30 Years of Sales Knowledge in 90 Minutes | Jordan Belfort LIVE Sales Training

[Music] Jordan Belfort is here tonight, the legendary Wolf of Wall Street, Jordan Belfort. Jordan Belfort, Jordan Belfort has responded. Jordan Belfort, every sale is the same. His system of selling is proven, it's tried and tested. But he's an incredible trainer, he's an incredible communicator. You don't need to be the world's greatest salesperson, you just need to be proficient, good enough. If you're already good, the straight line will make you great. And if you're great, it'll make you one of the best in the world. So can we please make him welcome and give him a warm welcome to the stage, Mr. Jordan [Music] Belfort.

Super excited to be here. Wow, look at this, London! It's been so long. Used to come here all the time and then the [ __ ] pandemic hit, right? Is it okay if I curse? [ __ ] it, you already paid your money, so you're screwed, right? Man, so listen, guys, I mean, truly, I'm, I'm honestly great to be here. Last speech I gave was like, I think last week, was in Ecuador, right? When they don't speak any English, right? I speak some Spanish, but not perfectly fluent, right? And I'm giving this speech and I'm like an hour in and suddenly, like, the one of the people, I guess it was the owner of the company, comes up, he goes, "The translator is not working." So like, no one could understand. I'm like, "Wait, no one understands what I'm [ __ ] saying here for the last hour?" He goes, "Well, for the last 30 minutes, they're all just, they're looking at you, they don't know what you're saying." So I had to then give the seminar in Spanish, okay? Which was not easy, I assure you. But I kind of did my best. So at least you guys understand because this is [ __ ] England and I love England. You guys are [ __ ] the best. You know, there are two sides to success in anything in life. It comes to making money, starting a business, sales is the inner game of success, which is mindset. What happens up here before you ever go out into the world and take action, try to close, prospect, whatever it might be, right? And there's certain distinctions on that side, and they're really important, by the way. And there's a lot of people around the world that teach that stuff, not as good as me, now, but not in the context as I do of sales. But there's many people that focus on your belief system, state management, your vision, standards, right? And that's critical. But then what there's very few people doing is focusing on the actual outer game, the strategy. A, B, C. What do you do first? What do you do second? How do you do it, right? Giving you an actual roadmap. For example, you go into a company, right? And you just motivate people. You tell them how great they are, you can break through any barriers and obstacles, and you're capable of greatness. But the truth is, most people are not. It's like a lie. Words, if you just say to people, "How great you are, oh my God, just work." But if they don't have the strategy, the ability to achieve what they want to achieve, it doesn't matter how positive you are. And the beauty with sales and persuasion is that it's an entirely learnable skill. Now, I'll be honest with you, though. It's like, I'm a great tennis player. And I got really great in tennis to the point where I could beat almost any one of you, I'm sure. But put me on the court with Roger Federer or any decent, top college, they're gonna [ __ ] kill me. There's no amount of hours that I could practice or lessons I could take or conditioning I could do that's gonna make me a top world player. But through strategy, practice, repetition, I can get really, really good. So what am I saying here? Well, the point is, I'm not gonna lie and say, "Oh yeah, learn the straight line, you'll be me, you'll be the top salesman in the world." That would be a lie for many of you. But what you can do with the straight line is get yourself so proficient that you are good enough, by far, to achieve whatever you want to achieve in life. You don't need to be the world's greatest salesperson, you just need to be proficient, good enough. If you're already good, the straight line will make you great. And if you're great, it'll make you one of the best in the world. In fact, the first 12 to 15 people I trained were stone cold idiots that barely clawed their way out of high school. They were like, far from a scump on three hits of acid, that was the average IQ, okay? And by the time they arrived at my firm, they'd been conditioned to survive, not to thrive. And that was a problem I faced in the sense of, they're in a game of success. But a bigger problem I faced started when I discovered an untapped niche in the stock market. And what that untapped niche was, was selling $5 stocks to the richest 1% of Americans. Before that, I had started my firm, and we were selling penny stocks. And we were selling up the average moms and pops. These are unsophisticated people who don't know when they, when they invest in a penny stock, they might invest $300 or $500, and it's like buying a [ __ ] lotto ticket, you get it? It's an impulse sale. That's a very easy sale compared to trying to go out and tell one of America's wealthiest business owners, who makes decisions every single day, who bosses people around, tell this guy that, who you never met in person, you call him up over the phone from a different state and say, "Send me a million dollars for a stock you never heard of." A lot harder, right? Not even in the same league. I don't want to get too much into it, but just so you understand what happened. I started a big firm, and then the market crashed. My first day, I was a stock where I trained for six months, and then I was forced to go to the small firm. So I had seen both worlds. I'd seen the way the big world, the big firms operated, the Morgan Stanley, the Goldman Sachs of the world. And then I saw how the schlock firms operated at the bottom of the barrel. What I did is I said, when we were at the big firms, they're calling the richest 1% of investors. And at the small firm, they call the moms and pops. And I'm like, "Why is that happening?" Or part of it, the collective wisdom was, "There's no way that a kid who didn't go to college, one of the better schools, okay, who's got a thick guttural accent, there's no way this kid is going to be able to call up a wealthy person in Chicago or somewhere, whatever, Texas, and get, and get them to invest." And I said, "Wait a second. Why can't I sell penny stocks, which had huge commissions?" So a penny stock, you might, if someone sent in a, uh, $100,000, your commission would be $50,000. In the big world, in a big stock, if someone sent in $100,000, maybe you'd make $3, $4,000. So it's like 10x or more, 15x, right? So I, that was my idea. And I tested the idea with myself and my junior partner. The partner, Danny, the Jonah Hill character, right? Donnie, his real name is Danny, right? When we tested it, we started, it was a two-call system. You called someone up, you said, "Hey, blah, blah, blah, I want to send you some information, get back to you, and next time we're making a recommendation to our clients, right?" Short story, that's not the exact [ __ ] I'll do that later for you, right? And then you send them some information, and then a week later, you'd call them back and you'd give them a pitch, right? So Danny and I each had our stack of leads, right? And we started off by selling them a big stock at the time was Eastman Kodak, the camera company, right? And before digital cameras, Eastman Kodak was one of the bluest of the blue chips. We sold 10,000, 15,000, five, the minimum was $5,000, right? And so forth, just to get the account open. The week prior, Danny and I had maybe 20 accounts each that we opened up in Eastman Kodak. The problem was, is that on those trades, we made maybe $40, and it cost us $500 to get the client. So we were behind, right? We lost money. But the plan was now to call them back a week later, after they bought the Kodak, and now present them with a $5 stock, which was really a penny stock, but it was priced at $5, $6, right? And it wasn't like we were gonna lie to them and say, "This is like East Kodak." No, this is like a [ __ ] speculative wild ride, much more upside, bigger downside, right? So it was transparent. But rich people love to speculate. So that was the idea. And I was hoping that we could get bigger trades like that, maybe someone will put $10,000 into the $5 stock versus $300 that they were doing before with the moms and pops. So now Danny and I have our stack of new clients that had bought Kodak, and we want to upsell them, or in a second sale, right? Second trade them, so to speak, into the name of the company was called Venture Entertainment. So Danny had his stack of leads, right? And he's out in the, in the boardroom with 12 other people. But Danny was separate, like he was doing a separate program. All the other people were still calling pet moms and pops, selling them penny stock. So I was running that business. That business was already running, and I was doing really well. The average broker was making maybe $10,000 a month. And I taught them a system of selling that was really good. This is before the straight line, and it was about tonality and saying certain things and overcoming objections, all the things that sales was about back then, before the straight line. And they were doing well. The average kid was making $10 to $15,000 a month, which is probably like $30,000 a month now. And everyone was happy, right? And I learned my lesson in an earlier business. So before I proved out this idea, I wasn't about to stop the firm for what it was doing. So I had the 12 brokers all doing that, selling penny stocks. And Danny and I were experimenting in like a little vacuum with this new system. So we start dialing. I'm in the office, he's in the board. And after I, I dial a couple, no answer. Right? And I see he gets someone on the phone, he starts spit pitching, right? So I put my phones down and I'm watching. I'm watching. Right? About three or four minutes later, he hangs up the phone. All right. And he comes walking in my office, and he's got like a buy ticket, and he's got this kind of weird look on his face. I'm like, "What happened?" He goes, "The guy bought $120,000 worth of Venture and apologized for working so small." In that moment, I knew I was like, "Holy [ __ ] [ __ ]! I've stumbled on the [ __ ] Holy Grail here." My commission on that trade made $74,000 in 4 minutes. And I looked out into the boardroom and I said, "This is gonna be simple. All I have to do," I say this to myself, "all I have to do is train these 12 barely post-adolescent nink poops how to close rich people. And the rest, as they say, will be history." Unfortunately, as they also say, easier said than [ __ ] done. As it turned out, trying to train a bunch of barely post-adolescent nink poops to call the richest, toughest, meanest businessmen turned out not just to be difficult, but inf [ __ ] impossible. Meanwhile, my closing rate is 50%. Danny's is in the high 30s, and theirs is a goose egg, zero. What would you be thinking? You'd be pulling your hair out of your head. This was my billion-dollar idea. I'm 25 years old. And I went on a quest. And I already was really well-read with sales books and stuff, but I started reading every book and trying everything. Nothing worked. Week after week, giving meanings, motivation, overcoming objections, nothing worked. And they all wanted to go back to the old system of calling average moms and pops, which I hated doing. And it was like a dead end. Maybe I was making it a couple million dollars a year, but I, you know, this, I knew there was more. So that night, 7:00 PM, we all came back. I'll never forget this night. It was a Tuesday evening in November 19, 1988. A lot of you weren't even born yet, okay? A lot of you weren't. I look pretty good considering all the drugs I've taken, right? I mean, [ __ ] come on, right? Right? I'm 62, by the way. All [Applause] right? Yeah, I should look like Keith Richards from the Rolling Stones, right? But I got lucky. So 7 o'clock, I, I stand in front of the board and I have my, my, my trusty whiteboard, which is like eight times the size of this, this really big one of those big whiteboards, right? Anyway, I stood in, I always gave my meetings at the whiteboard. And like, I looked just 12 sad faces. I'm like, "Guys, I'm like, I don't know what is wrong with you. Like, you know, I don't understand why you can't close rich people." And I was like angry. It was like an anger in my voice. I was [ __ ] boiling up because, you know, they were about to do Mutiny on the Bounty. They wanted to quit or go back to freaking penny stocks, right? So I was really angry. Like, "What is it? Tell me." In this silence, right? And finally, after like 30 seconds of silence, one guy goes, "There's too many objections." Another goes, "Yeah, yeah, there's a thousand objections." And someone else goes, "Yeah, there's a thousand objections. These rich people are [ __ ] they keep cutting us off." Then goes, "Yeah, we can't even get our pitches off. They're [ __ ] there's a thousand." I'm like, "Oh, stop. All right, fine. There's a thousand objections. Great. Let's write them all down." Couple seconds, it's silence. Finally, one guy says, "They want to think about it." Okay, great. "They want to think." "They want to think about it." I swear I'm not on drugs, okay? I told I'm a funny guy. Yeah. Next, they say, "Uh, bad time of year." "It's bad time of year." Right? Other guy says, "They want to speak to their wife." I'm like, "Great. They want to speak to their wife." What else? "They're not liquid right now." "No money." Great. What else? "They want to speak to their partner." Great. What else? "Send me some information or call back." Right? What else? "T..." Silence. I'm like, "Guys, that's six. There's 994 to go. I want to [ __ ] know all thousand. Come on, let's go." And they started hitting me with objection after objection after objection after objection until the entire board was filled with objections, which at the end of the day turned out to be 14 [ __ ] objections. And they ran out. And by the way, half of these were repeats of two. There was like, "I want to speak to my wife, my business partner, my lawyer, the butcher, the baker, the [ __ ] candlestick maker," right? You know, someone else, right? In reality, there were like, not 14, there were seven. Seven objections, right? In that moment, I got so angry. I got so angry with them, right? I was like, "You guys are unbelievable. You know, you're talking about all these thousand objections, right? Thousand objections, right? At the end of the day, you can only give me 14. Half of them are repeats of two. I mean, this is just, it's ridiculous." You know, I said, "You know what? But the truth is, this, even those objections don't matter. I mean, don't you get it?" And suddenly, this thought pops in my head, a few words that I never had really thought of before. I said, "Don't you guys get it? Every sale is the same." And they looked at me like, "What the [ __ ] is this guy talking about? You know, like, every sale's not the same, every sale's different." And then I said, an idea pops. Watch. And for the very first time, I drew this long, thin straight line across the center of the whiteboard, which was like a really big whiteboard, like to here, right? And I put a big, thick X on either end. And said, "Guys, this is your open, where the sale begins. And this is the close, right here, where the client says, 'Yeah, let's do it,' or not." Now, back when you were selling penny stocks, every once in a while, you had one of these what we call perfect laydown sales, where everything you say, everything you do, everything you mention, they're like, "Yes, yes, oh my God, yes, that sounds so great, yes." No objections on board, as if they're almost pre-sold before the sale begins. And then when you ask them to buy, they're like, "Great, let's do it," and they fill out the form and boom, they close. In straight line parlance, we call that a laydown sale. And what it really is, it's an objection close by someone who basically came in already wanted to buy at a very high level. They had a pain point, and they, they buy. Now, here's the truth. I'm sure for those of you are active in real estate or in any other type of sales, every once in a while, you get one of these. And we love them. But the problem is, in the real world of selling, they are few and far between. 98% of the time, people have questions, they have objections, they have concerns, they ask you more, they hit you with other objections. So in other words, you as a salesperson, yeah, it'd be great if every sale was perfectly the same, right? On the straight line. But in reality, they're always trying to take you off the straight line. So what you have to have, and what exists, are these healthy boundaries above and below the line. When you're inside these boundaries, you're in control of the sale. You are in control, moving forward down the line, in control, in control, essentially, right? Those healthy boundaries represent when you're in control. When you go outside those boundaries, the prospect is taking control, and you're spiraling off the Pluto up here, where you're talking about things that are not germane to the conversation, you're talking about nonsense, or down here to your anus, which is not a good place either, for most of us, at least. I don't judge. But the point is, when you're in control of the sale, you're talking about things that are relevant, and you're moving forward. When you're out of control, you're spiraling out. Something clicked that night, 'cause that night is when I invented the straight line. And what it was that they said was not about the thousand objections. That wasn't it. It was something else they said. And I'll repeat what I said before. They said, "There's a thousand objections. Yeah, the rich people are [ __ ] they keep cutting us off. We can't even get our pitches off." Remember that? "They keep cutting us off. We can't even get our pitches off." Guess what? That wasn't happening to me. People never cut me off. If they did, they do it once and not again. I was getting the same objections, the very same objections they were getting. But I was getting them after I asked them to buy, not before. Why would I be getting objections before I even close the sale? And I realized in that moment, I said, "You know what? I, I get it now. I know why I'm out-closing everybody, not just at Stratton, but any sales job I ever worked out before, I double and triple the production of the highest salesperson when I walked in the door, right away." And I realized I had a certain way. There was something I was doing, a certain way that I sounded, the way I looked in person, didn't matter whether it was in person or over the phone, something was happening, something different. And I realized, I said to them, "You know what, guys? When you are selling to people that are in any way sophisticated, because remember, with penny stocks, it's like that buying a lotto ticket, it's an impulse sale, very different. You guys in real estate, that's a financial transaction with real money at stake. People don't say, 'Great, let's do it,' 'cause they're taking a flyer. People don't take flyers in real estate and live very long in the game, okay? It's a more deliberate, educated, logical business tied to emotion, because there's always logic and emotion involved, both, right?" And what I said to them, I said, "When you're speaking to people, you have literally four seconds. Four seconds to establish three crucial things." And I'll tell you exactly what they are. Number one, in the first four seconds, you must be perceived as being number one, sharpest attack. You're sharp, you're on the ball, you're not gonna waste your time or theirs, you're a problem solver. Number two, enthusiastic as hell. That what you have must be good. There's enthusiasm in your voice, you're excited. Now, I'm not talking about crazy over-the-top enthus like, "Oh my God, check out!" That's [ __ ] idiotic. You're not like an infomercial. I'm talking about something very different. It's called bottled enthusiasm. And that is a power and energy in your voice, even if you're whispering, it sounds like you just, "Wow, this guy is really, this girl is really excited." It's a way of carrying yourself and communicating that's powerful and it's attractive. And number three, the most important one of all, by a country mile, an expert in your field. To be perceived as an expert, a figure of authority. 'Cause here's the deal, we have been trained since we're yay big, since we're little boys and girls, to defer to people who are experts, to seek out experts, to help us solve our problems and eliminate our pain points. Think about it. Since you were very small, when you were first sick as a kid, your parents took you to a doctor, right? You went to the doctor, and you went to the doctor, and even, you know, your own parents would like defer to the doctor. They dressed a certain way, they had diplomas on their walls, it was a serious thing. These people had studied for many years and had become experts in how to make sick people feel better. And when you went into the office, and you saw the doctor, and the doctor would ask you questions, you would answer them honestly and forthrightly. Why? Because he's an expert. You didn't interrupt him, you didn't cut him off, you listened, right? And when the doctor was done asking his questions, he didn't just say, "Great, have a nice [ __ ] day, hope you feel better." No, he would then tell you, "Here's what this, here's what's wrong with you, and here's the solution," and give you a prescription or whatever it might be. And then you followed it religiously because you were told to by your parents. And intuitively, you knew this is not just like some witch doctor in the street, "Take this [ __ ] magic elixir." No, he was an expert, she was an expert in her field. So what happens is, when you are perceived, and the operative word here is perceived, sharp as an expert in your field, enthusiastic, what happens is people will defer to you. They will allow you to take control of the conversation. They'll allow you control the flow because you're perceived as an expert. If you're perceived as a novice, what will they do? They will take control, and they will cut you off, interrupt you, hit you with objections. They're not gonna respect you. So now, let's go back to what I said even before that. I said, "Every sale's the same." Right? Well, guess what? To me, my experience, every sale was the same. Why? Because the first thing I did was I took control of the sale. And by doing that, by sounding like an expert, sharp on the ball, enthusiastic, an expert, it allowed me to take control. And once I had that control, I used that control to allow the encounter to unfold in the same way every time. If the prospect is in control, good [ __ ] luck trying to close a sale, 'cause now every sale becomes different. You're being reactive to what the prospect is saying versus being controlled, and you're now proactive and allowing things to unfold a certain way. So the first step in what is called the straight line syntax, syntax is a fancy word for order, okay? I created that very night what was called the straight line syntax. It had about 10 steps back then, right? Now it's got 12, right? But all of those 10 steps are the same. The first step is always, you must take control of the encounter. Because without that, every sale is different, and you can't run a strategy. Right? Now, the second step is, what you want to then use that control, you're in control, use that control to start doing two things. Number one, gathering intelligence. Asking questions, finding out what the prospect's needs are, their values, their hierarchy of needs, their pain points, all relevant things. You start asking questions in a specific order, in a specific way, using certain tonalities. We'll get to that in the afternoon as well. And simultaneously, as you're doing that, you're building rapport on both a conscious and unconscious level. You're building rapport. Those two things happen together. You ask questions and build rapport. How the [ __ ] do you do that, right? Good question, right? The answer is easily. In fact, the best way by far to build rapport is by asking questions and engaging in what's called active listening. Meaning what? You don't want to do, because it's so important, like, you know, in the, remember the end of the movie, "Sell me this pen." "Sell me this pen." And I go, "This pen is a great pen, it's a..." Right? Well, "sell me this pen," what that really is, by the way, "sell me this pen," it's a test for salespeople to see if they'll start rambling and trying to sell you based on the features and benefits of whatever that comes to mind, they make up for a pen, right? But the first thing you would have to do, whether it's a pen, a car, property, anything, is find out if the prospect even wants it, is interested in. So you have to ask questions. But what you don't want to do is ask questions and be like the grand [ __ ] inquisitor, like, "So where do you live?" They say, "Yeah." "Great. How much is your income?" Okay, right? "And what's most important? Do you want to be a school district?" They're, "What the [ __ ]? You know, like, this person's an [ __ ]." And that's called breaking rapport. You break rapport, it goes down the tubes, right? And then you're screwed. Because why? You can't influence, you can't persuade when you're not in rapport with someone. Essentially, when you're out of rapport, you can't influence. So if you ask questions the wrong way, you come off as the inquisitor, you break rapport, and you're done. Do it the right way, which is called active listening, okay? And this is super important. To engage in what's called active listening means that when you ask a question, now, number one, you want to ask that question using the right tonality. So, "What's your biggest pain point right now?" They're like, "[ __ ] you." Or you could say, "So, so, what's your biggest pain point right now? Like, what's, what's really keeping you up at night?" They'll say, "Oh my God, he cares about me. He feels my pain. He really wants..." Very different result. And then, as they speak, right? They're talking, and you're looking at them, "Uh-huh. Got it. Got it. Okay. Now, where'd you grow up?" Done. You're [ __ ] losing it, right? As someone is speaking to you, you have to give them back energy, whether it's in person or on the phone. So as, "Ah. Uh-huh. Oh. My God." I'm exaggerating, okay? But the point is, it's those little, "Ahas. Yep. Oh. Ah. Nice. Oh my God. Wow." Very cool. And you know what? They say, "Damn, this person [ __ ] gets me. They understand me." And my body language, my grunts and groans, my tonality is building massive rapport. In fact, I'll even add and clarify their answers. I ask a question, they give an answer, and then I'll show them my mastery, how much of an expert I truly am, by adding on. Say, "Yeah, in fact," and I'll give some tidbit of information where they're like, "[ __ ] this guy is sharp. Damn, he knows exactly what I'm going through. He actually made me more clear of what my issues are." And if you do that, and you ask the right amount of questions, they say, "How many questions should you ask?" And the answer is very simple: as many as you need to that are relevant, and not one more or less. And the million-dollar question is, how, how do you do that? Like, how do you come off in the first four seconds and be perceived sharp as attack, enthusiastic as hell, as an expert in your field? How, right now? Think about it. Is it through the words that you say? What could you say in four seconds to make someone believe all three of those things? "Listen, I'm sharp as attack, I'm enthusiastic as hell, I'm an expert, I swear to God." Like, what the [ __ ] is wrong with this person? The words that you say are typically form what's called conscious communication, okay? Conscious. And then you have what's called unconscious. Conscious communication is basically what you're consciously aware of. I speak to you right now, you're listening to my words, you're talking back to yourself saying, "I agree with that, that's very smart, that's funny, that's not so..." "Oh, come on, he's wasting my [ __ ] time. Don't tell any more [ __ ] stories." Whatever you're narrating, you have an inner monologue in your head that's running a mile a minute. As I speak, you listen and talk to yourself. As you're doing that, you're deleting out about 95% of the world around you because you're focusing only on me and what I'm saying, maybe the person sitting in front of you, maybe if something's hurting you, you feel that. But your, your mind, your conscious mind does not have enough processing power. None of ours do. It's like the RAM of a, of a computer. There's a certain amount of RAM, right, that allows you to run your immediate functions. As you're doing it, that's your RAM, is your conscious mind. The rest, you delete out, but you still absorb it, but it goes to your unconscious mind, which then stores the rest. But your conscious mind is not that powerful compared to your unconscious mind, which is has all your memories, it has your recall, it's beating your heart, it's running your digestive system, and your skin is dilating and not, it's everything's being controlled by this incredible data bank of the unconscious mind. And that's where all of your patterns form. What do I mean by that? Patterns. You walk up to a door that you've never been through before, and you don't look at it and say, "What the [ __ ] is that?" You're like, "Hmm." You're like, "God, square, rectangular structure, got a thing there. Is there, if I go through that, is there gonna be an alternative universe?" No, it's a [ __ ] door. It leads to another room. Now, why do you know that? Because since you're a [ __ ] baby, you've walked through a thousand doors. And after enough times, your mind, "Oh, I get it. Door knob, open door, enter new room." You developed a pattern. It's why you don't have to walk and see every crack and stuff. "What the [ __ ] does that lead to?" "The center of the Earth?" No, the cracks, you, you ignore them, you don't think about that as you walk. It happens automatically. Your unconscious mind has developed patterns of behavior for everything. This includes patterns for what experts look like and sound like. We know, you know, every one of you knows what an expert is supposed to look like and sound like. And you also know what they don't look like and sound like. You know, and that's unconsciously, you have a pattern. So what you are looking to do in those first four seconds is you want to hit that pattern. It's an unconscious reaction, a gut feeling. They get that I am in the presence of an expert who's sharp on the ball, enthusiastic. And the way you do that is not through words. It's through two things: tonality and body language. When you're in person, that's how you do it. This is a gut reaction that someone gets. There are certain tonalities that I was using unconsciously my whole life, 'cause I was a natural-born salesperson, that people would see me or hear what I said and they'd go, "Wow, this person sounds sharp." It's why when I pick up a phone back in the day to cold call and get leads, I get three times as many leads as anybody else. I'd get through the secretaries or the gatekeepers. I'd get businessmen on the phone. They'd listen to me. Essentially, these first three steps of the straight line, okay, okay. Remember, number one, take control of the sale. Mission critical by sounding and being perceived as an expert, sharp, enthusiastic. And really, what those three things chunk up to, what it really means is that the person has a gut reaction saying, "This is a person worth listening to." And even one level above that, because they can help me achieve my goals. That's, that's what we seek out experts for. And those three things allow you, they give you those first few seconds to get control of the sale. And then you want to use that control, that positioning as an expert, to start asking very smart questions, engaging in active listening, and building massive rapport. Because remember, nothing is a constant in communication. You can't take control because you're perceived as an expert and then start sounding like a [ __ ] 10 seconds later. Because again, once that gut reaction happens and you're perceived as an expert, now that conscious mind kicks in and says, "Is he, is she really an expert?" They hang on your every word, every turn of phrase, looking to see if you fooled them. There's one more thing. One more reason why when I said, "Every sale was the same," right? I meant you take control, and then you could proactively move it in the same direction. But there's another aspect to this as well. And that is that, as it turns out, there are three core elements that must line up in the mind of the prospect for them to say yes, to have any shot of closing. They must think these three things at a very high level. Now, I want you to imagine something. Watch a continuum of certainty. A continuum of certainty. Straight line. It goes from a one to a 10. A 10 means that the prospect is absolutely positively certain that what you have is the best thing since sliced bread. The product, they, the piece of property, the value proposition, they [ __ ] love it. They're absolutely certain. And a one means they think it's the biggest piece of [ __ ] in the world. They hate it. They think it's a worthless property, they're gonna lose money, go down in value, probably blow up from a gas leak, right? Biggest piece of [ __ ]. Right? The five here in the middle, that means they're ambivalent. I don't know. Maybe they like it, maybe they don't. Seven means they're more certain about it than not, but not nearly as much as a 10. And a three is the opposite. They're uncertain, but not as bad as a one. Now, let me ask you a question. Every one of you in property, right? If you're going to try to close someone on either selling you or buying a piece of property, where do you want them when, when you ask them to buy, when you ask them to execute the transaction or to say yes? Where do you want them? On the scale, as close to a 10 as possible, or close to a one? Obviously, a 10, right? You want to be absolutely certain that it's the best thing ever, right? Now, again, when we think of this, right? You think of what certainty is. The product. They must, of the piece of real estate. Right? And at the highest level, just so you understand, I keep saying certainty. What sales really is at the highest level is the transference of emotion. That's what you do. And the primary emotion you're transferring is certainty. The emotion of certainty. They enter into the encounter, they're not as certain as you. You're absolutely certain because you know everything about this problem, you know it's an awesome deal. So they're not as certain. So your job is to transfer the certainty from yourself to them. Let's say that you give a great presentation, you do all the things right in the straight line, and you get them to a 10 on the certainty scale for the property. Question: Will they buy from you? Yes. Okay. The answer is not yes. And the answer is not no. The answer is maybe. As in, maybe they will, maybe they won't. Why? Because what if, in the process of making them certain, something you said, the way you said something, you did, made them not trust you? Will they buy from you? No [ __ ] way. They don't, don't buy from people we don't trust unless we are absolutely desperate. Sometimes someone's desperate and you'll buy from anyone. But by and large, generally speaking, we do not buy from those we don't trust. In fact, if we like something so much, we'll find someone else we trust to sell us that product or one just like it. So there's not just this continuum of certainty for the product. There's also one for you, the salesperson. They have to be at a 10 for you to, or close to it. So let's say you do that, and I'm gonna save time here, and you got them very, very certain about the product, very certain about yourself. Will they buy? Now, the answer is still maybe. They will, maybe they won't. Why? Because there's one more element that's typically involved, not always, but typically. And that is the company that stands behind you. If you're part of a company, and many real estate people are, they're using a company, they must trust the company as well. These three elements, we call them in the straight line, the three 10s. They, they must love the product, trust you, trust the company. And what you're essentially doing as you move someone down the straight line from the open to the close, you're essentially building certainty for those three 10s while following all the other rules of influence, maintaining rapport, active listening, gathering intelligence. But you're essentially building certainty for those three 10s. And if you get them there at a very high level, you have an excellent chance of closing them. And if one of them is missing, you got no chance at all. And I'm gonna close like that with one last statement, and we'll break. Is that when you get someone to a high level of s, let's say not to a 10, and you ask for the order, what do they say to you? They don't say, "Well, I'm not certain about..." "I don't trust you." Or, "I don't think this property is worth as much as..." You know what they say? They say, "Sounds good. Let me think about it. Let me call you back. Let me check with my accountant or my lawyer. Send me some more information." Objections. The common objections, what they are, are smoke screens for uncertainty. That's what they are, 95% of the time. And by following these steps, by essentially learning how to use the straight line, getting proactive, meaning taking control, you suddenly can make every sale the same. There are two more elements which we'll go through in the afternoon on top of this. And when you use the straight line, you get to this point very quickly. I don't care what your level of natural ability is. You could suck right now, and the straight line will make you more than good enough to close as many sales as you want. And if you're really good at sales, it'll make you [ __ ] awesome. The 310s, right? And this is crucial because I, I, you know, very quickly went through this metaphor, right? And I said, like, closing a sale on some level, it's like you're being a safe cracker, right? There are certain elements to this buying combination. You ever see the movie "The Italian Job"? It's a great movie, right? They're professional safe crackers. So what are they doing? They, they put their ear to a safe, you hear, spin it, spin it, click, and you know you got the first number right. Then you spin it the other way, right? Click, you got the second number. Other way, third number. You pull down the lock. And if you got the numbers right, what happens? The safe opens. You pull down the safe opens. But if you didn't get one number right, what do you do? You have to go back to the beginning and make sure you got the first number right, second, third. And eventually, you do it enough times, the safe opens. In some cases, right? You have more difficult safes to crack. Those have five numbers. In the case of the human mind, when it comes to selling, you got three numbers. Those are the three numbers. They must love the product, right? They must trust and connect with you, trust and connect with the company that stands behind the product. So essentially, what you're doing when you ask for the order, when you close, right? What you've done, when you, you know, you get into rapport, right? You capture their attention, you're in control of the encounter, you make your presentation, right? And all of those things are designed that when you ask for the order for the first time, asking to buy, it's the equivalent of pulling down on the lock. Now, if you've got all three of those lined up at a very high level, guess what? If they're a relatively easy person to sell to, boom, the safe opens, meaning they close. That would be called what? A laydown sale. But again, those situations are few and far between. Typically, they're gonna hit you with an objection. This is your open. This is your close, right? Here's your boundaries above the line. Here's your boundaries below the line. They have objections, questions, and so forth, right? You want to take them down the line to the close, right? You have your first four seconds that happens right here, that introduction where you're gonna sound sharp as attack, enthusiastic as hell, an expert in your field, which allows you to what? Take control of the conversation. You then use that control to gather intelligence, right? Gather intelligence, build rapport on both the conscious and unconscious level. And then from there, you're gonna at some point, after you've asked enough questions and you know everything there is to know that's relevant, right? You're gonna execute what's called your straight line transition. A transition which is going to take you from this intelligence gathering phase into your actual presentation where you're now going to present the so-called features, benefits, value proposition, cost-benefit ratio, whatever it might be, right? Okay. And that transition could be as simple as, you know, "Listen, you know, Jim, Jill, John, you know, based on everything you just said to me, this property is a perfect fit. Let me tell you why. This deal, whatever it might be, this is a perfect fit for you. Let me tell you why." Right? And that "let me tell you why" ends your transition and begins your actual presentation. You go into presentation mode where you can explain why the product is awesome, in this case, property. And as you've been doing that, you've been sounding like an expert, you've been building trust because of building rapport and trust for yourself, sounding like an expert, the way you explain the product. So you're essentially lining up all these elements, but mostly you're focusing on product at this point, right? You haven't really dug that deep into the company yet, right? You haven't really dug into yourself in a deep way, but you're doing that automatically. And now you're going to give a kick-ass presentation. We call that a straight line presentation. There's rules for that. And by the way, just so you know, I don't have time to go deep into everything, right? But everything I teach is online for free. Okay? Just go to my, go on to YouTube if you want, go to my website. I give the [ __ ] away for free, okay? And it's awesome, by the way. I sell courses that are more organized, but you don't need them. They're awesome. But if you don't want to pay for it, just get the [ __ ] for free. I don't care. You make the straight line presentation. And here's the key, this presentation always, always ends with you doing what? Asking for the order for the first time. Remember I said this morning, you go to the doctor, you're sick, you're a kid.

The doctor looks at you and he examines you, says, "Oh, you're [ __ ]. Have a nice day." Is that what a doctor does? No. A doctor's an expert in his field. He doesn't say, "Oh, I know what you got. Got [ __ ] bronchitis. See later. I got go." No. And he offers you a solution. An expert will always offer you a solution.

So when you are an expert at what you do, you don't beat around the bush. It's like, "No, here's what you need to do. Here's what I suggest you. Here's what makes sense for you." Now, once you do that, okay, that essentially ends what's called the front half of the straight line. The front half.

Now, in reality, it's not really a half. I was, 'cause it's just a short board. You're really over here in the third, be a third of the way down, depending on what the sailors. In other words, sometimes what people do, the mistake they make, is when they're selling, they are almost scared to ask for the order because they're really frightened of hearing those [ __ ] dreaded words that every salesperson hates. "It just, let me think about it. Let me call a [ __ ] again." Like, I thought they were so interested. They were, they were nodding their head. They seemed like they loved the thing. And then they said they want to call back or speak to their partner. You're like, "Oh [ __ ] [ __ ]. Another sale not going to happen, right?"

That's the opposite of the truth. When I am selling anything, I can't wait to this point here. When I ask for the order the first time, I'm expecting for them not to say yes. Sometimes they do, right? Could be 5% of the time, depending on what you're selling. But I'm not expecting it. So really, what can they say? Well, you're going to find out. With a straight line, there's always like these really just simple things. It's like a computer. If, then, for, next, right? There's only a few [ __ ] things they can say.

What can they say? Well, they can say yes. Boom. You got a client. That's your lay-down sale, right? Everyone get that? Yes. Right. They could say no, I'm not interested. Right? But how often does that really happen? Now, if you're doing this correctly, if you're actually qualifying people, and you're asking them the right questions, and you're weeding out the people who either are not financially qualified or who don't match, who don't fit for what you're selling, you're weeding out the people. That's why you ask questions. Find out if they're right for your offer. If it makes financial sense for them. If they're qualified.

So if you go through an intelligence gathering session, and let's say that's 10 or 15 minutes long, maybe longer, maybe shorter, and they answer all these questions, and you're in deep rapport with them, you're using your your active listening to keep building rapport, your positioning yourself as an expert, you make this kick-ass sales presentation that is incredibly logical, an airtight logical case, or if not the beginning, the beginnings, the framework of an airtight logical case, right? You sound great, you're in rapport. You ask for the order. They say, "No, not interested." Really? Once in a very, very blue moon. Far less than them saying yes.

But what they do say, 95% of the time, and depending on the industry, is maybe. And maybe is a catch-all for what? All the common objections. What else can they say? They could say, "Yeah, let's do it." "No, I don't want to." "All, let me think that out." "Call back Santa Claus, the tooth fairy." In other words, they give you an objection, right? That's it. Simple.

So for me, as a straight line expert, like when I first discovered this back in '88, right? I'm [ __ ] old, right? In '88. And like, for like for me, what I realized is that when I got to the end of my original pitch, I was [ __ ] rolling up my saying, "I can't wait for them to hit me with the first objection." Because now I can roll up my sleeves and do my freaking job. And thank God for that. Because, you know what? If they all said yes, guess what? Salespeople would not get paid very much.

What I'm talking about is influence and persuasion, which in my book means not taking "no"s and turning them into "yes"es. That's not what salespeople do. Smart salespeople take the "no"s and get rid of them quickly. What I want to do is take the "let me think about it," "let me call you back," "spare time of years," "send me information," "can't afford it right now," "got to speak to my lawyer, my wife, the butcher, the baker, the [ __ ] candlestick baker," whatever it might [ __ ] be. Take those people and use the straight line and close them.

So what do you do? You gave this kick-ass presentation. You ask for the order. And they say, "Let me think about it." You're like, "Ah, just as I expected." You're not like deflated. Because if you get deflated, that means you lost. What you lost? Your own certainty. What did I say this morning? Sales is the transference of emotion. And the primary emotion you're transferring is certainty.

Now, watch this. This is really important, okay? So when we talk about the inner game of success, one of the things we talk about is managing your emotional state. States like certainty, clarity, confidence, courage. Go to my website. Free [ __ ] trainings on this. How to manage your state. But the point is, you must be in a state of absolute certainty when you enter a sales encounter. You must be certain, right? Because why? Because you're transferring the emotion.

Well, the straight line system, what it really does is it is a transfer mechanism. It allows you to transfer the certainty that you feel inside. It allows you to manifest that in language and body language and tonality in a way that you can then transfer very efficiently the certainty that you feel and know in every bone of your [ __ ] body. Transfer that to another human being to make them as certain, or as close to certain, as you. You're transferring energy.

There's a disconnection between what you're thinking and the way you think you sound. Very common. So you think you, I say one sound certain. Like, "Well, this is a really good product." That's [ __ ] not certainty. Okay? Now, certainty doesn't have to be yelling. Certainty could be a whisper. "Listen, reason for the call. Something just came across my desk." It's not yelling and screaming. There are times you raise your voice and lower your voice. But certainty is this energy source that you have in you. And the straight line system allows you to transfer this certainty quickly and elegantly, and in the same way, every time, to anyone you want. That's what the straight line does. The straight line system allows you to take what's inside you and transfer it to another person in a very efficient way that gets them very high on the certainty scale for those three things.

So again, you must learn to be in a state of certainty. Now, again, I'm not talking about just be clear. Because this is a mistake people make when they go to a seminar sometimes, right? And so it says, "You need to be certain." Right? What I'm not talking about is walking around all day long in a state of certain. What do you call someone? What do you call a a woman or a man that walks around all day long with their shoulders pulled back and their chest pushed forward and talking certain? What do you call that person? A [ __ ] [ __ ]. You hate the person. So I don't mean that. I'm talking about in key moments when you enter a sales encounter, for sales or persuasion, you pick up a phone, knock on the door, have a meeting, a negotiation, you must be in a state of certainty.

So you're, you're at this point now where you have these three things, right? And you've asked for the order. The three things. And obviously, they said, "Let me think about it." So you're like, "Ah, okay. He's uncertain, or she's uncertain." All right. What is she or he uncertain about? Take a guess. Anyone know? Price? What else? Who [ __ ] knows? Are you guessing? The mind reader? Do you really know? How could you know? What you know is they're uncertain about one of these three things, at least, right?

So now what do you do? What do you do? If you're a safe cracker, you go back to the first number and you start over. Which is why when you get hit with an objection, the first time, you engage in something called deflection. In fact, go jump forward right now to the straight line syntax slide. Remember step one, right? Is what? Take control of the sale. Let's go through this logically. Take control of the sale. Why? Because you're better. Because that allows you to make every sale the same. Say it loud. Every sale the same. Right? No words. You can now at least have the chance to be proactive versus reactive, right? Opens up a world of possibility. From there, you're going to go immediately to step two, which is gathering. There you go. Gathering intelligence. Okay? Simultaneously building rapport. Step four is what? Boom. P straight line transition. "John, Jill, James, you know, based on what you said to me, this is a perfect piece of property for you. Let me tell you what." Just like that. Step five is what? Your straight line presentation. This is when you start talking about features, benefits, value proposition, cost-benefit ratio. Now, just remember, when we are making this initial presentation, we're really focusing primarily on the first 10 on the actual product itself, mostly, right? And just remember that there are two types of certainty. The goal is to create more certainty for the first 10. That's the main focus, right? But there are two types of certainty. Let me tell you what they are, because this is important.

You have, 'cause someone actually asked me, some girl when we were doing photos, she actually put something to my mouth. What do you think is logic or data? I'm like, "What? What the [ __ ] did you say?" She's like, "Data." I'm like, "What?" She, "Data." I'm like, "Oh." She's like, "Logic or..." It was like emotion or or data logic. I said, "Both." She was like, "Really?" Okay. What did I mean by that? Okay. Two types of certainty. You have what's called logical certainty. And then you have emotional certainty, right? Logical certainty is like the A, B, C. It all adds up. It all makes sense. It's about features and benefits, value proposition, cost-benefit ratio. It's the empirical formula that a product makes sense for this person, right? That logical certainty. The way you create logical certainty is using language patterns that are airtight and create certainty logically, right? Now, you could also create emotional certainty with these patterns by adding on certain tonalities. And we'll get to that later. And I'll show you that when I play a little clip for you, which is pretty fun. You'll have a good time with it, right? So you could also. But primarily, the words that you say, right, are building logical certainty. And then you can build some emotional certainty using tonality, okay?

Then you have what's called emotional certainty. And this is a gut feeling that someone gets. "I need to buy this now. I want to. I have to have this." And it's not based on the words that you say, so to speak. It's based on you using words to create a picture of how someone is going to feel at some point in the future, after they have made the decision to buy. It's six months down the road, and they own what they bought, and they're feeling great. They're getting the benefits, and they feel freer, lighter, more secure. It's solved their problems, eliminated whatever pain they had. They feel [ __ ] great. That's called future pacing. It's pushing someone into the future, allowing them to experience the emotional benefits, feel good in the future. They see themselves using the product, having made the buying decision, and feeling great. That's emotional certainty. They're very different things, right? It's created by mostly future pacing and some tonality.

People ask me, "What's more important? Logic or emotion?" The answer is both. Logical certainty is your basically your, is like, is like what you stand on. The framework. It's the bedrock, right? And I always start off looking to create a a logical certainty first. I create logical certainty first. And when you get someone to a very high level of logical certainty, they'll say, "Yeah, it sounds great, but let me think about it." The logical mind always wants to think, delay, wants more information. But once I create that logical certainty, it is very, very easy to then move someone emotionally. So once they're logically certain, then I will switch and create emotional certainty. And I can move them on an emotional level through future pacing and tonality. And suddenly, because you have the logical underpinning in place, what it does is it quiets down the human [ __ ] detector. And people in England, got great [ __ ] [ __ ] detectors. You guys do. You know when people are [ __ ] generally speaking.

So what happens if you just focus on creating emotional certainty first? Meaning you haven't actually explained why something is great, and you say, "Oh, you got imagine how great you're going to feel." These six. They're like, "[ __ ]. No." Their brain says, "[ __ ] [ __ ] [ __ ]." Because you haven't created the case, like an airtight logical case. Not only frees up the mind to be be moved emotionally, but it also makes someone comfortable that, "I can justify my buying decision to another person. I know why this makes sense." Like, they can explain to someone else. You can't just explain, "I just had to have it. I was going to feel good in the future." They like, "Idiots." But by creating this airtight logical case first, it then frees them up to be moved emotionally. Does that make sense?

So when I'm giving this initial presentation, I'm focusing on building an airtight logical case. Now, how do I do that? Do I wing it? Like, do I just walk it? "Okay, great. You know, here's my case." No. I do what's called strategic preparation. I'm going to prepare before. And I'm going to know exactly what to say before I walk into a sale. I'm going to know what all my features and benefits are, my cost-benefit ratio, my value prop, everything. My comps in the are all the things I'm going to have them organized in a script in my mind. You know, if they have it written down in front of you, like you're reading from a [ __ ] script. Okay? You don't do that. Mean, if you're in person, on the phone, you can do that. But the point is, I know what I'm going to say before I say it, generally speaking.

So I make the straight line presentation. Step six is, it always ends with me asking for the order for the first time, right? And again, there's three things that could happen. They could say yes, no, or maybe. That's step seven, right? Where we deflect the initial objection. What does that mean? Someone says to me, "I want to think about it." Selling him property. All right? And they say, "Say, well, what is it that you want to think about?" "Tell me." "That's not, I want to think about it." It's nonsense. It's a smoke screen for uncertainty.

So the first thing to says, "I understand you want to think of it, but let me ask you this. Does the property appeal to you? Do you like this? Do you like the offer? Does it make sense to you?" And they're going to say, "Yeah, it looks pretty good." Now, think about it, right? I said something interesting before. I said to you that this is your straight line, right? I said, and when the prospect enters this encounter, you got to be white hot certain. You're like this high level of certainty, right? And the prospect, generally speaking, almost always is going to enter at a much lower level of certainty, right? So the question really is, is where do they enter? You're at a 10. Someone walks in. Where are they on the certainty scale? Who wants to guess? Five? Three? Who wants to guess? Three? Who [ __ ] knows? Unless you're creating the mind reader, right? The [ __ ] or David Blaine or what the [ __ ]? You know how could you possibly know? Why? Because it's based on on everything they've experienced in their life up to this point in time. Their prejudices, predispositions. Maybe they've seen similar properties. Maybe they've been burnt before. Maybe they love things like this. No, everyone is different. But I promise you this. The instant they lay eyes on the property, or you, whatever it is, they know it's about sales or real estate, whatever it is, right? They know what it's about. Their brain will instantly, in that moment, extrapolate everything that they've seen, heard, learned about from their parents since they're [ __ ] one-year-old. The brain is so primed. And it gives them a certain gut level of certainty about what it is you're selling.

Now, in some circumstances, there are industries like timeshare sales where people land very low on the scale. Like, most people will enter a timeshare sale at a two or a one because the, they've got a bad reputation. Conversely, someone that's going to buy an iPhone. Where did they enter? A 9.7. So based on the brand reputation, based on the industry, the product that you're selling, people will tend to enter either higher or lower. But everyone's different, right? So you don't know where they are when you start. But what you do know is two things. Where where you are, which is in a 10. And your goal is to get them as close to a 10 as possible. Does that make sense? Yes.

But now, for the first time, you're going to find out where they are, right here. 'Cause when you say to them, "Does the idea make sense to you? Do you like the, the, the program, the, the, the property?" And they say, "Yeah, it sounds pretty good." Where is that on the certainty scale? Is that a 10? Six? Maybe? Yeah, that sounds pretty good. It's not again. "Sounds okay." That's a four. "Sounds okay." Five. "No, it sounds really dynamite." That's an eight or seven. Or they might say, "Oh [ __ ], this is the greatest thing in the world. I mean, no, it's, I love it." Close to a 10. And that sometimes happens. But now, for the first time, you know where they are.

So what do you do? They say, they say, "Yeah, it's pretty good." They were a six. You're like, "Ah, I have some work to do. I have to make them more certain." So how do you do that? It's very simple. Now we get into a technology of the straight line, which is called looping, okay? That's step eight, okay? Is you're going to loop here, okay? Build certainty through looping. What is looping? Let me draw this out just one more time here. You got your boundaries here, your boundaries here, right? You've gone through the front half of the sale. You get hit with the first objection, right there. So this was your presentation here, right? And you've asked for the order for the first time. They said, "Yeah, it sounds pretty good." Good. You've deflected the answer, right? You're like, "Okay, I need to make them more certain." So what you're going to do is you're going to essentially loop backwards in the process and build on the certainty that you created in the initial presentation. In other words, the first time that you explain something, you don't spend two [ __ ] hours explaining it. This is the mistake that salespeople make. They spend so much time going through every feature, every benefit, every [ __ ] thing. They drop their [ __ ] drawers, so to speak, or they shoot their load, a better [ __ ] analogy, right? And then the person says, "Let me think about it." "Oh [ __ ]. I I got nothing left to say. You said it all." But wait, did you hear me? I said, "I said this." They're like, "[ __ ] you, right?"

So what I don't do is I never front-load. I create the frame. The first presentation is a framing presentation, like building a house. You pour the foundation and you put up the frame, right? The house is worth X. Now, in this second presentation, I'm going to put up the drywall, put the roof on, put the rooms up, right? The next one, on the third, I'm going to put in all the accoutrements, the the water fixtures, the [ __ ] bathroom, the tile. Before I'm done, I've gone through maybe four iterations, and I have a beautiful house. But if you front-load your initial presentation and you spend an hour and a half talking about something, then you finally ask for the order, when it comes time to loop, you're you're out of gas. You got nothing left.

So essentially, when you're creating straight line presentations, it's actually a series of presentations that build on each other, making it more, more and more powerful. So I'm going to strategically leave certain things out of my initial presentation so when I have to loop back now and raise their level of certainty, I have some things, tricks left in my bag. And I'm like, "Oh, great. Well, let me tell you this." And I'm going to have this say, "You know, you're can say exactly. It really is an amazing." They'll say, "Yeah, it sounds pretty good." I say, "Exactly. It's an amazing property. In fact, the true beauty is..." And now I'm going to build on the certainty I created with my first presentation and given even more powerful presentation. And when I'm, they say, "You see what I'm saying?" They'll say, "Oh my God, no. Yeah, it's great." I'm like, "Exactly." And I've now raised their level up even higher, maybe got them from a seven or a 6.5 to an 8.5. I'm getting much higher, closer to a 10. Does that make sense?

So what is a loop? A loop is taking an objection and using it as an opportunity to build more certainty for each of the three tens and then smoothly transitioning into a close. If someone says they want to think about it, and you say, "Listen, I'm doing this a long time. People don't want to think about it. Call back. They never do. You're busy, I'm busy. Be too P. Clob. Whatever. Listen, just so you know, go to my website. There's I give you 35 ways to answer 'let me think about it' rebuttal. They're called rebuttals to objections. But if you just rebut the objection and then you ask them to buy again, you know what? They're just going to hit you with a different object. They an objection hop. They'll say, "Yeah, I I get it. Let me talk to my wife." They'll switch from one objection to the other. Why? Because you didn't get below the surface to what was really happening, which was a lack of certainty for one, two, or all three of the three tens.

So just by answering, rebutting an objection, all that does is it gives you the right to speak more. You don't rebutt an objection and then ask for the order. That's the biggest waste of time and is what people that aren't trained in sales do. They think they can answer your objection, ask the, and some magic happens. But no, they just get caught up in this loop of objection after objection, objection. That's what happens.

So we look at this objection as the opportunity to build more certainty. Now, the first objection they give, I'm going to deflect it. I'm not even, I'm not, I'm not going to say, "Well, I understand you want to think about it." I'm say, "I hear you want to think about it. I understand. But let me." I don't even give it [ __ ] any credence. I'm not going to go into why they shouldn't think about it, what's good about thinking about it. Later on, if they if they hit me with it in the second and third, I will rebut it. But the first time, I'm like, "Let me, I just want to find out one thing. Where are they on the certainty scale?" That's all I want to find out. So I'm like, "I understand you want to think about it. Let me ask you a question. Does the idea make sense to you? Does the property appeal to you? You like the property?"

Now, watch the way I said that. I didn't say, "Well, I understand you want to think about it, but does it make sense to you? Do you like the..." What the [ __ ]? They'll be like, "No, not really." I'm like, "I understand you want to think of it, but but let me ask you this. Does the idea make sense to you? Do you like the property?" That's called hypothetical money aside tonality. Meaning, what I am saying in my tonality is like money is like, "I understand you want to think. Just just, all things being equal, does the idea make sense to you? Do you like the idea?" Everyone hear the difference? Versus, "Does it make sense to you? Do you like it?" They're like, "Well, if I say yes, you're going to ram it down my [ __ ] throat, right? And they're going to be like, 'Oh yeah, maybe. I don't [ __ ] know. Like I'm [ __ ] scared. Am I on [ __ ] stand here? You're a lawyer cross-examining me, right?'"

So you def, you're able to diffuse that by using this hypothetical money aside tone. It's one of the 10 tonalities I'll put up on the board in a moment, okay? And by doing that, they'll say, "Yeah, it sounds pretty good," or whatever. You'll get a true reading because you took the pressure off. Make sense? Yes. Right.

So then I do this next secondary presentation, which is absolutely kick-ass because I planned it out. It has even more powerful cases I'm making, and cost benefits and value props. And by the time I'm done, I'm also now I start saying, "In fact, the true beauty is this, this, and that, and that, that, and this." And then I'm being, "And besides that, it also has this and that." And I start increasing my tonality of certainty. So as I start going through, by the end, I'm like, "You see what I'm saying? You, does it make sense to you?" And they like, "Oh my God, yeah." They'll match your, your enthusiasm. They'll match your certainty without even knowing why. Now, the words move them logically, but your tonality moved them emotionally. So you're able to do two things at once using the right tonality. They say, "Yeah, no, I love it. It's great." I say, "Exactly. It really is an amazing program."

Now, depending on the situation, you know, there's a way. Now, so what would I do now? Would I ask for the order? Would I ask him to buy? No. You know why? Because there's still two tens that are outstanding. There's me, and there's the company. So I would say something, "Well, let me ask you this. You know, honestly, if if I'd sold you, let's say I'd sold you three or four properties in the last few years, and every one of them was a grand slam home run, you made a fortune, they were rented out, you were loving it. You probably wouldn't be saying, 'Let me think about it.' You'd be saying, 'Jordan, just [ __ ] sign me up.' Am I right?" And you know what they're going to say? "Yeah." Well, then I would. Exactly. Now that I can understand, you don't know me. I don't have a track record with you. So let me just take a few moments, tell you a bit more about myself." And then what do you do? Do you wing it? No. You spent time preparing this kick-ass [ __ ] language pattern that describes you. Sell yourself. Your honest, your integrity, how hard you work, how many happy clients you have, how you go the extra mile for them, you hold their hand every step of the way, and that you want to be there for them, not just for one transaction. You don't get rich on one transaction. You want a long-term relationship that you could be, that they'll know they have a property guide they can trust and make money with over the long term. We get rich together. Make sense? Yes.

And will I ask for the order now? No. I'll say, "And by the way, as far as my firm goes, if you're associated with a firm, XYZ firm is the number one, this, number one, that. They've won this award, that award, blah, blah, blah, blah, [ __ ] blah." So why don't we do this? And then I'll transition into a close again. So, first time together, I'm asking you to give me 1% of your trust. And believe me, I will earn the other 99%. Does that sound fair enough? And I shut the [ __ ] up. Next person who talks first loses, right? Well, you both gain, hopefully, if they buy. But the point is, what I did there, and it was clunky because I'm just making up words, but if you do this right, and you and using them, it's really very powerful. What I did is I took an objection and used it as an opportunity to build more certainty for people, all three of the tens, and transitioned into a close. You might close 30% of the people you're going to close, right? At this point, right at this point, just by one loop, because you've raised their level of certainty, right, high enough on the 310 for them to buy. But let's dig deeper than that.

So what is really happening when you raise up someone's level of certainty? And we'll combine logic and emotion together for the exercise, right? So there's two types of people in this world when it comes to buying, generally speaking. There's degrees of it, but there's two groups. There's people like me who are [ __ ] suckers. I am the, you could sell me a freaking bridge. I am the easiest person to sell [ __ ] to. I love to buy. I like making quick decisions. I think I get it. I think my best decisions are made quickly. I'm a risk taker. My mentality, I love to buy [ __ ]. Right? Who's like that? Who here is like that? Right? Bunch of you, right?

Then there are other people like my dad. From the movie, may he rest in peace. Mad [ __ ] Max. My dad, greatest guy ever, okay? My father was the toughest [ __ ] person to sell to. He hated salespeople. He didn't trust easily. He wanted to think everything over. He was really, really hard to sell to. Who here is like that? Anyone here? Some people, right? There's in the world. Both types exist. And it's very difficult to know if you're speaking to someone with what's called a high action threshold, which is my dad, or a low action threshold, like me.

What does that mean? Low action threshold. What that means is, I don't have to be at a 10, 10, 10 to say yes. I could be at a 7, 8, 7. I could be reasonably certain. Like, [ __ ] it, I'll buy. What's the difference between me and my father? And we're extreme examples of those two classes of people, low action threshold people, high action threshold people, right? What's the difference? The difference is this. Now, when I, you, anybody here, any human being, is faced with a buying decision, in that moment, when we're considering to buy or not to buy, our brain runs what's called parallel movies. We think, "What's the best outcome we can possibly get?" And "What's the worst outcome if it's not what they say it is?" What's the best? What's to us? We are fear-based creatures. Human beings always think of the downside as well. We always do. It's wide into our reptilian brain. Goes back God knows for how many years we've been chased by saber-tooth tigers. We always consider downside as well as upside.

So in that moment, when I, he goes, "How much is it?" He goes, "$79." My brain to say to myself, "I know it's a piece of [ __ ], but like, imagine if this thing actually [ __ ] works." And I visualize myself on like, 17th or 18th hole of [ __ ] Turnberry, [ __ ] golf course in Scotland. And I, the cause of this thing, I hit a perfect [ __ ] green to the [ __ ] on the green, almost the hole in one. The crowd is [ __ ] clapping and cheering. I'm in the [ __ ] clubhouse with buddies. I see the whole [ __ ] movie. I'm actually imagining in my mind's eye, I am playing out the whole [ __ ] movie of having this incredible four iron shot to the [ __ ] pin, sunk the putt. I'm [ __ ] sharing myself on in the clubhouse with my buddies. They can't believe how great I am at golf. That's my positive. And my negative movies. Like, "Yeah, [ __ ] it. $79 ain't that much [ __ ]. It who gives a [ __ ]?" And I blunt the negative movie. I run the negative movie. "Yeah, it's probably [ __ ] of ship, but who cares? $79. Not that much. You know what's the worst? I'll throw it away." Which I did. So I run a positive movie and a negative movie.

So does my dad? But here's the difference. When he runs the negative movie, before he's [ __ ] done, he's got himself broke, bankrupt, and living under a [ __ ] bridge because of this [ __ ] thing. Goes, "This F, I think first. I'm going to take it home. It's going to make my golf swing worse. He's going to take my credit card level. He's going to steal that. They're going to steal my identity. Before I know it, I'll be [ __ ] broke. My credit will be destroyed. The Navies are going to hate me. My wife will leave me. I'll be living under a [ __ ] bridge and [ __ ] back." I can. He runs a wildly inflated negative movie. The same way I run a wildly ridiculous positive movie. And when he runs his positive movie, he's like, "Yeah, maybe it'll work. Probably not. [ __ ] it." He blunts his negative movie. He blunts his positive. He runs a long negative, short positive.

So this. Now let's go back to the slide for the five core elements of the straight line. Action threshold. There you go. Okay, good. All right. So this is the fourth key to the buying combination. In other words, as we now get further down the line, we're like, "Ah, I gave this incredible second presentation where I raised their level of certainty to the 310. They still didn't buy. They hit me with another objection." I'm like, "Aha! I got one of those tough Israeli saps on my hand. I need to do a bit better. There's more numbers in this combination. I have to go deeper. I need to lower their action threshold." That's the fourth number in the combination.

So for people like me, you don't really have to lower my action. It's low enough. What is action threshold? What is the definition? By definition, the action threshold is the collective, collective level of certainty that any human being needs to be at before they feel comfortable enough to take action. If I have an action like I'm going to set, if I'm above that, I buy. Assuming, by the way, that the amount of money being spent is also taken into account. I'll get into that in a moment. That's a separate equation called energy in, benefits out. See, the straight line's a fully contained formula. It it covers everything. By the way, other, there also, you know, money is what? Money is actually stored energy. You work, right? You have to spend some to live. But whatever you have left over, the excess profit from your hard work, from the energy you expended in the world, you store it in the form of money. You then can project that energy, direct it towards other things. You can buy things, do things, right? It's stored energy. But it represents hard work. So if the larger the amount of money you're spending, the more work it represents. Well, those benefits better [ __ ] match the energy that's that last second check. Do the benefits I perceive to get, both in the short term and long term, doesn't exceed the amount of energy I have to deploy to get it? That it be okay.

But getting back to action threshold again. If you get someone's level of certainty above their action threshold, they will buy. Right? So my father, unlike me, who has to be a 7, 7, 7. Maybe I'm [ __ ] really easy to sell [ __ ] to. I'm probably really easy, okay? My dad has got to be at a 10, 10, 10 and damn sure of it. You get it? He's got to be [ __ ] certain. Much tougher to sell to. So on the straight line, visually, what does that really mean? It means people like me, generally speaking, will close here. And people like my dad, going to go much further down the line because you got to keep building more certainty. And you also have to lower his action threshold.

One of the great things I invented with the straight line, in all truth, was this ability. I figured out a way to temporarily lower people's action thresholds, not permanently. But you can temporarily lower someone's action threshold in the moment. And the way you do it is very simple. You do it by hijacking their strategy of running parallel movies. In other words, we all run upside, downside movies, right? Well, what happens is, if I just ask for the order, and my father, he's going to run the long negative movie every time, and a very short positive. He's not going to future pace himself and imagine himself on the green or in the clubhouse toasting with his friends because he just hit a four iron and stripped to the pin. He's not doing that. He's broke under the in, in the, in the street, under a bridge, getting pissed on by another bum, right? He's running that movie.

So I can't allow that to happen. What I must do is hijack his movie. And the way I do that is by bringing it above the surface. Saying, "So when I do this next loop, I'll go, when I loop again, this will be my second loop. Now I'm going to loop back, build more certainty for the each of the tens. But instead of asking for the order again, Max, let me ask you an honest question. What's the worst thing that can possibly happen here?" And listen to my tone. "What's the worst thing?" "They can I mean, let's say I'm wrong. Let's say you buy this golf contraption, right? And you go home, it doesn't really fix your swing. Okay? Maybe you practice more, which is always good. You throw it. Is that honestly going to ruin your life? Honestly?" Like, "No, no, no." "Relatively?" "No." "It's exactly not going to."

"But now, on the upside, just imagine that this is even half as good as I say it is, and you take it home, you start practicing, your swing improves, you go out with your buddies on day and a Sunday, your swing is tight, you're not shanking the ball, you're hitting it stripped in the pin, you're feeling great, you're looking great, you're celebrating. How awesome would that be? Honestly?" Am I right? He's like, "Yeah." "Say, exactly."

"So why don't we do this?" Because what I just did is I blunted his negative movie. I ran it for him, but I ran a realistic movie. I'm not lying saying there's no downside. Yeah, the downside $79. You're going to throw the thing out. But you're not going to be worried. He'll practice, and that's always good. But I give him a realistic downside and I stop his emotions and his thoughts of running wild. Okay? And then I do for him what he's never done for himself. I actually run the positive movie for him. He's never done it. And I allow him to imagine himself in the future having used the product and getting the benefit and feeling good and laughing and feeling good. And in that moment, his action threshold drops. And I ask you. Say, "So Max, why don't we do this? In fact, I could take $10 off here because it's your first time and I want you to have this thing. So let's do this. $69. You can pay in cash if you want. No credit card. And believe me, Max, the only problem you'll have is you didn't buy this six months ago because you got would already be awesome and you'd be celebrating today. Does that sound fair enough?" And I shut the [ __ ] up.

Now, I'm really close. If I'm going to close this guy, I'm getting really close. But there's still one more number left in the combination. And that's called the paining threshold. One of the things I blew through in most out of time, one of the things I blew through before I said, "Really quickly, I said when you're gathering intelligence, you're identifying needs, values, hierarchy needs." I said, "Pain. Pain points. People's real worries. Like, what's really keeping them up at night?" Right? And when I hear someone tell me what their pain is, is I don't resolve it there. I say, "Uh-huh." I actually amplify. I want to resolve that pain. Just yet. I'm holding it back for right now.

I'll tell you another story about my dad. He's great to tell stories about, right? My dad, crazy [ __ ] [ __ ]. Right? But the best. All right. He was so fastidious, so neat. He he kept all his possessions in such good shape. Like his freaking sock drawer, like was the socks were lined up with their freaking laser beam. Like everything was so [ __ ] perfect. His money was stacked. Everything was [ __ ] perfect. His apartment. But of all things that he loved, he loved his car the most. He had this [ __ ] old car, like a Datsun, or no, a Dodge Dart, right? He used to call it. "She." Like it's a [ __ ] thought's alive, you know? She's got a rattle, she's not running well, right? He loved this [ __ ] car. Right? And then he even got a Mercury Cougar, which he [ __ ] adored. And like this thing was like his pride and joy. And like, you know, people with high action thresholds, they only have one guy for everything. They got a shirt guy, they got a suit guy, they got one hair cutter, they got a car guy. They only got one [ __ ] guy. They don't trust. They, if you get a high action threshold client, they're the best, 'cause they'll never leave you.

So my father's car guy was this guy, Jimmy, at the local gas station. The gas, right? Jimmy was his [ __ ] mechanic. No one is fixing my father's car but Jimmy. It's Jimmy. "Jimmy's my car guy." No one's touching my dad's car but Jimmy, right? Well, one day, was like 11 years old. We're going down from New York City to Florida. It's like a, it's like a day trip, like, you know, two days by car, three days, right? 'Cause you stop. And we're about 7, 8 hours outside of the city, heading down to Florida, kind of in a not such a great part of town, like hillbilly area where you don't want to [ __ ] stop. And suddenly, the radiator blows. Smoke is coming out of the [ __ ] car. And he pulls over to the side. It's like 4:30 in the afternoon. Sun's about to start going down, okay? And we're stuck on the side of the road. What do you think my father did? He found the first gas station he could find and said, "Fix my car right now. I don't care what it costs." The pain, the worry he was feeling was so intense that what it did was it temporarily dropped his action threshold to the floor. There's an inverse relationship between pain and action threshold. When someone is feeling extreme pain and worry, they take action.

So this is that last key. We can use here. If we still haven't closed them, we will add on the pain and talk about that. And that will temporarily lower their action threshold. Then boom, drive the point home and you can close.