Transcription
People buy based on emotion, not on logic. Probably heard this concept before. People buy things emotionally and they justify them logically. One of my favorite examples of this is my business partner, Todd Dickerson. He's going to kill me for telling you guys this story, but a couple years ago, he went and he wanted to buy a Ferrari.
Now, if you ever bought a Ferrari before or driven in one, when you sit down the very first time, you turn the car on, there's this feeling, this like noise like rumbles through your body. It's like and you feel yourself. You imagine yourself driving down the street, the wind blowing through your hair. Imagine going to the gas station, people coming to you. I know this cuz I actually won a Ferrari one time and literally when you park it at a gas station, all the dudes come to you and they start asking you questions and I know nothing about cars like how many horses under that hood. I'm like I don't know what you're asking. I don't know what you're even talking about. Right? And I remember driving the very first time and the most fascinating thing is that none of the women ever noticed. Like they'd be driving, they didn't even notice, but all the dudes are like whoa whoa. You know, like you get everyone's attention. So what happens is you sit behind the seat and emotionally like I need this car. And so Todd bought the Ferrari and then as he was driving home he's like my wife Ashley is going to kill me. And so he gets home he's like Ashley I bought a new car but the coolest thing about this he gets really really good gas mileage. The resale value is insane. We can literally sell it in a year from now the same thing we paid right now and starts logically trying to convince her about why he bought something emotionally. Okay? And so we have to understand this happens in almost every sales argument. People always buy emotionally and then they justify things logically.
What's up? This is Russell. Welcome back to my vault. Today I'm going to tell you guys about one of my favorite advertisers of all times. Very famous guy most people have never heard of today. His name is Elmer Wheeler. He wrote a whole bunch of really good books. He is famous for inventing the concept of sell the sizzle not the stake. And this is one of his books. It's called Sislemanship new tested selling sentences. And uh again he's got dozens of really really good books on selling. This is one that I thought was really cool because uh it deep dives deep into like the actual sentences we use which for all of us online marketing nerds we use sentences all the time. We use headlines, we use copy, we use a lot of different sentences. And this helps you to learn how to sell more sizzle inside of all of your sentences, which is kind of cool. I got this copy of the book on eBay for a huge screaming deal. It's only $53.43. I didn't even get a bidding war. People didn't even know this book exists, so I was able to get it for pretty cheap. There's six core points that Elmer talks about here inside this book. I'm going to break down for you guys going to help you to add more sizzle to everything that you are selling.
A couple years ago, I spoke at Grant Cardone's 10X event. You probably heard this story before. I set a world record. We sold a $3,000 course. She sold over a thousand copies of it. And what we did that was really powerful is because think about this. People are coming to the event, they hear me speak. I sell the thing. But then they go back home and they their spouse is like, "You bought what? For how? What's a funnel?" Right? And so we created this little packet that went with everybody when they bought it. And inside the packet there was a there's a letter. It said letter to the spouse or significant other. And someone would take that letter. They open it up. Inside it's like, "Hey, I know your your significant other just got home from this event. They spent $3,000 on something. You probably think they're a little crazy. And you're trying to figure out what in the world they blew this money on." So, I want to make sure you had the same experience so you guys were on the same page. And so, I made a copy of my presentation right here and I had a QR code that would go and link to the presentation with their husband or their wife just bought. They can go watch it. And I logically explained the reason why your your your significant other bought this is because of boom boom boom. We gave a logical bullet point list of the reasons why this was a good investment. And uh and we gave that to the spouse. And I told everyone when you get home, give this to your significant other and it'll take care of all the stress you have because it's going to help them to logically understand why you bought it. and then to give them the emotional hit they need to do to be able to be like, "Okay, I'm glad you bought this thing." So, that's step number one is understand people buy it, but through emotion, not through logic.
All right, step number two, you have to sell the sizzle over the stake. And again, Elmer is uh is the person who came up with that concept and made it popular, right? So, what does that mean, the sizzle, not the stake? Okay. Um I think sometimes for me, the better way to uh to understand this, a lot of times when people are selling, they're selling the process, not the destination, right? The sizzle, not the stake. So, for example, let's say you are selling a trip to Hawaii, right? You want to talk about the palm trees, the luau, the beach, the swimming. You don't want to talk about all the steps they have to do to get there, right? Cuz getting to Hawaii is a nightmare. I know we just went for spring break, right? You have to get on a plane with a bunch of people. You got to sit in these little tiny seats. The seats don't really recline. Your back starts seizing up, right? And then you got to go through customs where it's really hot outside and then you got to like put your bag through the thing and like there's all these steps, right? And people always try to sell that part of the trip, right? And you never do that when you're selling something. You sell the destination, not the process and how to get there, right? Does that make sense? And so that's what the whole selling the sizzle, not the steak is, right? Like the steak's not that great. You sell the sizzle, right? They hear the noise. You look at good TV commercials, right? When they were selling meat back in the day, like you see a picture, like you see a steak, it's like, all right, but then you add the noise, you add the the emotional feelings, right? You hear the sizzle, you hear the butter popping, all kind of things. Like that's how you sell the steak. You sell the sizzle, not the steak. Okay, so that's point number two from Elmer Wheeler.
Number three, use clear, simple language. Okay, this is one of the mistakes most people make. They want to show how smart they are, so they use very big words. Okay, I talk about this in the expert secrets book. I'm like, you have to learn how to speak at like a third or fourth grade level. Anything above that is too complicated. And the problem that most people have, especially experts, they want to show how smart they are. So, they will prolificate on these huge words and their audience, they hear them, and they feel kind of dumb, but they don't want to say anything, but because they feel dumb, they're not likely to buy from you. Okay? And so what you have to do is you have to simplify your language. In fact, it's interesting. During the first uh Trump presidential campaign with Trump versus Hillary, uh I was writing the expert secrets book. And one of the things as I was doing the study, I was like, you have to write in a very simple language. And so uh we took one of Trump's speeches and we took one of Hillary's speeches. We ran it through um this uh this software that would show you what grade level the writing was done with, which is really fascinating. And I think Hillary was speaking at like an eighth grade level and Trump was speaking at like a third grade level, right? And like that's the concept. You have to numb down your speech so it makes it very simple for people to actually understand. Okay. Now, sometimes you have to use big words that are confusing. So, in the expert secrets book, I teach about a really powerful tool that we call a kind of like bridge. So, I said if you have to introduce a phrase that's that's that's kind of technical or or confusing, as soon as you lead the phrase, you have to lead you have to follow it with what I call a kind of like bridge. So, for example, I wrote a video sales letter one time for a company called Prove It sells a product that gets people into ketosis. Okay. Now, when you hear the word ketosis, that is not a simple word. That's a complicated word, right? And so, um, and you get into ketosis and then you have ketones and this whole thing. And so, when I was going through the script, I talked about sing. I introduced the concept of ketones. As soon as I said ketones, I stopped and I said, it's kind of like a million little motivational speakers running through your body getting you energy and getting you excited, right? Because people understand what it would feel like to have a million motivational speakers running through your body. They don't understand what ketones are, right? So, I took a complicated phrase and I stopped and immediately I did a kind of like bridge. Okay? So, Elmer's talking about here is using clear, simple language. And anytime it has to be complicated, you immediately stop. Do a kind of like bridge to simplify it so people understand exactly what you're talking about.
All right. Point number four, engage the senses and the imagination. The best salespeople in the world, they're not telling you about features and benefits, right? They're engaging you emotionally. They're helping you to see a vivid vision of what life would look like after you have this product or the service. I remember um I think I've shared this before on this channel, but I remember uh when I first got in this coaching business 20 years ago, uh I was studying Robert Allen. He was the biggest real estate guru in the world at the time, right? And I remember um I got on a teles seminar. This teles seminar, he spent like an hourong process helping people to create a vivid vision. He talked about imagine your dream home and what did it smell like? What was it like when you walk through the door? Like do your kids come to you? Is it a dog? What does that look like? And I want you to like experience hugging him and what does it smell like? What does it taste like? What does the food taste like? And like he tried to create this thing where you're engaging the senses and the imagination, right? They cast that vision and then from there it's easier to sell cuz people like they experienced it. They just to hear you talk about they actually experienced it. And so when you were selling something, right, is being able to cast that vivid vision. So it incorporates people's senses and their imagination.
Number five point says close with confidence and clarity. Okay? In any situation, the person who has the most confidence and the most certainty always wins. Okay? Okay, if you're in a negotiation, whoever has more confidence and certainty is going to win the negotiation. Okay, if you're speaking in a room, whoever's got the most confidence and and certainty is going to win. If you are sure about your product, your service, you want people to actually buy, you have to come with confidence. You have to come with certainty. Okay? People are looking for certainty. I think it was J. Abraham who once said that people are silently begging to be led, right? He says that sometimes they it's like they have a um a cord coming out of their belly button. They're trying to find somebody to plug into. So, if you will come with that confidence and that certainty, people will plug into you and they will allow you to lead them to where it is that you are trying to take them to.
And number six didn't actually come in this book. Number six is mine. Because selling is great, but one-on-one selling is slow and it does not get you where you want to go quickly. So, my number six is only sell when you're doing one to many presentations. That way, you can give one presentation and close a ton of people at once. It it's the leverage point that lets you grow very, very quickly. I remember having this realization when I spoke at Grant's uh Grant Cardone's event, right? There were 9,000 people in the room and I delivered a 90-minute presentation. Okay? I thought about that. I said, "If I was to go and try to do a one-on-one presentation to all 9,000 people, we lined them up in a row and I was doing like um a 90-minute presentation to the first person, the second, and the third. I did that and tried to close one person at a time all the way through it take it would take me like 80 years to close everyone. But instead, I brought them all together. I did one sales presentation to many people. I made more money in an hour than most people make in an entire year." Okay? And that is the power of leverage. And so no matter how good your sales techniques are, adding leverage, switching from one to one to one to many will be the fastest way to increase your revenue, increase your income. Even if your conversion rate clo uh shrinks a little bit, moving from one to one to many, it doesn't matter because you get so many more people through the door that makes up for everything else. Volume is the key to this game and going one to many is how you win the sales game today.
All right. If you want to go deeper with Elmer Wheeler, the guy who invented how to sell the sizzle, not the stake, down in the comments down below. I will give you my book notes from Sizzlemanship. All you got to do is click down below uh download the the notes and it'll give you some of the coolest ideas. It'll give you a whole bunch of really cool tested sentences, different things. Um and you're going to fall in love with Elmer Wheeler if you haven't ever heard of him before. He's one of the greats of all time. Almost nobody's actually heard of him today. Uh and so make sure you get the notes, read through this, and you'll become a super fan as well. With that said, thank you guys so If you enjoyed this video, share with other people.