Transcription
I have a sales formula. When clients bring me in, I charge them $10,000 an hour. Starting to use this for them, I help them close audiences on webinars, challenges, in-person seminars, virtual events, even one-on-one, even on video sales letters. It's a three-word formula, super simple to use, and you can use it pretty much anywhere.
So in this video, I'm going to break down this ARC formula to you that I've invented and perfected over the last 16 years. Let's go.
So the ARC formula starts with the word acknowledge, and then it goes into reframe, and then lastly, close. So the first thing you want to do when somebody brings you up an objection or when you anticipate it is you want to acknowledge it. So if somebody says it costs too much, you say, "Yes, this is a significant investment." You don't get defensive. You don't hide from it. You don't downplay it. You lean right into it. You can even exaggerate it. You could say, "Yeah, this cost a whole bunch of money," which means it's a big deal if it's the right person that's investing in it. That's a way to acknowledge it.
So if people say, "I don't have that much time, I don't know if I can do this," you could say, "Yeah, time is less than ever, and there's more to do than ever. So what are we going to do with the little limited time that we have?" That's called acknowledging the problem. If there's some belief where they say, "Hey, listen, I'm afraid if I try this out it might not work out for me," you can say, "Yeah, it sucks and it's very scary to fail at something."
So that's the first part of the formula; whatever they bring up to you or whatever you anticipate, you simply acknowledge the fact that what they're saying is valid. So that's step number one. Always the answer is yes..., and then you put it in the most favorable light possible. That's the acknowledge part of the objection handling process.
Next, let's talk about the reframing. So it's interesting. Anything that is brought up can be framed as a problem or as an outcome. So typically the framing is it costs too much; that's a problem frame. You don't want to allow your clients to stay in problem frames. What you want to do is shift them to solution frames. So the way that we shift that after we acknowledge it, we say, "Yeah, this is a serious investment. Here is how we now focus it and frame it as an outcome. What would it take for you to make such a serious investment and know that it was the right investment for you?" Or you can say something along the lines of, "Have you ever made an serious investment like this in the past and it worked out really well?" Or you could say, "Hey, listen, yes, this is a serious investment, I totally get that. Have you done other serious investments before and how did you know if they were the right decisions to make or not?" So we're focusing off of the problem. We're focusing on how will we know if this was a good decision or not, regardless of whether it's an expensive one or not. And expensive is relative. You can do this with time as well too. You can say, "Hey, listen, have you had less time in the past and still gotten good results with it?" So the problem is I have no time. The solution or the outcome frame is, have you been successful with limited time? Or you could say, hey, listen, in a limited-time aspect, would this still be worth doing or even replacing something else you're currently doing with your time? So we are always focused on the solution to move forward, not getting stuck on the problem.
If somebody says, "Hey, listen, I'm scared that I'm going to try this and I'm going to fail," you can acknowledge that, which you should do first, and then you reframe it to an outcome. "Hey, listen, if there was a way to fail and still be better off, would you be open to an idea like that?" So this is where we're always taking anything that's brought to us and we're framing it as a possibility of growth, not as I'm going to let you get stuck in the problem that you have.
So step number one was acknowledge. Step number two is reframe. And then the last step, we're going to close, son.
And now we're on to the close, which is actually the easiest part. So once you reframe the outcome, then you could say, "Hey, listen, I know it's a serious investment, I acknowledge that," and then you say, "Hey, listen, have you made other serious investments where they paid off? What was good about them? What about the serious investments or even the not-serious investments that didn't pay off? What was bad about them?" And then you can align your thing. You can say, "Is this more like a bad investment situation, or is this more like a good investment situation?" If they acknowledge like, "Yeah, I can see how this is similar to other good investments that I've made," then you close could be as simple as that. "Great, now that we see that, what's the first step to take advantage of this? It's to this. It's to go sign up right here right now and get started today." Or you could frame it as such. It's like, "Good, I'm glad that you see that it's the outcome of the investment, not the amount that's made, and the first step to get that outcome is to go here and sign up," or whatever the call to action is. So that's one way to close.
If it's a time thing, what I love to do on the end of these time objections is to be like, "Okay, and now that we see that time is a thing that we leverage, it's not something that we count. Now is the time for you to sign up, sign the deal, close, whatever, however you close. It's always great if you can take that last word and then transition it. Now that you've made good investments in the past and you acknowledge that this looks like those good investments, let's start the investment process. Here's the first thing you need to do." Or if you could say, "Hey, listen, we realize it's not so much the time, it's the opportunity to invest in that time, and now's the time for you to sign up." So I love to take that last word and connect it.
So if somebody had the objection of like, "I'm not sure if I can get a result with this," that's the thing where they're afraid to fail. You acknowledge that. "Yeah, it's scary to really fail. Uh, nothing feels worse than trying something, falling short, and having other people ridicule you." That's the acknowledgement portion. And then the reframe about it is like this, "Uh, but what is the alternative? Doing nothing? And isn't nothing the ultimate failure? And if you try something and you grow as a result of this and you are now more capable, could you really call that failure? That sounds like success to me." So whether you succeed or fail, the real objective is growth. And the first step of growth is stepping into a new situation, which starts with going here and signing up.
See how we do this? This is, you know, you got to practice this. I will warn you, this will not be natural at first. Acknowledging is not natural. Uh, reframing from problem to outcome is a skill that must be practiced. Closing, you just got to memorize the words. You just got to say, "Hey, listen, would anything stop you from signing up right now?" That's another close.
So you learn these little phrases. You can put this stuff into ChatGPT, my friend. When I teach this to clients, they build these GPTs out, and then they can even just plug them in when they're on close situations and just literally read the results. It's not quite as good as bringing your boy Jason Flavlin. I have a deal that I'm I'm going to be doing. You're going to see me probably; we're going to be in front of about a half a million people here at the end of April, and I'm going to be closing for a very big name person where all I'm going to do is take in an audience of hundreds of thousands of people, one deal after the next, one objection after the next, one challenge after the next, and we're just going to run it through this formula: we're acknowledge, reframe, and then close.
I have other formulas, but here's the problem with them. Some of these other formulas, they only are useful in like 5% of scenarios. And some of these formulas, they take a lot more skill than the one that I just taught you. So you probably can't go out and build 10,000. But if you're closing a couple more deals here and there, you're going to make thousands and thousands of dollars. And then if you've developed the skill, there's a lot of opportunity to use it in a lot of situations. I use it everywhere. My favorite place is with clients themselves, where we close them on better belief systems that better serve them.
Regardless though, what is your favorite part about using a close like this? Have you done this before? Where could you use this? What's an objection? Practice it right in the comments. Acknowledge an objection you often get, and then reframe it to an outcome, and then close up on it. Put it there. I'll thumbs it up. CSM