The Complex Sales Arsenal Introduction I call the following techniques persuasive weapons of mass conversion for a reason. These are expert level techniques we’ve used to close hundreds of clients. Be sure to implement every single one when conducting sales calls. Print out this resource, pin up every page and read it every single day until these techniques are optimal defaults in your sales approach. Weapon 1: Silence Silence is by far the most potent sales weapon you can use. It’s very simple. When you ask your prospect a question, shut up. Do not talk over people, do not butt in or interfere with their sentences, regardless of how muddled they are. When you ask a question, just shut up. Let them finish speaking, give them a couple of seconds of silence, then ask your next question. Most people are incredibly uncomfortable with silence, and when we allow prospects silence to talk, they will reveal more and more about themselves and their current situation and we can later leverage this to close the deal. You will notice if you give your prospects a couple of seconds of silence after their answer, they will start filling that silence with more information. If the prospect gives you an unsatisfactory response, just stay quiet until they tell you more. E.g. ‘What marketing are you doing right now?’... ‘Uh, I don’t really know’... (be quiet and they’ll start to tell you more). Silence also makes the prospect worry their answer isn’t good enough for you. Weapon 2: Non Judgement No matter what you do, never judge the prospect. Remain unbiased in every way. If you think they can’t afford it, don’t. If you think they have too much money and are too big for you, don’t. If they say something you deem stupid or if you disagree with what they’re doing, don’t say anything and don’t judge them internally either. Your internal judgement will lead you to subconsciously skew the call in the direction of your judgement, so if before a call you think ‘this guy definitely won’t buy now’, then you’ll steer the call in that direction. DON’T JUDGE. The second the prospect gets wind of the fact we are judging them is the second their ego barriers fly up. When this happens the prospect is no longer on the call to invest in change, but instead they are now going to just protect their ego. Weapon 3: Let them sweat the gravity of their situation (never solve) We are going to be asking the prospect difficult questions about their problems, pains and desires. When we do this, we naturally dredge up negative emotions and anxiety in the prospect’s mind. It is this pain that will motivate them to buy from us. Do not solve this pain, do not coach, and do not, for god’s sake, start ‘adding value’. We need the prospect to sweat the gravity of their situation and sit with the weight of their agony. You are not on the call to solve their problems, coach them or make their pain go away. Imagine being a doctor conducting a consultation with someone with heart disease. You’re not going to tell them to ‘not worry about it’, as this will get the patient to calm down and decide against doing anything about it. Weapon 4: Raw, unwavering confidence Sales is the transfer of emotion. If you radiate doubt, your prospect will be doubtful. If you radiate raw, unfiltered confidence, your prospect will be confident. Confidence is by far my biggest asset in sales. This all comes down to having a damn good product and having confidence it can truly help someone. If you know you can help them, muster up all the confidence you can and make it clear you have absolute conviction in your ability to help them. This should only apply when pitching or when handling objections. Weapon 5: Patience Do not rush your call for the sake of ‘efficiency’ or ‘respecting their time’. If you want to really respect their time, conduct the call in a patient, professional manner. If a prospect says they don’t have 45 minutes, reschedule for a time when they do. Do not rush the process, keep a calm, collected and patient attitude. If you start skipping questions or jumping to the end before the prospect is ready, the sale will never close. Accept that each call is going to take at least 60 minutes and block out a full hour for each one. If you have events scheduled to start immediately after, you’ll rush through the call and botch it. Weapon 6: Work a straight line Hold focus and hold your line of questioning. Do not allow the call to go off on a tangent for the sake of ‘rapport’ or ‘adding value’. Stick to your questions, keep saying ‘OK’ in response to their answers and move through in a methodical, pragmatic manner. Doing this makes you look extremely professional and serious about growing their business. Business owners will recognise you have a proper sales process and this will give them confidence in your agency. Don’t jump in talking about sports games or FB ads, just say OK and move on. Weapon 7: Reframing If you are uncertain about a prospect's answer, frame it back to them to make sure you fully understand. Our sales process revolves around having a very solid understanding of the prospect and where they’re at, so don’t be afraid to say something like this… “OK, just to make sure that I understand. You’re currently using Facebook ads, but it’s not working well for you. You just started email marketing, that’s not going too well either, and you need a company to take care of both for you, is that right?”. Reframing demonstrates that you’ve listened to them and it will really help them in opening up to you. Weapon 8: Ego-Evasion & Belief Breaking questions A lot of your sales calls will end in a no. This usually happens because the prospects' beliefs aren’t aligned with yours, or they don’t believe that what you do will work for them. You may believe it, but getting them to believe it is quite a task. If you directly challenge their beliefs, their ego barrier will fly up and they’ll never come down. If you want someone to accept a belief that you have, the easiest way to do it is through intelligent questioning. Understand that the prospect will not listen to your ideas or advice until they’ve actually bought from you, so there is no point in trying to convince them of your way of thinking directly. If we are too direct with our approach and ‘tell’ the prospect what they should believe or think, we won’t get anywhere. Use questions that, by the prospect answering them, undermine their belief and shatter their paradigm around it. E.g. In Imperium one common objection is ‘I don’t want a Program, I want done for you’... “OK John, let me ask you a question about that. You’ve just told me on this call that appointment setting is the most important thing to achieving your goal of $40k per month and don’t yet have the knowledge of how to do it. I understand you want to outsource this. Tell me how that’s going to work for you?” E.g. “Facebook Ads don’t work for me” “OK Claire, I get you, help me understand here. What specifically about Facebook ads doesn’t work for your business?” E.g “I don’t trust marketing agencies” “I totally understand. Do you think it’s possible there is an agency out there built to serve clients with their best interests in mind?” … “I guess…” “That’s exactly why I started ___ media”. Weapon 9: Put all your focus on diagnosing, not closing Release all attachment to the yes and put all your attachment onto accurately diagnosing where the prospect is at and where they want to be. Forget all about the close until you’ve established whether or not you can actually help someone. Weapon 10: ‘OK’ When your prospect answers your question, simply say ‘OK’ and move on to your next question. This acknowledges that we’ve heard their answer and it does not add any bias to the prospects mind. Do not add anything to the prospect's answer when you are asking them questions, just let them answer, give it a few seconds and say OK. If you start chipping in with your opinion or ideas, the train of thought of the prospect will be skewed and it’s impossible for us to learn the truth about their situation if we add our own bias to it. Weapon 11: Audio I prefer audio to video calls. This is up to you. I find just audio allows me to focus more on the sale and allows me to use silence as a better weapon.
