Which comes first, the story or the statement? When you’re trying to implement ethical influence into your sales process, the best way to start is with a story. I’m not sure if you’ve noticed but that is exactly how I start each and every one of my episodes. First, what is the difference between a story and statement? A story is a narrative intended to engage, amuse, or instruct listeners or viewers. Statements are written or spoken expressions intended to persuade listeners or viewers.

When you’re looking to sell your products or services, it’s not the head of your customer that you’re trying to win. Instead, you’re trying to win their hearts. What’s the best way to do this? By telling a story that has your client or customer demanding to work with you. Dale Carnegie came from humble means but he was driven to be and do more. He completed high school and went on to college, but in that time he learned all about the art of selling. He’d always been an influential sp

Would you say your net worth affects your self-worth? For many, this is a true statement. Not because money is everything, but because when you make more money your mind believes you are worth more. Why does this matter? Back in 2003 I had just come off of making my first million dollars online. It was during this time that I would take a limo to and from the airport when I was leaving on business trips. The limo driver was a friend of mine and I enjoyed my time on the trips, but the trips...

Selling through collaboration rather than confrontation is a key skill that most successful salespeople cultivate to their advantage. One of the greatest salesmen in history used this same skill to sell the hope of Christianity to the Greeks. Who was this amazing salesman? Saul of Tarsus was a tentmaker and a Jew who was staunchly against the movement of Christianity. In fact, he likely was responsible for the deaths of several people. It wasn’t until he was traveling to Damascus that he had...

When you create a movement you create a community of members who are highly engaged with you and amongst themselves. Creating a movement is significantly more lucrative than finding a market because of that engagement. I’m sharing everything you need to know about the elements of a movement, why they outperform markets, and how you can monetize them. I didn’t truly realize the significance of creating a movement until the end of 2008. We were in the middle of the Great Recession and I had...

Despite being completely down and out after a failed business venture that was financed by my family, my love of learning was the key to my healing. I was depressed and felt like a complete failure, but I knew that I could learn and overcome. The teaching of Nightingale-Conant became my lifeline. What I realized was that my teaching in school never taught me HOW to learn which is important. I was never taught to read the summary first and actually read the table of comments so that I could...

In 2006 I ran the first of many Teleseminar Secrets Challenges. Those challenges changed the lives of thousands of people but more importantly we created a movement of people making money through making connections. The old 3M sequence was market, message, and media but that model no longer works. You’re not looking to identify or create a market any longer. No, in this day and age you have to create a movement. You have to engage and connect people so that they feel as if they are part of a...

It’s the year 2012 and I’m in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia after a 5-Day Guerilla Business Intensive event. During this event, like so many others, I noticed the difference between people who took action and changed their lives and those who stayed safe. What I was contemplating however was what the distinction was between them. Did one person simply believe that they could and the other that they could not? Was one hardwired to be successful and the other not? I didn’t believe that, but what I...

The term mentor is grossly misused in this day and age and I’m here to tell you why. Now, as I have grown in entrepreneurship and business, I have had many people that I consider mentors come into my life. It wasn’t until I heard Roy H. Williams’ definition however, that I realized the number was smaller than I thought. You see a mentor is a person who is invested in your life and your work, in depth, over a period of time. T

For many people in the world, not just entrepreneurs, but human beings in general, there is a constant need to be more productive… but what does that mean? Better yet, why do we work so hard to be productive, but not necessarily effective? Peter Drucker defined efficiency as doing things right but effectiveness as doing the right things. Dan Sullivan defines productivity as doing as many things as possible in as little time as possible but priority as doing the right things at the right...

The rise and fall of nations, racism, and even genocide can be explained by a misdiagnosis of progress. This is also called the progress fallacy and it is one of the riskiest assumptions that you can make in life and business. Rather than thinking of progress as a noun, think of it as a verb. You are progressing along your path in entrepreneurship which means that for every failure you are doubling your success rate because you now know what NOT to do. Here is the thing, in almost any given sc

What does accountability mean to you? For the ancient Romans it was the process of being accounted for so that the senators could vote for important laws. For your business, it means being held accountable to making change. The accountability partner program power is having your clients be accountable to each other. Here’s the thing, are you more likely to keep a promise to yourself or to others? If you’re like most humans, you’re going to keep your promises to others more frequently.

Einstein was one of the most brilliant scientists of his day. His work on the Theory of Relativity changed the path of atomic research and opened up an entirely new way to view space and time. But did he get it right? The Theory of Relativity is based on a fairly simple contact, but is it really a theory or is it a relationship. Essentially our experience is relative to the world around us. A car moving a 65 MPH is only doing so relative to the car next to it or the pedestrian on the sidewalk.

Have you ever watched Olympic archery? Picture the target and the rings as they get smaller and smaller toward the bullseye. The best archers know that aiming for the bullseye is the goal, but as long as they consistently hit the target they will win. The same applies in marketing. Your bullseye client is the ideal of the ideal. They are the client that your messaging should always be speaking to when you shoot the arrow of marketing. However, if you miss and you hit one of the rings, you’re...

Last week I shared with you the sequence for selling to each buyer persona. This week I want to dive a little deeper and explain the persona selling formula. The sequence of selling still remains vital, but the personas themselves need to be further defined. The four personas derive from Hippocrates and his four humours. They are competitive, spontaneous, humanistic, and methodical. These same four personas speak to what makes a hit TV show, a best-selling book, or an Oscar-worthy movie. We...

In February of 2018, I was on stage at Guerrilla Business Intensive testing the “persona” theory from the stage. I was testing out the theory of sequencing to see how it would impact my sales. Before we get too deep into this, just know that I saw an insane increase in units sold. So what is sequencing? First you need to understand the concept of personas. Most people fall into one of four buyer personas. People either want to know what you’re selling, why it works, who else has it, and how...

Imagine a fish swimming upstream. There are several fish in the world that do this, the most easily recognized would be salmon. Imagine how hard they work fighting the current to get to their desired location. This is what happens when you upsell. You’re fighting against gravity working to pull people up your offer ladder. Instead you could be down-selling. Present your highest tiered offer first and then slowly but surely step people down and show them what happens as the price points fall...

Have you ever had someone start a story by presenting several scenarios and leaving them open ended. For instance, have you ever told your kids to grab their shoes and coat and get in the car… you have a surprise for them. What was their reaction? If they started breathlessly asking you about the surprise and you had their complete and utter attention, then you successfully opened a loop. Once you get the kids in the car, you’ll either drag out the surprise or you’ll close the loop and give...

The concept of H2H or human to human selling was introduced to me at the Traffic and Conversion Summit in 2017. Ryan Deiss, a former mentee turned mentor, was speaking on the power of understanding the humanity of business. When you’re selling anything, you’re selling an emotion. When something goes wrong, it’s due to a human failing. When a sale goes right, it’s because of a human connection. So many times we get caught up in whether a company is primarily B2B, B2C, etc… and we forget that all

Most people, including me, think that increasing business is a complex, giant burden of thousands of possible tactics that one can try. Thankfully, Jay Abraham has taught me how to take the complex and make it simple. There are three keys to growing your business, and as long as they are used in the right sequence, growth is inevitable. Now the three keys are increasing new client transactions, increasing transaction price, and increasing transaction frequency. But these keys are out of...

One of my clients, Dr. Tim Zelko, was once an OB-Gyn and is now a cosmetic surgeon. He’s on a mission to help his clients in a completely different way than he once did. Now, while we’ve been working together, we noticed a trend with his conversion rates after the initial consultation. What was that trend? If he was the one having the conversation with the patient, then he could convert from a botox client to something more. If one of his staff had the conversation, conversions dropped.

Leveraging the power of unquestionable proof is one of the key pieces to generating amazing sales. This was best represented through the story of Elisha Otis, the most influential elevator innovator in the world. You see, the initial elevator was extremely unsafe. If a cable failed, everyone in the elevator car was plummet to their death… and cables failed often. People were so used to the problems of elevators that builders didn’t build overly tall buildings and in general, nobody used...

I am a morning glory. I love to wake up early and set the tone of my day by owning my morning. How about you? Do you have a morning ritual? Here’s the thing, morning rituals are imperative if you’re looking to achieve great success. Listen in to learn why. My morning is the exact same almost every day. I wake up, do my daily meditation, brush my teeth, wash my face, drink 160z of sparkling water with MCT oil and lime, and then I start writing copy. After I write copy for 30 minutes I do my...

The manifestation formula allowed Valerie, a massage therapist, to surpass her goal of making over one million dollars per year. As a massage therapist, it was hard for her to consider changing her business model. With a few tweaks and a change in mindset, she more than exceeded her goals. How? First, you have to know the three steps to the formula. You have to define your intention, or the what, and your purpose, the why. Once you have those things set, you need to change your strategy, the...