Transcription
I've taken over 7,000 high-ticket sales calls and closed millions of dollars in deals over the past four years. In that time, sales has allowed me to go from living with my dad in a trailer in Kansas to being in Miami in a luxury two-bedroom apartment. I've also spent around $50,000 on sales training. I'll be real; most of it is pretty basic.
So, what I'll be going over today are the top five things I learned from taking thousands of calls and training hundreds of clients that I see no sales trainer talking about. These will help you close more sales.
Now, I'm not going to do much editing; I'm just going to be spitting some hot fire at you so you can go and make some more sweet, sweet commissions. So take notes, and let's dive in.
The first thing we need to go over is that you need to be able to understand language. This is the biggest learning curve that I see with people who I train one-on-one: being able to train their ear and pick up what a prospect is saying. People think that the way the prospect talks to you is the way that they talk to themselves.
Believe it or not, you actually have to listen to truly understand where people are coming from. That way, you can connect with them. The only way that you're going to be able to shift their behavior is if you understand them and connect with them, believe it or not.
There are three things you really need to focus on when we're talking about somebody's language during a sales call. Number one is how they describe things. Number two is the language they use that shows you what they're running towards. And number three is the language they use that shows you what's holding them back.
Let's take these one by one. First and foremost, understanding and really paying attention to how the prospect describes things is crucial. There are a couple of reasons why we want to pay attention to this.
Number one, people trust people who are like them. We are tribal beings by nature, and if you talk like someone else, you are a part of their tribe, which builds a connection with somebody a lot faster. When you use their words and how they describe things, you create that connection.
As a salesperson, you might be saying the same thing, but if you don't use the same words, there's going to be a disconnect. So you need to morph your questions to use their language. The thing that you always want to pay attention to is how they positively describe things—their adjectives—and how they negatively describe things.
What you'll do is write these words down and add them into the questions that you ask. That way, you don't get as much pushback on the questions that you ask. So, number one, you're going to be able to build a better connection.
But then, number two, it's going to be hard for them to not fall into your frame if you use their words, for lack of a better term, against them. For example, if you are talking to somebody and they say that they're looking for more leads because the lead flow they've been having is inconsistent, okay, fantastic. They used the word "inconsistent" right here—a negative adjective.
You would want to understand what they mean by "inconsistent" because you're not aware of it. We'll definitely get to more of that. You don't want to assume anything. But then from there, you need to use their words, specifically "inconsistent," in your questions moving forward.
If you don't and you assume something else, you can get pushback. This is what I see in a lot of calls. They'll tell you something is inconsistent, and then you just ask, "Well, why is it not enough?" or "Why can't it help you get to XYZ?" or "Why can't it help you scale?" when they didn't say those things.
So when you're asking them and they say things are inconsistent, you ask, "Okay, well, what do you feel like is missing with the current way that you're generating leads that's causing things to be inconsistent?" It's very hard for them to push back on that question.
But if you ask the same question and you just end it in a different way—if you end it in something that they didn't say—it gives them an out to push back on that question. "What do you feel like is missing in the way that you're generating leads that's causing you not to be able to scale the way that you want?" Well, they didn't say that, so they can push back, which causes, again, that connection to be really broken.
So the biggest thing is to pay attention to the words that they use, and you want to start to adopt those words. Number one, to connect better with them because you're going to be talking more like them. But number two, it also makes it so that you're not going to get pushback on the questions that you ask.
Questions, at the end of the day, are just tools, so they morph and really shift to the prospect that you're talking to. Okay, so that's what you need to understand: how prospects describe things—positive, negative—and use it throughout your entire process.
So write down how they describe things. Number two, you need to pay attention to the words they use so you can understand what they're running towards. This is also a big thing I see people struggle with, especially when they're newer in sales. They have a hard time uncovering what people's true drivers are and really what pain they're in.
What this is, is Maslow's hierarchy. At the bottom of the pyramid, we have physiological needs: food, water, sleep, breathing, health, safety, employment, resources, family, property—all these different things. These are pretty apparent. The pain is very apparent.
But as you go higher, when we're talking about love and belonging, esteem, self-actualization, as these things are taken care of—when someone's physiological stuff is taken care of, their safety is taken care of, their love and belonging is taken care of—but they're working on their esteem, this pain becomes less and less apparent if you do not know what to look for.
That's why it's always important to make sure you're paying attention to the words that they use so you understand where their gap is. Because I'm here to tell you, just because somebody doesn't have the pain of being unemployed or living paycheck to paycheck doesn't mean that they don't have pain. It just means that you are having a hard time uncovering that pain.
That's fine; you just need to pay attention to what they're actually saying so you can understand where their pain actually is. For example, if you're talking to someone and their main driver is to have confidence in themselves and to prove others wrong—to show everyone else that they can do it—and you start asking them, "Well, what happens if you don't make the money?" and "You know, you've got to be out on the street," you're not going to get good answers.
But if you ask them, "Well, what happens if you don't prove everyone else wrong? If you say exactly where you're at, what are the consequences of that?" that's going to hit a lot harder because you're talking to their actual motivations.
So you need to be able to pay attention to this, and it really just comes down to understanding what their language is. Because we talk, and people will tell you what their motivations are, so you just have to understand it.
When they're talking about physiological needs again—food, water, sleep, breathing, health—they might say, "Oh, I'm drowning in medical debt." Their food, their water—they could be out on the street; they could be homeless. This pain is very apparent, so it's easier to dive into it.
If it's safety, "I'm living paycheck to paycheck." Again, they're having a hard time getting the resources they need to be able to break out of having that safety. Very, very apparent.
Love and belonging—they really want to provide. So you need to understand their main driver is their family. Oftentimes, when we're talking about providing, it's if they provide more, they'll get the affection and intimacy that they want.
So you're going to have to morph your questions around that—around them being the provider that they truly want to be. What would that actually look like? Why is it important for them to be that provider? And what happens if they never are? If they continue to be the provider that they have been but not the provider they know they could be, that's the sales conversation.
If you start talking to them about things lower down on the rung or even higher up on the rung, you're not going to really dive into their true emotions.
We were talking about esteem earlier. "I want to show people I can do it. I want to leave a legacy." So again, their esteem—they want self-esteem, confidence, respect from others. You need to talk to them about that. That's their true motivation; that's where their true pain is. They don't have this.
So again, if you're talking to them about their family or them not having enough resources, you're not going to be able to connect with them. You need to talk to them about really having confidence in themselves, getting respect from others, and being able to prove others wrong.
These are the questions that you're going to ask. If they say they want to show people that they can do it, well, what happens if they're the person who never does it and proves everyone else right? Get to that question. They're going to have more motivation to actually do something than with the other one.
Self-actualization: "I want to fulfill my potential." Again, if you talk to them about anything else—if you talk to them about love and belonging, safety, physiological needs—they have all these things checked.
If you need to talk to them about how they are self-actualizing themselves and what if they never reach their full potential for the rest of their life and they always come up short, that's where it's going to come down to. That's where the sale is made.
So make sure you pay attention to the language that they use, and you understand what motivates people to drive forward. Don't attribute to them problems that you're more comfortable having a conversation about, but it's not their real problem.
All right, next is what's holding people back. Believe it or not, people will tell you exactly what's holding them back, and they will tell you the exact objection that they're going to give you way before you get to the end.
People are made up of patterns, and people tell themselves stories on why they aren't where they want to be. If you listen, right? It's a big, big repeating pattern. You need to listen; you can pick up on what is holding them back, and you can address it so that you can take care of it before you get to the objection-handling part.
You can have a ton more objection closes, lots more fun, high fives all around. If you change the way someone speaks, you change the way that they think. Because people, again, they think by talking. So if you change what they talk about, you change what they think about. And if you change what they think about, you change how they act.
That's why this is so important. Now, there are more than just these as far as what can be holding people back, but these are the key things I see come up again after listening to hundreds and hundreds of other people's sales calls and taking thousands of myself.
Number one: wishful language. "It would be nice." "I would like to." "I want to." Ambiguous language: "Probably." "I think." "Maybe." Emotional out language: "It's not that bad." "I'll get there no matter what." "Things are really good right now." External language: "It's the economy." "I don't have the time." "I've been burned before, so I don't pay for things up front."
I had a call a couple of days ago that that one was the exact one. So let's take these one by one.
Number one: wishful language. Why is this something that could hold somebody back? Because it's not real. If it would be nice for me to make a million dollars, I'm not putting in the effort to actually get there because it's just a nice thing. Like, "It'd be nice to be at the beach right now," but I'm not there. It's fine.
So there's not as much drive when somebody is wishful. The reason people use wishful language is they want to separate themselves from actually achieving the goal because they know that it's going to be hard. So they tell themselves that they don't want it as much.
So yeah, it'd be nice to have that, but they don't need to have it. And because they don't need to have it, they have a bit of an out. So you've got to be careful with the wishful language.
Ambiguous language, again: "Probably." "I think." "Maybe." Hopefully, you understand why this isn't good. They're giving themselves an out. "Do you think this will work for you?" "Yeah, probably." "I think it would." Right? That "probably" gives them a little bit of wiggle room.
If we don't address it moving forward, we're going to have a hard time tying people down, especially when we're talking about objection handling. Emotional out language: this comes down to—it's very close to the wishful language—but this one is the biggest thing I see people have a hard time actually addressing.
When people say, "It's not that bad," "I'll get there no matter what," "Things are really good right now," they're telling themselves reasons that are not real for why they don't need to change. If we do not address it and change it, you'll get to the end, and they're like, "Yeah, but it's not that bad," or "I'll get there; let me see if I can figure it out on my own, and then I'll come back to you."
It needs to be addressed so you can get that out of the way and move on. External language: "It's the economy." "I don't have the time." They're blaming things outside of themselves. You, as a salesperson, cannot fix the economy. All you can do is fix the person that's in front of you—not fix, but help them change.
You get what I mean? You can help them get more leads; you can help them start a business. You cannot help the economy to be fixed.
So if they're blaming external things that are not them, you cannot help them with that. It needs to be addressed. With all these language patterns, understand the longer a conversation goes on for, the more confident somebody gets with their language patterns. They get more confident using it because it hasn't been called out.
So if they're using wishful language, the sooner you call it out, the better. If they're using ambiguous language, the sooner you call it out, the better.
Okay, and we'll go over exactly how you actually address it. Again, you don't want to be a jerk about it, but there are ways to address it, and it needs to be addressed.
So number one, we're talking about wishful language. A couple of ways to address it, especially if it's early on in the conversation, is let's say you're selling something like a business opportunity. It's a biz op; you help someone start a business, like one of my clients with a real estate investment offer.
If somebody tells you, "Yeah, it'd be nice to make $20,000 per month," okay, we hear the wishful language. How do we address it? Super simple. At the very beginning of the conversation, if it comes up, very light, a little cheeky, right? Say it with a smile.
"Yeah, it would be nice if I was at the beach right now. Tell me what you need to get to." Just that alone, oftentimes, they're not going to continue to use wishful language. You just check it immediately, and then it's not going to come up later on in the conversation.
But sometimes it will, and we need to address it more. This one is just a very, very light way, and you say it with a smile so you don't get much pushback. Then they'll fall into your frame.
"Yeah, I mean, it'll be nice for me to be at the beach right now. Tell me what you need to get to." Then you'll get a more real answer.
I'll tell you right now, it would be nice to get to $20K per month versus "I need to get to $10K per month." One is a lot better goal than the other. There's more urgency behind the second one.
So let's say you need to use a harder frame. Let's say we use that, and then we're still getting this wishful language coming up. How do we address it more? How do we use a harder frame or address it more head-on?
Something like this: "Yeah, I want to get to $20K per month." Again, what is the wishful language? "I want to get there." If you're going to address it more hands-on, you want to give them a reason why they need to change their language.
Something like this: "Hey, can I share a perspective on that?" They'll be like, "Oh yeah, I can appreciate that." I'm curious, though: do you know the difference between a want and a need?
It doesn't matter what they say. They can say yes; they can say no; they can start telling you what they think it is. Then you just continue on.
"A want is if it's convenient, I'll do it. But you getting to $20,000 per month, do you think it will be convenient?" I've never heard anyone say yes.
Because people know, innately, trying new things and making a lot of money is, in their mind, supposed to be hard. Really making that much money is not that hard. Well, it's simple, but it's not easy. That's what it comes down to.
But is it supposed to be convenient? "Oh no." Well, why not? Get them to explain. "A need is I'll do whatever it takes. Would you agree?"
I'm getting more buy-in as I'm going through. So would you be willing to change that one into a need? You're asking them if they're willing to change their language. You'll get a yes.
I've never heard nobody say, "Oh no, I want to keep it." You'll get a yes; "I want to change my language." Why would you, though? Get them to get more buy-in.
Because every time somebody takes a step in your direction, you want to give a slight pushback. Why is that? Because when you push back on somebody, just naturally, they dig their heels in more.
So when somebody takes a step in my direction, for example, starting to say "need" instead of "want," I push back a little bit. "Well, why would you even do that, man?"
You don't want to say it like that, but why would you? What they'll do is they'll entrench themselves more in that way of thinking.
Okay, so that helps me help them. If they start speaking the right way, next we're talking about ambiguous language. This one can come up all the time. It's super, super simple to address.
You just repeat back the ambiguous language in a confused tone or a curious tone. "I think I would do it." You think? You think? You can be a little bit playful with it, and they'll either correct the language or they'll tell you the concern, objection, whatever it is.
"Yeah, like I'll probably—yeah, I'll probably do it." "Probably?" "Oh no, I will." "Okay, cool." Or, "I think I would do it." "You think?"
Okay, now you've got to address that. Let's say it's a value thing, or if you just want to be a little bit more straightforward with it. "I think this is the easiest." You just repeat back whatever the ambiguous language is.
But you can always do, "I mean, you don't sound too sure. What's behind that?" "Oh no, I am sure." They'll defend themselves, or they'll be like, "Well, this..." Then you can address it.
Next, we have emotional out language. Again, this is one of the biggest ones that I see salespeople struggle with the most.
So when you're talking to a prospect, you're digging into pain. Let's say, for example, in this example here, somebody looking to lose weight—they need to lose 50 pounds. You're like, "Hey man, why do you need to lose 50 pounds? What type of impact is this having?" You're trying to dig into this guy's pain.
Hopefully, you're asking better questions than that, but they're like, "I mean, it's not that bad." If this guy is 50 pounds overweight and he doesn't see it as that bad, is there any chance this guy's going to move forward? Absolutely not.
So we need to be able to address it. Typically, I'm going to address it a little bit more head-on. Now, you can open up with a perspective reframe, which is basically you ask him, "Hey, can I share a perspective?" or "Can I make a suggestion?" or "What if it wasn't what you thought was the reason?"
You would open up with something like that because you're asking them a question to give you permission to then make more of a statement or be more or help them shift the way that they see things.
Okay, so it's just going to increase the compliance of whatever you're going to say afterward. So they say, "Oh, well, it's not that bad." Again, emotional out language right here.
What you're going to do is you need to address it more hands-on. There are tons of ways you can do this. The way that I found works best for me is just to ask them a question that causes them to question what it is they just said.
"Well, do you think that might be part of the problem?" They might say, "What do you mean?" "I mean, because if we keep on telling ourselves it's not that bad, where is the drive to change?"
The reason I ask it like that is you're getting them to see that them talking this way is directly responsible for them not having the drive to change.
From there, I'll typically go into a perspective reframe again. I'm going to use an analogy to get them to see that we need to have emotion in order to do anything that's worth doing, basically.
So it's going to be something like this: I call it the Super Bowl reframe. There are tons of reframes and analogies out there that you can use. This one I just like because most people watch football; it makes sense. Most people know sports.
"Can I share a perspective? I mean, if you're in the Super Bowl and one of your teammates didn't care if you won or lost, would you want him as your teammate?" "Why not?" "Oh, because he doesn't really care," blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Right? Because if there's no real emotion that's driving him forward, you know he's not going to be able to be the best teammate.
So I guess, like, be real with me because I'm on your team. I want to see you win. You looking in the mirror every single day and not liking what's looking back at you—how does that feel?
Right? So again, you get them to see that emotion is important when we're driving towards something. Simple. You know, if you had a teammate in the Super Bowl, would you want them to not care? Why not? Get them to expand on why they wouldn't want that, right?
Because they have no real emotion that's driving them forward. Then basically, you're re-asking the question that got you the "Yeah, it's not that bad."
So let's say you asked him, "Hey, how does this feel, man, like you being overweight?" and he's like, "Ah, it's not that bad." You want to go ahead and re-ask the question at the end so that way you get the real thing out of him.
From there, you'll get the real emotion. "Oh, it's not that bad?" "Well, do you think that might be part of the problem? Because if you keep telling yourself that it's not that bad, where does it drive the change?"
"Oh, well, I'm not sure. Can I share a perspective?" "Yeah, like if you were in the Super Bowl and one of your teammates didn't care if you won or lost, would you want them as your teammate?" "Well, no." "Well, why not?" "Oh, because of this, this, and this."
Right? Because there's no real emotion driving them forward to change. So be real with me because I'm on your team. You look in the mirror every single day and not liking what's looking back at you—how does that feel?
Like, we're right back into it. Oftentimes, you only have to do this once, and they will knock out the emotional out language. If it comes up again, again, you just have to address it more head-on.
Next is external language. This one comes down to, again, you cannot fix the economy. You cannot fix anything outside of the person that you're talking to. You can only help the person who you're talking to, who's in front of you, change.
It's the only person you can change. So if they blame externals, we can't—like, they're giving away the responsibility, whatever it is. So we need people to take full responsibility.
Once people take full responsibility, that's when you can help them change. Okay, so let's just say you're selling lead generation to real estate agents. Real estate agents tend to do this quite a bit. They blame everything else besides themselves.
They tend to have higher egos. Again, I've met some real estate agents—really cool guys. A lot of them have egos.
So let's just say, "Hey, what do you feel like's missing with your marketing that's making things inconsistent?" This is a question you ask. And they come back with, "Well, I mean, it's just harder with this economy. The rates—people just aren't wanting to sell everything but me."
This is what they're going to tell you. This is what you do. You want to use a comparative frame. What a comparative frame is, you basically just compare. You show them that other people—this is not true for why it's true for you.
It's going to get them to blame themselves. You need to get them to take it internal; that's what you need to do. "Okay, well, I mean, it's harder with this economy."
Okay, and so again, you don't want to just say it's [ __ ] but it's like, "Potentially, can I share a perspective?" You don't want to agree; you don't want to disagree. Again, you don't want to cause a disconnect in rapport.
"Potentially, can I share a perspective?" "Oh yeah, sure." "I mean, we work with a lot of agents who are in tough markets who've been able to grow over the past couple of years with the market being like it is. So I guess, like, what do you feel like you might be missing with the current way you're generating leads or maybe how you're actually nurturing them that's causing these things to be inconsistent the way that they are?"
Again, I'm taking away their excuse so that we get a more real answer moving forward.
Okay, cool. Next one: number two is we need to understand that the answer is not obvious. If you want to get to the prospect's real pain and drivers, you can't assume you understand them from surface-level info or you understand them because you've talked to other people who had similar issues.
Everyone is a unique snowflake. People are inherently interesting, and you've got to understand it's not as obvious as we like to make it out.
Because we do something every single day. For example, man, if you help people start a business, really sit and think: how many people, let's just say in the United States or North America, wherever you're at, how many people actually start a business? It's probably less than 10%.
So it's not obvious why they do want to start a business because an overwhelming majority of people do not start businesses. So why is this person hopping on a call to learn about starting a business?
If we just assume that, "Oh, well, obviously, you know, making more money is good for everyone," and we don't ask them, "Well, what's their true driver? Why do they need to make more money?" or "Why is it important to them?" we're not going to get to their real why.
We're not going to get to the real driver; we're not going to get to the real pain. For instance, when you're talking about lead generation, if you hop on somebody and they tell you they want to get to $100K per month, how many businesses are making $100K per month?
It's a very, very small percentage. Most people are not there. So it's not obvious why this person that's sitting in front of you, you know, or on Zoom, whatever it is, has the drive to do so.
You've got to understand that it's not as obvious as you like to make it to be. I had a conversation with one of my clients, and yeah, I just started working with them. This is what really unlocked it because he sells lead generation.
It's not obvious that every business owner wants to grow their business and make more money. It's really not because most don't. So just sit there and try to understand why this person does.
If you understand what their motivation is, then you can understand what they don't have now and what that gap is. You can understand what their problems are.
A couple of things to always keep in mind: people are inherently interesting. Once you actually do not assume and you just ask questions, you'll be genuinely surprised at what people will tell you. Just ask the questions.
Be genuinely curious; actually care. Try to understand where they're coming from. So here's a couple of examples of how you can go about doing this.
Again, this was from the client that I was working with selling lead generation. "Hey, I want to scale up to $150K per month." Right? This is the call he had, and he just accepted that.
"Okay, cool; everybody likes to do that," and just moved on. You need to ask why that. "Oh, $150,000 per month sounds like a pretty, you know, you came up with that number pretty quickly. Where does that number come from?"
Why $150,000 per month? Just get a why. Like, why this number? If they give you something basic like, "Oh, I think it's really doable with what we have," yeah, "I want to get to $150,000 per month because I just think I can." That's not a real driver.
So what you do is you can give a bit of pushback. What this does is it shows them that their answer, their goal, is not obvious because it really is.
You can say something like this: again, pick whatever industry you see. You can say something similar: weight loss, lead generation, biz op, whatever it is. "I mean, a lot of clinics would be happy with making $30,000 per month. So where does that drive come from to scale? Or why is that so important to you to scale? Like, why do you want to do this?"
What they'll tell you is what their drivers are. So let's say, for example, and I don't know from the call because we didn't ask it, but let's say this person who wants to scale to $150,000 per month or needs to scale—right? Change that wishful language to $150,000 per month.
Why is it so important for him to scale? "Oh, because if I get more revenue coming in, that will allow me to hire people." Okay, that's pretty common when it comes to business owners.
"Oh, why are you looking to hire people?" "Oh, so they can take care of the administrative stuff, and I can get my time back."
Okay, sit there and take a look at his situation. Right now, he's at $30K per month, and at $150K per month, he can hire people to get his time back. So what does he not have now? He doesn't have the time.
Interesting. Let's ask him about that. "Okay, so do you feel like you don't have the time that you're wanting right now?"
Guess what? You're going to find the pain, and then you can dig into that. Like, that's where the pain is. The $150,000 per month gives him time in this example.
So what does he not have now? Time. So let's dive into what that him not having time is actually doing to him and the consequences if he never gets his time.
Okay, let's go for something else, like a biz op. Let's say you're asking the prospect, "Okay, why are you looking to start a business?" "Well, I mean, I've been stuck at the same income for the past five years."
If you notice by that answer, it's not a positive; it's not a negative. Now, they said something like "stuck." I don't know what that means. Again, we don't want to assume, so we want to ask them, "What do you mean by stuck?"
"Oh, well, I haven't gotten a raise, and I've just been at the same income level." So if you think about it, them being at the same income level innately—without assuming that everyone just wants to make more money and everyone's not okay staying at the same income level—because these are assumptions.
Did they actually say that? Was that good? Was that bad? Was it negative? Was it positive? No, they didn't. So we can ask them, "Do you see this as a good or a bad thing?"
I use this question all the time. I mean, I don't want to assume because everyone is different, but do you see that as a good or a bad thing? And they'll say, "Oh, it's not a bad thing."
But this—what do you mean? Then you can dive into it more there. Or they say, "No, it's definitely a bad thing." "Why do you see it as a bad thing?"
Then they're going to sit there, and they're going to tell you why it's a bad thing. So this is really, really important, especially because you'll have prospects hop on, and they're not going to be as open right away with their pain.
Some people hop on; they'll spill their guts. You're not going to have a hard time getting to people's real pain then. But if they're a little bit more closed off, like somebody like this, you just need to not assume.
Ask the questions to get them to open up. It's like, "Oh, I've been stuck at the same income level for five years." "What do you mean stuck?" "Oh, I haven't gotten a raise."
"I mean, I don't want to assume because everyone's a little bit different when it comes to that, but you not getting a raise for the past five years—do you see this as a good or a bad thing? Why do you see that as a bad thing? And how long have you felt this way?"
You can just dive more and more into it.
Okay, so next we're going to go. Frame is everything. If you don't know what a frame is, a frame is the way that you view the world.
You have a frame for social situations. It's comprised of expectations, beliefs, perceptions, and definitions. I'll dive into each one of those.
An expectation is what probably is going to happen. So they're expecting something out of this conversation. Okay, so let's just say the person who's an A-type personality, they hopped on a lot of sales calls. They have an expectation of how that sales call is going to go just from the previous experience.
Someone's mental frame is what someone is predicting will happen based on previous experiences. An expectation of someone moving forward is an expectation as a salesperson we need to have.
Because going into a conversation, one of your biggest tools that you can use is just having an overall optimism about the conversation. You'll show up with the right energy.
But when we're talking about breaking other people's frames or getting them to go into our frame, a big thing is we need to be able to break their expectations of what a sales conversation is going to be.
That's why if you hop on and you say more basic questions like, "Hey, where are you calling out of?" I always—when I talk to a salesperson, they ask me where I'm calling out of. I always know that's how they start their calls.
Right? And I've got to break that right away. The reason why you want to break their expectation is because your brain is a shortcut machine.
If they can shortcut how this conversation is going to go—"Oh, this person sounds like other sales reps; I'm going to just treat them like other sales reps. I know this is how it's going to go." Then again, you're more likely to fall into their frame.
They're not going to be as open, and you're going to have a harder time. But if you break their autopilot, you get more focus, and focus is key for anything when it comes to persuasion.
You cannot change someone's belief; you cannot persuade; you cannot shift anything if you do not have someone's focus. So breaking expectations creates more focus.
You cannot sound like everyone else.
Next, we have beliefs. What is probably true about this situation? A belief of someone's mental frame is what they believe is true about a situation. This includes assumptions people make.
So believe it or not, judge a book by its cover all the time. If you look like someone of lower status or someone who doesn't have as much authority, people are going to make snap judgments about you.
They're going to create beliefs about you just based on what you look like. So in order for you to always make sure you're breaking their beliefs, people typically are going to buy from authority.
So for whatever you're selling, you have to look like an authority. Again, I'm wearing a tight t-shirt; you know I'm authority like Andy Elliott, right? Super tight.
Besides the point, you have to look the part when it comes to whatever you're selling. If you're selling something like lead generation, you should have a nice background, and you should at least look somewhat professional.
Okay? So you can't look like a typical salesperson—a typical broke salesperson who's on Zoom. Basic white background. If you've seen some of my calls, I used to have this, and this makes it to where you're on the back foot.
So you want to do everything you can to gain status and authority. If you have a better background, you look nicer, have a nicer camera—all these different things—it helps you break the beliefs of you just being every other salesperson.
Next, we have perceptions. So this is what is true about this. When what somebody believes is true about themselves in the environment through their own lens is somebody's perception in their mental frame.
So for example, it doesn't mean it's definitionally true; it's just how they view things as being true. If somebody genuinely believes that they're smarter than most of the world—like, "I'm smarter than all these people"—this will be seen as true from their mental frame.
So people tend to default to these facts to make themselves feel better about who they are and what they do.
Okay, example: someone is continuously reminding everyone around them that they are the VP of a company and have status and authority because of it. You will see this a lot, especially with A-type personalities or people that have a higher ego.
They will try to justify themselves to you on a sales call. "Oh, like, I know a lot about this," or different things like that.
Like, "Yo, no, no." For example, I was listening to a call where somebody was helping somebody start a real estate business, right? One of my clients.
The person he was talking to was trying to feign expertise in that arena, even though he's never done anything in real estate. But he tried to tell the salesperson that he knew what they did, like he understood how they did it, but he's never done it.
So what you need to do with somebody like this is you need to be able to take them off the deep end. You ask them questions that you know they're going to have gaps in knowledge, which creates doubt in their perception.
Once you start to break down their perceptions, their beliefs, their expectations, what that will do is their frame, their feigned expertise will collapse into yours, and they'll see you as the authority.
So you want to create situations where they can no longer make predictions about you. You behave in a way that they didn't expect, so they stop making assumptions about your behavior.
This causes them to not be able to resort to their silent foundations of the truth about the situation, making them more willing to open to assume to your frame.
Okay, this is why pattern interrupts are super, super important. If you notice somebody is stuck in a frame in a script, using a pattern interrupt to get them out of it is super important.
Now, as far as a self-perception that we need to have, it's that we're elite at sales and we can help anyone close anyone we get on the call with. If we have this perception and we truly build it up, this is the best perception you can have of yourself, and it should be unbreakable.
Last, as far as your frame is definition: what is absolutely true? So this is like facts. These are things you can't change. "I am in Miami right now; it's cloudy as hell. I help people with sales."
These are facts. But what you can do is if you change and shift people's expectations, beliefs, and perceptions, you can make the definitions less important.
Okay, so let's go through an example. You see this all the time, especially when we're talking about lead generation in more saturated markets.
Prospects are going to ask, "Why should I be working with you?" They're trying to push and take over the frame. So what their expectation is: "This person is selling something; they'll probably act like other sales reps."
And just try to start justifying on how they're the best at this or why you should work with them because of that.
Okay, their belief is they will talk to me about the features and benefits of the service. I will be able to ask some questions about it to determine if I should make the decision to buy.
The perception is, "I've done this before; I'm not a pushover. I won't make decisions about things without knowing all I can and taking a few days to think about it. I'm talking to a salesperson who needs my money."
Again, definitions do not change, but we can make them less important. So we're talking about actually frame controlling, or somebody pushes back on their frame.
What frame controlling is not: it's not controlling, domineering, and you're not concerned with status or hierarchy, or you're not positioning for power. You need to be composed. That means nothing is ever a problem.
You need to commonly break out of their expectations and beliefs, which allows you to actually shift their perception. So if you get defensive or you try to control or you try to hard-frame them back, you're just going to be butting heads.
You're not going to be able to take control. If anything, you're just going to cause them to get more defensive.
So what you need to do at this point is, let's say they say something like this, which directly challenges your frame. You need to break out of the expectation that you need their money, and you're just going to tell them what they need to hear.
It's like, "Why should I work with you?" "Well, to be frank, man, I'm not even sure you should. What we do is fairly custom; it doesn't work for everyone. So if it would help, man, I would really just need to understand what you're even looking for in the first place just to see if this even makes sense."
You're breaking out of the expectation of, "I'm going to ask him this question, and he's just going to try to sell me." This is what salespeople do. You need to break out of that pattern interrupt.
Then from there, once they're not on the footing, they can't assume what you're going to say. That's when you'll swallow them with your frame.
But the thing is, you need to have composure. A really good example of composure: I would watch The Andy Griffith Show. Again, if you haven't seen it, it's an old show, but this guy is a sheriff in an old town, and all this crazy stuff happens.
This guy has the most unbreakable frame I've ever seen. Nothing is ever a problem, and he goes about it in such a way that it's very hard to disagree with him, and everyone ends up doing what he wants anyway at the end.
But he doesn't do it; he's not demeaning or controlling. He is composed. That's the big thing.
So when we're talking about what would prevent people from having a strong frame, oftentimes it's fear of social judgment, fixation on how you're being perceived, and deriving your identity, confidence, and self-worth from social feedback.
For example, I see this with a lot of people—newer reps or people who typically aren't versed on dealing with people with more money, more A-type personalities. They fear the judgment of this older person. This person has higher status, and they fear the judgment of us.
It goes back to our monkey brains, where if we were judged poorly by somebody with high status in our tribe, we might be killed.
Okay, but just understand in today's world, it's not real. So you don't need to be fixated on how you're perceived. You're not going to see these people ever again, typically.
If you don't sell them, what's the worst thing that can happen? You're not going to see this person ever again, so you might as well just go for it.
You need to be able to derive your confidence and your self-worth from your internal work. Because if you get it from external sources, we can't really control whether somebody buys or doesn't buy.
All we can do is just put ourselves in the best possible position to do so. If you change your metric of success to, "Did this person buy or not buy?" and if they didn't buy, "I'm a piece of crap," and if they did buy, "I'm the best thing in the world," okay?
You see how that's a roller coaster? If you change your metric of success to, "Did I have a good call or not?" Because I'll tell you right now, I'm just as pumped hopping off a call where I knocked it out of the park and the guy had $200 in his bank account and a $500 credit score.
He didn't buy, but I'm more excited about that call than if I hopped on a call with this dude who was a complete laydown and he paid in full.
I'm more excited that I had the good call rather than somebody being a complete laydown.
So if you change your metric of success, you have better results overall, but you'll also have a stronger frame. Because your confidence comes from the inside of you actually just doing the things you know you should do.
When you're in a conversation, it needs to be collaborative, not competitive. Again, this should be pretty obvious, but you shouldn't be trying to control or push people around.
You are a leader in a sales conversation, which means you're collaborative. You're doing things together; you're trying to help this person.
This always is going to come down to a strong frame being certainty. Because humans look for certainty, and most lack certainty.
If you talk with certainty, if you act with certainty, someone is speaking or behaving with certainty more than we are. We assume that they couldn't have lived their life unless everyone is totally okay with this behavior.
So confidence is a complete cheat code because what it does is it triggers in our brain that this person acts like this all the time. If this person acts like this all the time, there's a reason nobody challenges him.
He acts like this all the time, so he must get good reactions from people. It gives you social proof without you actually doing anything other than being confident.
So when you're one-on-one with someone, you still have the weight of the tribe behind you. If you behave confidently with certainty, it is assumed that thousands of people have already gone along with it.
You can practice coming across certain; you can practice coming across with authority, with confidence. Even though, let's say you had a thousand calls before and you came across like a weak person, right?
On the thousand and first call, that person does not know how all your other calls went. They only know how this call is going right now. If you act with confidence and authority, they will assume this is how you are all the time.
Okay? Now you need to get to the point where it is how you act all the time, but you know, baby steps.
As far as the frame that you want to adopt, I call it the father/big brother frame. This is somebody who is composed, who's mature. You lift other people up; you care about other people; you encourage, but you do not accept people's nonsense.
You challenge people when they need to be challenged. This frame assumes a confident authority with kindness, stillness, and is largely unaffected by other frames.
You deeply care about other people; you truly want to understand them; you truly want to help. But you're willing to call them out if they need to be called out.
Okay? That is a father or big brother frame.
Next, we have our perception. Now, this one is very overlooked with a lot of people. You've got to understand sales is leadership. You lead somebody for them. The best leaders do it for other people.
If you're doing it just to make a sale, people can feel that. We're social beings; we can pick up on small little things, and you're going to be talking to the back of their brain—the million parts of the brain—and they're going to get a gut feeling that something's off.
So how they perceive you, how they actually see you, affects everything that you say. Because if you have a perception in someone's eyes, like how they see you, is that you just want to sell them something, the intent in anything that you say is going to be to get them to buy.
They're not going to assume that you're saying it with good intentions. So the value you bring is pressuring someone into doing something.
If your perception, on the other hand, is someone who actually cares, your intent when you say something is, "Oh, they're actually here to help." The value you bring is helping the prospect overcome limiting beliefs, and you actually get them what they want.
So you can say the exact same thing—the exact same thing—but if their perception of you is negative, you're not giving them any value.
But if their perception of you is positive, then you give them the value. So this is something you always have to be conscious of: how does this prospect see me?
Do they see me as a salesperson? "Oh man, you're really good at this; you're really good at sales." If you ever hear that, like, red flags, bro. You did something wrong.
So if they're saying, "Oh, you're a really good salesperson," they perceive you as a salesperson. The value you give is you're there to sell them something.
The perception always needs to be you're there to help, and so the value you give is you're here to help change their life.
So when we're talking about perception, the biggest thing is, like we were talking about earlier, genuinely be curious about who the person is and what they have to say. That's step number one.
But then also make sure your focus is in the right place. We'll get to that, but you can also sprinkle in statements that help with your perception.
When I say sprinkle in these statements, again, do not say these every other sentence. It's going to come across like a tactic at that point.
But you want to sprinkle in different statements that just remind them of the fact that you know you're there to help. So things I'll say are, "Hey man, I get where you're coming from. I've been in your shoes before. I can understand where you're coming from. I can appreciate you being real. I want to see you win just to see if I can help."
So when you're going through these, going through the sales conversation, if you sprinkle these in—let's say, for example, you ask a consequence question, and this dude really opens up—"Hey man, I appreciate you being real."
Or you're in objection handling, and they're like, "Yeah, it's just a lot of money." It's like, "Hey man, I understand where you're coming from. I've been in your shoes before."
Right? This is going to help your perception. But again, you can overuse these. Sprinkle these in throughout the sales conversation; that way, it'll help your perception.
Don't overuse them; you're going to come across like you're using a tactic.
Okay, five. Last, you need to be able to master your own state to shift other people's state. Understand someone's state is someone's state of mind. In sales, we're in the business of changing someone's state from non-buyer to buyer.
Okay? So what actually makes up someone's state? Their physiology—like their body language, how they feel, their body, where their focus is at—and number three is the language that they use. This makes up someone's state.
So really, when you sit and think about it, any type of sales tactic out there is just changing someone's state. Now, when you're in person, you can do more of the body language physiology change.
But really, all the questions that you ask, everything that you do, you're shifting their focus to where it needs to be—to focus on their pain, consequences, and then what they actually get if they change it.
Or like we talked about before, you're changing their language; you're changing their limiting beliefs. So that's all you're doing.
In order for you to do this to the best of your ability, you need to be able to master your own state to be able to consistently shift other people's.
So let's break it down, and again, I'm going to go high level on how to really dial this in.
So number one, your focus. Watch what you allow to take your focus and be conscious of your mental diet. What I mean by mental diet is every type of information you take in affects you on some level, whether you want to believe it or not.
It affects you. Understand that we are performance athletes. I only make money if this deal closes. If it doesn't close, I can't feed my family.
So I only focus on things that are going to move me forward in some way. Because again, you'll notice if your focus is derived and it's really focusing on, let's say, for example, politics, Twitter, watching a lot of YouTube videos, you'll understand you won't show up to the calls in the same way.
But if you allow your focus to be just focused on you getting better at sales, you improving yourself, you'll show up a lot better on calls. You'll have more energy rather than you focus on things that take your energy away.
You focus on things that give you energy. This is always going to be really, really important. I think it's the most overlooked thing.
Okay? Also, things like meditation, visualization—these are all things that help your focus and help you focus on the right things.
Next is going to be your physiology. Again, I'm not going to give you a bunch of health advice; keep it pretty simple. Dude, be active, eat clean, get sun, get good sleep. If you do this, you'll be ahead of 90% of people.
It's that stupid simple—not easy, but it's simple.
Okay? Language: be conscious of the language you use and the labels you put on yourself. I had a one-on-one call earlier this week, and I had to rip into this sales guy because he told me he sucked.
I'm like, "Why would you ever say that about yourself?" Again, this dude is fresh into sales, and this month he's on pace to make $10,000 per month.
I think it's like his second month in sales, period, already at $10,000 per month. And he is telling himself he sucks because he's not at $20K yet.
Okay? And like, he'll get there. The dude puts in a lot of work, but you've got to be careful of the language you put on yourself.
Because if you tell yourself you suck, like, dude, what do you think that's going to do to your confidence when you're showing up to calls? Right? In the back of your mind, like, you suck at this.
So he doesn't suck; he's just getting better, and the dude's actually pretty good. Right? I don't want to take credit for it, but he's pretty good.
If he just tells himself, "Hey man, I'm good at sales; I'm on my path to get to great," he's going to show up differently. He's going to feel better overall, which again is going to help him get to great quicker.
Quick example of my life: I told myself all the time I had a bad memory. I'd forget things; I'd forget my keys, forget my wallet. I forgot my wallet on a plane. I've lost a ton of things.
Then I was actually reading a book about how to improve your mental state, how to learn better, all these different things, and it talked about memory.
The number one hack to having a better memory, believe it or not, is just telling yourself you have a better memory. It's not doing anything; you just change the language you use.
You put on yourself that, "Oh, I have a better memory." Believe it or not, I have a good memory now. It just is what it is. I don't forget things anymore because I continue to tell myself I have a good memory.
So you've got to be careful of the language you use on yourself. I would say that's probably one of the biggest lessons you can learn from this video.
Okay? Now, when we're talking about our state, let's talk about our mentality on our calls. So especially if someone is an inbound lead or they booked in on your calendar, there is a need that they hop on the call with.
So you can't fall into their frame. They've like, "Oh, you guys sent me a bunch of emails," or they'll try to put the onus on you. "Well, I mean, I saw your guys; I just want to see what you guys had."
No, they hopped on a call for a reason. If we let them hop off the call with that same problem or limiting belief that's causing their problem, you are doing them a disservice.
If somebody—if you help people lose weight and they are 500 pounds, they hop on a call, and they hop off the call, and they're doing the exact same thing, you let that person down.
That person is going to die sooner because you didn't help them get over whatever is holding them back. Same thing we're talking about; you help people start a business.
That person isn't making the money they need because you weren't helping them get out of their fear. You're doing them a disservice if you do not help them overcome their concerns, their limiting beliefs, and they leave the call with the same problem they came on with.
Okay? So you're having a conversation, but a very skilled conversation. Because I'm a leader, they enter the conversation the way I want them into the conversation—not through aggression, but through skilled questions and guidance.
And I don't give up on people. If I truly believe this person needs a change—and that's the key—if I truly believe, and that's what it comes down to, you need to ask the questions.
You need not to assume. If you get to the end and this person's like, "Yeah, I just don't think this is the right thing for me," totally fine.
Okay? Let that person off the call. But if you truly believe someone needs a change, I will fight for them as long as it takes. I will not hop off this call until this person makes a change that they need to change.
Because I'll be that person that they need to make the change—whoever they need to make the change. That's the leader; that's the person I'll be.
Because nobody is going to leave the same way that they came into the call. So you've got two options. If you're going to hop off a call, number one, you buy and you change. Number two, you leave emotionally messed up.
There is no other option, and I mean that. So you do this for them because if you truly believe that people need to change, and that oftentimes people will not act in their best interest because they have these limiting beliefs holding them back, you have a moral obligation to, to the best of your ability, through your skill set, through your skill set and persuasion, to help them make a lasting change.
If you don't do that, you're letting that person down.
Okay? So now let's talk a little bit about tonality. I get asked about tonality all the time, and to just have it as simple as possible: if you master your state, you master tonality.
So when you need to be confused or curious, you need to be able to—if you get into a curious state, you'll sound curious. If you get into a concerned state, you'll sound concerned. If you get into a challenging state, you'll sound challenging.
Understand these things are natural human emotions. So if you're just able to get to these emotions in yourself, you'll convey the right tonality at that point in time.
You just need to know, like, when you're going through the sales structure, understand what you need in that part of the sales structure—like what type of emotion are you looking to invoke and why are you looking to invoke that?
So if you're confused, like, why would you need to be confused at this point in time? Let's say at the beginning of the conversation, "Oh, like, what type of help are you even looking for?" That's so you can pull the prospect in.
Oftentimes, people hop on the call; they're going to have more of their guard up. You want to pull them in.
Second, like, let's say you need to be curious. Like, why do you need to be curious? So they can understand that I'm here to understand and help them, not here to push something onto them.
I'm concerned. Why? Because the prospect, if they stay in their current situation, they'll be in a bad spot, and I care about people, so I'm concerned.
Challenging? Why? Because I don't want them to buy into their limitations because I know that they can do more. Like you said, I'm the father; I'm the big brother. I know you can do more, so you challenge.
You're playful. Why? Helping people is fun. Okay? It's not stressful.
So you can be playful. So you ask yourself this question: what do I need the prospect to feel?
Then it just comes down to, in order to get into the state of, let's say, curious, where is your focus? Is your focus truly there to help people and understand them?
Okay? Then we can use our physiology. If you look curious, it's hard not to sound curious.
Then we can also use our language. "I'm curious what's going on here." Same thing with concerned. Like, where's your focus? If the prospect stays in their current situation, they'll be in a bad spot.
"Oh, that's concerning." That's where my focus is. What's my physiology? I look concerned. You can practice this in a mirror—like looking different emotions—and then you can use your language.
"I'm concerned if this keeps going on, like what's going to change?" Right? Concerned tone.
Again, probably not say, "Hey, I'm challenging you right now," or "Hey, I'm being playful." But again, you still use your focus and your physiology to come across with these emotions.
All right? Hopefully, that was helpful. Drop your biggest takeaways in the comments. If you want more training on how to get better at sales and become a top 1% closer, go ahead and click somewhere over here.
See you guys next time.