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