The Ultimate Sales Script: Never Lose a Sale Again | Ep 910

Welcome to The Game w/Alex Hormozi, hosted by entrepreneur, founder, investor, author, public speaker, and content creator Alex Hormozi. On this podcast, you’ll hear how to get more customers, make more profit per customer, how to keep them longer, and the many failures and lessons Alex has learned and will learn on his path from $100M to $1B in net worth. Wanna scale your business? ⁠⁠Click here.⁠⁠ Follow Alex Hormozi’s Socials: ⁠⁠LinkedIn ⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠Facebook⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠YouTube ⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠Twitter⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠Acquisition ⁠

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Alex Hormozi?

  The person who speaks the most in the sale loses. You're not making as much money as you want because you're not saying the right words or saying them the right way. Saying the right words comes down to the correct scripting. Saying them the right way comes down to tone. I'll explain what I've learned over 14 years of selling stuff. Eight weeks ago, I just did a launch. We did $106 million in 72 hours. So that was a weekend and we broke the Guinness Book World Record for the fastest selling nonfiction of all time and became fourth of all books of all time, only to Harry Potter 7, 6, and 5. So JK, still the GOAT. Either way, right now, you're not making as much money as you want because you're saying things the wrong way. So let me give you an example.

• 0:42Alex Hormozi?

  So if I said, "She didn't kick his dog." That's different than, "I didn't say..." Sorry. I'll say it a little bit differently. I'll say one a little bit racier. How about that? "I didn't say he hit his wife." "I didn't say he hit his wife." "I didn't say he hit his wife." "I didn't say he hit his wife." Four different ways of saying that statement all have four different, very different meanings. And so if right now, you're like, "Man, I got this script or I wrote this out of how I'm supposed to say this stuff and people aren't buying." It's like because they think that you're telling them that you hit your wife. That's not really it. But they're not doing it because the words you're saying aren't communicating the meaning

• 1:26Alex Hormozi?

  that you think they are. And so tone is a huge difference in terms of pitching and one-to-many setting or just in a one-on-one conversation. And so a lot of the things that teach around tone are super amorphous and very confusing. And I know this because as I came up, I would hear things like curiosity tone, aggressive tone, laid-back tone. And I was like, "What does any of this actually mean?" And so number one is that in order to do any of this, you must have a script. If you don't have a script, get a script. I have whole videos on this closer framework and you can walk through that. Clarify whether they're labeled them the problem over your past experience. Sell the vacation with a three step pitch. Then transition into explaining away their concerns, reinforce the decision. That's what a script looks like.

• 2:10Alex Hormozi?

  Now, how do you make sure that you have the correct tone? So there's five things you can do to modulate your voice. And three of them will be fixed. Two of them are variable. And so when you're writing a script or you're observing somebody who's better than you at selling in order to learn, these are the five things that you need to look for. So three, create what I call sales tone. These are constants. And so number one is that you have to speak loud enough that they can hear you. This should sound obvious. If they can't hear you, they can't understand you, they can't buy from you. Number two, now this matters more in person than it does over the phone. Cause over the phone, they can adjust their volume. In person, it matters a lot.

• 2:51Alex Hormozi?

  The second part of sales tone is that you have to speak slowly enough that they can comprehend you. Right? If you talk too fast, trust goes down. If you talk too slow, they think you're an idiot. And so you have to hit the sweet spot, which is typically under 185 words per minute and above 135. So that's a bit of the sweet spot. So for me, I tend to talk fast. And so when I gave my presentation at the book launch, which I referenced earlier, I know that I speak at 185 words per minute. And so I had to reverse engineer when I knew I was going to be dropping the link in order for people to buy at that timestamp. And then knew I had to have this many words prior to that point. And when you get consistent with how you speak, what happens is your sales conversations.

• 3:35Alex Hormozi?

  If instead of like, well, this one took an hour and a half and this one took 10 minutes. These start to become more consistent. Now, I said, the first was they have to speak loud enough. The second is they have to speak at the right speed that they can actually understand you. The third is that you have to articulate what you're saying so that you're rounding out the words. You're not mumbling, you're actually saying and pronouncing each word clearly. So if you do those three things, you maximize comprehension. Now, Someone might hear that and think, "Oh, well, if you do that, you're gonna sound unnatural." Now, the way that you have a "natural tone" is to have consistent variability in your speaking cadence. So what does that mean? If you sound like you're reading a script,

• 4:18Alex Hormozi?

  the reality is, it's because you don't know the script well enough. And so you probably are reading the script. If you want to sound like you're not reading a script, stop reading the fucking script. So how do you do that? So this is scientifically backed. This is one of the fastest ways to memorize anything. So you print out two versions of your script. You're gonna have the script you correct yourself from, and then the script you read from. So here's how the practice works. This is how I train salespeople. You're going to sit down and you're gonna say the entire script. You're gonna read it out loud, enunciating every word clearly. That's it. After you finish the entire script, you're gonna have one marker.

• 4:57Alex Hormozi?

  Looks like this. And then you'll cross out one of the words. And then you will read that document again with the word missing. Then, when you get to the bottom, you go back to the top, and you'll black out a second word. And then you'll read it again. And by the end of this process, you will have repeated the script as many times as there are words in the script. And guess what happens when you do that? At the end, you'll be looking at a blank page that has all blacked-out words, and you'll be saying the script. And so you will no longer be saying it, you will be breathing the script, which is the terminology that I use. The reason this is important is because if you are selling, the last thing you should be thinking about is what you're going to say. You should be thinking about the prospect is saying, because a lot of sales is in your ears, not from your mouth.

• 5:42Alex Hormozi?

  The person who speaks the most in the sale loses. So the idea here is, we want them to give us as much information for us to be on defense as much as possible, which is only possible when you actually know the damn script. And so for us, at our team, and for you, you have to keep script as gold. It has to be paramount. It has to be known as above the script, because people fought and died to figure out these words, which we know close prospects. And if you have different people saying different things, you can't do it.

• 6:11Alex Hormozi?

  any of this because you can't even do the basics so it's like trying to build a skyscraper on a foundation of sand if you can't at least pour concrete if everyone says the same words you don't have a team and the reality is this is 95% of sales teams and that's why they are not world-class now I said there were three things so number one you gotta speak loud enough number two you gotta speak at the right speed and number three you have to articulate every word so they can understand you all three of these around comprehension to make sure that it sounds natural you will just always have variability in how you speak if you're not reading something if you read something then you'll sound like you're reading something because you don't actually know the words you're saying and you actually have less variability in your speaking cadence now

• 6:52Alex Hormozi?

  what are the other two variables that change whereas these three are constant the first is pauses so if I want to emphasize a point what am I going to do I'm going to pause and the length of the pause will dictate whether you're just getting someone to draw attention or you're expecting a response so a short pause is to draw attention to a point you make so we have three things that we do here we have thing number one that's very important thing number two that's very important and thing number three that's very important and when we pause this way people know that we're competent but we're also speaking in a way that they're going to be able to pay attention and hear what we're saying

• 7:37Alex Hormozi?

  that's number one in terms of the things you change the way that we document this in the script is that I have single periods on words that might be in the middle of a sentence or dot dot dots to dictate that you have excuse me flipped it dot dot dots to dictate that you have shorter periods and a full period for a full stop and so when you're looking at a script you should be able to read it the way you would read anything if you had a dot dot dot you'd maybe make a point take a quick pause and then get to the next point if you have a period you have a full stop correct everyone with me so far this is how you have the first of the elements that draw attention or get someone to respond the second is your

• 8:16Alex Hormozi?

  your frequency on your voice basically does your voice go up or does it go down now if we want to have your voice go up what would we do in normal writing we would put a question mark which means I could have a single word with a question mark behind it I might say John By saying that, I dictate that I am asking a question and I'm soliciting a response from the person. If I said, "John," I'm clearly not asking for a response right now. And so, it would then follow that the most important time to solicit a response from a customer would combine the two things that show the customer that it is their turn to talk back to us. So what would that be? We would have a long pause and we'd raise our voice.

• 9:02Alex Hormozi?

  You ask them to buy and you shut the fuck up. That's how it works. So, the reason I'm saying this is because some of you train sales teams, some of you are being trained by a sales manager, and some of this language is very confusing. And it was very confusing to me as I came up as a salesperson. And as somebody who has trained many, many, many salespeople, this is the simplest structure for getting people to consistently speak in a way that gets people to buy. And so, as long as you fundamentally know the script, then the volume, the speed, and your articulation should be constant. And the variety that you'll have in terms of your going up and down, that'll happen normally because you actually aren't reading it.

• 9:44Alex Hormozi?

  The actual words that you'll dictate inside of how you'll notate it on the script so the salesperson knows what to say and how to say it, will literally just be these three punctuations: a period, a dot-dot-dot, and a question mark. That's it. And the reason I wanted to make this video is because so many people spout so much bullshit and they say so many words that no one understands that they themselves have never defined. And so, they're like, "curiosity tone." And you're like, "How do I do that with my voice?"

• 10:14Alex Hormozi?

  "Hey, have ambitious tone." What? What does that mean? You can only do a certain number of things with your voice. And so, these changes will make sure you say the words the right way. And when you say the right words the right way, you allow the right words to do their full job the way they were intended. And by doing it this way, you will be able to duplicate the same sales process in the same people so you can get more consistent outcomes between reps and within a rep's career. So if they go off track, you as a salesperson or as a sales manager can listen to their calls or their sales recordings and say, "Okay..."

• 10:56Alex Hormozi?

  This is the language I can use to describe the changes they need to make in order to improve their conversions. Hey, you're not speaking loudly enough. Which might translate to, somebody say, hey, have more confidence. It's like, what does that mean? Speak louder. Okay, cool. You might be speaking too fast, which they might say, hey, you sound nervous. You're speaking too fast. Just say that. Stop sounding nervous is not helpful. Speak at a slower cadence is helpful. And so I would say that from a tactical perspective, as someone who's trained a lot of salespeople, the third element I said about enunciating the words, fully pronounce each word, will automatically slow someone down who talks too fast when they are nervous.

• 11:40Alex Hormozi?

  And the point that this is most crucial is in the close. The close is where you need to manage your tone the most. And that's typically where people have the highest emotions, have the highest adrenaline, their cortisol's spiking, because their, you know, their hearts start flooding, because they're like, I hope, I hope they buy, I hope they buy, I hope I didn't mess anything up. And then also, if someone says no in response, that's when the objection handling comes in. And if you talk too fast, it can come off aggressive, right? You talk too loud and fast, it sounds aggressive. Talk too slow, you sound, well, you sound slow, alright? And so, functionally, big picture here, the reason the close has the most pauses and has the one question that matters is because we want to make sure that they're paying the most attention when we're asking them to buy.

• 12:26Alex Hormozi?

  That's the point. Now, if you look back at the pitch that I just did in August for the book, you'll notice, if you look at the entire two-hour-plus thing, where is the longest pause?

• 12:40Alex Hormozi?

  When I ask people to make a decision, to make a purchase. That's where. And so this is just, and also, there's tons of research that supports this. There's three big meta-analyses, Columbia is one of them, where they showed that people who wait up to eight seconds after asking someone to buy closed 30% more sales. Now, the reason that I think this is very important for anybody who sells anyone is that you have to give people time to Process, right? Like if you ask a question, they have to have some time to make that decision. So not trying to fill the space and allowing them the room to then respond increases the likely they close. Many people will fill the space that you create because they get nervous or feel awkward in situations where no one is talking.

• 13:25Alex Hormozi?

  If you had to pick between you talking and them talking, which one do you think sells them better? Them talking. Why? Because people believe what they say. They believe very little of what you say. And so the reason that selling is about asking questions to get someone to sell themselves is because the questions lead them to respond and their responses, it's what sell them on why they should buy your thing. This is the point. And so when you're in the objection handling parts, I have spent a long time creating, you know, scripting out overcomes for, you know, hey, I don't have time for this, or hey, it's the wrong time in my life. Or I gotta talk to my spouse. I need a decision maker. Give me a little bit of time, which is a different thing, which is stall.

• 14:08Alex Hormozi?

  This is really expensive, which almost no one ever says. They just come up with other excuses because this is really expensive. Is rare. Now they might say it's out of my budget or I can't afford this right now, blah, blah, blah. So there's all these different things that I would try and script to overcome these particular issues. And I will share something with you that was a huge aha moment. The salespeople who close the most sales are the salespeople who ask the most times. Now, in hearing this, the immediate response from a simpleton or a mundane person might then say, "Oh, well, that means that you're asking me to be a really annoying salesperson." No. Why would that be? Because the opposite effect of this is that people get annoyed when you ask a lot of times.

• 14:50Alex Hormozi?

  So it's a balancing act between I have to ask as many times as I can without pissing off the prospect, which then becomes the skill. The reason that I believe all of these overcomes exist is literally just to give you an excuse to ask again. And so if someone says, I have this issue, and you say, if we resolved it in this way, would that work? They might say yes, they say, wanna buy? And so when we do that, it gives a reasonable reason for you to make the ask again, which then translated for me over time to, oh, so I don't even think the response to what they're saying, assuming it's not a true logistical concern of like, I can't make that date, or whatever, something like, I have five family members and you're trying to sell me a two-seater and I need the whole five.

• 15:34Alex Hormozi?

  Like, if it's not a logistical concern, all the things match their preferences, but then they're just saying, decision maker, time, money, et cetera, around the issue. We can just memorize seven closes that anyone can learn that are universal closes. And so I'll give you an example of one of them, which is, whatever reason they say, you would just take that reason and say, well, I think maybe that's the very reason you should do it. So I don't have time right now to do X, Y, Z. It's like, well, I think the fact that you don't have time is probably the reason you need this more than anyone else. I don't have money right now. I think the fact that you don't have money is probably why you need to do this more than anyone else. Because if it's a consumer product, I would say, then it means that you're going to care more than anyone else, because you're going to be so invested in it. If it's a B2B product, I would say, the reason that you need to do this more than anyone

• 16:19Alex Hormozi?

  else because you don't have the money is because this is exactly what this B2B thing is supposed to help you with. You don't have enough customers, our SEO is going to help you. You don't have enough, you don't have the right pricing and packaging, which is what we're going to help you with. Right? Like, the problem that you're solving, that you're using to not buy, is the problem that we solve through you buying. And so that is one of the seven universal closes. And so the idea is, instead of trying to get really cute with, oh, I want to overcome this thing, I'm going to say this, and then say that, say that, you're never going to sell someone by being right, ever. It's kind of like winning an argument. No one wins an argument. And so, like, they will just feel bad and hate you, which you don't want. People don't buy from people they hate. And so the idea is, how can we just reframe and then ask again? And that's it.

• 17:04Alex Hormozi?

  And I would say, from my experience and from looking at the sales data, we have You're really only going to pick up 20, maybe 30% of your sales after the no. The vast majority of the selling happens prior to the ask. And so that's two components. One is everything prior to them having the conversation with you. All of that has a larger influence on selling than the conversation you have. Now, from the beginning of the conversation to the close, those things absolutely do matter. And typically, you'll lose them in discovery. I would say of the places where most people mess up the sale, it's going to be discovery. Most people understand the pitch pretty well. Closing is fundamentally like if they say no, then you have objection handling. The intro is very short. You should know that like you can breathe it, of course, breathe in the script.

• 17:47Alex Hormozi?

  But the discovery, the disco, is where most people mess up. And so I will, I'll give you a little pro tip on discovery and then I will wrap this little tonality guide, which is fundamentally, what discovery entails is that we're trying to match their problems to our potential products and solutions. That's all we're doing. And so we ask them questions like, so what have you done so far to solve this problem? You know, how long have you been struggling with this X, Y, Z? Right? We try to ask them questions so that they can say, I have this problem. What happens when you have somebody who's either not very communicative or somebody who's not that warm is they're going to give you one word answers. They're going to give you empty, empty things that don't give you enough ammo, enough meat to then match what they're saying to something that you sell.

• 18:32Alex Hormozi?

  And so the way that you overcome that is something that I call pulling teeth, which is you say, can you give me an example of that? And the beautiful thing is that you can continue to repeat that basically over and over again. So they say, well, you know, business isn't growing. And you're like, can you give me an example? They're like, well, I mean, you know, this year is the same as last year. You're like, okay, can you, can you give me a specific example of like what's different between this year and last year? They're like, "Well, nothing's different to do this year than last year." You're like, "Okay." So, breaking down just like specifics here. So, I'll alternate between specifics and example, and you just bounce back and forth between those things until eventually you say, "You know what? I have the same amount of leads as I did last year." "Okay." And here's the point where discovery turns valuable.

• 19:16Alex Hormozi?

  You say, "Once you've got that meaty thing, you have to recap or chunk up." Which it says, "Okay, so you're not getting leads on a consistent basis. Is that right?" "Yes." "So, it sounds like..." It sounds like, we draw this inference, "It sounds like you have a marketing issue." "Is that fair to say?" "Great." "What else do you think is holding back your growth?" And so, we continue this cycle, and then we say, "Great, can you be more specific? Can you give me an example? Can you be specific? Can you give me another example?" You keep doing that until you have two to three key points that you have chunked up. And what do we do when we chunk up to, "Oh, it sounds like you have a marketing problem." "Oh, you have a packaging problem." "We're going to chunk up to the things that we sell." And so, then when we transition, we say, "Hey, real quick, before I dive in, it sounds like you said you have inconsistent lead flows.

• 20:01Alex Hormozi?

  So, you have to mark some marketing issues we've got to deal with. We need more reliability there." "You said you have some... You're not making as much profit as you want per sale. So, it sounds like we have some pricing and packaging issues. Is that fair?" They say, "Right." "Okay." "So, if we resolve this marketing and pricing and packaging issue, do you think it would help grow the business?" They say, "Yes." Then, they've already accepted the sale. Now, we say, "Great, now that you've already agreed that whatever I'm about to sell you, you've already would help you grow. Can I tell you about our things? I think it'd help you out, given what you just told me." They'll say, "Yes." Then, you say, "Hey, I'm going to match the problem you just had, which was..." "So, that for that marketing issue? Because you're getting inconsistent lead flow? Do you think it would help if you sat down and talked to one of our marketing directors who did this thing and cured cancer and was the best marketer in the world

• 20:46Alex Hormozi?

  and did $106 million for this book launch? Do you think he'd be able to help you grow your $1 million business?" "Yeah, I think that would actually help me out." "Great." "Problem one solved." "Second issue. But, we can't really do the marketing unless we have proper pricing so we can increase the gross margin of the business so we can propel the machine. Is that right?" "Great." "So, if we were to have you meet with our pricing and packaging expert who only meets with home services businesses like yours and has done this for six years and has helped over 2,000 businesses, do you think they'd be able to help you with your pricing and packaging issue?" They'll say, "Yeah, I think so." You say, "Great." "Then, I think you'd be a great fit. Ready to rock and roll?"

• 21:24Alex Hormozi?

  That's it. Now, at that point, if you have a quote pitch, then you'd say, hey, the three ways we're gonna do it is this, takes this. That's gonna help you, you know, create or resolve your constraint, or resolve your overweightness, whatever it is. And then you make the invitation, and then you shut up. That's it. And so fundamentally, the reason that you are not making as much money as you want is because you're either saying the wrong words, or you're saying them the wrong way. And if you use the tone guide that I just outlined, you'll have the three constants, which is you speak loud enough, you speak at the right speed, and you enunciate every word so they can understand you. And then the two things that will only be available in your script will be when you pause and when you raise your voice. That's it. The rest is hullabaloo and mythology, and this is what creates consistent sales.

• 22:09Alex Hormozi?

  Thank you. My name's Auction, I'll be right with you.