Transcription
So let's talk about sales skills, something I think that you and I both share, uh, passionately. There are four skills specifically that I hear you talk about most: those are transference of beliefs through conviction, labeling, selling the vacation, and then the sacrificial lamb. So let's—I wanna—I wanna break these four down because there's so many things that are congruent with what we teach.
So let's talk about your belief around what I think you believe sales is to be, which is from the highest level, is really one's ability to transfer belief to another person through conviction. Can you speak to that?
Yes. Um, it's—it's so funny because the next book is on sales, and I've already like started outlining it. I can't wait. I—I can't wait either, and I think it's gonna—I think it will not be what people expect it to be. I'll put it that way.
I love it. Um, but like, I mean, even—I'm gonna say something right now that might break some people's brains, but I also have—now I think—adopted a belief that hard sales is bad branding. Um, like if you—you have to sell hard because you don't have a brand, and so I learned all the hard sales skills because I didn't have one, and it was because I lacked the skill, right? This was, you know, I didn't understand that that brand mattered, and now like my beliefs have changed such the point where I think brand is more and more than everything. It—I mean, brand is everything. Um, so I say that with—with that caveat first.
Um, that being said, if you truly believe in what you sell, selling is actually very easy. The problem is that people are either selling stuff they don't believe in, right, um, or actually it's really just that, yeah, like they sell stuff they don't believe—that it's either their own stuff or it's somebody else's, but either way they're not wholeheartedly convicted. When you refer a friend to a pair of pants or like a—a shoe that you like, you sell the right way.
Yeah, I love it, because you believe in it, right? And also because if they don't do it, you don't really care. You're like, "I'm just telling you. I mean, like, you want it, awesome," right? And so if you truly believe, which is where I would put—night—like my—where I put my attention on a sales team is on the conviction more than anything, because if you—if you get that right, the tonality, where they pause, their demeanor, the frame they hold on the call is the right frame, is the right tone, and you don't even need to train it because they do it innately as humans if they know how to communicate. And so more of my sales—like as I understand it now, because I think my, you know, my viewpoints shift over time—is really just very succinct and clear communication with another human being. And if you can do that, most people—if you listen to sales calls, I'm sure you have, because I'm sure you have a sales team now—if you listen to some of these calls, you're like, "How did this close? Like, this is a train wreck," right? Because many people hop on the call ready to buy, and salespeople give themselves credit for making a sale when really they just transacted. And so oftentimes it's just clear thinking in a framework that we can apply consistently. And so if you believe in the thing, then you're going to say, "Hey, I believe that we can help you," and if they believe you too, which is comes from trust, they will buy if they have the ability to do so.
I love it, and that's from a first principle standpoint. You have to believe it. Well, you don't have to—it helps, right? And then you transfer that belief to the other person; they now believe it, and then if they have the means, they will buy.
Yeah, makes a lot of sense. And you know, one of the things I was just working on with my sales team just this week is labeling, and it's made a huge, massive impact. Can you just take a minute or two and help the audience really understand what is labeling and then maybe give an example?
Yeah, labeling is honestly just really good psychology in general to understand because it has—it has far greater implications than just sales. Um, like it's very helpful in identifying objections early that a prospect will have. 100. So, for example, I like using weight loss because everybody understands it. If I were selling a gym membership of some sort or a weight loss program whatever, and Judy Lou Who, right, says, "I did Weight Watchers," and I would say, "Okay, how'd that work for you?" And then she might say, "I love the program, but it was really expensive," right? Now I know that my way more expensive than Weight Watchers, so what do we do from here? I haven't even gone to the presentation of our stuff; I haven't even gotten into closing. Like, what do I do? I have to confront the label that she just put on her experience, and I have to crack it, otherwise there's no point in getting further in the sale because I have to overcome this now, otherwise it'll detonate in the close, right? And so I would say, "So you said it was expensive. What made you say that?" So now she's labeled it, right? And I have to now change that label, right? Like, "What made you—what made it expensive?" "Well, I mean, it was 39 a month." "Well, I mean, how much does your wardrobe cost? How many pieces of clothing have you bought that you now no longer can wear as a result of that? If you could get 10 more years on your life, what is the—what's the value of that? What's the value of your high school weight? Oh my God, that would be so bad." So then, "Was it really not expensive, or was it that you didn't get what you wanted out of it?" "I didn't get what I wanted out of it." "Okay, just to be clear, because if you did get the high school weight and you did get the clothing that blah blah, it would have been worth 10 times that," right? Right. Done. We relabeled it, and so we have to be clear with language so that we can close later. Now, from the labeling perspective, as—as you're referencing it, that's kind of reactive labeling what I just said. There's also proactive labeling, which is that you can then ascribe traits to somebody else earlier on in the sale that they will find positive. So it's like, "Hey, you seem like a very family-oriented person," or "You seem like a very growth-oriented individual. It seems like you are willing to take risks in order to grow your business," right? These are all labels that we're going to describe, and the thing is you'll know it's a label because the person has to agree; they're going to say, "Yes, I am that way. Yes, I agree with that statement," right? And then from that statement, you pocket that later so that when it comes to the close, you'll be like, "Because you said you're this type of person X," and because of commitment consistency, which is like a psychological thing—you talk about it—yeah, people are more likely to comply with something that makes them appear consistent with their own commitments, right? And so they committed earlier to this label, and we made it a positive—positive association. People will want to live up to that positive association. And so I use this in a different example when in a non-monetary—it was monetary, but I wasn't making any money from it—I was treasurer of an organization when I was in college, and there was one member who was notorious for not paying, all right? And he was, you know, everyone was like, "This guy's a piece of—you'll never get it," right? Because every treasurer before me had never gotten this guy to pay dues, right? And so the first thing I did when I started treasurer—I—I met up with him, and he expected that I was going to berate him, which is what everybody else had done and called him a bunch of names and tell me he was a low-life ball. And so I said, "Hey, man, I know that you're a rock-solid individual. I was like, and you're honest. I was like, so I'm just not going to bother you about this because I just know you're good for it." So he came the next day and paid in cash for the whole thing and his back dues because I gave him a prop—because—because if he doesn't do it, then he's not going to get the association that I just gave him, right?
That's right. And so you can massively influence behavior and also give people legitimate compliments at the same time, which is one of those—which is what makes it so powerful. And to be clear, the way to use this ethically is not to lie about the association that you're making for the person.
Sure. I mean, that's great. I mean, it's changed everything, Alex, for us. I mean, that whole skill is—is has been incredible. So selling the vacation probably could be a whole podcast by itself, but I just—I want other people to understand when you say "sell the vacation," just what—what you mean, so the audience understands that we need to focus on the desired outcome, not how we get to that desired outcome.
Yeah, I'll give the analogy because that's what it was based on. So if—if you—if you listen to most salespeople sell or most business owners sell their products and services, they will describe the plane flight. So they describe TSA: take your—take your shoes off, take your pants off, the person next to you, you know, I mean, it's gonna smell like crap; it's gonna be a five-hour flight on the flight; this is what we're gonna serve you; you'll be able to go get up to the bathroom two or three times; we'll have refreshments once. I tell you that you can't check in blah blah blah, right? Which translates to: "This is going to be our communication cadence; this is the deliverables that you're going to have; this is what you owe us; this is what we owe you; um, this, you know, this is the timetable; these are our programs; these are, you know, the delivery," whatever, versus, "Let me tell you about Maui. Maui has white sand beaches where you're going to be able to sit on them, and they're not going to hurt your feet because there's no rocks in them, right? We have one of the softest suns on the planet, so you actually won't have to put nearly as much sunscreen—notes—you're not going to get burned; you actually get the nice beautiful tan that you look for, so your pictures are going to come out amazing, right? It's great for Instagram people; you'll be able to remember this vacation; you'll be able to enjoy it leading up to it; you'll enjoy it while you're there, and you're going to enjoy the memories for the rest of your life," right? Both of them are selling the same thing. One of them were selling the plane flight on how they're going to get there; the other one we're selling the experience of what is going to be like to enjoy the benefits once they have arrived. And so when we are selling, we almost don't have to talk at all about the deliverables; we talk almost exclusively about the experience of the benefits—not just the benefits, but the experience of them, right? Because that's what they're—that's what they want because people make decisions emotionally, right? And so that is so good; it's so strong. I will say this because this is something that I've learned in time is that the higher the acumen of the—the more sophisticated the buyer, the less emotional the pitch is.
Yeah, that's fair. Yeah, 100. There's just something I've—I have now learned from the M&A world and like dealing with bankers, things like that: like if you're selling, there is a story for sure; there's still that element, yeah, but it still has to have the rock hard—but like if you're basically—if you're selling stuff for under, you know, 100 grand, there you go; you're—you're—you're probably fine just focusing on the vacation of what they're going to experience when they're there.
Yeah, fair enough. So, uh, we're just—we only have another minute or two, so the—the whole sacrificial lamb—we call it speaking against your own interests, which is the easiest way to build trust and rapport. Um, and so you talk about—it's—it's one of the easiest ways to build trust in a sales conversation is to speak against your own interest. You call it the sacrificial lamb. Can you give us an example of that?
Well, I mean, I learned this accidentally. Um, so we ran out of a product one day, and I had sold—had, you know, the first half of people that walked in that day the product, and then friends from the people from that first half came later, and I didn't have it. And so I—I was like, "You know what, go down the street, get it there; it's gonna be cheaper; it's not gonna be as good as our thing, but like, it'll get you through the first, you know, two months or whatever." And then what I realized is after I said that, people would like—write down—they'd write down the address; they'd write down the place; they're like, "Okay, okay." And I'd be like, "But what you do need is take two of these in the morning, take two of these in the afternoon, and you know what flavor do you want? You want to use the card? You haven't filed…" And I closed like a hundred percent the rest of the day, and I was scratching my head like, "What—like what was different here?" And I realized that because I had spoken against my own best interest—to your point—I like calling it just damaging admissions, right? Okay. Um, where you speak against the things that most people would try and pump up about themselves, right? And then you make your ask; they then—the compliance on the request after a damaging admission skyrockets. And so you can use that when you're scripting the sale specifically before statements of belief that you want someone to agree with, right? So if you're like, "Listen, man, um, I will say this: ours is like—our—our service offering is going to take you more time than probably the competition, right? Like they're going to be a little bit more done for you than we are; there's gonna be a lot more work on your side. Here's a bunch of things that suck, all right? But will get you significantly higher returns by a wide margin on an ongoing basis for the remainder of your time. So the first 60 days, it's gonna—you're gonna make more money with the other guy, but from every day after day 60, we will beat it." So strong when you say that, you know, I mean, if I just said, "I—if I took the first part out and then just said, 'You're going to get better return…'" Like you can hear it right now.
That's exactly right. Better returns with me than the other guy—you don't believe it, no. Right? Resistance. Resistance. And so if you put that—and the nice thing here, and this is what I tell anybody who's a business owner, a salesperson, is be honest: what are the things that you actually are not as good at, or what are the downsides of your—there's always—like every upside has a downside, right? Like if you're really customized, it's probably going to be slower, right? Or they're not going to get as much time with you, but it is more custom. You're like, "There's—there's always trade-offs to every coin," right? Quality and quantity—like there's just always a trade-off. Just speak to the opposite side of the coin before you tell them the thing you want them to believe, and people will believe it significantly more.
Fair enough, Alex. Dude, I appreciate you very, very much. We love the work you're doing; can't wait to see what comes out of the acquisition.com camp, um, and we're just—we're really looking forward to it, and we appreciate your time today.
Thank you to the audience for having me. I appreciate your attention. I know it's—you have many places to fly and spend it, so—uh, thanks for spending it with us today. Appreciate you, brother. Take care.