afterwards? Almost always, don't you feel pretty incredible? The same thing is true here. After you've made a mass number of contacts and you really got people's attention, you feel phenomenal. You just got to get that initial momentum.
And the way to do that is make sure that you do it daily. That's number one. In a specific number, and hopefully you do more than that. Develop the habit of doing more than what your goal is. It gives you better self-esteem. Number two, you got to be creative so you can have some fun. Don't just prospect the same way every single time. Don't just go out and make contact the same way. Yes, you should pay attention, you should find out what works and do it often. But also break it up sometimes. Be playful. Be fun. Try something, something that you don't think anybody would try.
I'll give you an example. I have a friend who now is a top car salesman in his particular location. And the way he did it was, one day he got so frustrated and so tired of waiting for somebody to come in, which, you know, making contact for a lot of people in retail sales is waiting for the customer to come in. If you do that, you're totally at the effect of things. He decided to get creative. He didn't decide to just make phone calls. He decided to go out on the street and look for a person driving down the street in a beat-up old car. He went out in the middle of the street, stuck his hand out, and then put his other hand in motion them to come in, stop, motioned in. Now, you think this is crazy? Well, do you know what? Out of 10 cars, he gets an average of three to pull in. And if they pull in, how tough a sale do you think somebody would be if you just put your hand up and point and they go there? Okay, not too difficult, right? It's called being creative in the way you make contact. And he walked up to these people and said, "Listen, the reason I stopped you is I noticed you got a beat-up car, and I think you deserve better. And you know what? You probably haven't gotten one because you're either too busy, or you think it's too expensive, or you think it's too hard to get financing. All those things aren't true. Get out of your car, let me show you some of the most phenomenal cars, and I'll work a great deal for you." And now, out of the three that pull over, he'll get an average of two to get out. And out of those, he's got about an 80% close. And the ones he misses are usually because he just can't qualify them for financing. Now, think about that. That's called being creative. That's being outrageous. You need to think, but make it work. Don't just let this be an idea and go, "That's a fun story." Use it. And by the way, I talk to the other people in his dealership and I say, "Hey, he's number one. How come you guys don't do that?" And they say, "Oh, that's just his style." His style. If that's what it takes to be number one, watching me, I'd be say, "I'm moving. This is the next car is mine, right?" Be creative. Be outrageous. Go for it in a way you haven't before.
Third key to making contact and getting attention: Make sure that you do have a plan. Make sure there's something you do consistently. In other words, a plan of what you're going to say so that you got a foundation of what works. If you're doing telemarketing, you need to have a script. You don't have to go by word for word, but you need a plan so you know where you're going. So your attention is on getting their attention, not on, "What am I going to say next?" Otherwise, you're inside your head, and you're not out here.
Number four, make sure you get referrals with every contact. Ask for referrals. "Wait a second, Tony, I don't even have the sale. How could I possibly ask them for referrals? They didn't buy anything for me." Does somebody have to buy to give you referrals? Some people will out of reciprocation. The reciprocation of letting them off the hook, that is, you're no longer demanding that they pay attention to your sales presentation or listen or buy, will be happy to trade you that pressure for the ability to give you some referrals. And many times, they know people who absolutely would buy your product. So if every single time you make contact, you ask for referrals, you're going to get some, aren't you? Ask, and you shall receive. But if you don't ask, you're missing out. And why go make another cold call when you could have a nice, warm, fuzzy referral? That's the way to play. So ask for referrals every time, and then every contact you make will feel like a success.
Now, we also know the stuff about, you know, keeping the law of averages. And as old as it is, let's remind ourselves. If you find out that, for example, you make 10 calls, and sure enough, out of those 10 calls, you get one sale, and you make $100 a call, what's each one worth? So what begins to happen is if you come from that place, and I know this is a burnt-out idea, but it's a useful one to justify things. Logic. What do you do? Just say, "Hey, person says no. Great. I get paid $10 for the no, and I get a referral." That's not a bad deal. So figure out what things are worth, and then have the thing to say every day. Know exactly when you walk in what you're going to do. By having referrals, you watch your income jump up.
And here's the last one, number five. Do it massively. Do it massively. You know, massive action is a cure-all. Remember that. If you really go out and make a mass number of contacts, where you really go at level 10 to get their attention, you'll be surprised what happens. Now, the question is, what stops most people from making contacts? Well, number one, they're not prepared. And we've already covered that, haven't we? Number two, they're not in state. So they feel kind of lousy, and they didn't change their state. Sometimes you don't feel like making contact, but it's your lifeblood. You don't do this, nothing else matters. So you got to get yourself there and be committed to it, and know what it's going to cost you. You don't make the contacts versus the reward you get. Again, think long-term instead of short-term.
But I'll tell you, the number one thing I believe that stops most people, and that is most people, when they think about making contact, think about the fact that, "Well, I'm an interruption. Uh, you know, they may not have time." I want to tell you something. First of all, people always have time if you're interesting enough. Isn't that true? If you get their attention, anybody has time. But you got to be interesting enough. So you got to be able to grab their attention. And so you need to work on being prepared in a way to get people's attention. And I'm going to give you a funny little phrase to help your mind of a whole series of ways to grab people's attention as soon as you make contact. Also, remember, no matter what the situation is, you are an interruption until you get their attention. So it is true. But as soon as you get their attention, anybody you want to talk to is going to have time if you really do it.
So how do we do that? Well, the way we're going to get attention is we're going to scream PIGS. Now, what do I mean by that? This is a little phrase or word I created to describe 10 ways that you can turn around and get somebody's attention. Scream PIGS. And the first one is S, smile. I'll tell you something, as simplistic and stupid as that sounds, when somebody walks in with a big smile, and you don't know what it's for, doesn't that usually make you wonder? How many of you, when somebody sees somebody smile, instantly have a state change yourself? Is that true for you or not? Good. So as simple as that is, another word for smile here might be state. What you want to do to make sure you get people's attention is be in a state that would get attention. Be in a state that people would feel good being around you. It's amazing what attention that can get because the average person walks a certain way, talks a certain way, approaches things a certain way. Come on, most salespeople, what do they like? They're robots. They go in and do the same thing over and over again. They don't manage their state. They're not creative. They're not flexible. They come and do the same thing over and over again, and they wonder why their job is boring and they're broke. Hey, you want to know the difference? You got to manage your state. You got to scream PIGS. Meet somebody and scream PIGS. Put yourself in state. Smile.
Second thing to do is give them a compliment. I'll tell you something, the quickest way to get somebody's attention is to appeal to a self-interest. And if it's a sincere compliment, this is the key. It's got to be sincere. The way to do that is ask yourself a question. The minute you meet people, you should be asking, "What do I like about this person? What could I like about this person? What's, what's interesting about this person? What could be interesting about this person?" Ask, and you shall receive. If you ask those questions, you can't believe all of a sudden you'll start noticing the great things in people. And if you're the kind of person that starts giving compliments, you're going to start feeling better about you too because you're giving. Guess what else you do when you give a compliment? You induce the law of what? That's right, reciprocity or reciprocation. Sure enough, that person now likes you. If it is sincere, otherwise it's flattery, and people know that. They can feel the difference in their gut.
Third key to screaming PIGS is use a referral. If you're coming in there, you'll get somebody's attention if you can say, "Bob, I know you know Mary Sue, and I know she's a good friend of yours, and she asked me to come by and see you." Don't say, "Bob, I'm Tony Robbins." Even they don't care who you are. You got to get their attention first. Connect with them by using something that will grab their attention, which is somebody that they know.
Next, E, exhibit or demonstrate something. Exhibit what your product can do. Grab their attention immediately. One of the things that I saw recently that was kind of fun is seeing somebody who did some magic tricks to grab people's attention. You might want to create a couple of magic tricks. As simple as that sounds, that you could do immediately. A quick demonstration. You walk up and you've got this gatekeeper, the person who keeps you from seeing the person you want to sell to, persuade. And they're standing out front. And you walk up to this gatekeeper, and all of a sudden, what do you do? You make something disappear right off their desk. I'll tell you what, it's rather interesting. Now, there are little devices that you can use. There are little ways you can do it. Go to a magic store and get one or two things you can keep in your pocket. Wouldn't that be a lot more fun prospecting that way? See, all of a sudden, you come up and something, you pick up their pencil, and it just disappears right in front of their face. That'll get their attention. They go, "How'd you do that?" Well, I'll tell you, after you introduce me to your sales manager, I'll show you." What you're doing is you're being different. People like people that are different. Their life needs stimulation. We all want a state change. I mean, think about it. You, as a salesperson, you're not a salesperson, you're a state inducer. If you're good, and the more you can put people in state, the more they're going to buy. Because people buy states. If you can get them to link the states they want most of your product and avoiding other states of your product, they're going to buy. If that's really real, so key here, make sure that you do something that gets people to see you as being different. If you change their state, they're going to listen to you, aren't they? So think of some fun ways to do that. Make making contacts or prospecting fun. Make it fun for them to be with you.
A, ask a leading question. If you ask a question from someone, you immediately get their attention. So you got to come up and ask a question that will grab their attention, something about a need or a benefit. And we covered one example of that when we started.
M, mystery. Magic is an example of mystery. Or you could come up and say, "John, and you just barely know him, or maybe you've not even introduced yourself yet. You say, 'John, I'm wondering if you know the one item that's right here in your office or in your company that will be replaced in the next 12 months, or the one item that if it was replaced, could earn you at least another $10,000 a year for your company or $5,000 in your pocket. I'm wondering if you know what that is.'" Would that get your attention? It would mine, right? So mystery is a lot. People love a mystery. Create something mysterious. Have fun. I do this on the telephone often.
P, poll. One ways that, one of the things we did with our company is we went out to managers in the area. And rather than coming in and talking about coming into their companies, a lot of them were put off by that. What we did is went out and did a poll. And we said, "Listen, we just need two minutes. We would like to give you a copy of Tony Robbins' book." What is that called? Inducing what? That's right, reciprocation. It's also social proof, right? Because my book is a national bestseller, right across the cover, right? And here's this picture, and it's real. So we induce reciprocation, social proof, and we're giving somebody something. If they read it, we know they're going to be interested. And what happened? Well, we then say, "We'd like to just take a quick poll from you. Just like to take a quick couple of ideas. Tony's doing some research on people in this area, and we collect the data so we can use it, but also in the process, we have total attention." And the guy gets to get up and leave. He goes, "Well, can you tell me anything about him?" Okay, immediate attention. Or we can call them back a few weeks later and say, "Listen, in our poll, we found that you said these are the most important things in selling. Those are obviously some of the things that we do. Could we come by and talk to you about it?"
I, information. Approach them with some information that's important to them. Tell them a statistic. "Did you know that, for example, in this country that 65% of all children blank?" Does your kid do this? Instantly, you've got a question, and you've got information. "Did you know that XYZ computer can produce this and this and this and do these things faster than anything you've seen before?" Again, offer them information.
And the last two, G, gifts. Give them something that will induce reciprocation. I already told you an example that we give somebody a book. Give somebody a gift. They love it. And if you can do it creatively, wrap it up even. What happens to people when you give a gift, somebody a gift, and it's wrapped up? For most people, they kind of get into it, especially if you do it elegantly, if it doesn't look like you're trying to manipulate them, and if you're sincere, you want to give them something you think that'll be valuable for them. Giving a gift induces reciprocation and grabs people's attention. They're going to focus on their gift.
And S, startle them. Come in and make a statement that startles them, or startle them in a soft way. Somebody just came up to me here during the class and said, "Tony, you and I, I have some unfinished business." And I went, "What?" He said, "I'll tell you what." And he pulled out my book. He said, "I went through one of your other courses, and you didn't sign my book." I said, "Oh, here, give it to me." But did he have my full attention? Instantly. It was a great example. So make sure you startle them.
So you want to succeed? Do the five things every day. Do it daily. Have a specific goal. Absolutely be creative. Put yourself in a situation where you have a specific thing to say, and you don't have to worry about it, so you have that to fall back on. Make absolutely certain every time you get referrals, so you really make every single one a win. And do it massively. And to get their attention, yes, you are an interruption, only if you don't have their attention. As soon as you get their attention, and if you're interesting enough, there's no doubt they've got time for you. So scream PIGS. Make contacts. Get their attention. I'll see you for step number four.
Well, are you ready to engage? Then here's Joseph to make sure you follow through and you use this stuff. I'll talk to you tomorrow. Till then, God bless and live with passion and influence and impact.
Too great. So how did you enjoy this session? I hope you had a great time with it. I know I did. Do you remember the first three steps to increase your sales? Let's repeat them now. Number one, prepare and do your homework. Number two, turn on. And number three, make contact and become their best friend. Great job. Also, do you remember how to scream PIGS that you learned in Step number three? And by the way, when I first heard this, I thought that was crazy, scream PIGS. But I also know and I remember now that what it does is it's an acronym, and it allows you to remember so you know what step you're in while you're doing it. So let's go over it together.
S stands for smile. And that's easy to do. Anybody can do it, and it changes everything.
C, compliments. You need to be specific and sincere.
R stands for referral. Use a reference from a referral to make contact.
E, exhibit or demonstrate something.
A, ask. Ask a leading question.
M, mystery.
P, poll.
I, information. Approach them with some information that's important to them.
G, gifts. Give them something that will induce reciprocation.
And S, startle them.
Great. Now you've completed the first three steps of phase number one, enroll. Have fun with this, and I look forward to getting together with you on the next session entitled, Connect and Become Their Best Friend.