If you’re building a consulting practice, doing some fractional work, or starting any kind of entrepreneurial / “hang-my-shingle” venture, here’s the truth: your results won’t matter if you can’t sell.
In this episode, Todd and Chris break down sales in a way that’s clean, human, and repeatable – especially if you’ve spent years in corporate and the word “selling” makes you tense up.
You’ll learn why the best sales conversations aren’t about pitching harder, they’re about listening deeper.
In this conversation, we cover:
- The 4 key Pillars within any business – and a way to identity your strong suits and weak areas
- The shift that changes everything: you’re not selling a product – you’re selling a future outcome
- Why “deep curiosity” beats persuasion (and how it makes closing feel natural)
- The moment most people avoid: asking directly for the sale (and how to do it without getting weird)
- The power of silence after the ask – and how to handle objections without spiraling
- A key skill most people skip: expertise in the manner by which you actually sell (online vs. phone vs. face-to-face, for example)
If you’ve ever thought, “I’m great at what I do… I just don’t know how to sell it,” this is your episode.
If this conversation resonated with you, visit ReInvention.biz to explore our guided workbook and join a community of people just like you – people designing what’s next.
**Subscribe to the ReInvention Podcast to stay plugged into fresh ideas, frameworks, and real-world tools for navigating the future of your work and life.
 
Episode Transcript
Todd: Everybody is selling the same thing,
And what you’re selling is the future, okay? Or you’re selling a desired state in the future, a result, an outcome, and the greatest salespeople, understand that whoever they’re talking to are sitting there with a need.
So Chris, what is going on my brother? What is top of mind?
Chris: Yo, I’m really excited today, Todd, because today we’re talking about one of the most, if not the most important areas for career reinventors to master. And I know it’s something that’s near and dear to your heart and it’s an area that you are an expert in and these are really like fundamental skills that are needed for any business owner, any entrepreneur, and really most people, sales and marketing.
And as we’ve said on other episodes, you know, everything is sales. Even just explaining your career transformation or your reinvention to people in your life is a form of sales, building rapport, presenting a new concept to them in a way that they can understand, getting them to accept the concept and move forward with you on the journey.
You know, or at least that’s what I think it is, Todd, because today I’m, I’m learning from you along with our audience, right? Because you’ve got lots of experience and expertise in this area. You’ve sold for a living and you’ve trained people to sell. You’ve done a lot of digital marketing. You’ve always been acting essentially as an entrepreneur your entire career in a way that I haven’t. So I’m really excited today to learn some of these techniques and skills that are needed for sales and marketing and some ways to get smarter and get better at this. You know, ’cause it’s just so fundamental to business success. I’m gonna tell you, it’s something I’ve really struggled with, and you know this right?
Because I actually feel like I have a natural alignment to it. That I have the personality and charisma and ability to connect that is needed to sell. But, where I’ve suffered and struggled is like just the technique and the skill and the structure. I feel like every individual sale I’ve made has been so improvisational that it’s been unnecessarily difficult.
Like it’s very custom and bespoke. And when I look back on it, it doesn’t seem to lend itself to a repeatable structure. So that’s kind of what I’m hoping to get some things out of today is a little bit more clarity around that. Around the idea of sales as a process and a structure. And I think that’s something that will resonate with our audience as well.
So I’m really excited to learn from you and if you’re okay, like I’m just gonna maybe jump in when I have questions. ’cause I think there’s people in our audience who are probably gonna have similar questions. So if you can kind of flow with me on that, that would be great because I know that everyone who’s listening, this is useful for everyone no matter what stage they’re in, in their reinvention.
How does that land with you, man? Where do you think you can take us today?
Todd: Yeah, it’s really a great intro Chris, and I think you touched on a couple of the major points. When it comes to selling something, right, even that word connotes an energy and an emotion when people say it, some people they get excited and like, yeah, let’s go. Others are like nervous. And I think the two main things that you touched on, number one, is that there are techniques, you know, for selling, and we’re gonna cover some of those today.
And the second piece, which is also a little bit different is that selling is also tied to your identity, you know, especially when you’re reinventing and what you’re looking to do. So there is kind of this idea of always be selling, or always be closing. You’ve heard that before.
You know, Glenn, Gary, Glenn Ross, very famous stuff. But it is relevant because, you know, as you’re reinventing and as we go through this conversation, I just wanna make it clear that when it comes to career reinvention, there’s a lot of people that we work with who have lived the corporate life for a long time and now are making a transition or starting a portfolio career, starting fractional work or consulting and putting out their own shingle and all kinds of creative things.
And so this idea becoming an entrepreneur or more entrepreneurial does lend itself to the idea that you do need to understand sales to some extent. Okay? And so we’re gonna address the beast head on about what is sales, what are the techniques, and then how do I need to hold that as part of my new identity?
Okay? Because when you get those two things. You have a toolkit behind you. But then you also understand that this is slightly a shift in identity in terms of who you are and how you show up in the world. And that can be a hard bridge to cross for some people. But when you do understand that, and I’m gonna give it the end of this kind of some real Jedi stuff like literally like the Jedi stuff, that I think, you know, we’ll build towards that in this episode.
But I think it’s best if it’s okay with you. To start out with just like a general framework of how to think about sales and selling, especially as you’re reinventing. Is that a good place to start?
Chris: Yeah, let me just jump in real quick. I love that you framed it with identity in the beginning because that is something that’s very personal for me is that this idea of, Hey, I got into coaching to coach. I want to help people. I want to help them solve their problems. I want to help them get clarity and move towards their greater life and their career.
I’m not in this to sell. I just have to figure this thing out. But obviously I’m like evolving towards the idea of, oh yeah, actually the selling is part of this. If I’m gonna be an entrepreneur, it is core to this. And also it’s the vehicle to connect with the right people and help them. So I think I have a little bit of this fear of sales or like some kind of way about it like it’s, it’s a dirty word or something like that. And I think it’s owning that as part of your identity, I think is important for this. So I’m glad you started with that.
Todd: Well, I think so, and I think, you know, you just foreshadowed some of the Jedi stuff we’re gonna talk about at the end, because for you, the way you just framed it, like your motivation is to help people. And again, we’re gonna go into that a little bit later. What real great salespeople do, people that really influence people have a very particular way of walking around this planet.
Where they’re literally looking at things in a certain way. So it’s not selling, it’s actually built in to the identity. But I do want to start off by talking about how I believe people should think about holding sales as part of their professional life, especially.
In this state of reinvention, I’m going out, I’m starting my own thing, or I’m looking to do different things and I’m launching this and all of a sudden I have to think about how am I gonna get clients or how am I gonna get people into this new thing? And it’s really important that one of my mentors taught me a long time ago that, when you’re starting any business or you’re in any type of entrepreneurial or small business venture to look at it, that there are four main components of this business, okay? And sales, of course being one of them. But the first would be admin and operation, right? And the second would be marketing. The third would be sales. And the fourth would be delivery of product or retention, depending on what the actual business is. And so right from the get go, you want to think about sales being part of something that you do and understanding the difference between those things and what I found in 20 years, Chris, of coaching so many people that are reinventing, especially for those that are coming from.
A more corporate structured environment. They get very comfortable in one or two of these areas and don’t really turn towards the other two. Now, in this conversation, it’s easy to think that, yeah, a lot of people might have that kind of niggle around selling and all of a sudden they gotta sell and get clients, or even marketing.
Some people have a real problem with marketing other people chris, I just also wanna name it. Come from having a very sales oriented background and are really good at enrolling and may struggle in the other areas like admin and operations, right? Or delivering a product and retention. But it’s really good to think about your reinvention and what you’re doing, even just as your life. We talk about this on a previous episode about becoming the CEO of your own life, and even in my personal life, I think of myself as, all right, what are the admin ops, that I have? What is the marketing? You know, how am I establishing my brand myself, my thought leadership?
How am I communicating to the world who I am? That’s marketing sales, right? This is the actual mechanism by which a transaction happens. But that word can be tricky because people think of sales as a transaction, but it really is derived from more of a relationship, and we’ll talk about that. And then delivery and retention of a product.
Okay. So I think just starting there, if you’re listening to this and you’re in reinvention, you’re like, all right. Yeah, he’s right. Like we got ops and admin, we got marketing and establishment of who I am and what I’m doing. We have sales like this is actually how I get people to pay me, right? Or how I get a group or some contract to actually happen. ’cause sales actually happens in a moment. Okay. And that’s what’s interesting around it, the psychology of it. And then there’s the delivery and retention. Okay. So right from the get go, I want you thinking about your business and your reinventions from the context of these four different aspects of business.
And from there, Chris, I think we can then, jump into selling and more tactical stuff. But I wanted to stop there and see how that lands.
Chris: Well, my, my first reaction as I’m sitting there listening to you say that is, I’m like, of course that makes perfect sense. Like these are core pillars of the business. But really the way I think of my business, Todd, is as an amorphous blob of all these things running together into like, you know, where does marketing end and sales begin in my process?
Ah, I don’t really know. It’s very murky and, obviously I’m exaggerating a little for effect. Now I’m in a better place than I was a year ago, say, but I’m thinking about our career reinventors who are out there and man, I love the idea that from the get go, start thinking about these pillars, and then maybe even thinking about the way you budget time to these things.
Because you can be the greatest deliverer of a product and retain everyone who joins your services or whatever it is. But if there’s no one there to begin with, who cares? So it’s just like balancing these things intelligently. And I, again, for me, when I went into it, it was a little bit like question mark, question mark, question mark on how I’m gonna get the actual clients in the door.
Whenever I got a client, it was like, oh my gosh, you’re gonna get the greatest deliver. I’m gonna totally overdeliver for you. It’s gonna be awesome. But obviously sales is pretty critical to this whole running a business thing.
Todd: Right. Yeah, it is. And I love that you are always leading it to go into the actual tactics and we’re gonna get there because even with what you just said, some of the things that I’m about to share are gonna really, really. Help you. But actually before we get into that level of tactic, just in general, when we go into sales, like this is really important for everyone to understand.
Everybody is selling the same thing, and I’m talking about when you’re in front of a client or a prospect or a company or someone that you’re trying to engage with, where there’s gonna be a financial transaction. If somebody is paying you or your company services for something, we’re all selling the same exact thing.
And once you get this. It changes and what you’re selling is the future, okay? Or you’re selling a desired state in the future, a result, an outcome, okay? And the greatest salespeople, okay, or the greatest business people understand that whoever they’re talking to are sitting there with a need. They have a need and a hope for some outcome in the future to happen.
And this relationship, or this transaction, or whatever it is, is an experiment in, can I get to that future state? Can this person or can this group help me get to that desired state, it’s a transformation. We’re all selling transformation and it’s a very powerful way to go about, being in a marketing or a sales environment.
Because what it does is when you get that, it changes you away from I need to tell this person how great I am and how much I do this, and the bullet points of things that I do, and it changes you into somebody that’s really deeply listening and curious. And it’s not because you’re just trying to get the answer and frame it in a way that then you can sell ’em on your thing.
But the key to this is to be authentically curious about the person or people you’re in front of. What do they really want? What do they need? What is their desired future state that they want? If you can get that. Okay, and you’re like sitting, this is how I do it. I sit there and I’m listening like, what does this person want?
What is the state that they want? Later on when you get to selling or a close, it becomes very easy because you now have the language or very clear understanding of what that person or that group really wants. And this applies basically in all circumstances. Okay. I mean, you could be B2B and selling this. But like this person, has a job that represents a company and there are needs both personally and there are needs for the company. And a really good salesperson understands that. So deep listening is required. A deep curiosity, about who this person is or who are these people, and like what are the dynamics in play here?
You wanna understand that. These are the prospecting questions. Put that aside for the moment. Let’s not get technical here. You’re just dealing with human beings, that are at work dealing with money, have responsibility, wanna get paid as well, like wanna do well in their career.
And all you’re trying to do is understand, all right? What can I do to understand them really well. And that’s sales basics right there. You literally do that and that changes everything because then you start getting information. And when you start getting that information, you wanna repeat it back?
So what I’m understanding is like this and well actually no, and like what I’m doing is, I’m writing it down. I wanna know the language that they use that describes their pain and describes their future state. Okay. So you wanna understand like what language are they using to describe the result and the outcome they want and.
You wanna understand, what is the pain that they’re in around it? What is it inhibiting you to do by not being able to do this. I could give you a couple examples of how this works, but I just wanna stop there and see how that lands, because I see you smiling and nodding your head.
Chris: Yeah, that’s awesome. I mean, I think that’s like really really deep. And I think just to emphasize, it’s not just about asking surface level questions to try to get like data points, right? It’s deeper than that. It’s about connection, it’s about future state. It might be even for some people that you’re talking to about a vision or a dream of where they’re gonna go, right?
And so it’s really deeper than just some surface level data gathering. I can also filter through the procurement lens, having always worked on that side. And it’s like we used to coach the guys that were being sold to. Right. To be like, give them nothing. It just emphasizes the truth of what you’re saying, we were like almost don’t give them your motivation and that ammo, because we know once that rapport is starting to be built, we’re getting to a place where it’s actually become less rational and less logical and more emotional.
Todd: Well, I think that’s like why you’re, you’re primed to be a great salesperson ’cause you’re actually on the other side in your career where you were trained not to do that. And the reason why you were trained not to is ’cause once that rapport, very important word you use comes out and a real connection happens it’s very easy to sell to somebody. ’cause then they know what you really need. And so your job is interesting ’cause you were literally trained to put a big brick wall in front of, Hey, this is what we really need and really want. Okay. But great salespeople find their way to getting that information. I’m gonna give you an example.
Can I give you an example of like my own life? Okay. This is, this will really drive it home. So years back, like when I’m in my twenties. Okay. I was actually going through a pretty rough time. I was reinventing, although I didn’t have that word back then. And I got a job working in internet sales for a company, which was really big back then.
And I had spent four years at DoubleClick in the late nineties. So this was like where I had had my initial success and then I went through a rough time and then, you know, I kind of got another job at a company that was growing and they had like 500 salespeople. They were growing, they were getting big, and they flew us down to Austin.
You know, we got trained there and came back and it was this big office in New York. And what ended up happening was that in the first three weeks of this job, Chris, I became the number one salesperson in the company by using the technique that we are talking about right now. Number one. I mean, it drove people crazy that this happened, but it’s true and I can corroborate it.
Like some of my best friends were working at the company and this did actually happen. So on my first day of doing these calls, like to get prospects, I look in , Salesforce, whatever it was, and it was like this big prospect and a lot of people had tried to call his company and I call up, and, the guy picks up and he is like, oh, oh, it’s you guys again. You know, every week you guys call me every week right away. And I’m like, all right, well, you know, why’d he pick up the phone? And then he right away starts telling me how he has his own system of marketing and advertising in-house that he built, and that there’s no way that our company would be able to do that.
And he spends like half a million dollars. Okay. Every month on advertising using his system, which is huge. I mean, back then for that client, right? It’s a very big client. So he’s just like telling me all this stuff. And then I, I said to him again, I said, I’m just really curious, like, why did you pick up the phone like if you know it’s us, if you speak to somebody, I go, has anyone ever come down to see you? And where you can actually see what we do? And he goes, well I just pick up, ’cause you know, you guys call me and you know, no one’s, no one’s ever come down to my office. And no, I’ve never actually really seen what you do.
But you know, I just know that what we’re doing is much better. Something like that. Right? And I was like, well, you know, I think you might be curious just to see what we have so you can kick me outta your office. What if I come down there, you know, at four 30 and I just show you what we have so that way you don’t have to waste any more time.
And you know you’re no worse off, you know, just from at least seeing what we’re doing. I just went directly in, I was actually matching his energy. He was very combative. So I was like, all right, I’m gonna try to go and get into his office. And he was silent, right? He’s like, we’ll come down to five.
I’m like, fine. So now I set an appointment with this whale. Okay. Just by like matching him, being very direct, like listening to the way that he was talking to me. And I, and I also made a direct ask, and we’re gonna talk about that. Like, a lot of people don’t understand that when they’re selling, okay you have to make an ask. I asked him for the result that I wanted. I couldn’t sell him in my service yet. I needed to get to his office. Okay. And so I did that and he said yes. And I was very specific, wasn’t I, I was like, how’s 4:30? That helps. It helps people to understand, all right, let me get specific, you know, with what the ask is.
And great salespeople understand how to do that. ’cause it gets people away from the block, you know? It’s like, oh, let me think about 4:30. Like all of a sudden he’s thinking about what’s he doing at 4:30? And he’s like, oh, how’s five o’clock? Boom. I go down there. Anyway, I go down to this office and you know, they show me into the room and I wait for the guy for an hour.
It’s like, you know, and he comes in the room and immediately he’s like, I don’t know why you’re here. He was, he had that big wall up again. He’s like, ah, you’re not here. And you know, I have this whole system and da, da, da. And he was like angry at me. And I’m sitting in this office like, God, this guy’s just like really tough.
So I said, tell me about your system. Tell me about what you did. I want to hear why it’s so great. So I just went in very gently. I wanted to get him talking about what he’s actually doing, you know, and so he starts telling me and how they’re expanding to LA and they’re expanding to Chicago.
And then I asked a really important question. I said, is this the only thing that you do with this company? And he goes, no, I run da da da da da. And I go, well how much of your time do you spend doing this part? Like running the advertising part of it. He’s like, about half of my time and it’s growing right now ’cause we’re expanding.
And then I asked a very important question. This is astute, this is what comes from deep listening. ’cause I got a sense that he, he had a lot of things he was doing and I said, if you had more time to do these other parts of your job, would that be helpful for you? Where you didn’t have to spend 50% of your time doing the advertising?
And he’s like, absolutely. And, and he went off explaining how, you know, he would be able to, you know, do a bunch of other things. I don’t remember, it was years ago. Okay. But I knew I had him here. ’cause now what, am I selling time. I’m selling him time. I’m never gonna be able to outperform his system. It’s gonna be expensive.
He’s gonna have to pay us money right where his is free. But what I can do now, my only shot for this whale was time. Okay? And so I said is it okay if I show you what we got? So then I did need to show him. What we actually did. And at the end of it, you know, they had a sales pitch for how you close, but actually I changed it and I said, give us three months of coming in here and taking half of your budget for three months.
So you’re running half, I’m running half, and let’s see how much worse we are. And maybe we’ll surprise you and maybe we’ll do pretty well. Because the thought is that if we do well enough, you would have more time to do these other things. Right. And that could be really beneficial for you and your company.
it Was amazing Chris, because I saw that I had really reached him. I had listened and I had reached his like need and he looks at me and he was almost dumbfounded that like I had got him to this point, considering working with this company that he’s been bashing all the cold callers for like a year, you know, calling him.
And, you know, he just looked at me and he, saw the value in the idea , like it was a really valuable thing for him to consider. And he said, I could do it for a month. I’m like, okay. Here we go. We had just switched over into, and I said, look, we can’t do it for a month. You know how this works. We need to optimize I need three months and I need half your budget. This is $250,000 a month. Chris, the number one salesperson in this company, their total book was 200,000. Okay. So we go back and forth and he leaves the room eventually for another half hour. Comes back in with another guy who’s the CFO of the company and they end up writing me a check of $250,000 for one month and the signed contract.
Okay. And I go back to the office, it’s like 7:30 at night now my manager was still there and it was like literally my first sales call alone. And he is like, so how’d it go? And I’m like, yeah, it went, went pretty good.
Chris: Pretty good.
Todd: I just showed him the check. He’s like, what? I mean, it started this crazy thing. The CEO of the company from Austin flew up to New York.
I mean, like, it became a whole thing. And this ran for a long time and I became the number one salesperson in the company. But I’m telling the story because I was direct, I matched this guy’s energy, but I also really did the work to understand what his desired future state was, that maybe he didn’t even know.
So this is pretty like advanced and nuanced, but I’m wondering if that lands?
Chris: Yeah, do you think that you got to a place in the conversation with him, a question in a sense that had never been asked before or even like a type of question that had never been asked before of him? Because as you’re telling me this story, I’m thinking. This guy thinks he’s got the better solution, but Todd’s probably had better features and we just have to show him the better features of the solution and like once he sees that.
But it wasn’t about that. It wasn’t about features, it really wasn’t about the what of the product, at least specifically in that moment at all. It was all about, like you said, him, his life, he could imagine himself not having to deal with this thing that was 50% of his time. That’s I think, really not obvious.
You know, to me, on this side, as you tell that story, that was not where my mind was going until you got there.
Todd: That’s why I wanna talk about this because Yeah. It’s a change in identity, you said this before about yourself, walking around, being like, how can I help these people? How can I understand what their pain is and how can I help them? if you walk that way on this earth, you’re gonna do really well and you’re gonna build a ton of rapport and you’re gonna build a ton of trust.
Have you ever heard of Joe Girard? There’s been books written about him. He was for decades, the number one car salesperson in the country. Like he worked in Detroit for Ford or Chevrolet or whatever. And he sold way more cars than anybody else, like, absurd amounts of sales.
Okay. And they studied him, you know, and I’m gonna tell you what his secret was. Okay? And this is very relevant to what you’re asking. He valued the relationship way more than he valued the product or the want. Okay. And in fact, what he was so famous for was that people would come to him and he would ask them what they wanted and what they needed.
And if the cars that he was selling was not the right match, he would refer them over. He said, go down the street to a Cadillac. I think you’d need a Cadillac. And he knew the products really well. He’s like, for what you just shared, a Cadillac is a better thing. And these people would be like that’s the number one
Chris: what? Like what’s
Todd: Like he’s referring the business out. But he built a massive empire for himself because he was servicing the the needs of the human being without regard and without attachment to the result that he wanted. Which was to sell and make a commission. He got to the point where he understood that if I am building an aura and an energy around me, where I’m just helping people and I value the relationships and I wanna give them the right solution for them, and I understand what they really want.
And I’m not attached to me getting the result, then that will create a lot more sales and transactions. And it’s counterintuitive ’cause you think, oh my God, I need to sell. Like how could he give away that business? They’re here then they wanna buy from me. But that’s the genius of it, right? So great sales is not all about tactics, and I’ve mentioned some tactics, but this is how you walk around and how you see yourself and how you interact with others. Great salespeople are relational. They don’t focus on the transaction. They focus on amplifying the connection with others , and once you know how to do that, it serves your life in a bunch of ways, but it also serves your ability to grow your business.
Chris: Do you know what’s really funny about that? Todd and I relate everything through my favorite lens in the whole world through me, Todd, and, in all seriousness. The funny thing about it is that I, I haven’t always been like this, but I have been for over a decade now. I walk around the planet naturally just trying to figure out how to help people.
I love helping people in any setting I just get so much fulfillment and joy and that to me is why we’re on this planet. To some extent, I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say that. That’s really the way I feel. And then when I’m trying to sell to people, I completely shift outta that mode and get into this weird transactional place of like,
Todd: You get in your head. You get in your head, right?
Chris: I’ll admit this.
This has not happened with any of my actual clients, but this has happened with prospects and there’s a reason why they’ve not become clients is when I do a discovery session with a potential one-on-one, it is a really like a coaching session in a way, right? I’m in a, the intake coaching session, and I caught myself at one point a little back in the past where I’d be halfway through and I’d be like, oh, this person seems like they really could use coaching, and were connecting well, and then I’d start thinking about okay, so what, what are we gonna do? A package of six? We’re gonna do three. We’re gonna chart, like I got into like almost a math mode in the conversation. And one, I believe that that kind of breaks the rapport and connection. ’cause now I’m not with them with as much presence, but I just think that as I’m hearing you say this, I’m like, that is just not the mode to be in, in that place. It’s just like, let’s keep helping them and you’ll tell us later. Right? At some point it has to convert into a close or an ask or something. But that’s the part where I think I was doing that from the beginning and like getting in the wrong mode or the the wrong relational mode between the two of us.
Right.
Todd: Yeah. I mean, it’s it’s so like on the ground, what you’re talking about. Right? And I think one of the ways that you wanna hold something or a sales situation, like you’re on the phone with a prospect or a client, you’re in that mode. You’re in the sales part of your business. Like, you know that that’s something that you do.
And now you’re in this mode of sales. And I wanna get into some of the tactics now a little bit more. And you just freeze up and your mind goes to the what? And you get away from the curiosity. And one of the ways that you combat this, Chris, is by, before you go into any sales situation or just be okay with people not paying you money for the thing, let go of attachment to the result.
If you let go of attachment to the result. Like, all right, they’re not, probably not gonna pay me. You just let it go. You learn to do that. This is a skill, okay. Where you literally let it go and then you go in there and then you can just be human. You can ask them the questions, and then at the end, if it feels right, you can go to some of these closing techniques.
Okay. And that’s what we wanna talk about now. So I think that’s why we’re talking a lot about mindset and identity on this, because I think where most people fail is by trying to learn sales tactics. But it comes off inauthentic because they’re trying very hard in their mind and they’re not really connected with the human being or human beings in front of them. Okay? And so that’s the shift that needs to happen. Why I keep saying it over and over again, why I’m Joe Girard and all these stories of people that can build empires just by connecting, okay, this is how it goes.
But I do wanna just talk a little bit about, you know, alright, the actual sales techniques and some things that I’ve said here, but I wanna reiterate them. You know, again, we’re selling the future state, the desired future state, right? And so like when you see a website that has a bunch of testimonials on them, a good testimonial, you know, from a client is sales to me, right?
So we’ve spent a lot of time getting testimonials from our community and the work that we do, and it’s amazing because the really good ones are talking about the transformation that they had, like that they had a result from what we did. So when people are looking at that, and the mechanism by which we sell mostly is online.
Okay. People buy our stuff pretty much online, which is a little bit different than doing face-to-face sales. But they are seeing their results, they’re seeing their transformation, which is why testimonials is marketing and sales. I think that’s where, you know, bleeds into each other. Just a little bit.
but when you get to that point, Chris, right, and you’re feeling like, all right, this person is ripe, like I can actually potentially work with them and close them. You ask for the sale directly. Okay. Like you do it and you do it. It’s very important to be aware of the energy in your body. Some people are like really nervous around this, right?
Some people are just like really over aggressive and like wanting to get the sales. Some people are kind of detached and curious. I would say detached and curious is the way that we wanna be. Okay. Like sometimes I’m almost like laughing, like, all right, like, I’m gonna ask them for the, the contract right now.
I’m gonna give ’em a, a really great price. That would make me very happy. You know, and I’m gonna reiterate very clearly why I think I can do a good job of getting them to that desired future state. Like, I use the language that they said about what they want, as I’m talking about not only what I’m doing, but what we can achieve together by doing this, right?
So. I think asking for the sale directly is something that a lot of people don’t do. And then the second thing is like being okay with silence and being okay with the space that needs to happen because once somebody is asked for a sale, something happens okay, like they heard it and now they actually have to process that and they have to really think, okay, this person asked me to do this, and now I have to think about, and that’s where you start to get those initial objections, oh, well, I need to go back and talk to my boss and all this, oh, I need to go do this and da da da. That’s literally just kind of getting in the way of them saying yes, remember. Like true sales, any sales happens in a moment when someone makes a decision that I’m gonna pay you money for this, right? Or, or my company is gonna buy this contract, or I’m gonna buy your product or service. It happens in a moment of time. And so that moment requires some patience from the person that’s purveying, you know, the sale.
You need to be relaxed, you need to be tranquil, you need to allow them to go through the process and when they have objections and all these things come up. That’s okay. You systematically address them. I think a lot of people make the mistake of getting annoyed. Well, I just did all this work.
I just did all this amazing stuff. I listened to you, I did everything that Todd said. You know, just say yes. Sign the contract and send me the, the wire. Right? But that’s not the way it works, right? You wanna stay in that tranquil mode all the time where you’re detached, you’re energetically okay with it not happening, I mean, you want it to happen, especially if it’s something that you really can do a good job. Like where you really did that work. You’re like, man, I can get you that state. I know that I can do this. Like, that’s what people buy into. By the way, if you watch Shark Tank.
You know, like you could see the sharks get really excited when somebody is really passionate about what they’re doing. This is where it’s okay to express the passion and the energy. Right? I’ve done very well in that part of the process where I do a good job prospecting and then all of a sudden we’re at that point and I just have the language and like, I can really help you get there.
Like that language is so powerful, like I can help you get there and I can help you get there faster.
Right. I know that I can do that. I could do it within two months, and I could do it by doing these things. So I just wanted to give you some techniques, right? A lot of it is how you’re feeling in your body, but then it’s also how you say it.
Chris: I jump in there ’cause it’s like I, as I hear this and you know, I, I’m getting better all the time and more partnering with you helps of course, but it’s like asking for it directly really hard and maybe uncomfortable for people. Right. But if you think about every time you’ve ever made a buying decision in your life, and we’ve all made thousands of them.
You were asked directly as part of that process. That’s a real thing that happened. So getting comfortable with that, and especially for our career reinventors, right? This is that we talk about getting comfortable, being uncomfortable, and if you wanna reinvent changes in the name, you’re gonna have to put yourself in uncomfortable spots and interactions like this is one you’re gonna have to learn how to lean into.
And then being okay with the silence, like you said. I mean, I also love the idea that you’re sharing of, not being attached, right? Not being attached to the outcome. You want the outcome, but you’re not so attached to the outcome that you’re clenching up, right? I mean, it’s a little bit of, it makes me think of sports a little bit, right?
It’s that idea of being in the zone, when people are having a slump and they’re trying to break a slump, that’s what makes the slump continue. Usually the way you break a slump is you just like do something kind of brain dead so that you’re not paying attention to it, and then like your body just does what it does and you break the slump.
Todd: Well look like Inner Game of Tennis, like one of the great sports psychology books ever written. And you know, I’ve been working with the people who I’ve taken over that brand. It was a book written in the 1970s that Bill Gates says is one of his all time go-to books. Steve Kerr, one of his all time great, like go-to books.
He gave it to Steph Curry, like talks about this very thing of not being attached to the outcomes of what you’re doing. Like this applies very much in business. Inner Game of Tennis is the book and which is why that book really spurned on the executive coaching industry because, you know, the author of the book took that knowledge from sports and then applied it to business.
And a lot of it is to be in the body, you know, and not get lost in all these things that we want. Like this applies, you know, right here what we’re talking about. When it gets to selling something, people get nervous, they get cringey, they white knuckle it, and like that comes across and that’s actually what’s inhibiting the sale, right?
And so a lot of this is retraining and practicing. I tell people to let go of getting a result and just like do the script, like in the way that I’m suggesting here, like unattached, like, I’m not gonna get the sale. I’m gonna be really curious and like see what happens. You know? And of course the results always become way better than they were before, especially as you practice this longer and longer.
But I do wanna also talk a little bit about when it comes to selling and reinventing, like also understanding part of the process is understanding what is your method. What is your mechanism for selling? people are very unclear and ambiguous around this. Like, am I selling my services online, right?
The people transact and pay me money online, or am I getting on phone calls? Where they will give me their credit card on the phone or am I getting on phone calls but then they will have to literally get a link and pay me through that link, like these details. By the way, now we’re getting really tactical to closing and getting money flowing is very important.
I think a lot of people don’t shine a strong light on how they actually get paid. I know. I know. This is something that you and I dealt with and I think you were kind of surprised when we were building our brand. And I was talking a lot about this part of it and like getting very clear on how we’re selling and you were going along with it. But it’s very important,
Chris: I totally underweighted this. I think. I think I totally discounted this.
Todd: Because everything builds up. Like, how you do marketing and how you position yourself needs to match very closely with how you’re actually selling. And the skills that you need to develop are also very different, right?
So we sell stuff online and people can join our community by our workbook online. So those websites need to be really clear in about what this is, what the value is, what the desired future state is, how others got there, using our processes or our community. And then so that way they click on buttons and they give their credit card and they go ahead and enroll, which is very different than if we would’ve decided to you know, set it up for like phone sales where we get on the phone with people and then we enroll people into our community that way. It’s very different. So I think people have to get very clear around the whole system about how are they getting money coming in, and what skills do I need to up level to be able to do that sales process really well.
Like we talk about the six tenets of reinvention all the time. Skill building here is huge. The point of this call is to build sales skills. That’s what we’re doing. We’re helping you think about sales differently. Think about who you are and what you’re doing, but there’s other things that you can be doing here.
Okay. And so learning your method of sales based on the mechanism by which money comes to you is huge, right? And I think that alone I’ve seen, helps so many people skyrocket their businesses they were ambiguous around it, like you said before, it was like a blob. So that’s another piece that’s very important.
Chris: For sure. That’s really important. I mean we’re probably gonna have to do another episode on this, Todd, ’cause there’s so much that you’ve shared. And I know we, we even like talked about the idea of, well, sales and marketing. We really spent. 99% of this conversation are around sales. I think marketing is a whole other topic we can get into.
And I know, again, for me with my amorphous blob, business model, right where marketing ends and where sales begins, you know, I think there is some ambiguity there actually in reality, but I think just getting clarity around how that pipeline works, that might be a whole episode in itself that we talk
Todd: Marketing. Well, we could talk about marketing. That is to me a little bit of a different thing. And you know, we’re gonna do more episodes. Chris, I love your questions. This has been a big part about our relationship and, you know, in our community, right?
We’re helping people this part of the process, you know, people are coming in with this question a lot.
Chris: So many people in our community, I mean, ’cause this, we got people who are really going from a mode where this was all done for them in the organizations that they worked in, and now they’re really excited about this new thing that they’re doing. They’re hanging a shingle, they’re doing their own consultancy.
They’re building their own business from scratch, and this now they have to figure this out. And it can be a blocker for people if they don’t lean into these skills and really take it on. Because this is a point we’ve seen this Todd, right? Where we were telling people to start to ask for the sale and go down this path.
This is a point where people are like, let me work on my website a little bit more. Let me, and maybe got, maybe I’ll go apply for another LLC and see if I can get, you know, like this is like a real off ramp for people. ’cause this is kind of real nerve inducing for a lot of poeple. So I appreciate you man, going through this yeah it’s so important.
Todd: Having the support, you know, that’s why we’re doing it, a lot of what we do, is helping people in that transition. So, yeah, it’s been great, man. I mean, you ask great questions. I could go off for three more hours on this, to be honest.
Like, it’s really important. I mean, it’s, I’m passionate about it. I think when it comes to reinvention, people’s ability to understand like what marketing and sales is and who they are while they’re doing it, holds the keys to a lot of potential future success. That you can learn, right? You can learn this, you know, and that’s been the point of this.
So I appreciate your questions, brother.
Chris: Yeah. Thank you so much for sharing this, man. I mean, again, I, I do think we could probably get like six more episodes out of this easy and I think we will, and I’m excited for us to, to go down that road further. And I really hope that other people who are listening, you know, possible reinventors and people who are just listening to our podcast. I learned so much just from this time with Todd and I hope you did and I think you did as well. And yeah, we’re excited to share so much more, man. Thank you so much, Todd. I appreciate you.
Todd: Yeah, man. It’s been fun. Bye everybody. Bye for now. See you next time.
