I want to tell you about the most powerful sales tactic that I have learned. I never learned it from a book; I actually learned it by accident, and it will be included in the "100 Million Dollar Sales" book when it comes out. So, you heard it here first!
It's a concept that you can do as a salesperson to gain trust, and I stumbled into this. I ended up selling a hundred percent of people after I made this one switch in how I sold, and I was able to teach it to people who'd never sold before, and they were able to close 80 to 90 percent of people who were coming in the door. Mind you, this is a retail environment selling physical products.
So, rewind the clock: I was selling supplements at my gym, and the way that we would sell supplements is that we'd sell some sort of service package, and then we'd do a nutrition orientation. At the nutrition orientation, we'd actually set them up with their meal plans and then make recommendations for products. Now, normally, I would sell pretty well, but I still always wanted to sell more and get better.
We had killed this launch for like a new challenge or something, and we had a hundred new customers come in. I ran out of one of the key products. I had ladies come in the first half of the day and were able to get the products, and then some of their friends who signed up with them came in the second half of the day and were like, "Hey, my friend Sandy told me that I need X, Y, and Z.
" I was like, "Oh, we don't have Z anymore," and it was really awkward. So rather than me try and skirt around this clear item that was on the list that I didn't have, I said, "Hey, by the way, you can get this one for cheaper down the street at Costco. You don't need to get this one from me.
This one's a little better, but I think it'll get the job done; you can get this one after you've done the program. " They were like, "Oh, thanks! That was cool.
" After I made that one cross-out, I was like, "But you do want this and this from us," and they were like, "Okay, cool. " As soon as I made that switch from saying, "Hey, you don't need to buy this one; you can get that from over there," everyone bought what I recommended afterward, and I was like, "Whoa! " Then I leaned into that and thought, "I wonder if I could do more of that so I could sell even more on the back side.
" So then I had two products that I was like, "Hey, you can get this and this over here. Get this brand; it should be at this price. You can go get it, and it'll save you 10 or 20 bucks.
" They were like, "Wow! Even better! " Then I remember I looked at my list, and there was a lady that it was like a mass gainer, and she obviously wasn't trying to gain mass.
I was like, "You're not trying to gain mass, are you? " and she said, "No. " I was like, "You can just cross that out.
You don't need to worry about that. " I gave her recommendations for two things that she could get for cheaper, and then I said, "You don't need to worry about this. " When I said, "Hey, I need you to take two of these in the morning, and take three of these next to this.
Put this in your car so you always have it with you," I closed everyone! What that gave birth to was something that I used to call "sacrificial lambs," but now I call "ghost products" because it sounds better. Over time, I ended up not even carrying the products that I had on there that I was recommending out because they were so powerful as a sales tool for me to gain trust from the other person.
This is an incredibly, incredibly powerful tactic. And like all persuasion, the difference between manipulation and help is intention. If you want to help someone, you are manipulating them, but you're just doing it with positive intent.
Now, if you change someone's behavior and you have negative intent, then you are manipulating them. If you believe in the stuff that you sell, you can create an environment where someone will trust you faster by giving them a reason to trust you. That means that you act in their self-interest rather than your own so that they can feel like you're not trying to take advantage of them.
Now, if you know that they need this stuff but they don't yet know that they need it, then you can make a concession using a ghost product or a sacrificial lamb so that you can gain their trust faster. If you feel uncomfortable about not having the product on your menu, then feel free to carry a product and never sell it if you like, but I realized quickly that I was never selling it, and I was always giving those ones away. If you're going to use this tactic, my recommendation is to make the products that you send across the street to be the ones that are the lowest margin.
Gain trust by giving away the low-margin stuff, and then keep the high-margin stuff for yourself so that people trust you, and then they buy that stuff. So, if you're in an environment where you sell multiple. .
. Products, this has been the most effective way that I've learned to sell. What you want to do is give someone a vision of what their life is going to be like when they're experiencing the benefits.
So you want to explain to them exactly how to take it. Before you make the ask, what we would do is say, "Hey, this one is going to help you do [benefit]. " The way that I need you to take it is that you're going to take two of these in the morning.
Then I ask a question, and I'm like, "What do you do every day, no matter what, in the morning? Do you wake up and smoke a cigarette? Do you drink a cup of coffee?
Do you take a shower? Like brush your teeth? What's something you do every morning?
" And then they say, "Well, I brush my teeth every morning. " I'm like, "Cool! So I don't want you to put this in your cupboard because you'll forget about it.
I want you to put it next to your toothbrush so we don’t have to make a new habit. " They’re like, "Oh. " And what I want you to do is take a piece of tape and put a '2' on it.
I want you to take two of them. We're going to put an extra toothbrush. Got it?
That’s number one. I would go through that with each of the products that I have, and I would say, "Okay, you can have all these; you're good to go. Did you just want to use the cards you have on file?
" Now they don’t have to take their wallet out; they don’t have to make another purchase decision. They just have to say yes. It’s a one-click upsell that is a combination of a prescriptive close and having ghost products to set up trust.
You’re also being a good coach by showing them how they’re going to make this happen. Now, this is obviously a consumption-based product. Any product that you want someone to use, they have to use it at a certain point.
So we want to figure out ways to associate the usage of the product with something they’re already doing. Getting someone to make a new habit is incredibly difficult, and getting someone to break a habit is incredibly difficult. So we just want to piggyback on habits they already have.
That makes you both a better salesperson and a better coach overall if you're trying to help someone. So that kind of selling process—the soft close, getting the trust, and making the prescription—works unbelievably well. Then if, for some reason, the point person’s like, “Well, how much does this cost, blah blah blah?
” then you can say, “Well, are you on a budget? ” And if they're like, “I'm on a budget,” that’s like, “Okay, then would you like me to order these in order of importance and the things that I think you absolutely need to have versus things that’ll just get you more benefits faster? ” What I would then do is take off one and say, “This would be the lowest one I’d remove.
Does this work for you? ” If they're like, “I can't do that,” I’d be like, “Really? Getting into the bare bones here, I could take this one out, but this is what I want you to add to your diet to replace this thing.
” You don't want to show that what you took out isn't important because then it looks like you're selling stuff that doesn’t matter. So these are ingredients, but you’re going to have to eat a shitload of broccoli now. "Alright, so you okay with that?
" "You know what, I’ll just get the thing. " “Okay, cool. ” Now it’s back in.
Hopefully, when you’re selling something, you’re trying to solve a problem. If they don’t buy the thing, then you reintroduce the problem you're solving. So it’s like, “Hey, I don’t want you to have to eat a pound of broccoli, which is why I had this.
” They’re trusting me to make the prescription because that’s why they’re paying you for expertise. Then you can pause and say, “Well, are there things that are your old identity that you’re going to stop doing as a result of doing this program? Are you going to go out less?
Are you going to drink less? Are you going to smoke less? Or you’re going to whatever?
” Lastly, I’m like, “Cool, well, how much of that do you do? ” “Cool, we just found some money! Don’t worry about it.
Let’s associate this with these new activities and a new identity. ” If this sounds really smooth, I’ve done this a lot of times; you’ll get used to it. I think one of the best gifts you can have is trying to tack yourself into an existing sales process of a big business.
So if you work at a business that sells lots of low-ticket stuff—like think car washes, massages, nails, think hair, stuff—where they just see lots of people every day at low tickets, see if you can work with a business owner and incorporate some sort of injection into their sales process so that you can get rep after rep after rep after rep. It will teach you more about the skill of selling and dealing with people than any course ever will, and it will equip you for whatever you want to sell for the rest of your life. It’s one of the best things I ever did—doing tons and tons of transactions at low tickets—so that when I got to selling higher-ticket, more expensive stuff, I was like, “Oh my God, this is a breeze.
” If you sold services, let’s say you sold web design services and you had like a. . .
Here's the text with perfect punctuation: Laundry list of stuff you could say: "Hey, we can do this, but it's not necessarily our core capability, and it would probably cost you more if we did it because we'd have to allocate more resources. There are guys in the Philippines that will do it for you; I've got a connection I can talk to you about after this call. If you really want to be sneaky about it, if you're the owner—it's harder if you're a salesperson.
Owners tell your salespeople this: You can have it seem like they're leaning on their side of the table to be like, 'Hey man, you don't need to worry about this. Just I'll hook you up with a number of a guy. ' Then the salesperson becomes incredibly trusted and seems like they're on that side of the table.
But what the person doesn't know is that they're trying to sell the other stuff. At the end of the day, the goal as a salesperson is to move to their side of the table. If you start the conversation across the table, the goal is to end shoulder to shoulder so that you're both looking at the decision together with the same information to make the best decision for the person.
So if you can walk yourself around the table psychologically, this is one of the fastest ways to do it.
