Selling with Logic To Make Lots of Money [Alex Hormozi]

Going to do a cool deep dive together on a topic that I could, you know, hold near and dear to my heart, which is closing. There are different styles of sales. There are some of you guys who kind of lean on your own story a lot when you sell. It's like, I got in shape, and I know how you feel. Um, I think a little bit of that is lazy selling. When I first started with some of my newer trainers, they would lean on their story as the reason that they could close, but that meant that they could only close people who related to their story. And so it's like they could do really well with 25-year-old girls, but if you had a 50-year-old guy come in, they were…

And so in the beginning, sometimes we lean on the few things that we're good at, but over time you want to become a generalist in terms of just understanding the psychology behind persuasion. Now, the big difference—and it's my big caveat here, and I'll probably include this in the presentation—is that from a sales ethics perspective, the difference between help and manipulation is intention. At the end of the day, either way, you're going to change someone's behavior, or your intention is to change someone's behavior. Now, if you want to help the person, it's a good thing; if you want to manipulate them and hurt them ultimately, it's a bad thing.

And if you think about sales as an education process overall—which is how I see it—if the prospect knew everything that you knew, they should make the decision to buy. Now, if you're being really honest with yourself, if the prospect knew everything that you knew, and then they would choose not to buy, then you are deceiving them, which is no bueno, and that's what makes you feel shitty. It's also what happens when anyone here ever had a salesperson come in, start crushing it, and then go down. Anyone? So what happens is they learned more about your product, and then they don't want to hurt people, and so they stop selling. Like they don't do it consciously, but they just don't want to—like, right when it gets to the point where they really have to lean in to like get this person across the line, they won't do it because deep down they don't believe.

And so, barring all the stuff that I'll cover today—which is a lot—I'm, I would consider myself more of a logical closer because I like presenting like, "Let's play both of these scenarios out. Let's see what it looks like. If it makes sense for you, awesome," and I believe that logical closing has the best long-term outcomes for people. Like, I can get everyone—really raw, Rod—get someone over the line, and then they regret it the next day, and then they call you back, or they don't really buy into the concept because the thing is is that today they're excited, tomorrow they're excited, but two weeks from now, when they haven't had as many carbs and their cheeks are all flush and they feel like all of a sudden the emotions are gone, and so if the emotions is what they needed in order to make the decision, I want the logic to still be there so they can remember, "Oh yeah, that is—this still makes sense," right? So I tend to lean towards being a little bit more of a logical salesman, if you want to call it that, um, and I think it served me well. So I want to give you some frameworks that I use—really to help yourself make decisions, but also help your clients make decisions—and fundamentally that's what I think sales is: helping people make decisions to help themselves. Cool. All right, rock and roll. So, great decision making and selling with logic to make lots of money—fantastic. So this presentation will be the best presentation on sales you've ever heard, the worst presentation on sales you've ever heard, or somewhere in between. That is a promise. All right, thank you. I was seeing who was awake.

Um, so Charlie Munger, big hero of mine, he said, "We have a high moral responsibility to be rational," and I think that's how I kind of approached selling and persuading and trying to get people to do the thing that would help them. All right. And so what is being rational or logical have to do with selling? Right? Sometimes you've got logical buyers, sometimes you've got emotional buyers. There are different types of people who buy in different styles, just like their different selling styles—different buying styles. Right? Like maybe you and your spouse, or you and your partner, whatever, uh, you know, one of you is like, "Let's go do this thing," and one's like, "Hey, let's get all the information," right? Different styles. And so most people sit on this continuum. Quick test: Who identifies here as more of an emotional buyer? I don't see that as a bad thing, by the way. Okay? Who here identifies more as a logical buyer? Cool. Interesting. One of the things that I've noticed, just as an observation, is that the higher up in the business world you get, the more logical buyers you have, the fewer emotional buyers you have. Um, so I want you to put both hats on while you're thinking through this because many of you are clients will be emotional buyers, and you may be more of a logical buyer, and that just changes over time. The more exposure to sales in general and marketing in general you get, the more—I don't say jaded, but the more accustomed to it you become—kind of like banner blindness—and so you kind of shift on this continuum over time. Who's in between? You identify as in between? All right, never mind. Okay, so great. Uh, you'll love this. So sales for all people.

So before we get started, a few beliefs about selling that have served me well: One is that people want to believe you; they want to buy you; you just have to help their logical brains justify the decision. Like most people are like, "Hey, I can make you a lot more money"—they want to believe you; you just have to help them justify—"Hey, I can help you get into your high school jeans. I can make you look the way you did 20 years ago"—you try to help them; they just want—they just want to believe you. You've got to help them. Selling happens before you ask; closing happens after. All right? So everything that happens until you say, "Here's the money. Here's the amount that I need for this thing"—all of that is sales, for me. I define closing as the moment you present the offer; everything after that is closing. And to be clear, that is what I'm going to be talking about today—just the red zone. Three: It's easier to handle obstacles than objections. Obstacles are what you handle before; objections, which you handle after. That being said, expect and plan for no. It's not failure; it's expected. So stop being surprised. It's one of the biggest things I see with new salespeople who are just getting into sales is they freak out when someone says, "No, thank you. I need to think about it. I'm not sure. I got to talk to my spouse. I'm not sure if it's a fit for me. I don't make fast decisions. I don't have—I don't have the card I want to use on me," right? They say these things, and it's like—it's like this is what you train for because if they were just gonna buy, then you wouldn't be needed. If they already knew that they needed this thing, then they wouldn't be struggling with it to begin with. Like the sale is the first part of the coaching relationship, in my opinion. And this one's also a really good one to train salespeople with: is that if you didn't get a gasp from the price tag, they didn't go high enough. And so I like this a lot because then it prepares us, and we shoot for what we used to be afraid of. Like, if you didn't get a gasp, but they're like, "It's a lot," you're like, "I know." [Laughter] You're like, "It's a lot. Um, hey, let's keep PG." Okay. So selling properly is the first step to become a coach. Your first impression, the expectations you set, dictate the relationship. All right? How you handle this first conversation—like, every—how many of you have seen research on first impressions? Right? It's a lot harder to change a first impression. Well, the first impression of your business is the sale, and so a lot of things happen here. Like oftentimes you can change LTVs, churn, simply by changing the expectations you set in the sale. One conversation dictates how months of service are taken in. Selling is helping prospects make decisions to help themselves. I said that earlier. Keep the prospect, not the sale, as the priority because it's not about you. And I don't know if I have this on here, but the person who cares the most about the prospect ultimately wins. Think about that for a second. So if you care more about them than they care about them, you will win because you'll have the leverage because you really want to help them, and then you will be kind—not nice. You'll ask the hard questions. If someone objects, be curious; understand, not to argue or be right. This is something that took me more time to understand. It's like if someone objects to buying, if you keep a curious hat on, you can keep in that frame for as long as you want; you just keep staying curious, like, "Huh, that's so weird. I wouldn't have thought that way. Why do you think that?" Right? As soon as you get into like your fists up of like, "Well, let me prove you wrong," it's kind of like Dale Carnegie's like, "No one wins an argument." Like you don't win the sale by being right. Getting them to want to buy is the ultimate objective, right? Because if they feel like they made the decision, then you'll also get buy-in later. And so you can't be combative. It's much more of a dance, which I think is one of these other ones. So maintain childlike curiosity at all times. Closing is a dance, not a fight; it is seduction, not rape. All right, that's the one that wakes everyone up in the morning. All right? The idea is like it's a dance; it's fluid; you're moving, right? It's not coercion; it's not forced. And this is a big one; this is what I was hitting on earlier: is that selling is a transference of belief over a bridge of trust. All right? So you have to have belief in order to transfer it. Sometimes your new salespeople have belief; they gain trust, and they transfer it, and then they learn more about your company, and then they have less trust—and even sorry, they have less belief—and even though they have trust with the prospect because they have trust, they don't transfer the belief because they don't have it anymore. They used to; they thought you were all that, and now they don't, and so they can't transfer because there's nothing there. And so anyone ever met somebody who became like—like a born-again Christian? I don't want to put a term on it. Anyone change religious beliefs that you know, anyone like in your life? Okay. So one of the really interesting things, at least that I've observed, is that like if someone comes to me—and doesn't even have to be a religious thing; it's just an easy one to—to observe—is that they're so convicted in their new belief that you start to question your—you're like, "Maybe they are right," right? And the thing is is that like the best sales tool is belief, and I keep repeating this because if I'm gonna—if I'm gonna turn a wholesale scene around, all the stuff I'm going to show you is—is the hand-to-hand stuff. You got to memorize the stuff; you got to know this stuff. But this is like the sets and reps, right, of sales, but if the team doesn't believe it, just doesn't matter. I got flown in to turn the sales team around years ago—years, years ago—um, and it was a mortgage sales company, and they were selling mortgage leads, and first the morning I rewrote the script, repositioned it, blah blah, in the afternoon they wanted me to train the guys, so I got on the sales floor; they, you know, gathered everybody around; they wanted me to do like a Glengarry Glen Ross, if you've seen that scene—like, always be closing. And so you want me like—row the troops up. And so I sat down, and I was like, "Who's the guy—if you're having issues with—you're like, John?" I was like, "John, how good are the leads?" That's what they were selling—it's like, "How good are the leads?" He's like, "Well, there…" And I was like, "I'm good, thanks, man," and uh, I was like—it was a simple question. I was like, "If you believed, you would have been like, 'Dude, these leads are so good right now. I'm studying for my real estate exam so I can start taking these leads. I got my aunt to quit her job so that she can start taking these. My uncle is a realtor, so I'm selling him leads right now, and honestly, I hope that in 12 weeks I'll be out of this role so I can start doing these too.'" I was like, "That's what it sounds like when you believe. You don't believe." So of course you don't sell. I was like, "It doesn't matter." And then I ripped up the script to be all dramatic. I was like, "Doesn't matter what's the words on here." I was like, "If you guys don't believe, it's not like—none of this will matter." And then they went and closed a bunch, right? But it was like it's about the belief more than anything. And so if you need to fix that, fix that first with you or your team. And if the things that you know you should do to fix the product, to make a better onboarding experience, etc., do that because the thing is is that when you do that, you will approach the sale differently because you'll be so confident what you're—what you're—what you're delivering. You can only build trust if you generally want to help, and humans are exceptionally good at sniffing out intention. Like we've got thousands of years of adaptation and evolution to help us see who is lying to us. And so it's like commission breath—I like that term a lot. If you have commission breath, people can smell it. And so I think one of the big frame shifts that I like to do when I approach a sale is like it's about them. I just want to help this person, and like I just have to reset myself every time I get into the room, right before I sit down with somebody's keeping that intention at top of mind, which is human first. It's like I want to prioritize this human, not the sale, but if you do that, they'll have a positive experience with you either way, and you'll also close more deals. This is a big one. So I've talked about beliefs; I've talked about the bridge of trust. They are continuums, not binaries, so you have to treat them that way. It's not, "Do you have belief in your product? Do you not have belief in your product? Do you have trust with the prospect, or do they trust you, or do they not trust you?" It's, "How much do they trust you? How deep is your belief?" Right? Because if they trust the out of you, and your belief is miles deep in terms of how much you believe, how hard do you think it will be to sell? Not hard, right? And so a lot of us are like, "Did you build rapport?" It's not, "Did you build rapport?" It's, "How much rapport did you build?" Does that make sense? Okay. If you can start changing your language this way, then it also gives you an ability to continue to get better. It's not like, "Oh yeah, I built rapport. I have trust. They believe me," right? It doesn't work that way. It's how much—it's to what extent. Oops, wrong way. There we go. Closers ask hard questions because they genuinely care, right? These are the hard conversations. It's funny because a lot of you guys are really good at having hard conversations with prospects but really bad at having hard conversations with your team. If you can have a hard conversation with your team, it'll be easy with prospects. The person who cares the most about the prospect wins the deal. This is just a side note: Record all your sales. Always. One of my biggest regrets in life is that I have 4,000 undocumented sales. Like, boy, wouldn't that be nice today? I could use all this. So please, for the love of God, document all these things. Best champions watch game footage. The goal of closing is to get someone to decide, not to buy. And the thing is is that you actually have to believe this if you're training your sales team, and you're like, "This is what I want you to do. I want you to help these people decide. I don't want you to help get them to buy. I want you to help them to decide," and if their decision is to buy, that's awesome, but that means that you reward them when they get someone to decide either way. This is different than many of you probably do this, and this took me time, so I'm just—I'm giving you the stuff that I've learned, all right? Because if you do that, then you reward the activities rather than the outcome because they can only control—like the sales team, yourself included—can only control what you do; you can't control what they do, but what you can do is actually try and get them to confront the decision that they've been putting off for a long time. And finally, power is the ability to direct or influence people. If you want to be powerful, you must learn this skill because fundamentally if you can move mountains, you can move rooms; you can get people to do stuff; you have power; you have the ability to direct or influence other people. And so sales is power, and if that makes you feel queasy, then I think you should check yourself and think like, "Why do I not want to be powerful?" Right? You can build hospitals; you can build bombs, right? Power. And so I think for me, I've, you know, sales has been always near and dear to my heart because it's the thing—if you like—you want to make an impact; it's like, "Well, what is an impact?" It means like influencing lots of people. How do you influence lots of people? You have to persuade them, so that's what we're doing. Cool. Okay, so when does selling happen? When you engage the lead, when you qualify the lead, when you solicit the sale, when you close the sale—the entire time. Now, what are we going to talk about today? Closing the sale. Everything you have to do after asking for the sale to get someone to buy. That's all we're going to talk about—just the last five yards. Okay. And so here's an insane stat for you, and this is something that, you know, Kale and I were talking about yesterday, which is if a gym owner knows how to close, we're just not that worried about them because they can afford the most expensive leads; they can sell for higher prices because they know how to close. There are very few people in the fitness world that do not succeed if they know how to close. It's just hard to fail. And I found this stat, and I thought it was really interesting: is that the top five red zone offices made the playoffs ninety percent of the time. Of all stats in football, top five offenses in the red zone—when the game's on the line, when they need to close the deal—made the playoffs 90%. It's not—doesn't—wasn't about special teams; wasn't about defense; wasn't about—just in the red zone, people who can score when the game's on the line go to the playoffs 90%. I was like, "That's a good stat." So if you want to be a top 10 gym, might be something worth having. So here's how I have observed the breakdown of prospects when it comes to closing: Ten percent of people are never going to buy, which means you can't get upset about the fact that someone doesn't buy. That's what we have to focus on—getting them to decide, not necessarily to buy, because otherwise you're always going to be upset. On the other hand, 10% of people were going to buy if you were not there—if you were a scarecrow that just said, "Please buy? Question mark. Got credit card? Question mark. Right now." Eighty percent of people need help deciding, and this is why we train. And I think presenting this to your team is also really helpful, just so that they understand. It's like this is what we train for; it's for the 80% of people that need help. That's why they're here. If they knew how to make the decision on their own, they wouldn't need our help; they would do it already. And so if after this presentation you just have one more bullet in your chamber, one more plane in your arsenal, you'll close one more deal per month.

My goal is that that pace for this whole weekend for you. Cool, okay, awesome. There you go. I even have put a little thing there. Okay. One of my favorite sayings is that you're only one decision away from changing your life forever, and I love thinking about this when I think about talking to a prospect. It's like this decision could change their life forever, and that's a lot of power, right? But instead of changing lives, this is what's interesting for me: we blame, think, give power to sources outside of our control. And this is exactly what the people walk in your gym, and we do it ourselves every day. And so, even though I said originally that this is a talk on logical closing, what it really is is a talk on power.

So the problem is that most people cast their power; they become victims of their own lives because they point to other things to cast their power to. This is us and our prospects, and this is why so many people are weak and powerless. And so I believe that if you can talk to somebody who is powerful and you can help them realize that they are powerful, then you talk to an empowered individual, which, believe it or not, often buy to help themselves. Okay, so we're going to do a fun activity today. One, help you make a decision to help yourself with whatever decisions you are facing in life. Some of you guys have some hard decisions. I was talking about two days ago, some conversations that need to happen, right? I don't know why this is another one, but number one, there you go. Use these frameworks to help prospects help themselves, and then finally, just become more powerful yourself. Okay, this is what we're going to do. So, but I've been keeping these hypothetical. I want you to visualize the decision that you need to make. All right.

So this is one of my favorite things from Confucius: I hear and I forget, I've seen, I remember, I do, and I understand, right? You might have read 100 books about sales, but your first hundred actual conversations probably taught you more than all of them put together, right? When you do it, you start to understand; it starts to make sense. All right. So think through a decision; if you want, write it down. Doesn't matter to me as long as it's in your head. Walk through these decision-making frameworks for yourself because that way you can transfer them to other people. Okay, so who is presented with a decision last 24 hours? Anyone? Okay, Sandra. Skip Sandra; Sandra was the good one. Sarah, right? Okay, who thinks getting rid of Sarah or doing anything else could better improve your life? Yes? Yeah, two people. Fantastic. Everyone else? So my goal is that I want to show you, as though you were probably, how to think through a decision. All right, I can help others using this. What I want, what I don't want. Cool. Let me skip this real quick: sales ethics. I think I covered this earlier because I want to get to the… so helping someone make a decision to help themselves does not mean buying from you; it just means keeping them in their goals at the center of the decision. Okay, I keep repeating this because it's so important, and you should be happy if someone makes a decision for themselves, independent of whether they choose to work with you or not. If you can get to that point, you'll be untouchable because they have no leverage over you. Like that's how you sell from your back foot, is that if you were genuinely happy that if they make a decision, an empowered decision that's informed, not to work with you, you're like, "What a great day! I help this person out!" If you can get there, you become untouchable because you don't need anything. And so most importantly, how to make high-stakes decisions and help your prospects do the same. Cool.

So here's a fun delineation: obstacles versus objections. Who here has heard these terms? Good, thank you. Like, thank God. Okay, who knows the difference? Ah, so obstacles are a thing that blocks one's way or prevents or hinders progress. When you disagree with something they say, so you disagree with them, that is an obstacle. Here's an example: "Hey, why'd you hop on the call today?" Them: "I just want to find out more about the program." That's an obstacle; they're giving you that. That's not why they hopped on; they find out more about the program. The hot dogs are fat, right? That's why they're there. I was like, "You don't spend all day hopping on information to find out about programs," right? No. Well, then why are you doing that? Because I'm overweight, I don't like how I look, I don't like how I feel, blah, blah. Ah, so you have a problem you want to solve? Yes, fantastic, right? If you don't address that, it blows up on you in the close, right? Obstacles happen before you present the offer; objections happen after. Objections are an expression or feeling of disapproval or opposition; a reason for disagreeing when they disagree with you. So obstacles, we're in the offensive; we get to go attack them and their limiting beliefs. You're in the driver's seat before you make the offer, so you want to destroy as many of these obstacles as we possibly can, the things that will hinder them from making a decision before we get to the close. That being said, once we get to the close, we need to know how to handle objections. "Then I don't want to buy right now." You totally reasonable. What are the main criteria you're thinking through? They're like, "Oh, he's still here; I thought this was going to end." This and you're like, "I've had this more conversation more times than you." All right. So learning how to talk through those high-stakes decisions with yourself or others, the purpose, presentation, all right, and the result is that everyone here is more powerful and can transfer that power to other people.

So before I dive into those arguments, this is a big point: is that the person has to really want the goal and believe that one, the product will get them to their goal the way they want to get there; two, that you and others will support them; and three, that it will work for them, not just everyone else. Super important. If they don't believe these things, you could understand all the stuff I'm going to show you, and they're not going to buy. All right, you have to provide proof that it would be more unreasonable for them not to believe you; said, pride proof that it'd be more reasonable for them to believe than to not believe. All right, the reason that Jim Launch has a gazillion testimonials is because like, we just want to be like, obviously this works; we've done it a hundred thousand times; we know how the model works, right? And just like you, you're talking to your prospect, you're like, "I promise calorie deficits work; I promise you don't have a stubborn metabolism." You know what I mean? You don't go to Uganda; they don't have stubborn, they don't have stubborn body fat there, tough, right? Real talk. Otherwise, if they're unsure, there's things they will object to something else in the close. Okay, which is why you should expect no at first because they could make the decision; they wouldn't need your help; they would just send you money. Wouldn't that be nice? Great. That's the appetizer; now to the main course.

So here's my request: see a lot of cameras for now, for the rest of it, just put them down, and I want you to just be present with me because I'm sure there's recordings or whatever, and you can watch these things later. But what I would like you to do is just be present because the only thing, only time we can do this IRL. All right. So this is Richard Feynman; big fan of his; he's dead now. He was one of the guys who worked on the atom bomb. Uh, understand, don't memorize; learn principles, not formulas. If you can understand the frameworks I'm going to show you, then you'll be equipped to have these conversations with your prospects for the rest of your life if you can just understand them rather than memorizing because, let's be real, you're not going to memorize them in the next 45 minutes; you're not going to. But if you understand them, you can approach them with forever. Okay, there you go. So there are three sources that we cast our power to that'll break down. This is Albert Ellis; he was—probably haven't heard of him. Anyone heard of cognitive behavioral therapy, CBT? He invented it or is one of the fathers of it. If you would stop, really stop, dimming yourself, others, in unkind conditions that you would find it almost impossible to upset yourself emotionally about anything. Yes, anything. And so when he was with 30 or 40 years of therapy, he tried to break down all the things that people were bothered about. In the beginning, he had 11, and then he had nine, and then he had seven, and then finally at the end of his career, he said there's only three things that people get upset about, and they also are the same three things that people cast their power to. And these are his causes of emotional disturbance: circumstances: "I must get what I want when I want it; I must not get what I don't want; and if I get what, if I don't get what I want, I can't stand it." That is the belief. Two: "Other people must treat me fairly and kindly, and if they don't, they are no good and they deserve to be condemned and punished." And three: "Self: I must do well or else I am no good." This is what causes emotional disturbance and people; this is also why people don't buy. These are all powerless statements. So this is basically the victim handbook; this is how you become a victim of your own life or how our prospects become victims of their own lives. So I call this the onion and blame. So there's the big straight votes: you've got circumstances, other people, and then finally self. And this is important because as we're going to be going through this, when a prospect presents with a circumstance issue, then you are at the outermost layer of their onion, which means you still might have two or three more layers you got to dig through before you get to somebody who's empowered to make a decision. And so if you hear a circumstance, just be ready; you're like, "I might have two or three more layers I got to get through." If you talk to somebody and they're like, "I gotta talk to my spouse," then you're like, "Okay, I gotta get through that one," and then they're like, "Oh, I can make a decision; I need to think about it." So you have to be able to wade through all of these layers and be prepared for that rather than thinking that like, "Oh, I'll just overcome this one thing and they'll buy." People got a lot on their heads, which is why they can't make decisions, which is why they're asking for your help.

So even though these are the things that distort other people's realities, they manifest in five different ways. So I want to equip you how to deal with these. So these are the five: so you got circumstances, other people's self, but this is what they look like: you've got time obstacles; people say, "I don't have time for it." You got value obstacles, which is, "I don't have the money for it." You got fit obstacles, which is, "This isn't for me for XYZ special snowflake reason." You got Authority, which is, "I got to talk to my friends, spouse, mom, dog, grandmother, employees, business partner, whatever, my online Discord group for my gaming community," um, and then self, which is, it looks like avoidance; they avoid the decision; they just try not to make it for fear of making a mistake. And the interesting thing is that you think that when you overcome a money thing, you're actually getting to the root of it; it's often not true. That's a surface-level thing anyway. It's easy to say, "Time, I don't have time; I don't have money," right? It's easy to say that stuff. When they're like, "I'm really afraid of failing," that's when you have like a much more real conversation, right? So you have to be equipped to show someone the logical fallacies around the things that are keeping them in a state of emotional disturbance, in a state of victimhood, in a state of powerlessness. Cool. So time. Now's not a good time. Value: I can't afford it. Fit: Not sure it's for me. Authority: I have to talk to my spouse, partner. Avoidance: I need to think about it. In general, I don't make fast decisions. Those are the principles. Quick test: Are you physically in the room today? Raise your hand. Awesome. All right, because this is gonna be a little bit more interactive on this side. All right. So raise your hand if you've ever thought or had a prospect say, "Time, I'm busy; now's not a good time; maybe in the future." All right. So time, now's not a good time. Here's—I have pages and pages and pages and pages of obstacle overcomes, and I look through all of these to make this presentation. I was like, "What are the three that I use the most that I can simplify into a framework that you guys can use?" Okay, so I break this down in my head as macro, micro, seasonal. Sorry, macro, micro. When, then. Macro is the, "This is a busy time in my life." All right, micro—truck—get to in a second—is, "I don't have the time in the day." Slightly present, slightly differently; I'll show you how to overcome both of them. All right. So if someone says, "Hey, now's not a good time; I'm too busy," this is why I didn't want you to memorize because there's no, there's no script here, all right? Is that you have to believe that there's a false statement implied there. I was gonna say, "Does anyone know who it is?" but there's no mic, so I'll just tell you. If they feel like they don't have time now, then they assume that in order for them to be successful, they can't be busy, which means that… okay, let's play it your way: you're busy now, so when you're not busy again in the future, you'll do it, right? Yep. Okay, so do you think that means that you'll never be busy for the rest of your life? Because it assumes that in, if you are busy, that you will stop. Do you want to be fit for the rest of your life? Yes. Do you think you'll be busy at some point in the rest of your life? Yes. Well, that it means that you should probably learn how to do it when you're busy; that's probably the time you need the most support, which is what I'm here for. So let's get you started. Does that make sense? Logical, right? Oh, thanks. Thanks. Yes, had the sale before, but I, I, this is why I want like you guys like, if this helps you close one more deal this month, every single month and pay for the weekend. Okay, that was number one; we've got like 16 more. Okay. Okay, but this is how I think about it's like my each of these, that little statement there is my quick cue. If someone says, "I'm really busy right now," I'm like, "Busy is the best time." Busy is the best time. They're like, "Oh, that was going to be my obstacle." They're like, "That's amazing." Business, the best time, because that's when you need the most support because if you learn how to do it when it's hard, every the rest of your life it'll be easy, and they're like, "That's a really good argument; he's right, damn; you can have my credit card." Right? Okay, now let's go micro: hour by hour. So if someone's like, "No, I literally don't have the time in the day because I have all these other things," now we know that's a priorities issue, but if you want, you can show it to them, and this is how I do it. So I say, "You know what? Totally understand; I used to say the same thing to my wife." Now you make yourself the person who they're going to step into their identities; you're not calling them silly pants; you're calling yourself a silly pants. You're like, "Listen, I was a silly pants too; I used to say this to my wife all the time, and I bet your moan about how I didn't have time to do the things to make more money, didn't have the time to do more things to get in shape, et cetera, et cetera. And one day she got so sick and tired of me complaining about this that she grabbed my phone out of my hands as I was scrolling social media, looked at the amount of hours per day, and she was like, 'You spend three and a half hours on social media every day; I guess I found you some time.'" [Music] Anyone here have some time, right? And then as a secondary point here, it's like, "Do you think there's anyone else on Earth who said less time than you who's been able to make this happen?" They're like, "Yeah." Like, okay. Do you really think that's the issue? Do you think it's a priorities thing? Because at the end of the day, everyone's the same 24 hours. And I used to say this when I was closing needles because it was back when Obama was President. I was like, "President Obama gets up every day to run." I was like, "He's running the world." I was like, "You don't have time to come to the gym," right? And they're like, "Yeah, you're right." And the thing is is like, right now you feel like you don't have the time, but everyone has the same amount of time, right? And so the thing is is that right now you're not spending the time that you are given well. And so the first thing we're going to do is cut the 90% of the that you are doing that's not working, so you're going to gain all that time back, so it's gonna be a net positive because have you seen anyone else who's been able to be successful, do the things you want to do and stay in shape? They're going to say yes. You're like, "Right," which means if it's possible with them, it's possible for you; you just have to have the right tools; that's what I'm here for, right? And to be fair, this works for anything, right? If you're thinking about your gym stuff, you're like, "You're working all the time." It's like, "I don't have time to do it." It's like, "Well, this, your shit's not working; obviously you're spending all your hours doing it, and you're not making any more money, spending time with the wrong stuff." Cool. So that's the micro, hour by hour. Good. Oh, thanks. Thank you for that one. [Applause] Yeah, we'd have, we'll have a lot of those if, if we… Anyways, I'm gonna keep moving; we'll just do that one. Okay. So third one is the when-then fallacy; this is one of my favorites, all right? Which is like, "I'll start working out; I'll start saving money when…" Right? It's a when-then fallacy, and you'll recognize it pretty easy. And again, you're gonna say, "I totally understand where you're coming from; this kept me stuck for years." Right? I was a silly pants too; it's just fun to say silly pants. And so, and until I found out one day that that line of reason is called the when-then fallacy. And so it's like saying like, "When I am healed, I'll go to the hospital." Right? Once I save money, then I'll start investing. Right? It's like, it doesn't work that way; like you have to get the order correct. It's like you have to go to the hospital in order to get healed; you have to go to the gym in order to get in shape, right? It's not that you come to the gym once you are in shape; that doesn't make any sense, right? "When I have more time, I'll do it." It's a when-then fallacy. Does that make sense, everybody? It's an easy one, but it's just when they give you this thing, "When I have more time, I'll do it," it's like, "No, we have to make the time, and then we'll have the thing." Boop. Everyone feel like they can overcome time issues? Yes. Cool. [Applause] As a total tactical one, which I'm sure Jim Lodge team has already told you, like you should also just ask them what times they're planning on working out to begin with before you do the sale; have them circle the times; very easy, and then you can hopefully knock that. Okay, fantastic. So now they're like, "I can't afford it." You're like, "Okay, roll up your sleeves; you're like, 'Sure you can't; sure, step into my trap.'" Okay. So raise your hand if you've ever had a prospect say or do one of these things. Yes. Yes. Everyone. Like, one person's like, "I've never had that happen." Not, not to me. All right. So here's four; these, there's a zillion of these. I was talking to my team earlier, and they're like, "Well, what if someone says this?" And I started doing him, and I was like, "Oh, none of these are on the presentation, but you know what? We'll see." So there's four.

Reasons that I like using a lot; these are probably the most common ones I use to overcome this. Because at the end of the day, everybody here has to understand that whenever someone says they can't afford it, it's because it's not valuable enough. So I'll give you a simple example. Think about whatever amount of money. All right, let me put it this way: if I said, "Hey, these are the keys to my Ferrari," and you're not competing against each other, or you're not even competing, like whatever, imagine a very poor person, whatever. I will give it to you for five thousand dollars if you can give me five thousand dollars in the next 24 hours. What does that person start thinking? "I'm gonna find a way to get five thousand dollars to get this Ferrari," because it's worth a lot more than five thousand dollars, right? It's very clear. And so the problem is, when we present our thing, they don't see it that way, and so they don't think, "Oh, I have to find a way to get this to work." And so that means that we didn't communicate enough value.

If you communicate enough value, the resources are never an issue. Your team has to believe that; otherwise, it's never going to stick. Like they have to really believe that because they're like, "Oh, the guy was broke." It's like, they should. And one of the things that I always prided myself on was I was an equal opportunity salesman. And I don't mean that in a woke, political way. I mean that it's like if every person who walks in the door is like their money spends the same. And I had people who really looked rough walking in my door; sometimes, pretty sure I had a few people that lived in their cars that I tried to sell, um, but the thing is, it's like I was like, "If this person wants to get a job, getting in shape and getting some sort of routine in their life is probably really important," and so I sold hard, and I wanted to give an equal opportunity.

Some people, many people in this room, you start getting lazy; you start deciding whether you're going to actually try to sell the person before you open your mouth based on what you judge them by, and that makes you a worse salesperson, and it doesn't help them. So my favorite sales were single moms that had four kids that drove Uber on the weekend to make it work, and they were like, "It's important for me." They changed their life around, got a better job, found a guy, whatever. Like I was very proud of those hard closes. They're like, "How am I going to make this work?" I was like, "Let's set a game plan together," because if you're on the same side of the table and they actually believe you that you are trying to help them, you can have that conversation of like, "All right, well let's let's let's look at it. Do you get your nails done? Do you get your hair done? Do you like, do you got on the weekends? You got to eat." You're like, you can go through all the things, and all of a sudden they're like, "Okay, we found that; we found that we're good." But unless you have that rapport and they trust that you really do want to help them, you can't have those conversations.

So let's go through the first one, which is someone says, "That's a lot of money; I can't afford it." And so you just say, "So this is a lot of money for you," and they're going to be like, "Yeah." This is called taking the bait. And you're like, "Yeah, well, that's amazing, because I'm actually more concerned when someone says that it's not a lot of money for them, because I don't think they're going to care much about it." All my best testimonials, my best case studies, from people where this is a lot of money for them, because if it's a lot of money for you, does that mean you're going to try really hard? They're like, "Yeah." I'm like, "Right, then you should be the last person who's worried about getting the results, because this means a ton to you, right? Does that make sense?" So then you can transition. It's like, "Hey, well, before we even before I even close you on that one, would you even believe me if I said it was one-tenth of the price that it was going to do all the things I promised?" And be like, "Well, no." You're like, "Right, so you knew you're going to do this either way, right?" And if you were selling a B2B thing, which you are, but if you were, it's like, "How long do you want 'I can't afford it' to be on your list of problems in life, right? So why the fact that it's expensive for them is a good thing." That's point one.

Next one is why it's not actually a lot. So this is where you start expanding on value, which is like, "Okay, well, fundamentally, if you got to your high school weight, would it be worth it?" Like, "Yeah, it would be worth it." I was like, "Okay, so the issue isn't whether it's expensive; whether or not the issue is that you don't believe that it can happen for you. Let's just make sure we're clear here, right?" And so what happens, you can pull apart the price from the belief, and the belief you can then attack on its own, right? Because again, for many people, like if you just say enough, if all this did was, they're like, "Yeah, it would do that." It's like, "Great, so then it's not about it being expensive; it's about you extrapolating your past experiences that didn't work for you under this present scenario, which makes sense, but it may..." Let me see if I can get it. I'll just tell you, I'll skip ahead; we'll get... I'll skip a slide later. You don't let a bad decision burn you twice. Has anyone heard this? This one; it's probably one of my one of my most used obstacle overcomes, which was, "I get it; you had something that happened in the past; it didn't work; maybe multiple things that didn't work. The only thing worse than having that thing not work is letting that bad experience burn you twice: once when it didn't happen, the second time would prevented you from doing the right the right move, right?" Like, did you ever have somebody you dated in high school? Anyone date anyone in Middle School? Anyone remember this one? Six inches, right? Imagine that heartbreak that you had when you were in seventh grade. Caroline Caputi, imagine that heartbreak, right, in seventh grade, or sixth, whatever it was, um, where you you get your heart broken, and then you say, "No people ever again shall I ever date," right? You would have let that bad scenario burn you twice and prevent all the good things that have happened from all the people you've dated since then, or hopefully that you're married to, right? If somebody who's married is in front of you, it's a lot easier. It's like, "Was the person that you're married to the first one you ever dated?" They'll say, "No." You're like, "Right, imagine if you'd stop dating after that first breakup you ever had; that would have been bad, right?" What's kind of like what you're doing right now with this bad thing? Do you think it's impossible for you to get in shape? "No." Okay, well, then do you think it's possible that there's somebody who's a good fit for you, a good program for you, the husband program for you, if we did it? "Yes." Does that make sense? Okay. And so then, at this point, when you are attacking a belief, I like to have the big wall of testimonials. So if you guys don't have this, like, please, for the love of God, have floor-to-ceiling testimonials of your before and afters and your five-star reviews. It takes an afternoon to do it; just do it. Because then all you have to do is point around you and say, "Would it be more unreasonable for you to not believe them to believe?" How many how many before and after pictures would you need to see in order for you to believe that this could happen for you? Because it becomes unreasonable, right? That's why Jim Launch has 5,000; actually, I think we counted like two years ago, we had 1,600 testimonials. It's a lot, right? Cool. So that's why it's actually not a lot. So the first one was why the fact that it's a lot for you is a good thing. The second one is why it's actually not a lot when you think about it, right? It's about the value, not about the price.

Third one is, what's money good for anyways, right? Because the big thing is is that money is going to get spent either way, right? You guys are going to spend your money; your prospects are going to spend their money in the next 12 months, no matter what. And the question is, is it gonna be something that's going to make you better? It's gonna be that you don't need... If you look at your last 12 months, is there a bunch of you spent money on that you didn't need? Probably. Do you want to do that again the next 12 months? "No." Would it be nice to have something that paid some dividends? "Yeah." Because here's the real real: is that you're going to be buying the lessons from this program either way. That is the line; you're going to be buying this program either way. The question is whether you want to spend time; we're going to spend money; you're buying them either way. And said, you want to spend 15 years trying to figure this out on your own, trying to get in shape, trying to grow your gym, or do you want to spend the money? Because the thing is is we always spend the thing that we value least. So if you value your time over your money, you spend the money to keep your time. If you value your money more than your time, then you spend your time and save your money. Do I need to tell you which one rich people do, right? And at the end of the day, like, what's money good for anyways? It's to get you the stuff you want, right? Do you want this thing? "Yeah." Well, what else are you going to buy with the same money? Because when you're saying that you don't want to spend it, you have something else in mind that you want to spend it on. Why is that thing more valuable than this thing? Good questions. The person's like, "Well..." You're like, "Right, it's okay; it's normal; this isn't my first conversation here, right?" And so one of my favorite closes here at the end here is best case worst-hit close, which is like, "Listen, at the end of the day, both of these options are risk-free, right? You can walk out the door; you can sign up, get a guarantee, but only one of them will get you closer to your goal. So if you have no risk with no upside or no risk with potential of upside, which one you want to do?" I have closed a lot of weight loss sales with that close. It's probably, if I had top three, that's of the top three best case worthless. Let's play it out: best case, you change your life; you get into amazing shape. Would that be a great outcome? "Yes." Worst case, you do this and you don't have that happen; I give your money back, and you just got free six weeks of training. Fair enough? Because the only other option you have that's also risk-free is that you walk out the door, but that one is guaranteed to not get what you want. This one's at least got a shot. And you boil it down like that; a lot of people are like, "Okay, I'll step in that direction." Cool.

Why you don't need money; this is a big one, and I love this one. If there's one thing that you can remember, it's the top line on here is that you know what self-made millionaires and you guys have in common? Both started at zero. So let me tell you the story of, uh, Shoe Dog, Phil Knight's story. Anyone read that book? Great book. There's this moment where he's maxed out his credit cards, maxed out his loans, can't get anyone to give him money, and he's got to make payroll and buy inventory. And he goes to everyone, and he's like, "I don't know what to do," because they're making so many sales; he can't he get the cash, get a cash flow constraint. And so he goes to his vendors. Imagine going to your landlord, or imagine going to what vendors you go to, ClickFunnels, whatever, right? So somebody like some software, and you're like, "Hey, I need you to pay my payroll for me, otherwise I won't be able to keep paying you in the future, because I'm gonna go out of business." That's what he did. He went to his manufacturing partners and said, "I need you to pay my payroll for me," and they're like, "What?" He's like, "Otherwise, I won't be able to buy shoes from you." And they did. And then Nike kept going. And so it wasn't the fact that Phil didn't have the resources; there's the fact that he was resourceful. And so it was just like the five thousand dollar Ferrari, or if you have the hospital bill that comes up tomorrow, you become resourceful when it's for something that you truly value. Quick question: who here has had a tax bill come up unexpectedly about that time of year, right? Okay. Follow-up question: who here has magically siphoned cash out of their and found a way to pay Uncle Sam, right? Of course. Or an unexpectedly high payroll bill, whatever it is. And here's what's up: is that everyone who just raised their hand, you're willing to flex that muscle when it's for someone else, but not when it's for your bank account, when it's for your landlord, when it's for the IRS, when it's for payroll; it's for other people. All of a sudden, you get resourceful, but it means that you don't hold yourself to that standard all the time. Interesting, right? So the big thing here is that you need someone to be resourceful, not have resources, and that goes for all of us, right? Like if you have a big decision you need to make it; if you really want it, then it just comes down to being resourceful, not having the resources to begin with, because every self-made millionaire starts at zero. So what separates them from everyone else? Nothing; they were just resourceful. Feel good about that time. Now we're into value; good; we're moving; this is all right. Okay, cool. You feel like you can use this stuff to close more sales? Okay, cool. Also, close yourself unless head. Okay.

Fit, not sure it's for me; the special snowflake scenario. Genuinely, I don't think I've lost a sale on this one in a very long time, um, obviously been a very long time, but but I didn't lose many to this; I feel very confident about this, which is someone says, "I don't like something very specific about the program. I only like Zumba; I don't want to eat broccoli; I think you should have a vegan version of this plant," whatever, right? And so here are the three ways that overcame this: no identity, priorities, pain of change, and hypothetical. All right, so let's start with the first one. So we vote with our dollars about the things we care about. This was always my that like just like, uh, uh, the busy one I was saying earlier; busy is the best time. We vote with our dollars for the things we care about; like that was always my... As soon as someone say, "I want to change the thing," I was like, "Let me tell you a quick story." I was at Sephora, which is a makeup store, um, with Layla, and I was standing there awkwardly like this, watching them paint faces, and there's these two little girls come in; they were so excited. Yay! Ish! Hi! Um, old, and they were they were new to womanhood; it was clear, right? And these girls came up, and the girl with the smock goes over to them, and she's like, "Hey, girls, now that you guys are women, you're gonna have to start budgeting for this stuff every month, because you're gonna need to buy this, because you're, you know, becoming a woman; you're gonna have to put this makeup on." And they were like so excited; they grabbed the things; they go rush to check out. And I was like, "That's so interesting," it's like they their identity changed from being girls to being women, and so with that new identity came new priorities, and I was like, "That was like that moment that I got to witness; I was like, this is a perfect analogy for what people do when they're trying to lose weight, when they're trying to become better business owners," is that when you have a new identity, you have new priorities. And so if you're explaining this to a prospect, it's like, "Let me tell you a quick story." You tell that story or your version of that story. You say, "Listen, you want to be this person, so right now you're not stepping in a woman; you're already a woman, right?" Or whatever it is, right? You're already a man; the question is whether you want to be a fit woman for life; the question is whether you want to be a successful gym owner, somebody's wealthy. And with new identity comes new priorities. We vote with our dollars for the things we care about. You say you care about these things, but if I look at your bank account, I can see what you vote with your dollars for. Does that make sense, right? And you can close it. Next one is pain of change, right? And this one's a big one, which is like, "Ah, I'm..." Where these girls like, "Do you think you could change the breakfast to this and this, because that's what I already..." And I was like, "Girl, I know that's what you already; I can see that that breakfast got you that body, right? That morning routine got you that bank account. Yeah, right? Gotta change the change." And so the thing is, I'd always have that conversation. Say, "Hey, the pain of change; pain is staying the same." This is a Tony Robbins quote; that's not mine, but when the pain of change is greater than the pain of staying the same, you will change. And sometimes I look at a girl just be like, "Hey, maybe you got to gain 50 more pounds and come back." I was like, "You're not enough pain; you're comfortable." They're like, "Well, I don't want that." I'm like, "Well, that's what you're saying with your actions; you're not enough pain; like let's just play it out. How much you gain the last five years? 50. Cool. Come back in five years; what are you weighing now? 250. It'll be 300. Just come back; we need 300. Real talk." And they're like, "Well, I don't want that." I'm like, "You're acting like you do." And they're like, "Well..." I'm like, "Yeah, damn," but it's like all of us have these things that we hold on to, when in reality, like, are you in enough pain? Maybe you need to be broker; maybe you have no money in your bank account; you need to be in debt. It's like, "Come back when you're 50 grand in debt; come back when you lose money for another two years; come back then; then you'll be ready; that'll be the right moment; that'll be the right time for you." The thing is is everyone's thermostat; I'm side questing here for a second, but everyone's thermostat is different, right? Like I feel actually pretty fat and out of shape right now, because on my thermostat, I'm fat and out of shape. For some people, I'm #lifegoals. Everyone's different. And what's interesting is that even people are 250, 300 pounds, whatever; there's a moment where for them that's their thermostat, and they're like, "No, no; I can't go above here." And what's crazy is that all you have to do is just reset the thermostat; it's the same effort; you just reset the thermostat. Right now your thermostat may be ten thousand dollars in your bank account; maybe it's a hundred thousand dollars in makeup; but maybe a million dollars from bank account; maybe fifty thousand dollars a month in income; it might whatever it is; it's like all you have to do is just reset what that thermostat is. And I think if you can communicate that to a prospect that it's just made up in their head, the thing is, if you can have that little that little moment that you some of you guys just had, if you have that with a prospect, like you can change their life, and I think that's really cool. So pain, pain to change; you got to change in order to change. I really did say that. The the breakfast thing; girl, I know. Uh, I was like, "Why don't we try my breakfast so we can get the body you actually want." All right, so here's a here's a good... I've been trying to come up because when my sales book comes out, I'm going to do this hypothetical thing, but I'm trying to figure out something like a three-step process to closing like most obstacles that I can teach, but one that I use a lot is anything that... This is why this one; I basically never lost sales on fit stuff.

Was okay. Well, if this program had everything that you needed, would you do it? Hey, if this program were perfect, would you do it? If the program didn't have this thing that you just said—isolate the issue—would you do it? And then you get agreement, and they're like, "Cool, we don't have to worry about that one thing."

What car do you want to use? I don't want to do broccoli. Fantastic. Not going to do broccoli. If we didn't have that, would you do it? Great. And so it's just one of those really easy things that you can always use. On the flip side, it's also just a good close overall, which is uh, "What is it missing?" And then they're like, "Oh, I've never been asked this question before." And you're like, "Right, because it doesn't sound like there's anything wrong with the program; it sounds like you're afraid of something happening. Let's talk about that," right? And then you actually get to the real stuff, peeling back the layers.

So I'm not sure it's a fit for me. We covered that with new identity and priorities; pain have changed. You got to change the change and hypothetical. So isolate, hypothesize a world where it wouldn't have that issue, and then overcome. See how we're peeling down, peeling down the layers? All right, awesome. Two more. You're still hanging in there. Okay, I know this is more tactical. I know this is more Tactical. I know this is tactical, but I just want you guys to have stuff that like, when you leave here, like I will make more sales. Okay. Raise your hand if you've ever thought or had a prospect say, "I have to talk to my business partner, spouse, friend, kids, employees, pets." Yes, right. This is big. When someone says this, what they say is that person controls me; wherever they point. So if some of you guys are like, "I got to talk to my spouse," totally get it; that person controls you. Say, "Hey, I gotta talk to my employees." Guess who owns you? I gotta talk to my pet. It's kind of weird, but hey, some people do it. And so I have really only found one way to overcome this that has been smooth. All right. So the rest of the other obstacles, there's a zillion ways to overcome it. Lack of authority is one of the hardest ones to overcome because you say, "I don't have control of my own life. I can't make decisions for myself. I am powerless. I am a victim." It's what it says. And so this one is a process. So first off, you know, like in many, in many selling situations, you don't have the advantage that you like hear, like some of you guys could call people yesterday, talk to people, whatever, right? Or you have more time. In weight loss sales, we all know we're all waiting for Lisa to come back, right? She said she'd call you back; it's been five years. She's not calling back, right? And so you want to get the person to bring their spouse; you want to get the person to bring the decision maker whenever possible. It's also worth it, worth to get to the second sale. Why not, right? But if you can't, then this is the only thing that I have found that has worked consistently. So it's three steps. Let me go back one. There you go. Isolate and collapse the foil; the realization they've already given you permission and the realization that you never needed permission to begin with. All right, so I'll walk through. So you say, "Hey," assuming you already asked, right, transactional versus long term, you say, "Hey, what part do you think they wouldn't approve of of this thing that I talked about?" The reason this is what this is, the isolated collapse the foil. All right, the reason you ask them, "Why do you think your husband, why do you think your partner, why do you think your employees would not want you to do this?" Now, mind you, the employees and the partner and the husband are not here, so they have no idea, so they're just going to answer it with the reason that they actually don't want to do it, and then you have isolated and collapsed the foil, and then you can attack the reason that they say. It's like, "What do you think your husband will be opposed to?" "Well, I've done a couple things in the past and they didn't work." Okay, then let's talk about the thing that you're afraid of, which is that this is not going to work, too. So it sounds like it's a belief issue, so let's talk about that right now. It's not about the husband anymore; it's about the fact that she doesn't believe. Does that make sense? So we just, we pull, now she's back in the driver's seat, and she can make a decision to help herself, or he can make a decision to help himself. Okay, that's step one. Sometimes you just close it off, that which is wonderful. Two and three go together. And so if they, if you've already asked, "Hey, what do you think they wouldn't approve of," right? Then you say, "Well, do they approve of your current struggle?" And they'll be like, "Well, no." It's like, "Well, then why would they be against something they already don't approve of? Like, huh? I think about that. Well, what if the roles were reversed and your husband was struggling or your partner was struggling with making money, getting in shape, whatever it is. I was like, and they found something that was going to help them. I was like, 'Would you be against it?' 'No, I would want that.' Right? So why would it be different for them?" Because I think the thing is is that you're looking for permission, not for support, because let's play this out. Three years, you're still bankrupt, you're still out of shape, whatever it is. Three years from now, or you're not making the money you want, whatever it is, three years from now, and all the while you blamed—now see how we're changing the language—you blame them because they never let you do it. Is that fair to them? Is that fair to you? No. So I think what you've been looking for this whole time is you've been asking for permission when you really need support. Do you think your husband will support you in solving this problem? You already said he doesn't approve of. Yes. So the whole, the whole idea here is that we're relying on past agreements to extrapolate into the present, and then we're future forecasting a negative situation, which realistically, like hopefully for everyone here, I know that if I wanted something, Layla's not going to be like, "How dare you," right? Like, right? Look, I wanted it. Does that, I mean, like it's not even a discussion, right? And so it's really a question of power, and at the end of the day, I think even if the person doesn't buy from you, if you can help them make a decision that is empowered, you have served them. And for me, that's my big thing with sales is like, if I can actually get in this person's mind, peel back the, get them to make decisions one way or the other, I feel like I serve this person today, and that I feel like I'm very convicted about. And so at the end of the day, it's your decision. If they say no, no resentment. And so then I say, "Hey, let's just get you going. We have a three-day no sweat guarantee, which is you, you sign up today, you get back home, your husband says, 'Sweetheart, I want you to live 10 years less long. I want you to be out of shape. I want you to get that diabetes needle, right? I want you to put those sweatpants on, reach the head on this bag of Cheetos, just you know, and sit down and get comfortable and pass down generational unhealth to our kids so we can make future Generations people who don't understand hell.' He says that to you. One, have him give me a call. Two, I was like, 'I'll happily tear this up.'" All right, and then of course they're cracking up, and you're like, "Right, of course he's not going to say that. He wants you to live longer; he wants you to pass on these good habits to your kids; he wants to be hot and sexy, feel good about yourself, right? Of course he does. It's what you're afraid of is that's not going to work; that we can help you with," right? It makes sense. All right. [Applause] Cool. So we're peeling back the onion. We covered time, we covered value, covered fit, we covered people casting their power to authority, all these different things. They cast their power to—here's the best part—when you finally have learned and you know how to de-bull yourself and be their brains to get them down to this final thing, you're actually talking to a person who's in power. They can't blame her; they can't give the authority to other people; they can't blame the circumstances because it's about being resourceful overall, finding the time, making it work, getting out of pain. All you have now is just somebody says, "I get all that; I actually think about it." And when someone says, "I think about it," I want you to translate that into, "Is I need to avoid this decision for fear of making a mistake." That's what that means, because what it really means is just, "I just want the universe to make the decision for me." What a move! Like, I'm not man or woman enough, I don't have the gonads, which are both sexes by the way, I don't have the Nads to make this call, so I'm just going to let the universe do it, so then I can blame the universe if it doesn't go right. It's just fear. So big important note: we have exhausted all reasons outside of themselves. Now we're talking to someone who's at least in power. All right, so raise your hand if you've ever thought or had a prospect say, "I have to think about it. Not sure. I need time." This guy still, he's like, "Not me." Everyone decides. Okay, as a fun side note, um, anyone know like the root of decide? So it comes from Latin, *dicadera*, which means to kill off. And so a good one is to even ask someone that question. It's like, "We just need to decide. Do you know what the root of it is?" Which means to kill off. So the question is, which future are we killing off today? We're killing off the future of more of the same, or we're killing off the future of everything that you said you wanted, which feature? Cool. All right. Avoidance. Anything about it? So this is the frame I think about: past, present, future. And this is an easy one for you. So when someone says, "I need to think about it," you translate that into, "I'm going to avoid this decision for fear of making a mistake." And you're like, "Cool, well, let's talk about your past things. This is not a fast decision, right? You've been deciding this for years. How long have you wanted to be in shape? My whole life. So this doesn't seem fast at all. You've been deciding this forever. Now we're just taking action on it. You decided a long time ago; today we're taking the first step." Huh? Didn't think about it like that. And there's another one: come this far, six inches from gold. It's like, "Listen," and this is one where I like to stack all the they've done to get to this point. We're like, "Listen, you saw an ad, you clicked it, you bought a ticket, you reserved it, you blocked the time, you flew out here, you got a hotel, you showed up at the crack of dawn, you had all these notes, you walked in here. Of course you want to grow your gym; of course you're trying to lose weight. You block the time; you got in your car; you got all the way over here. This isn't a fast decision. You've indicated with your actions up to this point this is important to you. And do you think that maybe the reason you've struggled in the past is because you haven't been able to pull the trigger? Do you think needing to think about is the reason you're here right now rather than where you want to be because you always need to think about it, which means you don't. And so the question is just, 'Do you want to have another year of almost?'" Love this one. "Do you enter the year of almost being in the shape you want, almost making the amount of money you want, almost being the spouse you want to be, but not quite? And so the question is, how much does not deciding cost you up to this point? How are the last five years for you? Is that a cost? You didn't decide to do this five years ago, right? So would you say all that pain that you went through is that a big cost? So when you think about like that, I don't think it's that expensive," right? That's past. Since getting them, and what we're doing here is we're ad shading and reminding them of why they are here to increase their action threshold rather decrease their action threshold to get them to step over and make a decision. Does that make sense? What we're doing conceptually here, we're looking at their past decisions. I'm gonna go through all of them, showing them how far they've come, explaining them that maybe the reason that they're in the seat today is because they have struggled pulling the trigger in the past. They've thought about doing things like this before, but they haven't been able to; they haven't nutted up, and today they need to, otherwise they're going to have another year of almost. And then we ask them if all the pain they've been through has been enough pain for them to make a decision. And that was the one I actually had this uh, is it last year? This lady was like this is like, she was referencing a call that was like five years earlier, very beginning of gym launch. She's like, "It's crazy, think I had a sales call with you six years ago, and I'm kicking myself in the butt for not jumping in your program." Wow, so funny. So funny. I was like, "Yeah, you let a bad decision bring you twice: once when you made a poor investment, the second time you let that bad investment making a good one." I remember the conversation right here. She is six years later, same position, same exact, but she couldn't because he had one bad boyfriend. She's like, "No men for me; that's it, just me and my cats." So two's present. All right, so we talked about the past, all the things you've done to get here, all the pain you've been through. Do you think not being able to pull the trigger is the reason you're sitting in the seat today, right? So now let's talk about present. So I love this one. I use the rocking chair close a lot. As far as I'm concerned, I made it up. So here's, here's how the rocky chair close works. I'm like, "When you say you need to think about it, I was like, 'You don't really think we're going to think about it, right? Because like, what's, what's going to happen? You're not going to like drive out of here, go home, sit on, sit in a rocking chair on your porch and be like, hmm, am I going to join this program or not,' right? Of course not. What are you going to do?" I was like, "You can get in your car, you're gonna check your phone, you're gonna see six mixed text messages, and you're gonna be like, 'Oh, I could pick up the laundry. I gotta do the dry cleaner. I gotta pick up Timmy from school. I gotta get food. I gotta order pizza,' whatever it is, right? All this. And then five days from now, you're gonna put on one of your skirts, you're gonna check your bank account, and it's gonna be like, 'Oh, this is tight.' And in that minute you're like, 'I should have done that thing.' That's when you made the decision, right? Then you keep living your life, and you do another five years until it gets painful enough. So you don't need—and you've heard this one from me before—you don't need time to make a decision; you need information, and I'm your source of information. So what are the main things you're thinking about? How are you making the decision?" So we're bringing it to the present, right? We're not letting them kick it off; we're saying, "Let's confront this. What are your main criteria?" Now they're going to say, "I have no idea because I don't know how to make decisions because I'm a victim." And you're like, "Oh, you know what? I've talked to victims before. Let me tell you how I teach them how to make decisions." Cool, great. So here's how to make a decision: product, us, access to money. All right, so do you believe the product could work? Yes. Do you trust us? Do you trust me? Do you like me? Do you think I have bad breath? No, I think I like you guys. Okay. Do you think it'll work for you the way you want it to go? Yes. Cool. Do you have access to the amount of money to start this thing or know someone who does? Yes. Right? Which made the decision. Let's do it. A lot of times people need to be walked through how to make a decision. People actually don't make that many decisions; it's kind of crazy. We make lots of micro decisions; they don't make big ones. So you have to teach them how to make decisions. Many of you guys suck at making big decisions; you have to learn. Having a framework—that's why all these investors talk about having a lattice work of decision-making frameworks—that's why I do a lot of framework stuff. It's gonna have to make a lot of big stake decisions all the time: big strategic directions, big checks, like you have to make big decisions; you have to have a framework of being able to do it and remove your emotions. If it checks the boxes, you do the deal. This one's really good if you ever have the opportunity to do free trial stuff, it's just, or free trial and or money-back guarantee stuff. The third one is fire, which is, "Listen, can we both agree that you just need to make an informed decision?" They're going to say yes; that's what I need, an informed decision. Absolutely. They're gonna—that's taking the bait; that's what that is. All right, you're like, "Okay, you need to make an informed decision. Well, how can you make an informed decision without doing it?" Huh? Got me there. Like, "So why don't we do this? Let's get you started, and if 30 days in you hate it, let me know." Oops. Boop boop. There we go. "And if you're 30 days in you hate it, let me know. Don't give your money back; no big deal. But that way, at least you'll have made an informed decision rather than one that's made up in your mind about what I say or what you think it is. It'll bridge our communication gap because you've got an idea what it is in your head; I know what it is in my head, and I'm using words to try and communicate that to you; that's going to fail versus you actually doing it. Can we agree that that's a way more informed decision? Yes. Well, then let's do an informed decision; let's get you going," right? That makes anything you close some sales with that. Yeah. Flags. Okay. Decision definition. I already went that one over, that one. So again, when we're in the present, we have to tell them which future we're cutting off, right? Did you know it's from *dicadera*, means to kill off? Which future we killing off? The good one or the bad one? Cool future. So you guys getting this? Past, we stacked all the past pain, bring them to this point, present—it's all about rocking chair time, not information, helping them make the decision in the moment—and future is future casting, what I prefer to see positive and negative. So five years in the future, what does it look like if you keep doing what you're doing? Are you broker? Are you in a worse marriage? Are you, you know, worst body? A lot of times literally just saying like, "What did you, what did you gain the last five years?" Cool. Let's tack that on. What do you weigh now? 230. Okay, 270. How's that feel? You can see them visually react to this. You're like, "Oh, you're negative ten thousand dollars. Let's go negative 50. Let's try that on; maybe that'll jog your memory," right? And they're like, "I don't want that," right? And what we're doing is we're trying to decrease the action threshold so they walk across the line, make the decision. The next one: let's consider the options. This is the risk-free close; I mentioned it earlier. I just love this because again we're future pacing the scenario, right? Both these options are risk-free; only one of them will get you closer where you want to go. So what are we, what are we talking about here? They're both risk-free. If someone still doesn't want to do it, then you have to confront what they're afraid of, because at that point it makes no logical sense, which means there's an emotional need. I love this one. Well, you're not going...

To struggle forever? Right, they're like, "Well, no, I'm not going to struggle forever." You're like, "Right, well, if you're gonna start getting in shape eventually, you might as well do it now. Why would you not want to be in shape longer in your life? Would you rather only be in shape for like three years or for like 30?"

I promise you, it's way cooler to do it for longer, right? You're right. And so this last one is probably one of the strongest decision frames that I can give you guys. All right, I'm emphasizing this on purpose, and this comes with all decisions. So like, if if if I'm ever allowed it in the future, praised in the future for making good decisions, this is probably the single framework that I use the most, which is not, "Will this get me what I want," but "Will this get me closer or further to what I want?"

Because the thing is, "Will this get me what I want" needs a high amount of predictive value. Like, to really say, "This will get me that," is really tough, and you'll be wrong a lot, and that can be very discouraging. But simply saying, "Okay, I've got two paths. This one will get me closer." Will this be everything I need to get there? Probably not, but will it get me closer? Yeah, I think so. And when it comes to education, in my opinion, the more educated you are, the closer you'll get to where you're going, because you'll have context to see the path more clearly.

And so the problem is, a lot of Sandies, right, are sitting there and they're like, "Well, you say it's this, and that guy said bacon's bad for me, and this guy says keto is good, and I don't know what the," you know, right? The thing is, she doesn't have the perspective from which to make a judgment; it's all gobbledygook. And the thing is, is that we are all in Sandy's seat in different verticals of our lives; we don't have the perspective in which to make a judgment.

And so trying to say, "Will the first fitness program that Cindy buys be the one that gets her to the promised land?" Likelihood? Probably not. Some of you guys know many of your trainers who left you, who have some weird things that they do and they teach people, right? You're like, "If they if Sandy starts with her or him, is she gonna get the perfect body?" Probably not. Will she be better than she was before she was doing something? Probably. And so if you can regress the decision-making framework to simply, like, "Sandy, if you walk out of here, do you think you're gonna get closer to getting in shape or further? If you stay and sign up, do you think you get closer or further? Closer?" I think that's all we got to do today. And if we do that one step closer enough weeks in a row, I think we'll get to where you want to go. It takes the pressure off of making a perfect decision. Does that make sense? That decreases the action threshold and gets people to actually take a step and be like, "Jim Lewis doesn't have to be perfect; XYZ doesn't have to be perfect; it's just we'll get you closer." Does that make sense? Okay. That single framework has made me more money than anything in my life. Thanks. Appreciate it.

And real talk, I've had—I bought a lot of things in the past that didn't get me the thing but got me a thing that I used later that got me closer to where I wanted to go. And so the question is, was it a good investment? Well, only based on my expectations. Would it be a bad investment? And so if I change my expectations of education in general, which is what I'm trying to encourage you to do with your prospects and yourselves, then you can shift what you expect to get out of something, and you ultimately get more out of it. Future? Okay. No reasons left; it's just you; it's just your prospect, right, sitting there, barren, naked in the field, forced to make a decision. Right? Sandy's looking at herself; she's like, "I haven't seen my toes in so long." Um, the idea is you want to get them to be empowered, right? And so the thing is, is like, truth hurts sometimes, but sometimes the sting is what it takes to get someone to take a step. And so like my big thing is like, I don't want to be nice; I want to be kind. And sometimes kindness hurts. Like, maybe you need to come back 50 pounds heavier; maybe you need to go be poor; or maybe you need to struggle more; maybe that's what you need. At the end of the day, it is their decision, and they have to have that power.

Here's bonus number six. So in my like blanket closes, uh, this one I separated out purposely because I've used it a lot of times. It's kind of like the best-case worst-case. Like, I've used it a ton of times, which is, whatever reason the prospect is telling themselves, you just repeat it right back to them. Is the reason they should do it. Watch this: "I don't have the time to get in shape." You're like, "That's the perfect reason you do this program, so I'm going to show you exactly how to have the time so you can do it." Give a different one. "I don't have the money." It's the exact reason you need to do this is you don't have the money because you need to get it, right? Let's see another one. Come up with one. Say something. "Spouse; my husband doesn't support me." That's the perfect reason you should be getting in shape. Do you wanna have—us, right? You want a husband who doesn't support you and then not be in shape? I don't know, right? I'm like, "Right, my wife doesn't support me." It's a perfect reason to do this. And so whatever reason they present with you, you literally can just say, "That's the reason." And people think about it a little bit deeper, and they're like, "You're right." And I think if you if you like—it's because like, as a salesperson, you always have to have a couple of fast bullets. Like, if you're like, "I need to catch like take a breath," like whatever they say, you're like, "That's the reason." You're like, "What did I just say?" And you're like, "Okay, I don't have time to get to the gym." That's the perfect reason to do it, right? "I hate broccoli." Perfect reason to do it. Doesn't matter, because whatever the reason—here's the thing is, is that whatever reason they give you is usually the perfect reason they should do it, right? Because it's actually the thing they're presenting with is the thing they're most afraid of. And so hopefully this helps you realize that you and your clients are always in complete power. All right? So rather than casting their power to circumstances where they say it's the time, it's the money, it's the fit, you transition to saying, "I don't need to have resources; I need to be resourceful." Instead of casting their time, their their power to other people, their spouses, their partners, their kids, their employees, whatever it is, they then say, "I'm the one who gets to decide. I do not need permission. I'm asking for support." And notice it didn't say "I need support," saying "I'm asking for it."

And then finally, when you're talking to the person themselves, they're just trying to avoid the decision because they do not want to make a mistake. So whenever someone says—like, I want you to translate this in your brains—whenever someone says, "I need to think about it," just say, "I need to avoid this decision in order to avoid a mistake." That's what they're saying: "Need to avoid this decision in order to avoid making a mistake." All right? So it's not about time; it's about information. And then you need to make sure that they have the information they need to decide. And at that point, hopefully you've given the person or the prospect enough power, and you've debunked a lot of their—you've peeled the onion of blame back so that they are the ones in power. And then at that point, they can finally just make a decision. And maybe it's the first decision they made in five years, and you got to help them do that, which I think is—there's there's very few things that are more noble than that, in my opinion. And so like I promised at the beginning, my hope is that you become more powerful by making a decision rather than letting your life make it for you, being a victim of the universe somehow. You think that randomness is going to make a better decision than you because you don't want to be responsible for making a bad one. Well, how are you going to learn if you never take responsibility for the decisions you make?

So a few final thoughts: Fortunes are created by taking lots of risk with a little money; fortunes are maintained by taking little risk with lots of money. Of everything that I've ever made in my life, the result of investing in my own education has gotten me higher returns in the stock market, real estate, or crypto, or anything else. And all investments in myself—for skills, beliefs, and traits—have gotten me closer—keep pointing—closer to where I wanted to go, even if that brick wasn't the last brick. And so what I mean here is that if you imagine yourself—I'm gonna go over here—so imagine I'm here and I want to get over there, and there's this big thing of lava underneath of me, and I have to build this bridge, and there's a hundred bricks between where I am to where I want to go. Just because something that I learned didn't get me all hundred bricks, if it gets me 28 bricks, I am closer to where I want to go. And what's interesting is that I've observed this in the education space overall is that people will attribute their success to the thing that gives them the last brick. But if you had 99 bricks and then the last one, it's like, "Who or what was the thing that really got you there?" It's like people making fun of their elementary school teacher who taught them arithmetic when they learned calculus. They're like, "This is the—" It's like, "Dude, you didn't know how to add before, right? Like, did you know how to add? Can't do calculus, right?" Like, if you didn't know how to do fitness and training, you wouldn't be able to have a gym, right? If you didn't know how to sell, be tough to market; if you don't know—so it'll be tough to manage because you got to persuade people, right? And so each of these things are just a little bricks, and then we attribute our success to the last brick. And this is something—again, for me—I wouldn't think about like, what are the biases I have psychologically that filter the information that I make decisions off of. And so for me, I'm telling you this biggest and best frame I have is, "Will this get me closer or further from where I'm trying to go?" And I think if you can relate that frame to your prospects who are walking in the door, it will help them make a lower-stakes decision. It's like, "It's going to get me closer," and if I make enough of these—it will get me closer—decisions, I'll get to where I want to go. Because what happens is, the perfect decision maker makes none; the directional decision maker makes many and then course corrects much faster. Thanks. I have more—I have five minutes and 40 seconds more. Um, you guys good with that? Is that all right? All right, cool. Okay, so—it's why I dedicate my life to education. That's acquisition.com. Our mission is to make real business education available to everyone. Um, because when you realize that you are source—everyone here say, "I am source"—right? You are a source; everything comes from you. You realize that Superman is not coming; Jim won't change coming; Alex ain't coming; nobody's coming; just you. Like, you have to save you, right? Can't ask for a savior; it's just you. And so every decision is a vote towards or against the person we want to become. And so the question is, are the decisions you're making voting towards the person you want to become or just more of the same? Many votes every day. And so people ask me all the time, "How do you move so quickly?" And I think the answer is, I know how to buy time. And so the question is, how do you buy time? By buying the time other people took to make mistakes that taught them the lessons. Because again, I said this I think on the first day, which is strategy: prioritizing doing the right thing. I don't do this really fast; it's just you get more for every step, right? And so when you buy time, you don't have to spend eight years figuring out the right way to have the lobby set up, right? When your prospect walks in, it's like, "I—" It took me, and I'm sure it took some of you guys, like six years to wade through the—of like intermittent fasting, and then it's like, "No, it's cardio." Oh, no, it's it's body weight and kettlebells; that's functional. And you're like, "Oh, you know—" I mean, mind you, some of your life, that's what I do now; that's not what I mean. Point is that you go through your own iteration until finally you feel—you figure out—I'll just say your truth, I'm just gonna leave it at that, so no one gets upset. All right? And so finally figure out like the thing, right? But wouldn't it be cool if you just started there because you got to buy everyone else's time? Like, I would say if there's a skill that I've had, it's by—it's that because I'm just willing to buy other people's time and not—it's an egotistical thing I think to say, "I can figure it out on my own," because the answer is, of course you can; the question is whether you want to spend time or you want to spend money. You spend the one you value least, right? You're going to learn the lessons either way; it's just how you want to pay. And sometimes that time might be 30 years; Steve Price tag, not one I would want to pay. So ignorance is the most expensive debt that we all pay every day. And this is my favorite—my favorite thing. I heard this was a close that I heard from—I can't remember his name—anyways, he wrote this thing on the board, and I'll just do it live. Okay, uh, "How much you make right now per year income, just personally?" Awesome. 185,000. So imagine I wrote a million dollars on here, minus 185,000. So right now, it costs you 815,000 dollars a year not knowing how to make a million dollars a year in income every year. Just paying the universe. You're like, "Here's 815,000." And guess what? Costs you 9.8 million dollars per year not knowing how to make 10 million dollars a year every year. And so like we think about taxes, we think about all these other expenses, the one that eats me alive is the debt of not knowing—of all—not knowing all the—that I should know to make what I want to make. And that's the debt that really we all pay the most of every day. There you go. And so for me, I think you should be willing to invest money to increase your capacity for income, because once you have it, it pays you forever. One-time investment pays you forever. You don't get taxed on education; the government can't steal it from you; you can't lose it in divorce. If you think about it from an asset perspective, it makes every other asset you have more valuable; it appreciates with time; it's one—it's—if you actually thought about it as an actual asset, your investment, it actually checks all the boxes; it's amazing. It increases your asset value; increases your income; it's great. And so this one uh that I like thinking—and so for me, 10 years ago, I had my little do-or-die decision. I went from my swinking consulting job to sleeping on the floor. And I think a lot of times we have the decisions, and I think we need to present these to our prospects; we say like, "You have to do-or-die decision." Where's your action threshold? Maybe you need to wait another five years; maybe you need to gain another 50 pounds. And so here's my two cents: Make the decisions to help yourself; implement like crazy; take ownership; realize that there are no silver bullets, but some things can move you closer to your goals. And when those rare acceleration opportunities come in life, take them, because either you win or you learn, and both of those get you closer to wherever it is you want to go. Thank you. [Music] [Applause]