Ari Galper - Founder & CEO of Unlock The Game | Unlocking The Sales Game

Welcome to success story, the most useful podcast in the world. I'm your host Scott D. Clary The success story podcast is part of the HubSpot podcast network and the blue wire podcast network The HubSpot podcast network has incredible podcasts like my first million my first million is hosted by Sam par and Shawn puri They feature famous guests They discuss how companies made their first million and then some they brainstorm new business ideas based on the hottest trends and opportunities in the marketplace Here are some of the topics I talked about if you like any of these you will love the show Three profitable business ideas that you should start in 2022 drunk business ideas that can make you millions Asking the founder of Grammarly how he built a 13 billion dollar company or SaaS companies that anybody can start if these topics are up your alley Go check out my first million listen to it wherever you listen to your podcasts Today my guest is Ari Galper Ari is the founder and CEO of Unlock the game It is the world's number one authority on trust-based selling He has been featured in CEO magazine Forbes Inc. Sky News and the Australian financial review This trust becomes the most important currency in the new economy the act of selling as a Dehumanizing process with endless chasing has been completely reinvented and anchored in the timeless values of integrity and trust Through trust-based selling in his best-selling book unlock the sales game Ari describes his revolutionary sales approach based on getting to the truth and why having a mindset of focusing on deep trust Instead of quote-unquote the sale is ironically ten times more profitable So we spoke about why trust is lacking in sales and how we can fix it why traditional sales is broken How to close more deals and how to make sure they're bigger deals and also how to close them faster Ari's trust-based selling model is one of the most prolific and Impactful sales models you can ever learn So we're gonna unpack that for you and then lastly, we're gonna speak about some of the biggest Misconceptions about sales that we need to kill right now. So let's jump right into it This is Ari Galper who CEO of Unlock the game and is the world's number one authority on trust-based selling Well, that's actually there's an origin story behind Trust-based selling and I think we'll probably start there that I got a good context to today's conversation About 20 years ago. I was a sales manager on software company and we launched the first online website tracking tools now they're now called cool analytics. I'm sure you heard that before and And We launched the first one of those years ago. I was managing 18 Sales people at the time fast-coring business all the big opportunities big leads came across my desk And this one call came in off the website. I got the phone call Huge opportunity lots of websites big international company recognize the name The guys really nice guy. We had a great conversation and he wants to he agrees to us having a conference call and a live demo Show my product. So really excited about this if I close this one sale It will double the revenue and one transaction. That's how big it was So the whole team's all pumped up. Give me a high five for the for the meeting The day finally came Friday for a clock in afternoon and I closed or behind me and I'm in my room in the conference room Or CEO and a big long conference table and I'm the table is the old school speaker phones You know the old Sarge factory looking three legs on it speaker phones. Yes, I know those very well Yep, yep, and I hit the dial tone and speaker phone dial tone came up dial the number my God picks it up He's like, hey, Ari. How's it going? It's a good good good and so we quickly had a quick chat and then he says to me Ari, let us tell you who's with us in the room today I was like, oh, do you realize there's someone else there next thing I hear is my name's Chris. I'm CEO I'm like, oh, this is good. My name is Mike. I'm head of global IT. This is amazing. Did you realize it? I'll be there. My name is Julian head of marketing. Amazing. Like everyone on this call was basically a decision maker, right? Like it's gonna happen. It's gonna happen today like they're all gonna happen. It's gonna happen Yeah, you everyone's right there. You don't have to bring anyone else in that's all that's all you need exactly So I introduced myself we will log in again I'm talking about live demo of a product of their stats be collected ahead of time of the website They logged in and saw as well the first time they're seeing this and I'm showing it around And I'm showing these noise on the phone call like wow, this is great. This is amazing It starts me all kinds of questions. How does it work? How do we install it? How do we implement this? I mean They had all the right kinds of questions. I had all the answers. I was doing my thing in sale I was overcoming objections nicely. I've been rapport with them. I mean, there was so much chemistry on this phone call It was like Love fest on the phone I've been on calls like that. It just feels like I feel like everything's good You have all the right buying signals like all the everything. They're saying it's just perfect. Okay, so what so what? So no resistance I mean, it really was a truly an awesome call and the call comes through close and my guys is me Our is great. We love it. Look, give us a call a couple weeks follow up with us and we'll move this thing forward I'm like great. So I said my goodbyes and And I took my arm my hand and I reached the speakerphone and the off button is I'm risking for the off button I'm a speaker phone by complete accident. I hit the mute button instead of the off button And a small click happened and they had a hung up the phone And that's put second avoidance how to me said arey go to the dark side be a fly in the wall Go where no one's ever gone in the world of sales before and listening for a couple of seconds. You have nothing to lose So I pulled my thumb back for a couple seconds They started they thought hung up the phone and they started knocking amongst themselves. They can add love to call Now this is not a trick question, but what would you imagine they would sit out after that call like that? What would you expect them to say after a call we just had? Well, I'd expect them to say based on based on what you just said like that sounds great Like we have to follow up with them in a week like let's figure out how to implement Let's you know think of anything we didn't think about on the call But like let's move forward with this how do we get budget whatever the the the the regular next steps for I want I want this in my company right now exactly That's what you exactly what you expect that to call like that for sure But let me share with you what I heard verbatim word for word. I'll never forget it. It's why we're all here today Here's what they said they said We're not going to go with him Keep using him for more information And make sure we shop someplace else cheaper Knife in art twist. I was in a state of Shock I could not believe it And I finally stepped out of it hit the off button little the wall in front of me said to myself what did I do wrong? I was competent. I was professional. I wasn't pushing. I did everything I supposed to do in the book The sales books I read at home and in my shelf. I went to the sales guru seminars like he probably went to I've heard the podcast. I did my due diligence has been good in sales and here look what happened to me Then I asked myself that I had a piphany asking that was this somewhere along the way It has become socially acceptable not to tell the truth to people who sell Right It's okay to say things like sounds good send me the information. Oh wait. We're definitely interested. Wait send me a what Yeah Without any attention that buying East Bend your entire time chasing and chasing and dysfunctional behavior that's just so dehumanizing When you don't get the truth and I said to myself Why were they afraid to tell me the truth? Why don't you just tell me truth? I'll be okay with that and I realize who's going on I realized back then that There's this sort of undercurrent flow of pressure That flows underneath every sales compass you have with someone in your sales process Now you can't see it and they can't see it before they can feel it and they're always to keep their guard up And give you just a few bread crumbs to keep you interested Because they're going to hold back the truth from you because they believe that your intention is to make that sale And that whole pressure and our realize if I can figure out a system and a model to craft the code on this And remove the pressure from the process. I could ship people's mindset away from the goal of sale And they said to build a real trust with people. I mean deep trust where you build what I call Moments of vulnerability vulnerability where they open up to you and tell you the truth And that began my whole mindset shift called unlock the sales game 20 years ago, which is now Spawned a thousand of people who have changed their lives around this, but We sheech a whole different way of selling weird goal is not the sale at first your goal is deep trust We teach people how to do that very effectively Okay, that makes a lot of sense that that's a problem that as long as you even know you've been operating the space for a while The trust factor is still something that people that have a lot of trouble with and actually the one thing that you mentioned is like Like uncovering the fact that even your customers is lying to you just to get a price or a quote or more information on the product Like that's like a sales person's worst nightmare So Okay, so what's so that is that is the issue with sales today. So what is what is this What is the ability to build trust what is that why have we not focused on that why have you not done it better because people have said for the longest time You have to build trust to be able to sell so it's not unknown But it doesn't seem to be done effectively correct because what's happened is We've been conditioned over the years To pursue and move the sales process forward with our own agenda Which is not their agenda. There's a crisscross happening It's it's interesting because we're unconsciously aware of this And also we unconsciously put pressure in the process using the language and that we use the words that we use And we redo so many we we step on our own toes unconsciously think about this. They've got a problem We got the solution right straight line of sight What is in the middle of that us We start doing presentations. We start to chase people We start to get excited. We start to prematurely offering we do all these things without really building deep trust Now I'm not saying that if you listen to this right now you're not trustworthy. I'm not talking about your integrity We're not talking about I can build trust people see what happens is we've mixed the word relationship With trust And I tell my clients and here comes a bomb for your listeners stop Building relationships With people in your sales process Because I discovered relationship building and trust building are mutually exclusive Right like you just what we do to build for relations. Hey, how's it going nice to meet you What are you from really see we lay in a real thick in the beginning and they know it's fake They know it's just sales stuff. They don't want to become your friend anyways The word top of the sales goes oh build relationships But they aren't real they're just for the sales process and they know it And so they know the game you see trust building is different It's like a doctor patient relationship right when you go see a doctor They don't try to become your friend They'll try to be a little relationship with you But then we're going to do bumper sticker right now from my clients. You know, it's going to be cold Doctors don't do coffee Right what what you got to shift your thinking to the doctor mentality when you go when you go see a doctor What's the first thing they say to you? They say what does it hurt And you say my shoulder bothers me over here. He said let me take a look. Is it over here? Oh right there Oh, okay, I think you got to get an x-ray right away So we can really analyze with the core of the problem here So I can see what we can do for you because right now all I can see is some readiness up there. Let's go deep on this thing See see the the doctor has it down they've really nailed this idea of Of really addressing the problem see in sales work taught when we sense an opportunity Yeah, we go riding to I can help you with that Yeah, I'm sure you're trying to be and you try to be friendly and you can and you can be a friendly and a trustworthy Anna and have like a congenial disposition. That's that's not the issue here. It's just okay So let's let's let's dive into this a little bit more. So Forget about relationship building because it's It's it's not they can see right through Yeah, you are disgenuine It's a very believe you are being that way because it's inappropriate to go Try and become friendly with someone who don't you don't even know It's like yeah, okay, so what okay, so where does this process start? So let's walk through and I and actually just educate the the listeners Who do you usually deal with are we talking about like A founder that's trying to sell their product as a SaaS company you're trying to sell professional services coaching services Like what's what is your sweet spot or is this universally applicable? Oh, yeah You just looked it out is ideal for this because our model focuses on specifically with clients who are in a low volume high price point high margin high trust business if you're not quadrant up here This is your savior. This will change your entire life right because see we don't think about what model Where and we just try and sell the muscles we can and most people are selling in a How they should be in a low volume in a high volume low price by business So this is really for the advisor the consultant the entrepreneur who's got a long-term high price point product Okay, okay, so then okay, so then customer Either you're you're reaching out to a customer or even customer maybe feels that like a lead form. Yeah, I'll call you Send the email. Yeah, exactly First call first call with that customer I'm assuming that's when it starts or does it start even before in the marketing material or is that is that usually when it when it starts Where is that in the marketing stuff, but we won't talk about that today. We'll talk about that another day But but so it happens all different means right? It's it's the let's say For instance, there's the inbound lead does out of form right yeah Uh, you know, it's and then you schedule hopefully a consultation or call with the with the person Um, and it rolls right into there because see what usually happens is They show up in zoom. Let's just say for instance, you know for the first call with someone who who inquires through a leader Whatever referral and how does calls usually begin Priory you just start with hey, how's it going nice to meet you or you from what do you do? Oh, what do you do? What do you do? What do you do and it got this whole thing going on like this sort of talk a little bit about the pandemic You talk a little bit about like work from home and talk a little yeah You know, you go through the whole like this the whole the whole spiel that everybody talks and you know exactly what I'm talking about Like all the all the BS not well. It is kind of BS because you do it every single person Then you and you've spoken about the pandemic and COVID and you know Every single time for the next eight calls for that day and it's the same conversation It's and you can tell everybody just hired a bit, but you do it anyways. You go through these motions That's because we are taught by the gurus to build rapport Yeah, no the relationship Get them to like you and know you once they like and know you then they'll buy from you But they know it's all the game. They know with social norms. They have to be nice to you They know you're being nice to them. They know it's all fake anyways But they play along with it and you play along with it and you wonder why they don't call it say to you Well, let me think about it. That's really great. Thank you so much Let me tell my partner about that call me next week, and we're like oh, man. Now I gotta chase this guy What went wrong? Well, well, and wrong is the whole mindset of how you approach that phone call Here's how the call should go you show up in the call nice to meet you as much as well And here's how you start to call you say You put the ball on their court like a doctor you say can you tell me a little bit About your situation About your business model and some of the challenges that you have right now that you're looking to solve And we'll go from there. Are you okay with that? Is that sound good to you? And then you give them an open end to question and then they and you select them time that that's right And then now it's like it's head the balls in their court right hello They're now opening up Telling you what hurts Telling you their problem like the doctor and the patient telling you all telling you here's that problem that it up Right, and then people normally happens is if you do this little piece right and instead of telling you their problems Instantly going to go when your brain you go. Oh, man. Perfect. He's qualified. Oh, yeah, baby This is good. This is oh, he's perfect for me and you're gonna go right into Well, let me show you let me show you that. I think we can help you with that absolutely. Yeah See we think we're done with our job, but what I teach my clients is what I call going down the expert with people That means peel back and unpack their problem amplify it show me impact of it And see if they want to fix it or not. That's before you go on your solution So so first question is can you tell me a little about your situation and your challenges and your background will go from there They open up You grab one of the problems they've got so they might say to you. I don't know. What's a classic issue? You might hear from one of your potential clients they might say to you if you ask like Classic issue I guess it depends on the product that I'm selling, but let's say it's like Let's say it's marketing services. That's an easy one. Um, you know, I never I never know how to measure The the return on like the row as the return ad spend in front of investment for something that I purchased like a marketing service Like if I hey an influencer for example, I don't know how to measure how that affects my brand And maybe I'm a consultant or maybe I have a software that helps with that. All right Here's what you say The minute they tell you their problem. You ready for this one? Yeah, you say Can you tell me a little bit more about that What and what are you doing there? You're just doubling down. So you feel like the first time they tell you they're not telling you everything now They're only telling you service level problems not the real truth It's an iceberg my friend and we're always the top skimming skiing on top. When we're in what's all what's going on here You got to stop moving things forward You got to go down See we're so used to Opportunity damn perfect. Let me tell you what I got you're gonna love it. It's great. See we're so passionate about what we do We love what we do we can't help but to Just jump in and save the person from their problem. Yeah, that's what we talked about Doctors don't provide medicine or prescriptions until they have fully diagnosed their problem. Otherwise they go to jail What do we do? Let me write you a prescription right away. Oh, yeah, yeah We just fun with the ball At the before we can get half way down the court Because we're conditioned We set an opportunity jump right in so what you say instead is you're asked to write you go you peel it back You tell me a little more about that and then they open up And then all of a sudden discover all these things you say well how long has that been a problem for Last six months wow What do you suppose the impact of of not measuring that connection is to your business? I mean in terms of decision that you make and how much you spend what what's the ROI if you can't measure that Well, that's that's the problem How much you spend so far on that an influencer and that campaign but $10,000 a month Wow, yeah, this is serious problem and here is the definitive question to ask you're not done yet It's a Is this a priority for you to solve once and for all Where you have to live with this long term and you and live with the consequences and here it is I'm okay either way They've got to own the problem before you're allowed to provide the solutions like a therapist and a patient If the patient doesn't own their own issues They're the worst patients in the world you got to drag them through the therapy, right? But when what you got to make your customer own their own issue because at the beginning when they get to know you But let me give you a few breadcrumbs To keep the conversation going and we just we take that we're like yeah great. Thank you so much We'd never been top of four How to go peel the onion back and go real deep down their problem and stay in the role as long as we can Until they say to you this and here's the magic phrase when they say to this you're permission to start talking When they say How can you help me That's when you that's when you start talking that's when they ask for it So this is on this is uncomfortable. Obviously. This is uncomfortable for most sales people because Sort of like summarize what we just went through you Ask open and the questions you shut up you ask more open and the questions But you're just reinforcing and you're forcing that person you're forcing that person to maybe even think Deeper than they felt comfortable thinking about a problem and that is That's like very uncut so this is just something that I don't think there's any way to make it feel good and don't you do it a lot? This is not a happy call my friend Yeah, we think it's nice to meet you No, this is there in your clinic your doctor You're doing an x-ray on their problem. This is not a happy conversation because your job is to get to the truth of The source of the real problem because they won't tell you at the beginning because they don't trust you It's your obligation to help them understand the gravity of their situation Now of course on their own they won't admit it to you because they're gonna be vulnerable They don't want to say man. I screwed up 10,000 bucks a month out the window. I can't be measured. I feel horrible right now I'm with someone I'm gonna tell you this They'll but they'll tell someone they can trust that Your job is to build deep trust with your prospects on your first conversation So you can see if they're fit or not with you Not waste your time chasing ghosts people don't call you back by being friendly and here's the worst of it Doing free consulting and over educating as a way of giving value. I tell my clients stop giving value Instead provide clarity Clarity on issues. It's a very big difference. See we're taught by everyone. Oh give value over deliver Give him a lot and you know what the higher you because you gave him so much Information the last thing they want to know from you is information What the rest themselves the entire time is this do I trust him? Do I trust him? Do I trust him? Do I they don't care about how you solve their problem what they care about versus are you the one to solve it or not And then when's the point where you feel like trust has been established? What are the cues of the signals that you have established trust sure? So when you say it is when you say to them is this a priority for you to finally deal with this once and for all or Live with it and deal with the consequences and I'm okay either way and they say to you No, no, this is serious. We got it. We got to stop the losses here for sure That's when you now have the permission To pivot to your side of the court And then you say this you say well if if you'd be open to it notice the languaging I'll ask permission all the time don't just jump into it. Let me show you a demo Let me show you some slides. Oh, yeah. Yeah, let me show it. I got no don't don't jump into sales mode It's so easy to do that because we're so conditioned with that old mindset You say would you be okay if if I walked through my our framework or I wrote that for how we help people solve the problems You've got without be okay with you You just want to take a second and thank the sponsor of today's episode have spot now as a leader You're always on the lookout for more ways to arm yourself with knowledge the books the seminars and most importantly The podcast that help you make the best possible decision for you your company your customers Because when you know more you can apply more and you can grow with HubSpot CRM platform You can store track manage and report on all the tasks and activities that make up your relationships with customers With the birds eye view over all your customer interactions HubSpot and powers your decision making like never before so you can give your business and your customers all the good You've got learn how to make your business grow better at HubSpot.com Now To flip that because that was an inside lead and that's already an uncomfortable conversation Now if you're going outbound Yeah, I can only imagine this is even more difficult because I saw I when I was flipping through your book There was some notes about like gatekeeper and this is all interesting stuff is like classic sales 101 How to deal with this stuff so say you're cold calling somebody sure and you don't have the decision maker Sure, you don't have their information. You don't even know who it is yet. You're just trying to get to that person How do you establish trust is somebody who doesn't even have that problem Yeah, so how do you establish trust on a cold call? Yeah, yeah exactly exactly It's actually easier than the other one. Oh, that's okay. All right So for me, that's like the vein of my existence Like that seems like it would be the harder thing to do Because you the way you've been doing it has triggered a resistance and pain And so he feels painful Our way triggers no resistance and no pain. So here's how it goes. Okay, the typical way is like this. Hi My name is I'm with We are a How are you today or do you have a couple minutes? That's that when you sit at the someone with a typical sales approach. It's over at hello It's over right there because they associate you immediately with The stereotype you know, that's why it's so painful. Here's how we handle a call like that with our mindset and our language it goes like this So let's say the guy piece of the phone is says his name's Scott. Hi Scott My name's Ari And I'm hoping you Can help me out for a moment And You're gonna ask what what Like you know now I'm triggered to say like what of course that's called a two-way dialogue and hello That's how you create a connection because they're gonna they don't know who you are You could be the president could be the tax op you could be a client that human nature When you ask for help is to say how can I help you As long as you deliver it with that tonality and that relax to the calmness if you say hi I'm hoping you help me out for a moment You're dead Cut the energy out remove the pressure remove momentum from your sales process Is that the secret is that is that that seems to be like a thing to come back to remove the momentum Well one of our core principles is the idea of always removing pressure From the process and pressure is created by us The inadvertently puts momentum on them to move them where Towards alcohol our mindset shift is your goal is not to sell Your goal is a truth And trust of whether and we're helped them or not. It's different your rectory So when you shift your mindset you let go of your goal move them forward And you focus on being present with them to create a human connection with them around their problem That crisis bubble of vulnerability with you what they feel comfortable opening up to you And building real trust Real trust is when they feel comfortable telling you their truth Real trust is when they feel comfortable telling you their truth And that's what you got it. That's where you got to get to into that's what I'm in the iceberg That's what you got to get to on every sales call you have Other while you're skimming the top playing what I call the numbers game you know the numbers game concept I know the numbers game concept the volume of diversity Dial for dollars the more contacts you make the more sales you're gonna make That's like so in 1980s man. We discovered it's not about how many contacts you make anymore It's about how deep you go on each conversation now how many calls you make Like a couple other classic ones remember this one The other the the sales always lost at the end of the process. You know you had a deal pending it all look good It just like fell through like what happened it was like the perfect sale We discovered this economy now the sales now lost anymore at the end of the process is now lost at the beginning Of the process at hello And that's why is that the why is that because We think our job is to pull them from a to z down our path as fast as possible because we think the sales being made At the end But what we don't realize is if you're not really in trust with them the beginning of the sales loss right there I'll give you sample. I'll give you sample using our approach Let's say you're having a first call somebody over the farm. Okay, either inboundally whatever referral great conversation a good chemistry Let's look at good fit all that they're interested in the call kind of comes to a close after your first call What do we normally say to someone and then call like that we say in sales we say things like hey, how about we Set up a call for another like set up the next call whatever. He said yeah, yeah, we're in big condition over the years to move things Forward Well, what happens if you attempt to move someone forward and they aren't ready yet in the beginning What do you break with them right there early on? Well, you're gonna you're gonna they're gonna push back. They're gonna not they're not they're not they're gonna either They're gonna lie about jumping on the next call saying like yeah sure whatever because they they feel pressure to do that um And they'll either jump on it and then have no and then ghost after that or they'll just they'll just not show up to the next call correct That's the cycle of pain begins right there Because they feel pressure from you that breaks the trots. So same scenario But our mindset and our languages, okay calls going well good chemistry could be a fit call comes through close right Saying hey, how about we We're forward, but we say instead is this we say where do you think we should go from here There Very very very clever you just throw back to them. He's always throw back to them. You're letting them set their own pace It's not about me It's about them and when you say to somebody where do you think we should go from here They're usually in a state of Shock They can't believe Somebody in business will actually ask them what they want to do. They're so used to being Pulled down the process. They know a mile away. It's over right there. We're like man Sale socks. It's like so painful. It's so hard because You're still selling from the old conditioning that you believe the goal is the next step That's not the goal The goal is for them to say for them to say themselves man He just gets me He understands my issue. I feel something about just you know when you meet someone he and they just totally get you like man He just that's what you I doubt you but you Whoever listen to this has to learn how to do is a new skill set You don't know it now because if you're still selling haven't talking about today. You're still in the old mindset Now You mentioned okay, so let's see what do we cover? We've covered we've covered building trust We've covered slowing down momentum the difference between trust and relationship um What other parts of the traditional sales cycle are broken So I don't know if it's negotiation if it's closing if it's demo like what else and also like What else do you work on like are you are you redefining like the whole process? Is that your thing? Is that like what you're working on right now? And that's what you help clients with or is there a certain thing you specialize in? Ice everything broken Fundamentally, yes, but I specialize in one specific area And that is sales conversion only Okay, how to convert the currently that you have In one single Conversation No multiple steps no follow-up no next steps. It's called the one call sale system I'm writing a book on that right now and I'm teaching this to my private clients and they're loving it I set the bar for my private clients at a hundred percent Conversion on every call if the person's qualified If explain that though because if there's other steps is like you have to have PO if there's a PO issued Yeah, I don't mean like a sign contract. I mean the verbal yeah, we're gonna move forward Okay, okay, okay on the first call not 20 calls steps later Yeah, cuz I like I'm just thinking like I'm traditional enterprise B to B sales like yes You have all your steps you have all your steps mapped out, you know every step is next step in the buyers Like that's very normal So what is this one one call closed this seems like it's it's insane for somebody comes from an enterprise space It's think like I could ever close a deal in one call So how do you get through all those steps psychologically you built the trust and then How do you get them through to close? So that means you're hitting you're hitting discovery demo negotiation and closing like this one No, there's no demo. No, no, I'm just saying that you're you're I'm going through all the steps that I I know I know because you those steps Our steps we think We have to do To build trust I'm for a bomb here in saying that all those long sales cycles the reason for a long sales cycle Is because of a lack of trust If you had built not you but if you can build enough trust with some a decision maker On our first conversation There is no long sales cycle The reason we are in those cycles right now is because we've messed it up early on We did the whole relationship thing. We did a demo early on We didn't we we're with the doctor. We are the sales guy Hence why we're now stuck in a long sales cycle chasing ghosts. In fact, I'll I'll just for fun I'm gonna ask your listeners and the viewers right now take a verbal oath with me To not legal and verbal one to remove one key phrase forever From the vocabulary as of this recording and never used ever again in the world of sales now this might hurt just a bit For those folks who've been in sales for a long time. Is that all right Yeah, do it. I love it. I love it. Listen if it works. I don't think anyone's going to push back You just got to challenge people they got to put for anybody who's listening to this Like a lot of stuff that you you know that are you talking about it? It's some of it makes sense like immediately like the like the fact that you're You know, you're going like with your five wise and getting people to open up and you're not just taking surface level Information then you're and you're pushing them into it almost like an uncomfortable but very Candid conversation about the pain points. I think it's very important. I think that this is one call close to me like If somebody can try it out and I'm gonna try it out I'm gonna try some of these steps probably read more into the book and see if I can do it with some of my clients It's it's an uncomfortable thing to think about because obviously If you ever done large ticket deals This is something that has never been discussed ever It's not something that is normally ever taught in any sales book ever the one call anything I can see it for a smaller deal. That's pretty standard But for larger it doesn't make a lot of sense So I've got to try it out but the point is If you don't try it out you never know So I am a firm believer in experimenting and trying different things So if you have one if you have one line that you think everybody get rid of right away Like let's do it. Let's try it. Let's see what the results are I'm just a data guy like if it works it works. I'm fine Here it is. I'm gonna ask everyone To never again use this phrase after this recording for the rest of their lives and here it is Never again use the phrase Follow up ever again in your sales career All right And if I if I had them all in the room, I asked to raise their hand How many of you users were followed in the last few weeks? I have every hand going up Who's willing to email? I'm ready to follow up. Hi, I'm calling to follow up. What's the only industry in the world to use the word to follow up? Sales Hi, I'm just calling to follow up on else cover It's like you're killing your own sale They're associating you with the negative sales person stereotype Because follow ups has I'm trying to move things where Follow It's my goal. This is the commission in my sale You're losing the sale right there. There's a few more classics from the 80s. Remember those classic ones. I'm giving you call to Touch base touch base follow up checking in Like what are next steps like oh my god. It's so 80s and we're so stuck in that old conditioning with that old language in which Kills the trust. Here's what you say instead. This is right for our materials. You say I'm just giving you call to see if you have any Feedback from our previous conversation Any feedback from our last meeting any feedback from proposal see feedback's not going forward. It's going where Backwards away from the sale When you move forward you create momentum when you create momentum you put pressure on them When you put pressure on them you're chasing a ghost Plendid numbers game If you want to live in that world and chase that painful situation All the power to you But there'll be certain people on this call who go holy crap Where was already 20 years ago 10 years ago? Why am I still stuck and playing the numbers game when I could just shift with the whole thing And playing in a lower volume higher conversion rate model And not chasing ghosts anymore and it's totally doable. I'm doing it right now my private class and they're they're kicking ass Interesting very interesting and then I want you to just give a little bit more context on the How do you how do you because everything you've mentioned so far is all about not pushing things forward slowing down momentum So that in mind How do you do a one-call close when everything you're doing is not pushing things forward? Okay, so on that I'm not doing conversation. There's no pressure You're not you're not there's no close in our world only open Okay, and so there's no pressure you don't pressure them to buy or say yes on that call Because if you do it right now, it's funny. You said that it's uncomfortable and Awkward to do this now. It might be for people who are used to the old Relationship rubbish holders thing, but the clients not uncomfortable He's like this is great Finally Someone is willing to understand me. He's he's loving it. It just uncomfortable for us to us is new It's it's new story But what I'm trying to say is if you go down the iceberg like I talked about earlier today And you asked that question that I asked in that sequence And then you asked in permission would you would you be open to have me walking through How we can help you with this and then you create what I call I develop a unique piece of IP Which is a game changer called a sales roadmap Which is a visual Flow tool that you would show the prospect on your call Of how you go about solving the problem. So it's it's difference. It's a meta step It's not like showing your demo your product or or discussing your services or your coaching program or your your marketing It's not pitching your solution. It's a step between that it's called It's like as a visual roadmap where you walk them through the process for how you solve their problem And you show them this visual tool and they're basically buying from you the roadmap Because all they really want to know is Do you have a process to solve their problem? They're and are you the one to do it? They really don't care about like the details Of how you track the website and how you do the statistics and and how your software works They're really not interested in that now We think they are see we've been conditioned and believe that we show my solution. That's great. They're gonna love it But of course, and that happens what happens from them. They say well, let me think about it Let me take it for me That's why you have to lay off the idea that your goal is to show them your solution It's not is to show them you have a roadmap to solve their problem Because they're trusting you that your solution will solve their problem for that So when you walk into that process of the roadmap and you say to them You know, what are your thoughts on the roadmap? And they look at the thing going that makes sense that makes sense that makes sense And you say to them this you say when that one take they they're on board you say What do you think we should go from here? They and they on their own on their own say to you here it comes How do we move forward with you? You like oh my god no energy no resistance no pressure Because you handle them with respect And you stripped out everything it sales oriented And I'm gonna call you the doctor pretty soon Okay, I want to just I'm gonna get closing thoughts from you on on sales And then I want to ask you some rapid fire for real question, but just to close off this piece biggest biggest misconception in sales What is it and How do you want sales to how do you want to impact sales? What do you want your legacy to be on the world of sales? Okay, so the real shift here is not viewing your prospects as targets Instead You view them as human beings people who have problems People who want to trust someone to solve their problem And when you think from that perspective Then you become more authentic You become more human you take off what I call your sales armor that you bring to work every day You know the sales armor we have around us to bring from the bullets going our way to fight the fight We're like yeah, let's get going that we tear ourselves up. We'll get that fall right Because we're so used to the fight The resistance and that wall around us makes us less authentic If you can learn how to strip away that wall and be your natural self with people and really be empathetic And here it comes and this is my goal my mission is to have people who sell Help their people they're trying to help feel that they care about them How's that for novel having your prospect feel that you care about them At a level where they can trust you and that's the missing piece of the equation There's never been taught in the history of selling Is how to build that moment with people and in that moment's build you have a client for life amazing um if people want to Grab your book check out more of your stuff website social all that stuff where's it to go look real simple Just go to unlock the game calm all my books are there Free and throws there you can grab a contest with us as well to unpack your situation But I also have a live show. I do once a month on LinkedIn called stump the guru Where you can jump in and try to ask me your toughest challenge like you've done with me today And I'll help you coach you there for free as well Just cut with me on LinkedIn very accessible there. Say hello connect tell let me know what you met me here and we'll have a chat Amazing. Okay. Let's do some rapid fire career questions um So You were working for companies you went into your own consulting practice obviously very successful at that now You speak your an author a youtube people had to actually sell properly But the biggest challenge that you've had to overcome in your personal or professional career What was that had you overcome it? Well, I wouldn't say it's a challenge, but I will say it's a moment that made a real shift for me That's and then when I sent you in the mail I want to book says that you was a book called lessons from Toby and when my son was born after but i danced his born We were told that he had down syndrome And at first we didn't know what they meant to our lives when we realized that it gif done her hands You know some of those down syndrome you know how beautiful they are they're so loving they're transparent They're just have no hidden agenda And he's taught me so much about life about being present with people Cleansing with people are the book about him called lessons from Toby How to be centered in your personal business life and he has become our role model our school our mascot like We need to be like him in sales We got to be honest transparent caring Open without a hidden agenda and he has been life changing for me and my clients because he's the inspiration for how we view helping people That's going to dovetail into my second question so you can choose Toby again But the second question is is one person who's had a huge impact on your life who was that and what did they teach you? Well, my problem my dad he was a psychologist Ha ha Not as surprised there right a doctor and one thing he did say to me you always said to me are he If the crowd's going this direction Make sure you go that direction Always be the contrarian and I know right now people listen to this going man. This guy is nuts This is the opposite of how I've been taught to do things over the years And I've learned that the world's big tongue so commoditized today That you can't win the game anymore I'm trying to differentiate your solution because everyone's got similar solutions But if you change the way you sell and you unique approach like this This becomes your differentiation how you become a category for one Um your favorite source to learn or grow podcasts book these recommend people to check out I'd say check out per your marshals 80-20 sales and marketing that really many impact on my thinking in terms of how I run my business and how I think about my ideal client Uh, maybe you can tell your 20-year-old self one thing what would it be? Well, I'll kind of tweet that message a little bit because people have always asked me in this question On them. I remember the conference call I had 20 years ago What would I do if I knew now 20 years ago in that call to have avoided that pain? I went through and I'll kind of use that answer real quick for that And that is the other good And that is that I never would have had the call Because in the first call with the guy Or to unpack their agenda and made a decision whether it was with my time or not to pursue it I like that. That's good um and last question. What does success mean to you? Success means helping as many people as possible My mission is to basically do that to get them out of that as functionality in that process of dehumanizing Himself chasing ghosts and filling our blend of day