Hypnotic Selling

I had the priviliege of working with one of the best ever phone sales people that I have ever seen. Let me tell you a little bit about this guy.
To protect the innocent and not so innocent, we will call him Frank.

Now Frank wasn’t exactly what you’d call a typical salesman. He wore old and ugly clothes, his hair was a mess and I’m pretty sure he had trouble locating his toothbrush in the morning. But that didn’t matter because he never got to meet his clients, which was for his benefit and theirs as well. Honestly, in any other situation I would have either tried my hardest to ignore such a character or just plain fire them.
On top of all that he was quite eccentric (still is actually) but otherwise really intelligent and smart. But this is not a tale of downfall, it is a tale of redemption. Because Frank could sell his way out of Purgatory if he ever needed to. In few words, Frank was FREAKIN AMAZIN when it came
to selling over the phone.
I studied his behavior and work for years, before I was able to take a crack at it. It was no easy task, because everytime I thought I had figured out his secret and tried to test it myself, I failed miserably. So I just listened and listened myself. And I tested. I tested different things in my own pitch until it all started to come together.
there is something that the great direct mail order copywriter Joe Sugarman calls “the slippery slope”. The “slippery slope” is basically the flow of an advertisement that takes the prospect on a journey that leads them to the buying decision at the end. For a prospect to get on the “slippery slope”, is like giving a piece of clay to Michelangelo. He can do whatever he wishes with it. The same applies for Joe Sugarman’s ads and the same applied when it came to Frank’s sales skills.
Frank could just melt any resistance in a prospect and most often than not he would precede the sale by a lenghty story that often didn’t even make sense.
His secret was that he was such an enigmatic story teller that when he got on the phone he always found a way to incorporate a story or just some really fun conversation in the pitch that got the listener simply entranced. It is almost as if you are buried deeply into the most interesting and captivating mystery novel and can’t keep yourself from turning page after page.
Having great story telling skills in your sales arsenal is an immense advantage. As a home exercise I recommend that you pick up some of Joe Sugarman’s ads and study them closely. Try telling stories of your own in the mirror. Sometimes relaying an interesting article from a newspaper that can be of interest to your prospect is a good tactic too. Don’t forget that what makes great story tellers great is how they use voice and imagery to captivate the listener. These are the most powerful weapons. For more on that visit for my new “Cold Call Warrior” Manual. You will find incredible tips, techiques, in depth discussion on the 5 step sales process, an hour of audio voice training for sales success and much more.

My new eBook “Cold Call Warrior – Mastery program” is coming soon, check out the sales page

“Cold Call Warrior – Mastery Program”

Feel free to leave your comments and tell me what you think.

Happy calling.

Best cold call opener of all time!

Do you know what WMD stands for? That’s right. Weapons of Mass Destruction. It is those almost mythical weapons that are supposed to be used only in cases of extreme peril. Only when absolutely needed. Like the A-Bomb, like Biological weapons, like Laser beams from satellites. Their power is so immense that everyday use in military operations would ensure the total destruction of the enemy, but also of a lot of innocent life and property. We use them sparingly if at all.

But what if there was a way to use one every single time we need something done? Without any collateral damage? Is that even possible? If so, what, how and when do we use it? Ok, enough military references here, let me get to the point.

You might be interested to know that I own one of the most powerful WMD in the cold call sales world and not only is there no collateral to using it, but it sky-rocketed my close rate by 500%. No, I don’t threaten my prospects with total annihilation over the phone unless they buy from me, although I have to admit that I’ve had such disturbing emotions every once in a while, but then who doesn’t. It is nothing more than a simple phrase, said in a very specific way that opens the doors of curiosity. You might not be surprised to find out that the legendary copywriter Joe Sugarman wrote in his book “The Adweek Copywriting Handbook” that curiosity is one of the strongest psychological triggers that send people into an emotional state called “impulse buying”. I know you have heard of that. Curiosity gets people on the ’slippery slide’ of your sales pitch. They want to hear more, they want to find out how the story ends so to speak. It is unpredictable and interesting and often a mental challenge to them. Everyone loves a challenge. When we, as humans, get things too easily or things are just thrown at us, we lose interest. That’s what happens with almost all forms of advertising that is bombarding us everyday and it surely happens a lot with cold (or warm) sales calls. So many “sales” people give away the store and expect that the person on the other line to be interested. You can’t do that. I will say something that will sound absolutely counter-intuitive, but trust me for a second. I will explain why it is not counter-intuitive at all. Ok, are you ready?

YOU HAVE TO MAKE YOUR PROSPECT BREAK A MENTAL SWEAT OVER IT!!!

What the heck you might say. Aren’t you the sales person? Aren’t you the one who is supposed to sweat over the phone or in person to earn the trust of your prospect and get them to separate themselves from their hard earned cash in exchange for whatever you are selling? Sure. You still have to work. Just don’t offer to do all of the work. I promised that I will explain. When we get on the phone or into that meeting with our important prospect our first reaction is to usually state our case, so to speak, and let the prospect make their decision. This is weak. We are forcing someone to weight in their options, make decisions and the answer is usually ‘NO’. Why? When presented with an offer and then left to decide for themselves, a prospect usually feels that something was just thrown at their feet and someone begged them to take it. It is desperate, try-hard and totally unproductive. You have not engaged your prospect. The best way to engage your prospect is, you guessed it, curiosity. Making them curious about something is a challenge and human beings, whether they admit it or not, love challenges. They are engaging to them. They trigger an important psychological phenomenon where work=value. I.e. the more work we put into something the more value we assign to it.

I can go into depth about how to create that trigger on all of the levels of a sales pitch. But this is not the aim of this post.

And I get it. You are (I hope) dying of curiosity to find out just what my magic opener is after all. Well, are you ready! Here it is:

I AM GOING TO MAKE YOU AN OFFER YOU CAN’T REFUSE, MR. JONES. ARE YOU READY!

Then go on and list all the benefits of your product or service, carefully covering all of the major objections before they even arise in the mind of the customer. That is it. This is the greatest opener of all time. It creates curiosity right off the bat. ‘What is that offer, that I can’t refuse’, the prospect is thinking. They will usually laugh too since the line is a straight rip off from The Godfather, but that’s another story. Another important thing that will happen, is that they will play up the offer in their minds before you have even started (that’s why I like to create a little suspense right after I say this opener, usually by telling the prospect they might want to sit down, because the offer is so good they might jump from joy). The value of what you haven’t even said increases few fold. The prospect is breaking mental sweat. And you have them exactly where you want to have them in the beginning of your pitch – so curious about what you are going to say that they are literally salivating just to hear your offer.

And just as a side note – my new eBook phone sales training program is coming soon.

“Cold Call Warrior – Mastery Program”

Feel free to leave your comments and tell me what you think.

Happy calling.

Now, go and try that today. Until next time, it is your coach and mentor Anton Borissov.

Good luck.