sales training 101: crash course

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SALES TRAINING 101: CRASH COURSE What we’re going to cover:

● Sales philosophy ● The Belief Ladder in sales ● Sales process overview ● Basic objection handling ● Social prospecting

Sales Philosophy

What do people really buy?

● People do NOT buy because of: ○ Your offer ○ You ○ Your company/brand ○ Your testimonials

● People buy STATES on both a surface and emotional level. You can also think of this as an “end result” on both a surface / emotional level.

● Put differently, prospects have a: ○ Current situation on a surface and emotional level ○ Desired situation on a surface and emotional level

● When the path of least resistance from current situation to desired situation is your offer, prospects will buy.

● Example: ○ Aspirin: Headache, discomfort → No headache, ease ○ Coffee: Tired, groggy, unproductive → Alert, happy, productive

Understanding Emotional States:

● Prospects aren’t only buying surface level destinations, they’re buying emotional level destinations. ● We break these down into six categories (Tony Robbins’ 6 Human Needs)

○ Certainty ○ Variety ○ Significance ○ Growth ○ Contribution ○ Love and connection

● Certainty and significance are the two most powerful… always!


To better understand this, consider this example:

The Belief Ladder: ● There are seven beliefs your prospect needs to have in order to buy. ● This also means there are seven reasons your prospect does NOT buy.

○ In other words, every objection can be traced back to seven different reasons/beliefs. ● Our goal is to build these seven beliefs using skilled questions before we transition into our pitch, so

instead of having to convince the prospect to buy our product/service, the prospect closes themselves.

○ Building the seven beliefs also means you could be breaking down seven limiting beliefs. ● Any script will work if it covers the seven beliefs.

○ Understanding them gives us EXTREME amount of flexibility on calls, and also allows us to navigate the call without getting lost.

The 7 Beliefs:

1. Pain 2. Doubt 3. Cost 4. Desire 5. Money 6. Support 7. Trust


Pain: ● The prospect must believe they have a problem that is keeping them from getting what they want. ● If there is no problem, there is no sale.

○ Business is about solving problems. This is why we always start off the call trying to find the problem.

■ We find the problem, mark “X,” put our shovel in the ground and start digging. ■ The entire conversation is about the PROBLEM.

● Pain can also be thought of as the “gap” between the current and desired situation. ○ This is especially helpful to understand because sometimes the prospect is unaware that

they even have a problem. ○ We want to establish:

■ 1) What they want ■ 2) What’s keeping them from getting it

● If the problem is not elicited, they will not: ○ See the value/need for the investment because they won’t understand how you can help them

(you can’t explain how you can help someone if you don’t know the problem/gap). ○ See you as a trusted authority who can LEAD THEM to fix the problem

Doubt: ● The prospect must believe that they cannot fix this problem on their own OR that attempting to do so

would waste resources (time and money) given the other avenues available to them (your offer). ● The “Buying Pocket”

○ What is the “Buying Pocket?” ■ The “Buying Pocket” is a place where the prospect believes that their transformation

is possible, but only with your help. ○ Why is this important?

■ We know WHAT people buy, but this is why people will buy from you specifically ■ Helps us understand where we need to nudge the prospect

○ Left side: They don’t believe it’s possible (use stories, case studies, proof) ○ Right side: They believe they can DIY (create doubt through skilled questions, reframes, etc.)

● Doubt eliminates the DIY/ego objection. ● Sometimes doubt is already there, sometimes you have to build it. Don’t make the mistake in trying to

create doubt when it’s already there.


Cost: ● The prospect must believe that doing nothing is far more painful than the investment in time and

money needed to fix this problem. ● Eliminates time objections and creates urgency

● In order for the prospect to take action, the current and future pain of doing nothing has to be FAR GREATER than the pain of time and money into your offer/investment.

Desire:

● The prospect must believe solving the problem/gap would yield a better future situation (heaven island).

● Typically we want to know: ○ What they want ○ Why they want what they want ○ A number (value) assigned to what they want ○ How getting what they want would impact another area of their life (widening the gap)

Money:

● The belief that the prospect has the resources and willingness to solve the problem ● If they don’t have the resources, that’s a condition—not an objection. ● If they don’t have the willingness, that goes back to there not being enough cost. ● Barring extreme situations, it’s often best to leave this belief to the end.

○ More often than not, if I get the other six beliefs and leave this to the end, I will close (if they actually have the money).


Support: ● The belief that people around them (spouse/partner) will support them in fixing the problem ● This prevents spouse/partner objections

Trust:

● Do they see your solution as clearly different, unique, and/or superior than similar methods they’ve tried in the past?

○ Trust eliminates the “I’ve been burned before” objection and helps them logically tell themselves why this is going to be different.

● Are they bought into your method of what success looks like? ○ Two sales:

■ Sale on the method of success ■ Sale on the product ■ Ex: Clickfunnels

● The key to online business success is creating profitable and scalable funnels, and the only way to do that is through Clickfunnels.

■ The buy in on the method is your pitch (we’ll cover that in pitch training).

How we build the beliefs (Socratic dialogue):

● Think of these beliefs like a checklist: if we check the boxes of each belief before we transition into the close, chances are, they're going to buy.

● How do we build these beliefs? We build beliefs through Socratic dialogue. ○ Socratic dialogue is the process of asking skilled questions to help the prospect come to the

conclusion that you want them to, but as if it was their own idea. ● Consistency bias

○ Consistency bias is what makes Socratic dialogue so powerful. ○ When prospects express that they hold the seven beliefs, they are not only telling you those

things, more importantly, they’re telling themselves. ○ This is important because the highest driver of human behavior is to be and/or appear

consistent. To learn more about this, read Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Dr. Robert Cialdini.

■ When you use Socratic dialogue in conjunction with the Belief Ladder, it’ll feel incongruent for the prospect not to move forward at the end. This is how you create an objection-less close.

■ If you look at most great closers, while they certainly CAN handle objections, most of their closes are either objection-less OR a merely a matter of handling logistics (i.e., finding a payment plan that works, timing, etc.).

■ The reason for this is because they’re doing everything before the close the right way.


How to do this on a sales call:

● What we’ll cover: ○ The sales process (at a high level) with slight adjustments for:

■ Lifestyle offers (ex: fitness/dating) ■ Coaching/consulting offers ■ Professional services offers (ex: agency)

○ How to execute the Belief Ladder/Socratic dialogue during the discovery portion of the call ■ You can cover the seven beliefs in any order and you’ll be fine as long as you cover

them all in your discovery — but there are two primary syntaxes that allow you to do it quickly with very high effectiveness.

● Problems-first syntax ● Goals-first syntax

Sales Process: Overview Lucidchart: Overview Of Sales Process

Call Introduction

Rapport

Hey is this NAME? Hey, it’s Cole, what’s up? Awesome, I was actually just ____ . Been having a good week so far? Great, well I know we have a limited amount of time here so you ready to jump in? Got a clean sheet of paper, something to take notes with? ----- (if skeptical: is now still a good time to connect?) Frame Gotcha, so what I’ve found to work best on these calls is first diving deeper into the specifics of your business and sales process, how that’s working right now, and ultimately what you feel are the specific challenges keeping you from moving forward. Now once we get some clarity there, if we can help then I’m more than happy to walk you through that — or wherever you want to go — and if not we can figure out whatever else is best. I might refer you out to someone we know, give you some homework to work on in the meantime, whatever you need.


Cool? That being said, probably our best place to start is tell me what the biggest challenge with your sales is right now. What’s not working? Discovery Discovery flow:

1. Isolate Challenge 2. Desired Situation

a. “Ultimate Goal” b. Monetary

i. Why that number? ii. Financial qualifier (if pertinent)

c. Long-term vision d. Non-monetary

3. Current Situation a. Uncover reason for change b. Doubt questions c. Solution questions d. Cost / Why now questions e. Support questions

Questions/Scripting breakdown: Isolate the Challenge What’s the biggest challenge right now? Or what’s not working at the level it truly could be, or that it should? [Probing questions: “Tell me more,” “When you say ____, what do you mean, exactly?”] Desired Situation

● Gotcha, well what might make more sense is to begin with the end in mind here. So ultimately, what’s the goal?

○ Probing questions: Tell me more, why is that important, etc. ● And what’s your monetary goal?

○ You seem like you’ve thought of that number before. Can I ask, why that number? ● (Financial qualifier) And how much money would you have to have just to REPLACE the amount of

income that you’re making full time? ○ Is that ultimately the goal? To transition out of that? ○ Is replacing enough to allow you to leave? Or how much would you have to be bringing in to be

able to walk in the door and put in those two weeks? ■ (COVID-19): Has that been impacted by COVID? In what way?


● Given the drop in income, has that put you in a tough position financially? In what way?

● And overall, what’s your long-term vision for ____? ○ Probing questions (again)

● Now, can I ask a personal question? And the reason why I’m asking is because my goal isn’t only to build you a business that’s building you wealth, but also one that’s empowering you to live whatever lifestyle that you want to live. So when you think about what that is for you, what comes up? What are the non-monetary goals — the personal goals — that you want your business to allow you to achieve?

Current Situation

● Now, what’d you do now for work full time? Do you like it? (This presents us two options) 1) They don’t like it (and then you use probing questions to dig into the pain)

○ “What’s the worst part about that?” “Take me back to the day where you said ‘enough is enough’ — what happened?”)

i) How long have you been doing it? And how long have you been thinking about starting this business?

(1) Can I ask you a personal question? After all that time… what was the final straw? Like what made you draw the line in the sand and say - you know what - this has got to become a priority now, though?

2) They do like it. You say: ○ What do you like about it? ○ And how long have you been doing that for? And how long have you thought about starting

this? i) Wow… well can I ask you a personal question? After doing that for five years, and it all

going fairly well for you, I mean… why all of the sudden do you want to stop doing that and start this business? Like, what happened to make this a priority for you now, though?

○ (Doubt) What’d you think has been the biggest challenge in getting this started by yourself? What’s in the way?

○ (Solution Questions) ■ Have you reached out to anyone else to get help with this in the past? ■ Are you working with anyone now? ■ Have you been out there considering other coaches to possibly work with? ■ Have you done coaching before?

○ (Support Questions) ■ Are you married? ■ What’d your wife/husband/partner think about this transition? ■ Are they supportive? ■ Do they know you are on this call? ■ What would they think if they did?


Transition:

Lucidchart: Review of where we’re at in the sales process Look I don’t feel like I have any more questions. Is there anything else that you feel like we haven’t covered that I need to know? Well John, based on what you told me previously, we can DEFINITELY help... [OPTIONAL: Insert thoughts] That said, where do you think we should go from here? I can walk you through the entire process A-Z of how we would help you get to [OUTCOME] if you would like? But you tell me where you wanna go. ------- Thoughts can be:

● A case study story ● A personal story ● Some basic, valuable insight on the “what” not the “how”

Pitch:

High Level Promise: Gotcha, so do you still have that pen and pad? Great, on your pen and paper - write out 1 through 4 with a good bit of space in between them to take notes on each. One, two, three, four. [wait for them to acknowledge that they’ve done this] Ok, let me preface this by saying that everything I do is all customized on what’s best for the client. For you, specifically, it’s gonna be four things. Four steps for you to go from zero control on your sales calls to closing at least 30% or more of the people you speak with in about eight weeks. Cool? The Bridge: Ok, so when you come in, the very first thing we’re going to do is build out what I call your… Pitch Codex: So the first thing we’re going to do is get clear on your offer and how it’s explained over the phone.


And we’re going to do it in a way in which it’ll feel in a way that’s compelling, that’s new, and very different to what the prospect has heard before. Which will not only allow you to separate yourself from the competition, but also — because of the positioning — likely increase your pricing, which means less work to get to your goal and more time in the evenings with your family. Does that make sense? Awesome. What questions do you have on that? Cool, so once you’re pitch is dialed in, the next thing we’ll focus on is... Sales Process Redesign So you know how earlier on the call you mentioned that you’re dealing with a bunch of objections at the end of the calls and it’s making you feel like you have to be super “high-pressure” to close prospects who are otherwise your perfect client? So in this stage what we do is redesign your sales process by implementing what I call the “reverse selling system.” The reason I call it “reverse selling” is because it’s a 7-step process that allows you to eliminate objections before the close so it’s kinda like “reverse engineering the sale.” You know what I mean? And also, given how long you said your calls were, you’ll probably be able to cut that in half once you really get this down. So instead of spending that time exhausted on calls you can have more time to actually build your brand and work on your business. Make sense? Questions? Thoughts? Or are you ready to move on? Cool, so the next step is ... Pipeline and Follow-Up Systems So the first two alone can get you to at least a 30% closing ratio. But even if you’re doing 30%, that means 70% of the people you speak with — for one reason or another — don’t buy, right? So this is where you’ll learn how to use a combination of messenger outreach, content marketing, and what I call “re-offers” to be able to get people who didn’t buy originally back on the phone to re-sell them. Does that make sense?


And the reason this is so important, is that when I was selling full time for instance, I would average about $350,000 per month for the company and 50% of that was through pipeline and follow up. Literally half of my sales. So over a year that’s well over two million just from just follow up alone, which doesn’t cost any additional ad spend, by the way. So this is something I’d like to see you doing sooner rather than later because otherwise we’re just leaving easy money on the table. Know what I mean? Anything else on that or you wanna move on? Ok, so next is ... Sales Team and Scaling So this is where we’ll begin to think about hiring sales reps so that you don’t have to take all the calls yourself anymore and you can start working on your business, not in the business. And once you get to this point, you’re really going to be able to get back your time and reinvest in things like building your brand, speaking on stage, publishing that book, and so on. Make sense? Questions on that? Delivery In terms of how this is all fulfilled, the in-depth training platform will be something you will have lifetime access to so that you can use it to train all your current sales reps as well as all the ones you hire in the future. We will also meet twice a week for a “sales clinic” where we’ll take what’s in the training and make sure it’s applied to your specific situation, offer, and roleplay it to really “cement it in.” And on top of that you’ll have one-to-one access to me Monday through Friday, from 9 to 5 through Voxer, so that I can coach you on the spot on the day you have calls. Plus, that way if you go into a slump, I can break you out of it within a day opposed to you having to wait 4-7 days ‘til our next clinic. Make sense? What questions do you have on that? Or what questions do you have about the entire process, in totality?


Committing Phase Temperature Check Just curious, but in terms of the process specifically — how do you feel? [Certain answer + certain tonality = move on] [Uncertain answer and/or uncertainty tonality = alignment bit] I hear ya, and just to be totally clear, what’s really important to me is ALIGNMENT — when you come in and work with us, we’re rolling up the sleeves and getting in the trenches with you on this thing. I mean our team is ALL IN — so it’s really important to us that you feel GOOD about the process, know what I mean? So just to be 100% clear, on like a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being ___ and 10 being ___, where do you feel like you fall exactly? [if 9-10 + certain language/tonality = move on] [if 8 or below = ask the following] “Gotcha man, and I appreciate you being honest about that. Just curious, what exactly do you think is keeping you from say being a 8, 9, or 10? [Then handle objection/ask clarifying questions/re-temp “are you sure”] Transition Language Any questions? [if necessary] Gotcha so you feel good, no questions. So what’s next? Where do you feel like you wanna go from here? Onboarding So you’ll process the investment with me. Once we take care of that, what we do is set a baseline. So I’ll give you some homework right away to see where we can get our quickest wins, as well as have you send in your current sales script and pitch as well as a call for me to review for feedback. Most people find that they end up closing at least an additional deal or two a week just from the first call review breakdown. Then from there we’re ready to rock and roll.


Does that sound good? Investment ...And then investment to get you to (high-level outcome) is just XXX. [...and the investment to get you to $20,000/month, $240,000 a year is just $6,800]. [SHUT UP]

Objections: Pacing the First Objection Step 1: Pace and Tie Down #1 No problem. For a second, let’s just pretend that money is out of the equation. How do you feel about the process specifically? Do you feel like ultimately it’s what you need to get to (OUTCOME)? Outcomes:

1) The prospect agrees 2) The prospect does not agree or is uncertain (scale of 1-10 OR reference)

a) Listen to their tonality Step 2 (Prospect Agrees): Tie Down #2 Option 1: How vs. Should (if they haven’t mentioned money / partner) So just to be clear, you’re not in a “SHOULD” I do this place to where you’re going back and forth on if this is the best next step for your business, it sounds like your more in a “HOW” can I do this place to where you’re 100% certain this is the shortest and most effective route to (OUTCOME), it’s just a matter of making it work financially. Option 2: Isolation (if they’ve already mentioned money / partner objection So just to be clear, (OBJECTION) aside, there nothing that’s keeping you from being less than 100% certain that this is what you need to get to (OUTCOME)? Outcomes:

1) We get the double tie down on the process and have isolated either money or spouse 2) They bring up that there’s a level of uncertainty


Step 2.5: Scale of 1-10 (If uncertain OR they give you a surface level/ambiguous response to step 1) No worries, and I’d like to acknowledge you for being honest with me about that. That’s something I can appreciate. Now can I be honest with you for a second? You just got done telling me that you’re a 9 out of 10 on the process because ____ (insert reason why they told you they were a 10) and now it seems like you’re nowhere near that certain about the process. So, can you be honest with me? What’s really going on? […..this will help you get to the REAL conversation] Follow me on FB: https://www.facebook.com/cole.gordon.714/

sales training 101: crash course

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