How We Went From $0 to 8-Figures in 8 Months With Bryan Ostermiller

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0:00 Scaling 8-figure sales teams
0:42 How we launched an 8-figure business in 8 months
2:11 Selling in 2021 vs. 2024
6:38 Scaling quickly vs. slowly and team debt
8:07 Building a leadership culture and team loyalty
11:58 Coaching to alleviate performance blind spots
22:51 Defining transactional vs. relational sales
25:09 Ramp process and assessing feedback loops
47:23 Addressing prospects' past trauma and hesitations
50:39 Handling the "let me talk to my spouse" objection
56:04 Handling price and competitive objections
1:08:07 Handling method/past failure objections
1:11:50 Supportive vs. direct objection handling styles
1:15:00 Turning nerves into a decision-making tool
1:21:36 Showing genuine belief in your prospect
1:30:57 The financial objection framework
1:44:04 Leading with fun and culture

Transcript

SPEAKER_05 0:00

So in this podcast, I speak with Brian Ostermiller. We partnered together on creating four different A or multiple eight-figure sales teams. And so we go over sales leadership, building setter teams, building closure teams, how to scale up, promoting sales managers, and then a ton of objection handle at the end. So you're gonna love this podcast. Together we've created four eight-figure sales teams, at least eight-figure run rates in the sales teams, three on the medical side, then of course RCA, which is the sales certification. At its peak, it did about $20 million a year. So uh I want you to bring me back to your memory of RCA, how it started, and uh, you know, really the journey. We got that to uh a million a month in about eight months, and what that journey was like.

SPEAKER_04 0:42

Yeah, bro. I mean, the first memory that pops in my mind is you calling me while you were brushing your teeth on a Sunday morning. I was like, I need to do something else, and I had tried calling you, and then you called me back on a Sunday morning, and you were like, dude, I'm brushing my teeth, but I'm giving you a call back. And it was so casual. I was like, dude, I need to do something else. You already had the funnel in mind and had it built. That was like December 14th of 2020, and then we put ads live two weeks later, and so we went from like first conversation to rip and calls two weeks, and then month one, I think by myself I collected like 80 grand. Yeah, it's a hundred, eighty to a hundred grand, and dude, the beginning was just scrappy, like like I think people probably think we had like a big master plan of like what was gonna happen, what we were gonna do. But it was much more like dude, I'm let's hire a setter, let's try it. Yeah, hire setter one, dude. Let's hire two. And then our first closer was a guy that I closed into RCA, and it was like, dude, let's try bringing on another closer. So the first three months was just like, let's try this, let's do this, let's try this, and it snowballed so so so quick, yeah, at the beginning.

SPEAKER_05 2:11

How much different for people who have B2C types offerings? How much different was running it back then in 20 in 2021 at the peak of COVID, opposed to let's say 2024? Jeez, dude.

SPEAKER_04 2:24

I mean, just like the sheer amount of like access to financing, credit, disposable income, like ads being not as aggressive, like the entire playing field was different. People had more liquidity, there was easier financing, the industry was new, and so there was a lot of like green energy. Nobody was working, nobody was working.

SPEAKER_05 2:49

The idea of remote work was new.

SPEAKER_04 2:51

Yeah, so it was kind of like we were like the hottest idea with the hottest product in the hottest market with the hottest up-and-coming team imaginable.

SPEAKER_05 3:01

Yeah, and you know what's interesting because people say we're in a K-shaped economy now, and so what's funny is if you're on the B2B side, you can actually still experience a lot of growth. Whereas if you're on the B2C side, I feel like it's only got harder and harder and harder. And a lot of people, a huge percentage of their deals are just financing now. Yeah. If you could even make that work, because it's like tough to even make the financing work.

SPEAKER_04 3:24

Also, like the fourth wall of like B2C has been broken down. Like when we launched RCA, people prospects like really believed like I'm getting on a strategy call or a coaching call. People didn't have the understanding of like I'm entering a funnel, like it was all so new to consumers, also.

SPEAKER_05 3:44

And that's partly because because of COVID and so many people coming online, the higher the market entrance velocity, the more you're gonna get a feeling like that because it's their first time even experiencing anything in the market. Yeah, you know? So, what do you think out of the things that we did in that first eight months to get to a million a month, which was very fast, what are the things you think we did well? And then also what do you think of the things we did not so well?

SPEAKER_04 4:10

Well, I mean, dude, we were just so dang aggressive.

SPEAKER_05 4:15

Yeah. Like that's an understatement.

SPEAKER_04 4:17

Yeah, I think what really like separated us from a lot of people that I've seen is like we had zero doubt in our mind that we were going to get there. Like a lot of business owners that I talk to, it's like a we'll see if this, then that. For us, it was just an absolute, like it's gonna happen by hell or high water. And we did a phenomenal job at not slowing down, and it's interesting because like common logic would be like don't grow that fast, like stair step your way up. But in a way, I think how fast we grew was like perfect with where the market was at and where we were at and how much energy we had and the season of life that we were in, like we had an advantage and we pressed it hard.

SPEAKER_05 5:05

If you're looking for a mastermind to take your business to 10 million a year plus, then you want to check out our eight-figure border mastermind. So after doing 100 million in total cash collected for my own companies, I've created a mastermind where I really pull back the curtain and show you exactly how I've done it. So I not only share with you what's working for us across marketing, sales, fulfillment, operations, finance for all of our different companies, at the same time you can network with some of the top people in the industry and also listen to world-class speakers like Patrick David, Dean Grassiosi, Neil Patel, and Tom Bailu, and many, many others. So if you're interested, check out the link in the description and get more info. Yeah, I remember that time being very angry. And I remember being like, we deserve, it wasn't like, oh, I hope we can get to a million a month with this. It was like, we deserve this. Uh-huh. It's like this needs to fucking happen. Yeah. And uh obviously that level of aggression paid off. So what do you think of the mistakes that we made though?

SPEAKER_04 5:58

The downside to going so fast is you lose track of people very easily. Yeah. Super, super easily. So I would say all of the mistakes we made at the beginning centered around not like taking care of clients as well as we could have and not taking care of the people on the team as well as we could have. I think we like for me, but I think both of us had this still kind of like if we're gonna run a million miles an hour, we expect everybody else to run a million miles an hour. Yeah. Which it doesn't work long term very well.

SPEAKER_05 6:33

And and you pay and you have to pay off when you grow that fast in operational and kind of like a team debt, right? From the scale. Like that debt has to get paid down. If you do it slowly, you do it slowly. If you do it quickly, you do it quickly. I still like to do it quickly because at the end of the day, um, at least you're capitalizing on the arbitrage opportunity that you have, which it's like when stuff is going really, really well, it's just much easier, in my opinion, to just put your foot on the gas and try to get to that level of critical mass and revenue and then figure out the operations as you go and then like patch it back up as you're stabilized, opposed to this like really slow scaling. And then the other thing is too is you also don't even know what systems to build until you start to stress and break the systems. Yeah. So you actually end up with better operations that way, anyways, unless you, you know, or it does require you breaking a few eggs to make the omelet, so to speak.

SPEAKER_04 7:28

And momentum breeds momentum, like it's really hard, like especially for salespeople, when it's like stop and go of like, all right, we're growing, we're pushing, we're scaling ad spend, and then it's like we're we're staying that kind of like stop and go. It's it takes a lot of momentum to go from the sitting, standing still, like maintaining the same revenue to getting everybody going.

SPEAKER_05 7:51

Yeah, well, I would say we didn't have any churn at all until we were at that one to 1.5 million a month mark, and then we had all the churn all at once.

SPEAKER_00 8:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 8:01

And then we back down and then back up. Uh-huh. You know, story of RCA. So uh one of the things that during that time I always admired about you is that a lot of the reps or CSMs, just team in general that worked for you, it was almost like you had a cult-like following in terms of like you were able to develop the leadership with those people to where they just wanted to follow you, you know, in into the battle. Yeah. Right? So, like, how did you do that?

SPEAKER_04 8:29

I think, dude, I took, I still do, and especially then took very seriously, I'll only be able to lead people to the degree that I've led myself. And that's like pretty words, but I think like the whole team saw this story arc of Brian of like he built his first business at 21. We watched him go through a divorce, we watched him like rise out of the ashes, and I think that the top of it is I was doing all of the things myself that I was asking them to do, and I was doing it extremely well. Like, my fitness was on point, my life was on point, my routines were on point, and then I also just constantly led by example. Like, if I saw the team making the same mistake on calls, it wasn't hey, go do this differently, it was I'm gonna go do a call, and I'm gonna show you how to do it, and then you're gonna learn from me. And so it was just this constant reinforcement of not like a prideful, I'm better, but like I want to continually show you why I have the authority and credibility to lead. It's not just me being a tyrant, like my bar is up here, and I'm trying to help you live and perform at the same bar that I'm maintaining.

SPEAKER_05 9:46

And what do you think really creates like the buy-in and the loyalty that you get from those people?

SPEAKER_04 9:53

When I grew and changed, like I wanted every person that worked for me so truly to have everything that they wanted. Because, dude, what I saw for myself closing is like the minute one aspect of life started to get shaky and fall out of place, closing would start to have a lagging effect. Right. And so part of it was selfish, of like, if I can keep all of these people dialed in in every aspect of their life, I know that they're going to continually show up and perform. And then the other part of it was like, I just knew intuitively if I'm gonna have these people work with me for the long term, I need to help them see that this is a part of them living their dream life, not just making some dollars. And so I put so much energy into their relationships, their health, their fitness, their connections, if they were having fun or not. Like, I think half the vacations our team took was because I was like, dude, you need to go spend some money and have fun. And I really took ownership over wanting to make sure their life was holistically great, not just that they were making money and closing well, and there that created an immense amount of bond. Because I just always was leaned into like what are the details of their life.

SPEAKER_05 11:12

And what do you think? I mean, because the way I think about it is when you're when you have your team members, especially a sales team, but it could be really any team, there's always the same way as it is in sales, there's where they are now versus where they want to be, right? And the closer they get to that gap of feeling like, okay, I've learned everything I can learn in this position under this leadership, once they close that gap, it's basically a ticking time bomb for when they turn.

SPEAKER_00 11:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 11:39

Right? So your job as a leader is to always, number one, expand their vision. And it could be professionally and personally, like you were saying, because somebody could actually be like, okay, I'm making 25 grand a month as a closer, closing's going really well. But the reason I really like being led by you is I am growing as a person, I'm growing outside of my life in ways that I don't feel like I could under other leadership, right? So it can be a personal thing or a professional thing. But that's what I always try to teach our managers is like you constantly have to like, like if I'm doing a call review with somebody, naturally, I'm widening the gap and showing them things that they're not seeing.

SPEAKER_00 12:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 12:16

And like your job as a leader is to alleviate those blind spots performance. Because people, let's say it's a salesperson, the deals they should be closing or not and then and that they're not closing isn't because they know what the problem is and they don't know the solution. It's a lot of times because they're misdiagnosing the problem itself.

SPEAKER_01 12:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 12:33

And so if you can alleviate the blind spot, it creates that gap. And the other thing is too, like you've probably had this where you got a piece of coaching and you were like, oh, like that's what it is. So that like you that insight kind of creates the gap.

SPEAKER_00 12:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 12:48

And then you get this tension and this drive and this excitement to like, dude, I want to take that next call so I can implement what I just learned to like use that to again chase that better version of yourself. Does that make sense? 100%. Yeah. That's kind of the way I think about it.

SPEAKER_04 13:02

Yeah, and there's just I think when you've gone through that process of like hyper-analyzing and hyper-criticalizing your own calls and performance, and like you have the own standard, like you set your own standard of like, let's aim for perpet perfection and see if we can get there. There's always gonna be something for them to improve on. Like I it's one out of a thousand calls that you'll review where it's like, dude, I don't see a single thing that could have been better.

SPEAKER_05 13:30

Right. But then that's only with that one particular prospect in that one moment. Yep. That same prospect in a different moment, they're not as good. Or with a different prospect, they completely fall apart. Yeah. So I've never had a rep where I feel like I've taught them everything I could teach them just because it's it's so hard to get to that hyper idealistic level of performance. Yeah. You know, what do you think? Because you could solve it a lot of people too. What do you think most people get wrong with leadership in general?

SPEAKER_04 13:57

I think the biggest thing, dude, is they just assume that people are gonna do their job and be happy. Like I don't like to do that. They just they assume that they people they're not gonna have to do any work. Yeah. I mean, like, it sounds silly, but that really is it. Like, the amount of times I've like diagnosed looking at one-on-ones, meeting structure, scorecards, and it's like, dude, you kind of just hired them and set them in motion and expected them to stay in motion and happy, and then things crumble and fall apart. But like very few business owners and managers like fully lean into leading people, they're usually much more like head in the clouds with like what's the next marketing thing, what's the next hook, what's the next angle, and they just lose track of taking care of people.

SPEAKER_05 14:44

Yeah. And I and I think it goes two ways. There's two types of hires you can make. If you're hiring somebody that is not within your wheelhouse or your skill set, and you're hiring them to really come in and figure it out, right? That's very different than, you know, obviously if you're hiring a sales rep as a sales manager, like you should be an expert in that and you need to be an active role in developing that person. Like if I hired, let's say, a CTO, you know, I'm not gonna be able to review their code and be like, oh, you know, you're here, but you could have gotten here. Now I can still help lead them personally and professionally in their leadership and their communication, certain things like that, right? But it's not gonna be a tactical level. But anyways, most people, at least in our industry, if you're hiring a sales rep, like you probably know how to sell your thing. You might not be the world's best sales rep, but you know how to sell your thing better than probably they know how to sell it because you're just the expert in doing it.

SPEAKER_00 15:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 15:36

You know, and that's why I always also tell people it's like you don't have to be the best salesperson in the world, you just have to be pretty damn good at selling your specific thing, which is not that big of a mount in the climb. Yeah, but once you climb that, it becomes so much easier to train the reps. Yeah, you know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_04 15:51

But even with the CTO, like the more energy you put into being connected with them, well, yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_05 15:57

I'm still saying you want to be invested personally, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 15:59

You're gonna have to you start to see the leading indicators, and you're not just having someone randomly quit on you all the time.

SPEAKER_05 16:06

Yeah, and I think too, like, people want their sales team to be like a funnel where it's just like I set it up and it works. But the the thing with people, or teams, and this is really the main two teams in our industry that are like this is your fulfillment-based service team and then your sales team, right? But it could go for any team, but to get performance out of a sales team or fulfillment team, it requires energy in as the input to get to get performance out. Whereas like a funnel requires ad spend in to get performance out. Yeah. Right? So I think that frustrates people because, especially marketers, because they're like, I just wish my sales team was like my webinar. Yeah. It's like, no, well, you you have to continually like a sales team is the only team in the world that can't perform if uninspired. Uh-huh. So like you're like, I always say your accountant could be depressed and on Prozac and you know, doing drugs or whatever. Typically, they could still do your books perfectly and hate your guts in the process.

SPEAKER_00 16:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 16:59

But if a sales team even sometimes, if they get a refund or like a bad text message from somebody they sold, it can totally tank their performance, maybe for the entire week.

SPEAKER_00 17:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 17:09

Right? Just because they have to have that level of inspiration to be able to sell.

SPEAKER_04 17:14

Yeah. And in like high-ticket info space, the people are just as much of the product as the product. Yeah. Doesn't matter how good the course is.

SPEAKER_05 17:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 17:34

With RCA, 80% of the product was the closer, setter, and coach that they were interacting with.

SPEAKER_05 17:42

Right. Well, that's why I always say it's like the quality of your company is determined by the quality of what happens on the front lines. And I define the front lines is all the customer-facing aspects of everything within your company. Yeah. Right. And so what they see, feel, how they interact with the ad, the lead nurture process, the funnel, the setter, the closer, then the onboarding process, then what's the course content look like in conjunction when they're going through the fulfillment process? How does your CSM actually show up and connect with them? But it's all those customer-facing elements. The more you can increase the quality of those, the more the quality of the company increases. Yeah. And in most cases, you know, obviously your course content you can set it up once, your funnel you can set it up once, but all the people aspects of that require constant QC. Big time. You know, it's like if I can stamp one thing on a lot of our clients' foreheads, it's like a QC. I'm like, are you doing QC? Uh-huh. QC. How much QC? Usually not enough.

SPEAKER_04 18:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 18:41

You know?

SPEAKER_04 18:42

Way more than they would think.

SPEAKER_05 18:43

Way more than they would think. So speaking of sales teams, what do you think is the biggest keys to, and you can break this down in sections, but recruiting, hiring, training, ramping, and retaining talent.

SPEAKER_04 18:57

Recruiting? Recruiting's an interesting one. Because for every person I thought was gonna not make it, and I would have bet on it being a risky hire, they did make it. And for every person that I was like, this guy's gonna crush, they didn't make it. And so with recruiting, the biggest thing I've found is there has to be an alignment between what they actually know that they want to accomplish and what the team is doing in and of itself and where the team is going. Like that I would say that's the single biggest common denominator of what I think is going to be a successful hire. I don't really do resumes, I don't really do mock calls as much. Why don't you like mock calls? I know the reason, but people are probably. I think they're a false indicator. False positive, false negative. Yeah. Why is that? Because it's just uh it's like an uneven environment. It's like assuming that because somebody's good at a pickup basketball game at the park, they're ready for the NBA. It's just like, and then often you're gonna project out. It's just I don't I've never seen it as a clear indicator, and it's not an even playing ground of what's gonna actually happen on calls. And people can prep for mock calls, they can like overstudy, over-prep, have everything scripted, and not a fan.

SPEAKER_05 20:16

Well, you know, when I first got my first sales job, I had no experience basically. Outside of selling for my own agency, but I sucked real bad. And the way to get in was the mock call, and I just drilled that mock call like 50 times with a group, like I probably did eight different people, however many, four times each. And which actually was only like a week's worth of preparation. I just like destroyed this freaking mock call. By the time I took it, they were like, that's the best mock call we've ever seen. Then I went one for like 45. In my first two, first month that I have is a closer, one for 45, just absolutely terrible.

SPEAKER_04 20:52

Yeah, the mock call is like assuming because someone got a high score on the test that they're smart.

SPEAKER_05 20:57

Yeah. I'll tell you, there's like five qualities that I look for. Three of them are pretty common sense, two of them aren't. The two that aren't common sense is number one, for a closer especially, you have to have the level of assertiveness. So it's like their ability to challenge somebody's beliefs or challenge their way of thinking or hold people accountable. So they essentially have to be able to uh have a high degree of uh high degree of disagreeableness. Uh-huh. Right? That was a little bit of a tongue twister. The second thing, too, is and this is a thing that a lot of people don't look at is rate of learning. So there was a guy I hired, and I could tell his rate of learning was extremely high based on his past experience, and he had the high assertiveness, but he had no experience selling in our industry, and he didn't even know what our industry was, basically. But he was so assertive and so articulate, and I could tell he picked up stuff so fast. I hired him anyways, and he did really well, ended up being an account manager. Yeah. Right. Then you obviously have buy in, so like the more buy. Like you've had people who they're not necessarily the best, but they're like so bought in and they just work so hard that they just figure it out.

SPEAKER_00 22:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 22:09

Like there's those people. It's like the little train who cook. And then the two things that are more obvious is industry acumen, which is like how well they understand the industry. So like one of my best closers, he was a client success director for a competitor of mine, but he came over and essentially when he started selling, like he didn't really have the sales experience. He was bought in, he had a high rate of learning, he was assertive, but like he, because he was a client success director, he was able to like dice up these people's businesses on the call, no problem.

SPEAKER_00 22:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 22:35

And then the final thing is like the obvious one, which is the actual sales track record, which were a lot of people, and this like I don't know if you've experienced this, this like drives me nuts, is they'll be like, well, this person was really good in insurance.

SPEAKER_00 22:49

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_05 22:49

And I'm like, well, it has to be the same. There's different types of sales. There's relational sales, enterprise like long-term sales, transactional sales, which is really what we do. It doesn't mean you're treating your customer as a transaction. It means that essentially the sales cycle is a month or or less, and then so on and so forth. Relational sales is like real estate agents. Yeah, yeah. You know? So you have to match the type of sales process to whatever you're selling. Yeah. And make sure it's congruent there. Yeah. Because people will get wowed. They'll be like, this guy was great for Salesforce. And I'm like, well, their sales cycle is nine months.

SPEAKER_04 23:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 23:23

You're trying to one call close like a fitness offer.

SPEAKER_04 23:25

Or it's like they closed two million last year, and it's like, I don't even know what that means. Two million. Two million of what and where for what offer.

SPEAKER_05 23:32

Yeah. The most common one I see is, oh, well, this person could be a sales manager because they managed 400 reps at XYZ tech company. Uh-huh. And I'm like, yeah, the product was $500 and it's a SAS and it's like they're just taking orders. Yeah. You know, it's a totally different thing than a high performance sales team that has to be really good because you have to pay back on ads immediately. You know?

SPEAKER_04 23:58

Yeah, I do hyperanalyze like how people show up on the interview, and one of my favorite things to do is like give them pushback on the interview to see how they handle it. And also like how they've diagnosed their past experiences. And so I'll typically ask, like, hey, so you told me your goal is to get to 20 grand a month. Why do you think you haven't gotten there up to this point? What do you think has been the roadblock? Like that question alone tells me whether or not they're a victim or if they're self-aware. Hey, dude, you were with your last company for six months. Why did you actually leave? Gonna tell me how aware they were of like what was actually going on with the team. What do you think of your last manager? Like, those little things are a big deal to me on the interview because however they show up, they're giving me their best on the interview. Right. It's like a first date. Everybody's their best basically on the first date. Yeah. So if I'm not like extremely impressed by them, I already know I got their best. They're not gonna impress me later on.

SPEAKER_05 25:02

I agree. So what do you think about ramping?

SPEAKER_04 25:05

You can do it really fast, or you can have a super drawn-out process that's obnoxiously long. I think you can get any rep ramped in two to three weeks if you meet with them every single day, and in two weeks you're either gonna know they're gonna hit KPI and they're gonna be great here, or you know it's time to let them go.

SPEAKER_05 25:25

And when you say meeting with them, that's as they're taking calls.

SPEAKER_04 25:28

Yeah, every day. Because the biggest thing I'm gauging is like, can I give this person coaching and feedback and can it get implemented? Because if it can, like if I can say, hey, your discovery was way too shallow and short, and then their next call, their discovery's 30% longer, there's only gonna be so much coaching before we get it figured out.

SPEAKER_05 25:49

Right. You're assessing the strength of the feedback loop. Yeah, exactly. I think that in my experience it's similar, and I like to give people um half calendars because I think if you have, you know, if you're taking six or seven calls a day, you tend not to show up at your best at first as much so as if like, like, you know, if you have like three calls and you're like, these are all the three calls I got. I just knew this when I was a closer. On average, I'm gonna close those three calls at a higher percentage. I'm gonna go all out. You know, and and some of it's for no other reason that like I might have like two hours before my next call. Yeah. I'm just gonna like stay on this call for two and a half hours and just figure it out. So I think part of that helps, but it's like I like to give them a half calendar, and then like you said, it's like keep the feedback loop super tight and assess the strength of the feedback loop because you can tell pretty quickly if they're gonna get it. I mean, a lot of the stuff, like I said, like assertiveness. Sometimes there's been people I just see one or two calls, and I'm just like, yeah, they're just not gonna get there. Yeah. And you just can't them. And then after that, it's kind of like the rate of learning.

SPEAKER_00 26:56

Yep.

SPEAKER_05 26:57

You know, like your eye has one of the highest rates of learning out of anybody I've ever met.

SPEAKER_00 27:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 27:03

You know, it's like you want to look for that to where, and that really is a strong feedback loop in their performance. Yeah. I think the only thing that they have to have before coming on in almost every offer that they could sell, is that assertiveness ability. Because like to really develop that in somebody, it takes so much. I'm like, I always say, I don't want to give somebody a Tony Robbins breakthrough. Uh-huh. You know, date with destiny breakthrough, and they gotta roar like a lion. Yeah. Even though we did do that one time on a meeting to somebody several times. A lot of times. Um, I don't want to have to do that with somebody to get them to close. For sure. It's just too much, it's like the opportunity cost is too hard. And it's a lot of upkeep. Yeah. Yeah. And then retaining them similar to what we talked about earlier, but anything there.

SPEAKER_04 27:50

I think the biggest thing is that they can just keep seeing their growth journey. Yeah. And that you're continually painting a long-term picture and you have their best interest in mind.

SPEAKER_05 27:59

I would agree with that. What about setters? It's everybody's favorite team.

SPEAKER_04 28:03

Setters. I think the biggest thing, dude, is you gotta find really hungry, hungry, hungry people. Like I would say just hunger and drive, single biggest thing.

SPEAKER_05 28:15

Didn't you go through a phase of higher you wanted a little bit of tism with the setters?

SPEAKER_04 28:20

Dude, it's a strong leading indicator of success. And why is that? Because they're so task-oriented and they get hyper-fixated on completing the task. And it's setting is like a very binary option activity. It's like we're looking for the we're looking for the thing. Yeah. There's not as much like creativity often in setting. You can't get input driven.

SPEAKER_05 28:43

Yes. Yeah. So you need high inputs, you need somebody who's gonna make all the dials in a day, they're gonna manage their leads correctly, they're gonna call the right leads. That's why they can be a little bit more process-oriented than closers. That's why some setters will never be closers. Yeah. And then that's actually fine because those setters are they're decent. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 29:02

I mean, the best setters that I've ever worked with love knowing that they have a job to accomplish and they wake up and they do their job and they end their day.

SPEAKER_05 29:11

What do you think most founders get wrong with their setting setting teams? Because most of them really struggle with having good setters. And I'm like, would you book a call if this person called you? Yeah. And they're like, uh, John, hi. I mean, I literally reviewed a call, it was from a different team, and that was literally how the intro was. It was, John, hi. Pause. Wait. What? It's like, hi, this is uh so-and-so from so and so.

SPEAKER_04 29:45

What do you want? But yeah. I think the first thing is setting's a bit more technical and difficult than I think most business owners give credit to to like have it set up well. Because most business owners probably haven't like been a setter for a week for their company. They probably turned on ads and started taking calls and then are trying to hire setters. And on the back end, these setters are like in HubSpot, like clicking around on leads, trying to do their job. And it it does require more process and system and orientation than they would think. And so, like, dude, I got on a consulting call last week with this company that was like, we can't figure out why our lead utilization is dropping. Like, what's going on? And I was like, Well, let's pull up your CRM and look. And I was like, let's filter for booked calls that didn't show for the last 14 days, went through all 50 of them one dial. And it's like, that's so common. And so actually having like systematic thinking as the founder and like you should shadow your team for a day and see how they're working almost every single time that we're gonna vote make sense, they're struggling.

SPEAKER_05 31:02

Yeah. And the thing is, the easiest fix I have when it's one of those things where they're like, man, I can't get my setter team to work. I've tried three or four setters, I churn them off. Uh, we don't know if it's the leads or it's the setters or this. I'm like, why don't you just take a day and just set? Just try it. And then I'm like, you'll probably do fine because it's your business and settings not that hard. And also you're gonna understand the workflows, you're gonna understand what to say, and if like you do it and you can't get any sets, or it's like a heroic effort to get two sets, then it's probably like a systems or elite issue. Yeah. If you do it and you get eight sets and by noon, it's probably like you just don't even know how to train these people because you didn't even know what was going on. Yeah, and the last time I did that, the dude got six sets by like 11 a.m. And I'm like, all right, you know, now you know what to do. But like you're saying, almost every founder has closed their offer. Yeah. So they, even if they're not an expert closer, they still get like, okay, I kind of know what to do, right? And also with a closer, everything you need to QC is within the call.

SPEAKER_00 32:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 32:08

Pretty much. I mean, you need to look at their follow-up pipeline, the amount of deals they get from long-term follow-up. You need to make sure they're confirming their calls if you're doing that, you need to make sure, you know, whatever, right? Yeah. But with setting, it's there's the quality of the calls, but also the quality of their actual process and their inputs into how they're working the system and et cetera. Yeah. Which you have to QC both of those things. Yeah. But usually it's not very difficult if you just do that and you figure it out.

SPEAKER_04 32:35

And there's a tension point when you're building a setting team, which is the closing team already has to be great, or you're gonna have churn very quickly. Yes. If you're not willing to like pay the setters a draw and take care of them. Yep. Because you think like you hire these guys, maybe you give them a $1,500 base, and then it's like you make $300 if you get a set close. Week one, they get 20 sets, 14 show up, one or two close. And if they don't have like a great first two or three weeks and they're not on a draw, two and a half weeks in, they're thinking, like, I'm not gonna make enough money, this isn't working, and they're planning their exit.

SPEAKER_05 33:14

Yep. I would agree. And I think the other thing that people miss out on is they just drastically underhire setter quality and want to underpay. Big time. So they're like, Yeah, a setter, it should make three grand a month. Uh-huh. And I'm like, okay, you could probably find a setter for three grand a month. They're not gonna be very good.

SPEAKER_00 33:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 33:33

And one of the things that I did that was the highest leverage thing I've ever done with any setting team, is I increased their pay by 25% across the board. And the thing is, that only cost me an extra 20 grand a month.

SPEAKER_00 33:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 33:46

Okay, to do across the entire team. But when you do that, a 25% pay increase, especially for the lower the position is. Massive. It gets you an entirely different trough of recruiting quality. Yeah. Because it's like I mean, the difference between let's say five and eight grand a month is like massive in terms of who you're going to get. Right. And so then we basically churned out our whole setter team, increased the quality of every single person. For us, it was like we got closer level people to be setters, but then just paid them way more. The production was so much higher that we, for an extra 20 grand a month in labor cost, we were able to reduce our ad spend by 200 grand a month.

SPEAKER_04 34:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 34:29

It's like insane. That's nuts. Yeah. So anything else on setters? Anything else you think people mess up?

SPEAKER_04 34:34

And I think just like we were saying, paying them well and making sure they're making money. Like when RCA was at its peak, setters were making seven to twelve a month. And so we had almost no churn. Yeah. Because it's like if you're a setter making seven, eight grand working from home making dials, you're not going anywhere. But at the beginning, we were they were on tracked earnings was like three to five, and we had constant churn.

SPEAKER_05 34:58

And I think the other thing is too, is I give everybody a draw because especially if it's a system that takes a long time to ramp into, like for you know, our B2B stuff, it's a lot more complex. So it takes them a longer time to ramp into. That's closers and setters. Or if it's like your closing team is kind of like waffling right now, but you need to build up the setting team, give them a draw to compensate for the uncertainty with the closing team. So it gives you a runway to retain that person. Because again, so many salespeople are so used to an owner saying, Oh, my thing is the best, we got so many leads, we got this and that, whatever. And then they come in and then they're like, Nobody's winning. So the draw helps them be like, Okay, well, no matter what, like they're saying everything's gonna get better, but I'm gonna make this amount of money which pays my bills no matter what.

SPEAKER_00 35:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 35:50

And I think that's a huge, like, and it's not that much money, especially if you found the right person. Yeah, just like paying a little bit of a draw is not bad. And then the other thing is too, is if they suck, you just cut them.

SPEAKER_04 36:00

Especially in 2026. Like every setter in our industry right now has probably been burned two or three times. Every salesperson in general.

SPEAKER_05 36:08

Yeah. They're just used to oh, there's a bunch of leads, then there's no leads.

SPEAKER_00 36:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 36:12

Oh, you can close 40% on this, and it's like nobody's closed 40% on it ever. Yeah. You can make 30 grand a month, but the top closer is making 10. It's pretty common.

SPEAKER_04 36:21

Yeah, super.

SPEAKER_05 36:22

So in terms of sales managers, then how do you develop a sales manager?

SPEAKER_04 36:29

It's tough, dude. It's a hard one. I think the primary thing that I look for is somebody that like really loves the game of sales and like has an exuberant passion towards it. And it's not always gonna be your best closer. In fact, most of the time it's not going to be your top closer. It's usually gonna be your like A minus, 70%, like third or fourth on the team, but they're very steady, they love sales, they're very mature, and you'll already see them like branching out to help the team. And then it's I think a very like long three to six months haul of like teaching them how to coach sales in an effective way. Because that's also a whole new art, like translating what they need to change into a way that they can internalize it and actually create the change and knowing order of priority and order of magnitude coaching, it is a whole new skill set. And I think most business owners just take their best rep and say, Okay, great, you're a salesman, you're the manager now, yeah. But it's like taking your point guard and making them head coach and being like, You're gonna know how to coach the team because you were point guard.

SPEAKER_05 37:50

Yeah, well, there's a couple things you want to look for, right? There's executive presence, which is essentially can this person come in, take leadership of a group of people and hold people accountable privately and publicly while maintaining respect. Yeah, which is something that is teachable, but they kind of like kind of like what I was saying with the assertiveness of the closers, they kind of have to have that. Yeah, and then the other aspect is like process driven. Because there's some closers who are, you know, when I closed, for instance, at TNF, I was insanely process driven. Peyton is more, not that he has like a bad process or anything, but he was much more like intuitive and more like emotional. He's very, very good at that side. And and he can obviously manage a team, he's very good, but in general, people who have more of that style can tend to struggle a little bit more because it's hard to translate exactly what they're doing into a process, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_04 38:49

Yeah, yeah. I mean, when I was closing, I was like always trying to figure out what the formula was, and so like when I would review my own calls, like I would dissect it down to like the word and the question. Like I would watch six minutes in when I would ask like a why front loaded question and be like, oh, that didn't register as well. I should have asked a what front loaded question there instead of a why question. And I was so detail-oriented in and of myself that when I was training teams and training managers, like I was taking things down to the letter with showing them why things were happening the way that they were.

SPEAKER_05 39:29

Which is really key too, because there's little nuances like that. Like I can take somebody who's really advanced where it's hard to give them feedback, but I can be like, hey, you see how you frame this question? Because you know how like you'll watch a closer's call and they'll ask a question, and you know what they're trying to ask, like more so, you know the intention, in other words, the outcome answer they're trying to get. Yeah, but I'm like, you see, I was like, you're trying to get this answer, right? Yeah, like, yeah. Do you see how you asked this question this way? He interpreted or she interpreted it as this. That that it's like that's why she gave you XYZ answer and didn't answer your question. Then you got mad she didn't answer your question.

SPEAKER_00 40:08

Yep.

SPEAKER_05 40:08

When in reality, it's like it's like you walked up to the vending machine, you wanted the the Nestle's bar, that was E3. I'm like, you clicked like B5. Uh-huh. Does that make sense? Yeah, it does. Because you really can take it that granular. But that also widens the gap in terms of helping them understand where they're at now versus where they need to go.

SPEAKER_04 40:28

You know, and so I the best managers I've seen are also that way. They love figuring out sales nerds why things happen the way that they do.

SPEAKER_05 40:35

Yeah, they're sales nerds, but I also say you do not want a CRM nerd. You can hire a sales ops department for that. Because the main thing is like sales manager should really be called sales coach. It's just the sales coach doesn't sound as sexy as director. Uh-huh. But really, what you're doing is you're their leader, you're kind of the therapist, you gotta pick them up after a bad day, you have to coach and train them the right way. Because you know, salespeople's emotions too. Yeah. It's like sometimes, you know, the person's like, this is like stuff I think about even with our team now. It's like they just did seven, you know, units in record-breaking cash last week. They had a bad Monday, bad Tuesday, and they're like, man, you know, I I don't even think I'm gonna pay rent this month. Yeah. So it's like you gotta like remote futures falling. You gotta like remind them, like, you know, like you just hit a record the last month. Do you have anything on that in terms of like emotional regulation? Because you you were very good at that.

SPEAKER_04 41:30

Yeah. I for me, it was always like having the anchor that we always revisited with them about who they wanted to become and the attributes they wanted to develop as a person. Like, I actually never looked at metrics with the team really. I don't because I just didn't really care that much, and they would overthink it. Like, I know some leaders, it's like pull up the Monday meeting, here's everybody's close rate last week, like you closed at 30%, what happened? I never did that because it would just get them more in their head than it did anything else. And so my default was like, dude, you had a bad week. What were your mornings like last week? How were you spending your free time? When you realized you were struggling, what did you do? Did you go binge eat pizza on Friday night, or did you review and self-study? Not because I care that you had a bad closing week, but because I want to look at the habits that you're developing and who you're becoming, and that was always the anchor.

SPEAKER_05 42:33

And then the other thing, too, that's important, because you mentioned it could be, I agree, a lot of times it's not your best person, because your best person being good at sales is inherently selfish. Uh-huh. Not in the sense where you're like, you don't care about other people, but it's like you got to have this tunnel vision on the target.

SPEAKER_00 42:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 42:51

Right? So you can't really take care of the entire team while having the tunnel vision on the target, which is also why player coaches are bullshit. Because you're basically like player coach is just basically the owner's way of being super lazy saying they want to have their cake and eat it too. Yeah. It's like, hey, I'm not going to really pay you that much more. I want you to manage the team, but I want you to pay your own salary by still producing.

SPEAKER_02 43:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 43:13

So what are they going to do? Okay, well, obviously, what they're going to prioritize because of their comp, it's like if you watch the incentive, you can see the behavior. They're going to prioritize producing. And then the other thing is, too, is if they fall behind, they're like, well, I'm not, I'm the team lead, I'm not leading by example. What do you think they're going to do? They're just going to keep producing. And then they're not going to do any of the call reviews, they're not going to coach their team at all, etc. But what I would say is it generally is your manager's usually one of the top three people on your team. And you have to realize and be okay with your team will never be as good as the manager. Like it sets the because like if you're if you know if I'm training a team, I'm probably never going to get them as good as me. But my goal is to get them if I'm a 9.5 out of 10, I could probably get somebody to a nine out of ten.

SPEAKER_00 43:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 43:59

You know? So you Want to make sure whoever you promote, if they're a s if you're a 9.5 and they're a six, you gotta realize your entire team threshold will be a five point five. Yeah, does that make sense? Yeah, so I think that's the other big thing as well. For sure. So let's hit some objections. I want to think about it.

SPEAKER_04 44:15

Okay. I want to think about it. Okay, that's totally fine. While we're here, are you just open to talking through what's going through your head? Can you help me understand kind of like what's happening?

SPEAKER_05 44:29

Yeah, it's just a lot of money, and I've been burned before. I don't know if it's gonna work. And you know, I just you know, just kind of want to think about it and do my research.

SPEAKER_04 44:39

Yeah, man. Can I ask you a personal question?

SPEAKER_05 44:41

Yeah. How are you feeling about it? I mean, it it it feels good. I just it's like for this amount of money, you know, the last company didn't fulfill, and some kind of like Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 44:55

I'm just kind of skeptical. For sure. What about it is feeling good right now? What are the parts that are feeling good?

SPEAKER_05 45:01

I mean, like, I do agree with what you said earlier, like implementing stuff the way you said, I can see how it's different. And so, like everything you said is good, and if that's what actually happened, it would make sense. It's just kind of like a little bit of a hesitation to pull the trigger.

SPEAKER_04 45:15

Yeah, that makes sense. What happened when you got burnt? What was the situation there?

SPEAKER_05 45:19

Well, I like paid an agency and they said they were gonna do all this stuff, and at the end of the day, like it took forever to execute, and then like it didn't work, I just got bad leads, we had to part ways.

SPEAKER_04 45:30

Yeah. Let's say, as a hypothetical, everything I laid out happened in the exact way I laid it out in the exact timeline.

SPEAKER_05 45:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 45:38

If we could draw that as a hypothetical, where would you be at with this?

SPEAKER_05 45:42

I'd probably triple my business.

SPEAKER_04 45:44

Okay. Where would it take you out of 10 in terms of like actually wanting to take the steps to do it? If hypothetically everything happened the way we talked about it.

SPEAKER_05 45:54

It well, if everything happened the way it ha if everything happened the way you said it's gonna happen, I would be a 10 out of 10. On it, you know, I'm just worried about something that burned me in the past.

SPEAKER_04 46:03

Yeah. And I'm not saying I'm gonna like guarantee you the outcomes are gonna happen because that would be naive. Like we are in a market that has conditions and you know things move and circulate, but there is like a bottom rung to that, which is you should a hundred percent feel sure that the deliverables and what we're gonna do on our side are going to happen. Like, I agree with you on that. Is there anything else besides like the worry of like are these guys gonna do what they say? Is there something else you're kind of processing for?

SPEAKER_05 46:34

No, I mean, that's just it. Like, if if if we if everything happened the way you said it's gonna happen, it's obviously a no-brainer.

SPEAKER_04 46:42

Yeah. I mean, can I level with you on a thought? Yeah, like the deliverables is easy, it's gonna be in the contract, you'll have it contractually guaranteed that we're gonna do the deliverables. A company like ours doesn't get to work with people like Tony Robbins, Dean Graziosi, Grant Cardone if we don't deliver. Like you would know if we're not delivering because you would see it everywhere. And so it's pretty easy for us to make sure that the deliverables happen. But I also want to make sure that you actually feel good about working with us because a big part of those outcomes happening or not is whether you're ready to get over the pass burn and fully commit with us. And that sounds like I'm trying to pigeonhole you into something, and I'm not like I'm genuinely wanting to make sure that you feel internally ready to like move forward with growing the business. So, where are you at with that?

SPEAKER_05 47:41

I want to move forward and grow the business.

SPEAKER_04 47:42

You sure?

SPEAKER_05 47:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 47:44

Do you wanna? Can I tease you a little bit? Yeah. Do you want to let the past burn stop you from making change in the future? No. I don't think you do either. Well, dude, let's just go ahead and get everything signed to get going. Because, man, like bro to bro, if you let the past burn inform who you're gonna be in the future and the decisions you're gonna make, you're just gonna stay stuck and you know that. Doesn't change that it's hard, but I don't think you want to let past burn stop you from achieving things in the future.

SPEAKER_05 48:15

Nice. That's good. What about spouse? Dude, I love the spouse one. Well, is that I w sounds really good. I love it. I just want to talk to my wife.

SPEAKER_04 48:24

Is she home?

SPEAKER_05 48:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 48:26

Will you go grab her?

SPEAKER_05 48:28

Well, okay. She's not home.

SPEAKER_04 48:30

She's not home. Can we call her right now?

SPEAKER_05 48:33

Oh, she won't pick up.

SPEAKER_04 48:35

Huh. Okay. Can I ask you a personal question?

SPEAKER_05 48:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 48:39

Is this like uh, man, she's gonna divorce me if I say yes and kill me thing? Or is it like you two wanting to make sure that you're on the same page and she respects it?

SPEAKER_05 48:49

It's more of a same page thing.

SPEAKER_04 48:50

Yeah. Have you two talked through this up to this point?

SPEAKER_05 48:53

Uh she knows I want to grow my business, but she doesn't, you know, she just didn't know I was on this call and about to spend this amount of money.

SPEAKER_04 49:00

Is she your business partner?

SPEAKER_05 49:01

No.

SPEAKER_04 49:02

Okay, so she's not involved in business operations? No. Is she like business consultant, keeps you on the rails, make sure you don't do anything dumb? No, no, it's just my wife. Okay. Help me understand what kind of you're looking for in her approval. And I'm I know that sounds like an asshole question, but if she's not a business partner, she's not a consultant. I'm just trying to better understand what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_05 49:25

I don't really need her approval. I just need to like let her know out of respect.

SPEAKER_04 49:29

Yeah. If you move forward without talking to her, what would happen?

SPEAKER_05 49:35

Uh she would just be like kick you out. Well, no, but she'd be like, babe, you know, we were supposed to talk about these types of things.

SPEAKER_04 49:42

Yeah. Have you messed that one up before, bro?

SPEAKER_05 49:46

Uh, yeah. In what way? Um, well, you know, it's just like I bought in stuff and then, you know, we just want to have an agreement that purchases over a certain amount or you know, that we just talk to each other by.

SPEAKER_04 50:02

Yeah. Are you open to a middle ground solution?

SPEAKER_05 50:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 50:06

Before I present it, shoot it with me straight. Do you actually want to do this? Or are we No, I want to do it. You're 10 out of 10.

SPEAKER_05 50:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 50:14

Alright, dude. Well, there's an easy solution to this. Here's all we're gonna do. We're gonna put down a $2,000 deposit now. It's a refundable deposit, and then what I want to do is schedule a call with you and your wife and me so that she can meet me, meet the company, and I'll actually onboard you into the curriculum so that she can see what it is that you invested into. Because if we don't do that, I'm just another guy pitching you another thing. It's gonna depend on where she's at on the day and where her mood's at. I'd rather her be able to actually see the thing that you're potentially investing into. So let's do the deposit now. I'll onboard you into the curriculum, and then us three can jump on later tonight, but then she can actually see what it is that you want to invest to, and it's not a blind decision.

SPEAKER_05 51:05

See, I like that one because I've used that a lot where obviously you're getting them bought in on they 100% want to do it. Then it's hey, do you need their permission or are you just letting them know? And then honestly, especially with this one, even regardless if it's permission versus letting them know, especially with a guy, you can just go to the refundable deposit, hey, let's book the onboarding call with you and your wife. Yeah, and then we can both hop on and she can actually get onboarded with you into this thing, so she's just as bought into it as you are. And then she can also see what you've actually invested in so that it's not a scam, it's not BS, whatever. And if she actually hates our guts and thinks the onboarding is the worst thing ever and is wondering why the heck you did this, we'll just send it back.

SPEAKER_02 51:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 51:46

But if she feels really good, like you do, then you're already well on your way and you already have moved forward. But regardless, like you told me earlier, that the most important thing for you is not the less not the lot let the last five years be like the next five years. So let's put down this 1k the refundable deposit. You can obviously there's no risk in doing it, but for you, that's metaphorically drawing the line in the sand and saying that from here on out things are going to be different.

SPEAKER_00 52:10

Yep.

SPEAKER_05 52:11

So if I was willing to make that adjustment, how we regularly do things for you, would you be willing to move forward right now?

SPEAKER_04 52:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 52:17

You know, I like that type of stuff.

SPEAKER_04 52:18

That's beautiful. And then what's beautiful about that is if they go, no, dude, I'm not doing that, then you can take a deep breath. That this this moment is where most closers mess up because they'll like get pissed about it. Like the prospects, like, yeah, dude, I'm still not doing that, and the closer will get really tense off of it. Yeah, I would just take a deep breath and be like, Man, can I ask you a personal question? Yeah, there's probably something else going through your head, and like I'm not trying to prod at you, but we've been talking for an hour. From my end, it seems like everything about this makes sense for you. What else is going on? Like, will you just open up and talk to me about what you're thinking? And I'll like release pressure and open up a lot of space and just ask what's going through their head. And if I open up space and I'll ask gently a few times and they're just not willing to communicate, then I know I did everything I could to have a conversation with them. But even in that, it allows to zoom out and take pressure off and keep trying to get them to open up.

SPEAKER_05 53:28

And I think one of the keys is if you could stay neutral and playful at the close, people will just be honest. Yeah. Whereas if you tense up because you're like, man, I spent an hour and ten minutes and I missed my next call because I'm spending all this time with this person. Fuck the fuck you. You know, if you if you have that, then they put their guards up.

SPEAKER_00 53:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 53:52

So a lot of times it's like, hey man, well, like, just level with me. Like, what's going on? What's really going on? Like earlier you said you wanted to do this. You said it sounds really good. Talk to me. Like, I mean, look, if you do it now or do it later, that's fine. But just to me, it feels like something is on your mind that we just haven't discussed yet. Yeah, and if we're gonna work together in the future, I want to make sure we're fully aligned. Yeah, and so in order to do that, we just have to be honest with each other.

SPEAKER_04 54:15

So, what's really going on? Keep adding cushion, dude. Your business is in such a good spot to grow right now. Like, seems like everything makes sense, but maybe I missed something. Like, what's going through your head?

SPEAKER_05 54:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 54:27

What's going on?

SPEAKER_05 54:28

What's another objection we should hit?

SPEAKER_04 54:30

Another objection is that's way more than I thought it was gonna be.

SPEAKER_05 54:35

Okay. Yeah, it sounds good, but it's it's way more than I thought it was gonna be.

SPEAKER_04 54:40

Yeah, man. Have I'm curious, like, how are you thinking about it? Tell me, help me understand where you're gonna be.

SPEAKER_05 54:47

I looked, I looked into some other things. Usually this this runs about 10k, yours was 15, so like that just kind of has to make me think about it a little bit.

SPEAKER_04 54:56

What held you back from going with the other ones? I'm curious.

SPEAKER_05 55:00

Well, you know, I was just trying to kind of view all my options and see what else was out there and you know, just see what all my options were.

SPEAKER_04 55:10

Yeah. Well, I guess ultimately, how would you know if you did find the right team to help you?

SPEAKER_05 55:15

That's a good question. I I guess I would feel very confident that they could get me to where I wanted to go.

SPEAKER_04 55:20

So it's actually really just about who's gonna get you to where you want to go?

SPEAKER_05 55:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 55:26

Is there anything else?

SPEAKER_05 55:28

That would be the main thing, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 55:30

Yeah. Do you want to work with a team that has like impeccable industry credibility?

SPEAKER_05 55:36

That's the goal.

SPEAKER_04 55:37

Okay. Well, man, what about our conversation led you to feel like we weren't the people that could help you get there?

SPEAKER_05 55:43

Well, I mean, I I I think you could. It just is a little bit more than I thought.

SPEAKER_04 55:48

Well, is it about the cheaper thing or is it about working with the team that's gonna help you get there, bro?

SPEAKER_05 55:53

It's about working with the thing that's gonna get help you get there.

SPEAKER_04 55:56

Are you sure? Because dude, there's people that are cheaper than us, I promise. I can refer you to them, brother. Yeah, I'm happy to. But dude, can I just be your bro for a sec?

SPEAKER_02 56:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 56:06

I don't think you need the cheapest thing right now. Like you're doing a hundred grand a month, you want to get to five hundred thousand dollars a month. Whether the investment's five grand or fifty grand, relative to that goal, who gives a shit? Yeah, like really, who cares? Even if I pitched you 30 grand and you got to 500, would you really look back and care at all? No. And so I don't actually think it's so much about the price as much as it is who's gonna help you get to where you want to go. Can I ask you, the other companies that you've talked to, have they done the thing that you want to do? Yeah, I mean, they're doing it with clients. Do you know to what scale? No. Because that's a big part of it, man. Like, there's a there's a lot of people that have done it a few times. There's very few people who have done it hundreds of times, if not thousands. And to level with you, like, they also might be good. Like, I'm not saying you shouldn't work with them. I think you should go with the team that's done what you want to do the most amount of times, and that you're the most sure can help you get there.

SPEAKER_01 57:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 57:12

That might be us, that might be them.

SPEAKER_05 57:16

Yeah. So what do you think? I think it I think I should go with the one that I think is gonna get me there.

unknown 57:26

I I agree.

SPEAKER_05 57:28

It's like uh it's so hard to roleplay a prospect when you wouldn't say any of this shit yourself. But uh the way I think about that one, which is like there's a cheaper option, it's like, hey, great. So aside from evaluating which option you're gonna go with, it sounds like you're gonna do something, it's just a matter of who, right? Great. So you're gonna do something, you're just trying to figure out who it is. So let's just take price aside for a moment. Out of the two options, just which are you more certain between us and this other company? Who's the company? ABC. Okay. Between us and ABC, which just based on what we've talked about in this conversation, price and everything aside, is more likely to be able to get you there. Oh, I think it's you guys, you guys are just a little bit more. Yeah, exactly. And I totally get that because I've never even heard of that company. And you know, we've been doing this for X amount of years, we've worked with thousands of clients, we've worked with people like this, that, and the other. So obviously we're gonna charge a little bit more. So the real question really isn't about like, are we more versus them? And you know, are you gonna spend 5k more and is that gonna be the big burn? You told me you wanted to get to $400,000 a month in your business, and you also told me that you think we're much more likely to get you there than this other person who's just $5k cheaper. So do you want a nickel and dime and go with the lesser option and jeopardize the success that you want and then eventually come back later anyways? Or do you just wanna go with us and get it right from the start? Yeah. Because if we get you from 100 to 400, what's 5k?

SPEAKER_04 58:47

Yeah. And dude, where most closers mess up is they're always trying to do this thing of like, I need to prop us up and I need to tear them down. Even with like the spouse, it's like, oh, I need to like move the spouse aside and like make them listen to me. I need to like move the competitors aside and show them that we're the best. But like, last month I closed a STA client, and at the end, they were like, dude, we're gonna have to let you know in a couple days we're talking to three other three other guys. And I was super, I'm always very chill at the end of the calls, and I was just like, Cool, who else are you talking to? And they were they told me the other two guys' names, and I was like, Oh, yeah, one of them is brilliant. Like, I know he's brilliant. The other guy, I don't know, so I couldn't tell you, but like, man, you guys are limiting yourself. And they were like, What do you mean? And I was like, You're doing a hundred grand a month and you're 25. Like, you thinking that it's working with us or this other guy who's brilliant at marketing is silly. Like, he's gonna help you with your marketing, and nobody else has done what we do at the rate that you want to do it, and you have to think through this in order of priority, like, and I relisted what they need to do to grow their business, and I was like, So, in order of priority, come work with us, and then in three months, go work with that guy, also. Like, you guys are just being silly. And they were paused and they they started speaking Spanish. There's three of them, and I just hung out with them while they were speaking Spanish, and we got to the end, and they were like, Alright, ma'am, can you just give us a couple days? And I was like, Nope, I'm not doing that. And they were like, What do you mean? And I was like, because that's silly, like there's all we're all here together. Why could we not just make the decision? And they were like, Well, dude, like, we I messaged you on Instagram yesterday, and I was like, Yeah, so you're smart. I'm not following up with you in three days, like, let's just decide right now. Yeah, and it was super chill like that, and they spoke Spanish again, and then they were like, Alright, let's do it.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:01

Yeah. And the thing is, what you said about the closers try to bulldoze. What I try to teach people is, yeah, you don't want to demand because if if you just are like crapping on this other company, now, granted, there's there's ways you can just demolish the competitor. Like, if you try to Google them and they have no website, you could be like, Yeah, it seems like a real decision. It's like you're just like, this person doesn't even have a website. So that's who you're deciding between. They're like, uh, and it just kind of seems dumb. But let's say it is somebody legit. What I try to do is just educate them on the options. It's like, well, look, like, yeah, they seem like they're legit, you could definitely go with them, but I guess it depends on what you want. Yep. Right? Like if you're looking for it would depend on the situation, but if you're looking for XYZ, they would maybe be better. But if you're looking for somebody who would has done bam the bam the bam the bam the bam and who's the best, and it's gonna be a little bit more expensive, but you get it right the first time, then obviously we're gonna be the better route. You know, it's also like um if somebody's trying to, let's say, decide between doing like a low ticket model and a high ticket model, and the person I'm pitching against is telling them to do low ticket, to ascend a high ticket, and I'm telling them just to do a call funnel to high ticket, and this person's doing 150 grand a month, instead of being like low ticket doesn't work, I'd be like, dude, low tickets great. Now, what I would say for you guys is from my experience working with thousands of clients and seeing companies just like yours, like case study one, case study two, case study three, get to 800,000 a month. The way they do it is they go from one to about four to five, six hundred with a call funnel to get their messaging right, their setters right, they get their sales team right, because you have to have all that working anyways to be able to make the shift. So it's not that you shouldn't do that, but that's more for when you get up to here, and you got to make sure you make the decisions in a proper way of sequence. So I think that's a great idea. Yeah, I would just do it here for you guys, not here. Yeah, you know, and and honestly, we're really great at low-ticket funnels. And if I thought that yeah that's what you needed now, I just would have pitched you that.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:56

But you see how I'm like educating them on their options. I'm not necessarily diminishing the other because when you diminish the other thing, they're just what's in their brain? Oh, they're a closer, they're just gonna say whatever they're gonna do. They're gonna say whatever they gotta say. You know?

SPEAKER_04 1:03:11

And for the salespeople, the world's a small place, and if you get in the habit of like talking shit, it'll come back. Quick, hilarious story. Do you remember when you were trying to close Josh Johnson on traffic and phones forever back in the day? Yeah. I had a sales call with him like three days before, and was trying to close him into my program. Right. And I remember him telling me, like, yeah, dude, I'm talking to Cole, I might buy this other program. And I was like, dude, you don't want to do that. And I granted, I was 21. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was like, dude, you don't want to do that. Like, do you want to work with people that specialize in the agency space or like a general business coach? And he was like, Well, yeah, I see that. And I was like, dude, they're general coaches, like they don't they're not gonna help you grow your agency. And he was like, Alright, dude, well, I'm still gonna talk to Cole. And then he, I think he maybe like gave you that feedback and it like got circulated so fast. Then you got eviscerated, yeah, dude, and I felt like an idiot.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:16

I felt stupid. Yeah, Taylor came after you. Yeah, dude. That is pretty funny.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:21

But it was a good learning lesson for me. I was like, yeah, I'm never, I'm never doing that again.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:25

So the question is is do you ever get blank when objections come up? Like, do you ever just not know what to say? Well, a lot of closers do, quite frankly, and that's where they book follow-up quotes. But the key is is that because I I this is I am very passionate about this. Closers have a process and discovery. Like they never forget what to say and discover. They never forget what to say in the pitch because they train on that and they have a process to fall back on. You know, so like what's the quote that you're not as you know, you don't ascend to whatever your thing is, you fall back on your training. And so, but what's funny is is like they get to the close and it's just this cross their fingers, after I drop the price, I hope you buy. Yeah. And then whenever they get resistance, then their cortisol goes up, their emotions get flushed, and then they like can't think, they go in the fight or fly, whatever. So the key is is that you have to have enough training to be able to essentially be able to always fall back on a process and objections.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:20

So, like, what's my process if you say I want to think about it? Almost no matter what you say, the first thing I say is, hey, no problem, that's totally cool. Like, let me ask you this, just because we've been through a lot today, you know, I covered step one, step two, step three that we'd be implementing together. How do you actually feel about the like do you feel like money and everything aside, that is what you need to get to that goal? And they'll usually be like, Yeah, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then I'll be like, okay, great. So, like, money and everything aside, you a hundred percent believe this will get you to XYZ revenue.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:51

And that that second, that's called a double tie down. That second tie down is the key because it's very strong. Like, do you a hundred percent I'm I'm actually trying to get them to say no.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:01

And if they say yes, I mean, pff, you know, like at that point, it's just logistics. But I'm trying to get them to say no, because they'll be like, well, you know, then it's oh, I talked to this company in the past and it didn't work. So I'm just a little bit concerned about that. Gotcha. So if we just isolate that for a second and really like outside of that bad experience, is that the only thing giving you pause to moving forward? Yeah. Okay, great. So now I know I have to cover that. Then then I got then I can come back to basically, are you certain it's gonna work? Then I can move on to logistics. And then how am I gonna cover that? The first thing is you go into discovery. Because a lot of people like, yeah, I've been burned in the past, so I just don't know about this. And then what's you know, the terrible closer say, Oh, well, have you ever dated before? And then it's like, yeah. Okay, well, would you if your girlfriend broke up with you, would you never date again? It's like you don't want to do that.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:54

Right? What you want to do instead is, oh, well, tell me about what happened in that company.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:58

Okay, like what was the difference between what you thought was gonna happen and what was actually implemented? And dude, I totally get it because we're put in places all the time where essentially we have to pick up the pieces after somebody overpromised and underdelivered. And what we found just doing this with thousands of clients, and it's totally just like your situation, is typically what it comes to one of three things. Either number one, that the process they implemented just didn't work. Like the they they they serviced you well. It's just that what they tried to implement in terms of strategy was maybe outdated or not customized to your business or something along those lines. Number two is like the strategy was good. It's just the service wasn't like it took forever, they didn't support you in the right ways, etc. Or number three is like maybe both were good and like you just kind of fucked it up. Or like maybe you just didn't show up in the right way you should. So which one of those three do you think it was? Yeah, and then they're gonna pick one. But the thing is, is they're gonna pick number one and number two, most likely. And obviously, I'm forcing them to diagnose it in a way I already know how to handle, right? So if they're like, well, yeah, it was the method. Okay, what was the method? They told me to do a webinar to get clients. Oh, okay, well, can I give you a little bit of feedback on that? They're gonna maybe explain why webinars worked really well a couple of years ago, they're a little bit tougher to work now, and for B2B, straight to app funnels work way better.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:16

Yeah, right?

SPEAKER_05 1:08:16

So do you see how our method is entirely different? So wouldn't it make sense, given the service quality is the same, if the method is right, that you wouldn't get the same results as number before? Right? So, like, with that out of the way, like, do you really think this is gonna work? Yeah. I guess when you say it that way, I do. Okay, great. So, like, you ready to go? You ready to get started? Can I give you some homework? Go into the close, or maybe now we go into a financial thing.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:39

Right? But you have to segment it that way. So I always have to. Well, the the funnel is basically there's I used to say there's three main objections, and I like to say that because it's just spiffy, but there's kind of four. But the most important wasn't one is uncertainty, right? So the first thing you have to do is handle anything that's keeping you them from being less than 100% certain that this is going to work. Right? Because if they don't think it's gonna work, everything else, you know, they're not gonna go talk to their wife and convince their wife if they don't think it's gonna work. Yeah, they're not gonna go transfer money from a brokerage if it's not gonna work, right? So you have to make sure you get them in a place of like, no, I think it's gonna 100% work. Then if they actually do that, if they really believe it's going to work, like truthfully actually believe, not even not faintly say it, not like, do you think it's gonna work? Yeah, I uh I think so. Oh, okay, great. Well, let's get you, you know. No, it's like, I think so. Like, what's really going on? Like, do you think it's gonna get you there or not?

SPEAKER_00 1:09:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:40

But if they're like, no, dude, I totally think it's gonna work, then the the three below that is really just logistics. We have timing, we have financial, and we have spouse, right? And then obviously they'll usually bring one of those up, but if they 100% think it's gonna work, I funnel on the one of the logistics, right? But if you handle a spouse without doing uncertainty first, you're actually handling a smokescreen. Yeah, does that make sense? For sure.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:08

I think because I've closed B2C so much, the way I think about it and the way I teach B2C is like we're either gonna be supporting someone in making a decision or pushing them to make a decision. So, like in B2C, the reason I start with like, well, how are you feeling? Is because like there's a very real thing that I want to discern, which is do they have a logistical thing that I need to work through? Or they just is it just fear? And then once I know it's fear, I'm almost always gonna then delineate is this a prideful person or is this just a person who's fearful? Because if they're closer to like pride, kind of know it all, arrogant, I know I'm gonna have to push them to make a decision. If they're just scared, they're going to need to feel supported to make a decision. Yeah. And so, like if I'm talking to a single mom with three kids who's working full time, I don't want to like push her into making a decision because she's already stressed out by life. If she feels like I'm adding stress to her life, she's gonna get off the call. And so I'll move much more into a line of questioning that's supportive. So it's hey, can I ask you a personal question? And this is gonna sound tough, like if we don't make some sort of change, like hearing you talk about your schedule right now, your kids, like do you really wanna like be stuck in this for the next six months? Well, no, of course not. Yeah, and like this is extremely fucking scary for you. Like, I I see that, like, this is a huge decision. Yeah, it's massive. Well, I don't like I want you to know, like, I see that for you, and I'm on your team. Like, not anything I say, this is gonna be a big scary decision in this moment, and like that's not gonna go away, but I need you to know, like, we're gonna hold your hand through this process and that we have your back. Like, I'm gonna text you from my personal cell phone, you're gonna meet with coach so-and-so. I so deeply see the situation that you're in, and I know it's not easy. And when I look at what you want to do for your kids and for your life, like, I just want to help you get there. Like, will you trust us to help you start moving down that path? Like, will you please let us help? And it's very supportive. Let's help you make sure you know you're supported. Whereas with the farther end of the spectrum, the more like prideful, dude. I already blah blah blah blah blah, very like out there energy, all have a much more direct line of questioning that's like, dude, can I shoot it with you straight? Yeah, okay, this is gonna piss you off. Is that okay? Yeah, that's fine, dude. You've been stuck for six years. Pause. And like, dude, I'm not trying to be an ass, but like, unless we acknowledge the reality of what's going on, we're not gonna be able to change it. Earlier, you told me you want to get to 300 grand a year. If you're just leveling with me, is that gonna happen if you're staying where you're at? No, of course not. So I guess the real question, dude, and again, this feels pointed, but it is the real question, is that goal actually real and meaningful to you? Or is it just a thing that we're talking about? No, it's real and meaningful. Well, then, dude, you know what the right things to do are. So are you gonna do the right things, yes or no? And that's that's how I've always kind of looked at it is like I'm either gonna be pushing this person really hard to make a decision, and I'm probably gonna have a 50-50 break if they're gonna say fuck you and end Zoom or if they're gonna listen. Or I'm gonna need to just stay in a remarkably supportive hand holding frame.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:15

Yeah, that's that's very, very good. I I have like what I call the nervousness close, where what happens is is a lot of times when they're like, no, I 100% want to do it, and then you kind of get to the point and they just like they just can't make a decision. And then you're like, well, you know, what's going on? Like, what's coming up for you? And they're just like, uh, you know, like they don't know what to say. You can just this is like what I do is I give them the objection, which I'm like, oh, is it it just kind of seems like it's a little bit of nerves. You don't want to say, Oh, is it fear?

SPEAKER_00 1:14:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:47

I used to do that when I was closing. Is it fear? Like, it's not fear. Are you just scared? It's not fear. Uh and I'll be like, oh, is it just a little bit of nerves? And like, yeah, you know, it's a little bit of nerves. But like, look, the nerves are good. That means there's some weight to this, there's some meaning to it. Like, nothing ever built in the world was or nothing ever great in the world was built by somebody who wasn't a little bit nervous at first.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:15:07

So like the nerves are really irrelevant in this conversation. The real conversation is who do you want to be? Like, do you want to be the type of person who can feel the fear and do it anyways, or the type of person who lets that type of nervousness dictate their decision making? Which is it?

SPEAKER_02 1:15:22

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_05 1:15:22

Oh, you know, it's obviously this person. And then you can kind of go into more of the supportive or whatever frame. But I used to like visually, I visualize a lot of things. It's like I would if they don't sometimes they just can make a decision because it is nerves. I just give them that objection. Uh-huh. I'm just like, oh, is it a little bit of nerves? Yeah, yeah, it's nerves. And then you're like, oh yeah, good.

unknown 1:15:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:15:43

Like that's exactly I I would think you're an alien if you weren't a little bit nervous.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:46

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_05 1:15:47

Like, nothing ever great in the world was built by somebody who wasn't a little bit nervous at first. Yeah. I got that line from Taylor. I've just used it ever since for like seven years. Like, you know, when you're in sales, you just get a line from somebody and you just you're like, oh, no reason to replace the line. Yeah. It freaking works.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:02

Mine is uh, hey, does it can I ask you a weird question? Does it feel like your head and heart are like playing tug of war? That's pretty good.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:12

Like, and like I'm only asking because I've been through this where like your heart is like, I know I want to do this, but your mind and your body is like, don't fucking do it. And it feels like you're playing tug-of-war. And they'll be like, Yeah, it does feel like that. Yeah, it's heavy, huh? Yeah, super heavy. Well, which one do you think we should listen to? Your heart or your body that's freaking out? Which one do you think is gonna take you farther? Well, probably my heart. Yeah, it's just an internal tug-of-war. Like your brain's trying to keep you safe, your brain's yelling at you to not do it. You hear your mom's voice in the back of your head, be it saying you're gonna be a failure and this is bad. But your heart knows. Like your heart is the thing that lit up when earlier you told me about what it would mean to make 10 grand a month. That was your heart lighting up. And now your heart is like whispering at you, like, hey, you know you need to do this, but every adult that you've ever interacted with in your head right now is like, Nope, you're a loser.

SPEAKER_05 1:17:16

Yep.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:17

So which one?

SPEAKER_05 1:17:18

Yeah. You know, uh, do you have any other spiffy lines that you've just used for a long time? I have one that is this is more on the pitch, and it still works. Like, I'll tell you what it is. So, like when you're stacking the benefits, so like the a lot of times the way I pitch, I'll be like, hey, so the reason most people fail at X, Y, Z is because of this. Right? And the problem, or sorry, I'll do it like this. I'll be like, one of the when it comes to X, Y, and Z, one of the biggest mistakes people make is ABC, right? And the problem with that is when you make that mistake, these things happen that are problems. And ultimately ends in this consequence. So instead, what we do is feature, which allows you to benefit and ultimately benefit of the benefit, right? So then when I get to the benefit of the benefit part, I can give an example if that seems too like esoteric. But when I get to the benefit of the benefit part, one of the best lines is is like, and then when you finally have this in place, what happens is is now you have a business that's an asset that produces income independent of your time. I'm telling you, that little line, people go, yeah. Like that little line, people freaking love that all the way back to 2017. Like, I've I remember saying that one time on a call, and somebody was like, That's what I want. Because everybody wants like it kind of appeals to I mean it basically appeals to making money by doing nothing. Yeah, but it's like, oh, like I want something that runs without me. And then if you're selling to the coaching market, it's so then you have an asset that produces you income independent of your time. So then that frees and funds you to be able to speak on stages, spread your message, write books, and create content, which is probably why you got into this in the first place, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:19:01

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_05 1:19:02

Freaking love. Yeah, it's like little spiffy things that you get. And it's funny, is like when you're selling, and you're especially you're a salesperson, you just like you pick up these little things where you're like, Oh, I said that, and that worked really well. And then that kind of goes in the database.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:16

Yeah, you're thinking about it in the shower later. Yeah, like, oh, that one works.

SPEAKER_05 1:19:19

You're like, I gotta use that one again.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:19:21

You know, do you have any other others of those?

SPEAKER_04 1:19:23

Yeah. When I'm like transitioning from like kind of goals, current situation into what we call like pre-pitch, yeah. That kind of area of the call. I'll do this thing where I like pull out and intentionally create some space. Like, I'll slow down a lot, and I'll say, Hey, can I ask you a weird personal question? I like that frame, especially in B2C. Like, can I ask you a personal question? Right, especially early on, because they're always gonna have some degree of like who's this person, what are they trying to get out of me? And so I'll use that frame a lot, and I'll say, I kind of had this thing for a while, and I have a sense you might have it too, and I'm just curious. But I had this like chronic thing for a while where I would describe it as like, I feel like there's this whole other version of me out there in the universe somewhere that's doing all these incredible things, but I couldn't figure out how to get to him. I know that's weird, but like, have you experienced anything like that? 10 out of 10 times they go, Yeah, I've never been able to put words to it, but that is how I feel. And I'll say, What has that been like for you? Like, I'm curious, what has that been like for you? Yeah, and they'll stop and they'll go, Well, you know, I'm 32 now, I've always known I was gonna figure something out and be successful. I just like I went to college and did the thing and I haven't been able to figure it out.

SPEAKER_05 1:20:53

Right.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:53

And I'll go, interesting. What do you think it would feel like to get there? And they'll always just be like, Man, it would be amazing. And then that allows me to transition into can I give you some feedback from everything that we've talked about up to this point? And they're like, Yeah, I'd love that. And I'll go super slow and I'll say, Look, getting to know you and hearing your goals and what you have going on in life, I genuinely believe that this is an incredible fit for you. And here's why. But then the key is I call out personal attributes of them. So like it's very clear that you want to grow, you want to develop, you want to be the best you can be, you want to realize that potential where you know that you're actually becoming great at life, and it's super obvious that you're ready to draw a line in the sand and actually make a change. And then they'll pause and almost all the time they'll go, Thank you. Like, thank you for seeing that in me. What they're actually saying is like, holy shit, this person sees me for the first time. Yeah, they they see that I'm tenate, like that there's something special here.

SPEAKER_05 1:22:04

Do you remember that Ed Milette talk that he gave? I mean, this was like 2015. It was he was on a speaking circuit tour and he was giving this talk. Basically, the whole talk was about like influence, but then the thesis of it was you want to show up as that person that believes like it's so rare to have somebody who kind of like believes in you more than yourself. And he was using this example of like sometimes like a grandparent, it's like they just like believe in you, and then you're like, Where are you getting all this belief? But they're like, Oh yeah, what you're you're gonna be the president when you grow up, you know, like stuff like that. And I always say in sales, like when you can demonstrate to the person that you see something in them or you believe in them more than they believe in themselves, they almost just you have so much influence over them because entrepreneurship and really trying to do anything that breaks out of like status quo is so lonely and they're so used to nobody understanding what they do, to where when you actually see a bigger potential in what they see, when everybody else is saying that what they're trying to do is unrealistic, it's massively influential. Like I'll say stuff like this. This is another one of my it's not really a spiffy line, but do I use this all the time in B2B? Yeah. I'll be like, look, so like in terms of getting to 150 grand a month, like that's not really gonna be a problem. It comes down to three things. It's one, two, and three. And to fix this, you'd have to do blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But that's kind of an afterthought. What I'm really excited about for you is like, look, I have clients who are just like you who are doing the same thing. I don't think they're any better than you at what you're doing, but they're just doing a couple of things differently on the lead and the acquisition and the sales side that allows them to be doing 500 grand a month in revenue. So, like the first thing we got to work on for you is one, two, and three. But I'm not really worried about that at all. What I'm really excited about when we work together is X, Y, and Z that's gonna get you to 500 because I don't see any reason why you shouldn't be there. But that's what really lights me up, and I want to make sure you see that for yourself because you have that potential.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:24:04

And it's like, I just like basically shattered their I want to make a hundred grand a month conservative goal. And now they're like, okay, this guy's so certain that what I thought was a problem is not gonna be a problem, and we're all we're talking about 500 grand a month. Does that make sense? Yeah, dude.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:19

Yeah, when Taylor closed Sebastian and I back in the day, it was like a 20-minute call. And we got on and he was like, Alright, what's the goal? And we were like, dude, we want to get to 50 grand a month. We were doing like 20. And he goes, he leaned into his mic and he's like, not that. And leaned back. We were like, what do you mean? And he goes, You can picture Taylor doing this 100k a month. Lean back. And we both were like it was silent. And we were like, dude, that would be that would be insane. Like, we're 20. Yeah, dude, that would be insane. And he just goes, I'd be disappointed if you didn't do it. Lean back out. And we were like, I literally remember like trying to play it so cool, and I was like, What do you think that would look like? And he goes, Pay me and I'll show you. And he kept doing that. He's like leaning it out. He's like, pay me and I'll show you. And we sat there, and Sebastian asked a question, like, could you help us with their ads? And he just goes, Easy. Like, dude, he must have like had a bet with Peyton or something about how few words he was gonna say. He just goes, easy. And we sat there a bit longer, and I was like, Well, I think this seems like the smart thing for us to do. And he goes, Yeah, you'd be stupid not to. And we were just like, Alright, we'll pay the invoice.

SPEAKER_05 1:25:48

That's so good. That's so good. So back to because you were mentioning the personal question thing. So another spiffy thing I say is this is what I'm trying to get, because a lot of closers will be like, and this is like kills me. So uh why is that important now? And you're just like, okay, like what expand what answer did you expect to get, buddy?

SPEAKER_00 1:26:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:26:08

Um, so what I what I say, yeah. So what I say is is can I ask you a personal question? Um, and they're like, yeah. And I'll be like, well, you know, you obviously want to transition to starting this business. You know, you're working corporate, you've been doing corporate for what was it, 10 years? Ten years now. So, you know, after all of that time, and I mean you're making decent money. I mean, I guess like, why all of a sudden do you want to make this shift to into entrepreneurship now, though? Like, what shifted for you? What happened? And so I use that all the time. And the the how that breaks down is can I ask you a personal question? Permission increases compliance. Compliance is basically the quality of the response that you get to the question that you ask. So can I ask you a personal question? Permission increases compliance. Also, can I ask you a personal question? Presupposes you're gonna get a personal answer. And then what I do is called permission, context, question. So the context was you've been doing this behavior working in corporate for 10 years, and to most people's standards, that actually would seem pretty good because you're making decent money. But now all of a sudden, you want to do this other thing. So after all of that time, what shifted? What happened? And so what I'm doing is I'm pointing out that people could perceive that that behavior is irregular, and I'm asking them to justify it to me because the number one influential principle in Robert Chadini's influence is the principle of consistency. Yeah. That people want to feel and appear consistent to others and themselves about all decisions. So the fact that they have to qualify and justify that behavior to me makes them give me a quality very quality response. And then I tack it on with that little phrase what shifted? What happened? Because, and I got this from Tony Robbins, but he always says that like we want to make a big uh change in our life. It's not that like things slowly build up and then we're like, you know, it's finally time to make the change. What usually happens is is there a there's like a moment where it just shifts. And the common example that I don't know if he used this, but somebody used it, is like somebody wants to lose weight. And what happens is is like one day they haven't gotten on the scale in six months. They get on the scale and they're finally over 200 pounds. And then that just like shifts things. Or uh their little kid hops on their lap and says mommy you feel squishy.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:30

Right.

SPEAKER_05 1:28:30

And that's like the so it's always bringing them back to the moment of decision. And that's really the core why and urgency. If you ever get that on a sales call, that's when you know you got it. Is when they have to describe like that moment of decision. And then when they do that and they're describing that to you, what happens is is they have to by the nature of describing it bring back all of those emotions associated with that experience which are the emotions of change.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:57

Yep.

SPEAKER_05 1:28:57

Does that make sense? Makes perfect sense. And more importantly they're not just telling you they're telling themselves. So I use that little framework permission context question. Mm-hmm and also I do it in a way that's like I do it on purpose. It's like you know you've been doing this for like what you know 10 years now? I mean like after all of that time why all of a sudden do you want to shift now though? So you see how it's like when you ask it like that, it's a genuine opposed to like throwing a dart. Yeah. Um it's more effective for whatever, you know for for whatever reason that I cannot fully explain.

SPEAKER_04 1:29:33

Well there's a influence Robert Cialdini one of the other studies they did was like the Because study the implied reason. And they the way they did the study is they went to a college campus where there was a long line of people waiting for something. I think it was at the printer and they had someone walk up to the front of the line and say can I cut in front of you and the success rate was really low. It was like 25% and then as soon as they added in the because what was crazy about it is the reason it didn't matter. Like if you just said because I need to it was like a 90% compliance rate. So I think also what you're doing there is like the by propping it as you're already kind of like in an ideal situation it already it also like creates that because scenario of like what is the reason and it leads them to justifying the reason and looking for one. Because when you do the well why change now it's like what do you expect them to say other than well if I don't do it now when because why not now like it's you just get these silly little responses because it sounds like a silly question when closers do it.

SPEAKER_05 1:30:47

Another spiffy thing I like to say this is this is the thing I have taught more than anything ever you're you're gonna know this probably word for word. Do you know what it is? We'll see the financial objection framework I've taught this more I've said these words maybe more than any words in my entire life. So it goes so basically after you let's say you pitch the investment and you're like yeah it's just 10k and they say okay well that sounds great I just gotta find the money and you say hey no problem totally get it outside like and this is what we covered early earlier right outside of the money just on the process do you feel like those three things we cover the three things we'd be implementing together is exactly what you need to be able to get to XY and Z outcome and they're like yes gotcha. So money aside you're 100% in and they're like oh yeah totally like I really want to do this it's just fun finances whatever and they're saying it with like the certainty not the waffling not like I think so if they say that I say I I think so like what's really going on you know and I just try to make it fun which when you mind read like that it's when you can call out what's going on in here opposed to what what they're saying it actually diffuses all like the masks of the conversation and it makes it real. But anyways let's just say like no no I totally want to do it and you're like okay great so look like most of our clients do it up front but for certain clients who really want to do it like you but finances are standing in the way we break it up. So are you open to having an honest conversation financially getting everything on the table so we can see if there's a way to make this work now or at the very least we can create a game plan for you to work towards this in the future. And they're like yeah cool. So let's just kind of run through your finances then and then I get three key metrics. I say cool so what's your net incoming 30 day cash so in other words what do you have coming in in the next 30 days after you pay your personal expenses and what have you they're like uh I'm gonna have three grand left over. Okay, great, three grand. And what's your cash on hand right now exactly? And they'll be like nothing. And I'll be like well I'm not asking what you can spend right this second. I'm just asking like how much you actually have access to right now just so we have the landscape of what's available. And I might even throw it in I don't even know if you could do this right now but at the very least again I want to make sure I know what to tell you practically so that you know how to build towards this. And they'll be like well I have because I want to know what's in their account. So they'll be like well I have you know 17 or 17 grand. Okay great. And then what about credit? Oh I got X, Y, and Z. Then through that, because you can see what I pitched the pay and full price I have the payment plans at the back of my head. So now I know what's the best payment plan that they can do. And so I have that in my head of what I'm gonna pitch and then I'll be like and you really want to do this right and they'll be like yes so that's my because after like you know digging on the finances a little bit that kind of pushes them away. So that's my way of pushing them back in. I'll be like so you really want to do this right that's me pulling away they're coming back in. And they'll be like yeah and I'll be like well look like in your situation I don't think doing this all up front I wouldn't even recommend or even allow you to do that. But I also don't think the best thing for you to do based on what we talked about earlier is to do nothing. So what I'd be willing to do for you is let you in for half down that way you can implement X implement Y implement Z to where when that next payment comes around 30 days down the road you already have A B and C built out you have tons of momentum to where it's gonna feel almost like an afterthought so if I was willing to do that for you are you willing to move forward right now and I'm telling you I've closed more people with that language than anything in my entire life and I have I beg people to do that. I'm like please use it. Just do it like it works. I I I teach that so often because it's basically double tie down. So I've isolated that finance is the only thing I'm like hey you really want to do it for people like you who really want to do it and it's just finance is sitting in the way we break it up but in order to break it up I got to know what's going on financially whatever I get permission to talk about financials. And people like think oh that's like scummy. It's like you got to realize to do this they have to have told you twice that like they a hundred percent want to do this. It's the top priority. So like by that logic they be they're gonna be willing to share with you whatever as long as you're not weird about it. So then I get those three metrics. The first one I get is the net 30 day cash because it's less invasive. I want to get them in the pattern of asking a question.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:35:18

So it's less invasive than cash on hand but the cash on hand is the main one and credit. So I ask the easy one first and the harder two second. Then I say do you really want to do this? And I say well look I don't even think you should do option one which is kind of like more authority preeminence frame but I also don't think you should do nothing. And then I frame I gave them a two pay but you see why when I give them a two pay I basically made it seem so good. Yeah and then I tack it on with the end with if I'm willing to do that for you right now or sorry if I'm willing to do that for you are you willing to move forward right now. And what's so key about that is anytime you're can making a concession which I mean going from a pan full to a toupee would be a concession. So anytime you're making a concession you want to ask for something in return. Now more often than not the best thing you can ask for is a decision now. But do you see how like some people will go through that whole thing I'll be like oh man you did it perfect. I'm like great job great job and then they get to the end they're like so we'll just give you a two pay and then he's like thanks well that means a lot I'll get back to you tomorrow. Yeah so it's like no no no no you got to say if I'm willing to do that for you are you willing to move forward right now you're trading the terms for a decision now. Yeah you close so many people with that. And if they say if they waffle you you deal with it a little bit then maybe you go down to a three pay and it's like but look if I'm gonna do that for you you also need to give me a case study. So I ask for another thing in return.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:36:45

Or you ask for I need you to get you I mean you could do I need you to get through this part of the process within seven days.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:36:51

You know whatever. If they do it or not whatever. And then it's again so if I'm willing to do that for you are you willing to move forward right now. That's like the key phrase. And you can get so many and a lot of times that I'll hit that then they'll be like ah discombobulated and then it's like hey man like what's going on and they're like ah like is it just a little bit of nerves yeah and then we go into the nerve stuff.

SPEAKER_04 1:37:13

Yeah and then we loop back around deal with the fear a little bit boom right back in but I've taught that framework I have used more than anything else my entire life it's also very it's also just very strong leadership because once someone's in that identity pattern of like finances are tight I'm I'm feeling broke and they're in that identity pattern they're also probably in a behavior pattern of like not checking their credit card balances nervous to open up their bank account and so they're also when they're in that identity pattern you have to like break it down with them because they probably don't know their numbers for themselves because they're in the broke identity pattern if they did know their numbers they would just look at you and say dude I can't afford this here's where my financials are at but I do want to do it is there any way you could split it up into X yeah yeah so if they're not leading with here's what I can afford can you do that then it means that they're not solution aware they're just in an identity pattern. Yeah so you have to actually break it down or they'll just stay in the I can't afford this because I'm currently identifying as poor right now.

SPEAKER_05 1:38:28

Yeah and you know the other funny thing about that is is like sometimes um they'll be I'll have them like look at their statements or whatever while we're on the call not sharing their screen but like you know I can tell they're like they're looking into it and you and they'll be like they'll be like and and then and then they'll start to say something and I'll be like John it's worse than you thought isn't it? Yeah and they're like he's like yeah yeah John so you gotta cut them off. Yeah because what's gonna happen is they'll start unraveling yes so you gotta cut them off it's like look like let's just see what it is I I don't even know if you can do this but we need to have an honest conversation because the worst thing I could do is not have clarity on that and then leave you in a place where you have nothing to work towards in the future. Yeah so like what's the damage?

SPEAKER_04 1:39:18

Yeah I'll usually be pretty teasy like when I see them be like oh like it's uh okay do you know roughly how much you have in your account yeah probably like five grand all right well let's check real quick and then it's the oh I'll usually stop and be like dude it sounds like we need to get making some more money yeah and I'll be like yeah dude it's worse than I thought well bro what do we do uh do you like should we just start working towards making more money yeah dude I need to make some more money it's true yeah all right but there's a like one of the mental models I have is like the last the end of a sales call is like a pressure pot with like those steam release valves at the call and what elite closers is use humor to release the pressure they know how to release pressure in the right time and in the right way closers that I see struggle they haven't understood that concept yet.

SPEAKER_05 1:40:14

Well you know why is because they have too much of their identity wrapped up in getting the yes. Yeah like when you're really good it just becomes fun. Yeah and when it becomes fun you can have fun uh because you're like you're obsessed with just like how is this gonna turn out you know like and you know also that you're a great closer regardless of what happens on this call. Yeah and that's also what I say is like you have to have a process to fall back on because people just get into fight or flight. I mean I used to be the same way I used to be just like I mean it was literally fight or flight. Oh yeah flight let's book a follow-up call or fight and I just like literally fight the person that was like when I first started I was like so bad but you have to have like such a like I always tell people don't expect to get the close when you drop the investment expect to get the close after you drop the investment you handle three objections and then they buy yeah like that's it should be your expectation and when you actually expect that a lot of times you can guess what they're gonna say anyways and then you're actually already prepared for it. Yeah but you're not like mad when they say something other than a yes. Yeah because most people that's what they're gonna do.

SPEAKER_04 1:41:26

But there's a lot of propaganda in the high ticket space these days of like if you get an objection it means that you're not a good closer.

SPEAKER_05 1:41:35

Like you missed No I mean objections are just you know it's funny is I do think well here's the thing is that that comes from the at the from the idea which is true that if you don't handle the front end of the call the discovery you know pitch your report you know all this stuff right your connection with somebody how deep you go the level of trust that's built the level of insight you give all of that will result in weaker or no objections yes so like we've all because we've all had instances where you're you're reviewing a call or like a closer comes to a group call and they'll be like they said this and I'll be like well buddy if they said that like you probably you probably tossed the big no I did the great and I'm like you tossed the great the the whole call sucks. But that being said there's not enough emphasis that like you do need to be good at the close. And I would say it's not that hard you'd probably agree with this it's not that hard to get people to where they're like they can do discovery correctly they can pitch correctly. For sure. It's not that hard it's really not you say the same thing almost on every call. What's harder is the objections a little bit of art a little bit of the commitment you know you gotta have the grit and the thing is too is when you're taking six or seven calls a day your brain optimizes for expending the least amount of energy and avoiding the most amount of conflict yeah right because conflict is bad and more energy. So you trick yourself into follow-ups. For sure whereas every time I was in a rut I realized that I needed to increase like this is how I thought about it for whatever weird reason. I was like I needed to increase my energy expenditure at the close from like an 80 to like a 110. Like I needed to like overcorrect a little bit and just be like I needed to burn a couple of deals by going too hard.

SPEAKER_00 1:43:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:43:22

And then okay I can I can find equilibrium again because I had slid down too far below below equilibrium. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_04 1:43:29

Makes perfect sense it's actually the biggest like rut fixer that I have when I'm leading teams is for the next five calls you're not allowed to get off the call until you get a yes or a no. Yeah like yeah they're gonna say no and hang up before you're willing to end the call.

SPEAKER_02 1:43:45

Yep.

SPEAKER_04 1:43:46

And almost always what'll happen is even if they don't close the next call they'll watch themselves like fight for it and be like oh this is what it feels like. Going back to the having fun part so much of that is gonna be built by how the sales manager or business owner trains and leads and runs the team like if you're a business owner or sales manager where like every sales meeting is hard ass what are the numbers discipline and you're not leading the team having fun they'll carry that into calls. Right yeah like dude I've had so many times where like I'd pull up a call we'd watch the first six minutes and I would just stop and be like dude are you drunk? Like what is this? And like just rip on the closer and tease the shit out of them because it's like so bad it's like not even worth reviewing. It just becomes like the funniest thing and everybody teases the closer but in a way them getting teased about it is like yeah I need to loosen up. I need to take a deep breath because like yeah that was really bad. That was rough and so much of that is built by the sales manager.

SPEAKER_05 1:45:03

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