Sales 301: Advanced Sales Training From Selling $100s of Millions | Ep 781

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.

• 0:00Alex Hormozi?

  What's going on everyone? Welcome back to the game. We talk about making more money, helping more people and in general, creating profits outsized for the efforts that we put in. And maybe even making an impact too. You know, I hate the impact term, but you get the idea, right? Like, you know, do good stuff, be good for the world, all that kind of jazz. Okay, so let's talk about selling shit. Okay, so last night I had a, had an hour long conversation with my director of sales. I was talking to him about a frame that I was like, this is advanced sales. And so I, I kind of want to share that conversation with you to the best of my ability. And I was like, man, I wish I had recorded this, but you know what? Cameras aren't always there.

• 0:41Alex Hormozi?

  Fundamentally, what I wanted to do was explain to him a different way of selling. Obviously, one-on-one sales, you gotta know how to, you know, clarify whether they're labeled with a problem over their past experiences. You know, sell the vacation, three-pillar pitch, understand metaphors that, that can directly relate to, you know, the core thing that you're helping them overcome. Then explain why they're concerned and then reinforce the decision. That's sales 101. I'd say a sales 201 is the AAA framework that I think I, I made a podcast about a month or two ago, which is in between them saying statements that might not be a purchasing decision, basically them saying, I need to think about it or I'm not sure. What about this specific thing? A acknowledge, then A again, you associate their response, which is in another, another way of saying you qualify the question.

• 1:23Alex Hormozi?

  You say, hey, it sounds like, right? This sounds like you're the type of person who is just like the people who are really successful because you asked that question. Or that's an amazing question and because of this reason. And so when the prospect thinks they're taking a step away, you actually say, no, actually you're taking a step towards. And then the final A there is that you then you ask the next question. And so that's kind of like, I would say, sales 201. And so what I want to talk about today is sales 301. So more advanced. And I will probably do a better, better job quantifying this in the future, but I think the description will still serve you well. And that director went on, explained it to the framework of the sales team. They had a meaningful increase. That's why I'm making this podcast. So I will tell you a story to hopefully demonstrate the concept.

• 2:05Alex Hormozi?

  I have an ad from years ago, it's the first ad ever run for Gimp Launch, where I'm walking around this very kind of like sketchy-ish area. I go upstairs through these barred windows and barred doors and show these two apartments. And these two apartments, which were empty, were supposed to be. Gyms. And so I was called out to sell gym memberships into a quote gym that was not a gym. It was two apartments above a convenience store. All right. And not like the best area. In doing this, I was like, oh my God, how am I gonna? I'm like walking around this place like this is absurd. Like, what am I gonna say here? Like, there's no equipment. One of them is has like clouds painted. It was like, it looks like it was like a nursery or something.

• 2:49Alex Hormozi?

  And then the other one was like peach walls. And so these are, and you get up to the top of the stairs, bars on both doors. Like it's an apartment, right? There's bars on the doors. You open up the bar doors and then you have the door door. You open it up and they look completely different. And all it is, is you've got like rubber on the floor. Again, zero equipment. And then there's like a kitchen and tile bathroom. Like it just, it made no sense. So you're like, okay, what frame of mind do I need to get into? For this to be exceptional? Like, what would have to be true? In order for this to be cool and interesting? All right. So this is the question, right? What else would have to be true? For this to be a crazy deal or something cool? Or why it would be this way and still be valuable?

• 3:34Alex Hormozi?

  I basically painted this picture in my mind because this was, uh, this was close to DC. This particular gym, so Washington DC. I thought to myself, okay, if I were, you know, a politician and I wanted to not be recognized. Right? I would go to a place a little bit further away. And I would want to go to a gym that wasn't open and it had just all these little rooms and nooks. Where I could work out so that it would be more private. When people came in, they were like, this is a bit odd. I'm like, oh, this was by design. I was like, we have many clientele who don't want to be recognized. And I was like, and you may recognize some people who come in to this facility. But I would just encourage you, if you do, like, don't go up to them. Cause then I would just make a transition.

• 4:18Alex Hormozi?

  This is a metaphor, say, hey, so have you ever gone, you know, the gym and been like, I don't want people to stare at me. Right. Cause I'm selling to weight loss women. Right. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, I wouldn't want that. It's like, yeah, and that's why we have these individual rooms set up. So that you have that kind of privacy. Now you can go into the central area. If you want to go talks, hang out, see people and whatnot. But fundamentally, like when you're, when you're exercising, you're doing it on your own. You have to worry about other people's eyes watching you. It can just be you and yourself trying to improve. People were like, oh, that's great. Right? That frame. Then carry through the conversation. This framing, I think, is incredibly valuable because it then tells you what else would have to be true. There's a book I read years ago that I think was called Making Them Believe. I wouldn't recommend reading it. I will just summarize it for you right now.

• 5:03Alex Hormozi?

  It was basically about a breakdown of like how the biggest scams in history were able to persuade. And to be very clear, I like to learn from everyone. And I think that there's plenty of things that you can learn from people who did something well for the wrong reason. Me personally, like, what can I take from this? That's good, right? And how can I help persuade people to do things that actually help them rather than hurt them, right? There's an ethical dilemma, not a skilled efficiency. And just to be very clear, one of the core components of the book, and the book also talked about, it wasn't just a scam business. It also talked about how like a brothel, actually, no, this was a different book. I think it was called like XXX Sales Secrets. Anyway, I'm going between books right now.

• 5:45Alex Hormozi?

  But this one was a whole breakdown of how one of the highest grossing brothels in like the UK had their sales process set up. And so they talked to the maître d', I think that's the name, or whatever, the lady who's in charge of like her selling process. And so one of the things that she brought up, and this has actually been internalized for me for every single sales process I have made since. So maybe this is a writer downer. It has to be congruent. So if you set a frame, right? So I had this frame in the example I just gave, that this is this kind of like weird in the hood upstairs thing. But the reason that we had that, because it's like, what's the reason? The reason that people should spend lots of money here is that this is purposely exclusive. It's purposely off the beaten path. Is anything that I said untrue?

• 6:30Alex Hormozi?

  If you don't want to be recognized, being in a more private setting is a better way to do that. Is it untrue for me to say, you might recognize people who come in here? It's very possible. The thing is, is that I let someone's imagination fill in the dots, but nothing that I said was untrue. And so the idea is if you set a frame, you basically want to paint the edges of that picture and make sure that every edge matches the frame. And this is what I was talking to with my sales director. And so the portfolio company, right? If this thing were to be market value for a service like this, right? Would be, call it $50,000. Okay, so this is B2B. If this thing were $10,000, I said, do you think that you would sell out the capacity,

• 7:15Alex Hormozi?

  right, of the, of the business? And he was like, yeah, for sure. Like, not even a question. I said, okay, if you were to get on the phone and know that you were going to be pitching a $10,000 price point for this thing, how would you approach that call? How would you shift in your body language, in your tone, in how you present, how likely you think that you're going to fill the slots, and how good of a deal this is? He's like, yeah, I would probably change a lot. I was like, exactly. And the crazy thing is, is that that price is only meaningful to you. I really want you to take this in. Like, this is advanced sales shit. Like, this is how you become a savage.

• 7:57Alex Hormozi?

  This is how your team puts up numbers that no one can touch. Because the thing is, is that I was talking to this director, I said, you have folk, and he's a great, he's a great director, doing really well. I was like, you have focused your entire career at getting better at sales. I have focused most of my career on making sales as easy as possible. Seems similar, and maybe you could make the argument that getting better at sales is making it as easy as possible, but that's not the point. It just sounded nice. And so I say it to you, is that there are probably ways that you can simply make sales easier, rather than getting better at sales. If we zoom out and say, what is sales? Sales is increasing the likelihood that people exchange money for your goods, right? That's fundamentally what it is. Okay? If we add these variables in, so maybe I'm undoing my very, my very nice rhetorical

• 8:41Alex Hormozi?

  device that I just said, but you have to ask the question, what else would have to be true if this frame existed? If this sales director gets on the phone and says, hey, this is a bargain. We'll, we'll fill up the slots. I have no question. So if you want to do this, then you should do it quickly because we will hit capacity. It's very, it's very unlikely. I would say it's unlikely. I can't guarantee the future, but it's very unlikely that I'll even be able to get through the calls that I have for this week. I'll have to push people out and whatnot, and who knows? There's a different perspective, right? The tone, how they sit in the chair, how hungry it, they're completely not worried. Because at this price, this thing's gonna go. But all of that exists between their ears. And so these are the, like, this is really, like, real, real.

• 9:25Alex Hormozi?

  You may choose not to believe this. You could say whatever you want. My calculated, hard close rate for these in-person fitness programs, when people would come in for a free thing, was 83%. And I would make the argument that I closed everybody, then some people just literally, I would just, I would run six carts, you know, I just didn't have it, right? But the thing is, is like, I want to come in with the expectation that I sell everyone. Every single person should want this thing, all of them, and be desperate to get it because of how good of a deal this is. And so this is like, like, I think it's easier for people to say, what is your price? Cool, cut it by, cut it by 80%. How crazy of that, of a price would that be? Cool.

• 10:08Alex Hormozi?

  Now just say the existing price as though you were talking about that lower price. This is how you really nail scripting, how you really nail tone, is that you get into that mental space and you live in that reality. You have to be able to live there. Now, this is maybe a higher cognitive load task. I don't know. Maybe some people can't do it. But if you can, it makes you unstoppable because you really do live in an alternate reality and you're inviting the prospect to live with you in that reality. And they will accept the rules of the game there because they only know what you show.

• 10:49Alex Hormozi?

  They only know what you show, what you put on display. And so the thing is, is that they're taking in so much more information than the words that you're saying, the pauses in between, the tiny little side statements, how desperate you are to make this sale occur. You can feel when someone doesn't need your money. You can feel when someone, even an employee is like, yeah, we're going to move out of these. Like, if you want to do it, you should do it. Like, you should do it now. Because, I mean, it could happen, but it's very unlikely that we're not going to fill up, fill up the spots, get to our capacity very quickly. That changes how people act. And so it's great to have the words, it's great to have, you know, nail the script, all that stuff.

• 11:30Alex Hormozi?

  But the true savages just don't live in the world that the rest of the salespeople do. They live in a world of their creation. If you've ever seen The Matrix, and there's Matrix 2, Matrix 3, I love all the matrices, matrix Cs, if you will. There's this one scene that I love, which is a really small scene that people don't really talk about, but there's The scene with the train man, if you haven't seen the movie, basically, there is one program that shuttles programs between the machine world and the, you know, AI reality of the Matrix. And so there's only one, one path that takes you between those worlds. And there's a program, the train man, who owns, that's, it's, it's, that's his program. That's what he does. That's his purpose, his function in life.

• 12:12Alex Hormozi?

  And so the train man program is really simple. It looks like a subway. It's just all white. There's a bench and there's nothing to it besides a train that comes with the train man on it. And if, if the train man doesn't come, you just get stuck in basically limbo forever. Right? And so Neo, the protagonist wakes up there because he has some sort of out of life experience, whatever. The train man shows up for somebody else. Neo tries to get on the train and Neo at this point is like Superman. He's like super God in the Matrix. Cause he's like crack the code, whatever. The train man says, no, you're not on the list. You're not getting in the train. Neo, assuming that he has the same Superman like powers in the train man software, then says, listen, I'm getting on that train. He tries to like take a swing at the train man and the train man just destroys him.

• 12:56Alex Hormozi?

  And he's like, in this place, I am God. In this place, I make the rules. I say who gets on this train and who doesn't. And I'm loosely paraphrasing. When you become an advanced salesperson, you are the train man. You are the one who sets the rules of that engagement, who sets the rules of reality, because you are the one who shows them what to know. And so it's all of the edges of the painting. It's all of the things that, what else would have to be true for this frame to be congruent? And the thing is, is that when you live in that reality, if you mess up even a corner of it, boom, it pops. You've lost the frame. It's gone. And so you have to make the whole thing congruent.

• 13:42Alex Hormozi?

  One of the things from the triple X sales thing for the, the brothel was they wanted to have this high end thing. And so they had a lady who was British answering the phone. It might've been the US, but anyway, I remember the British thing. The person answering the phone was British because it had a higher. And feel to it. They would get these, these like envelopes that were like gold and black and had this like mysterious feel to it. All of these details would keep the congruent frame of this is what a very premium establishment would look like. Now, what they're selling is relatively depraved activity, right? For the most part, banging strangers for money.

• 14:23Alex Hormozi?

  And for those of you have weak stomachs, the point here is not like I'm saying yes or no, good or bad. Like I'm not, I'm not getting into the morality of this. I'm just getting into the sales process. That's all I care about right now. There is like, a lot of you want to have, like, I hear this all the time, like we were premium, right? But there's so many things that if you were premium are not true. You don't keep a premium frame within the sales conversation for a prospect because so many of the edges of the painting don't align. They don't make sense with that frame. And so the advanced salesperson gets into that reality and says, if this thing were one tenth the price, how would I sell it? How would I feel? How would I sound? How would I pause? What would my perception of scarcity be?

• 15:04Alex Hormozi?

  And then you say that, you use, you walk into that setting, but then you just say a different number at the end. Everything else is the same. Hopefully you're catching this. Think about this, continuing down the path. I was in person for my sales, but I want you to, I want you to hear and think about this. If you have an in-person sales process, which many of the people who listen to my stuff, home services, brick and mortar, this is especially for you. Basically, if you have any in-person experiences. So let's say somebody's walking out of your sales office, right? And they didn't close and somebody's walking in. This is where a lot of salespeople mess up, right? They're like, oh, I don't want to, you know, be awkward or whatever. Every time someone left the sales office for the gym, especially if somebody else was coming in, I'd be like,

• 15:47Alex Hormozi?

  oh, absolute pleasure. Can't wait to see you again. Help you hit your goals. It's going to be pumped. Let's rock and roll. And I would say that on the way out because I knew the person walking in would then make the assumption that I just closed that person. Now, the person would look back at me sometimes like totally confused, but then I'd already be welcoming the other person in and it didn't matter. But that subtlety, what else would have to be true? And so I'll give you a life hack, by the way. The most convincing you will ever be to someone is when they don't think you're talking to them or that they can hear you. So I'll give you a real world example. So the other day I was on the elevator with Leila and there was a lady who was on the elevator too. I hadn't seen her before in the building. She seemed like a nice lady, whatever. She seemed intelligent, nice, whatever. We walked out of the elevator

• 16:32Alex Hormozi?

  and I took like three paces and I basically turned the corner so that I'm not in eyesight, but I'm clearly within earshot. And so then I looked to Leila and I was like, she was super nice. She seemed great. And I said it at normal speaking level. And so it's very unlikely the person did not hear me. But how much more compelling, think about this, think about you're in the elevator, two people get in, husband, wife, you say hello, you explain pleasantries and then they walk out and right as they kind of walk around the corner, you hear the husband or the wife turn to the other one and say, man, that guy was super cool. That guy was really nice. How different would that sound? You'd be like, wow, those people are cool. Like they liked me. That was nice. It's so much more impactful,

• 17:15Alex Hormozi?

  the communication and persuasion that happens around someone that they believe they are not the intended receiver of, that they believe they are being privy to. And it makes some of the strongest persuasion that you can sometimes engineer into a process. For, for, for my sales, for example, like I'd have clients, you know, coming in and out and I basically was like, hey, if I'm with somebody, help me out. And so they would walk in, get it, you know, get a drink of water because they're in the middle of workout, whatever. And if they'd see me with somebody, they'd be like, I, I'd sometimes be like, hey, Leah, should she do this? And I would just look at, you know, the prospect and Leah would just turn to them and be like, do it right now. Don't even think about it. It'll change your life. And then she'd go into the, and go into the class.

• 18:00Alex Hormozi?

  The person would just look at me and be like, fine, here's my credit card. That was it. And so it's like, not just how do we get better at sales, it's how do we engineer the environment? So we have the mental landscape of the picture that I'm setting, right? But then there's all of the details around the edges, right? The reason that I, I'm a big advocate of having floor to ceiling testimonials is so that It's obvious that you're good at what you do. And so it becomes unreasonable for someone to question the efficacy of whatever it is that you sell. And so if someone were to do that, you could just like, kind of like, look around the room with your eyes and kind of shrug and be like, I mean, I think getting results should probably be the least of your concerns. And you can even hear how I'd say that with tone to make someone be like, wow, he seems incredibly convicted on that. And you should be, right?

• 18:45Alex Hormozi?

  But if you have a room full of testimonials, it makes it a hell of a lot easier. We have this, this reality that we want to set, this frame. And then what else would have to be true in order for that frame to maintain its rigidity, for it to keep the strength in the conversation that this is the reality, I am the train man, these are the rules. And then fixing the physical environment to also be in alignment with that frame and that reality. Now, of course, for me, I had to fit the frame to the reality that I had, which was that I had this apartment building that had two apartments with barred windows, but I had to give the reason behind it. And I remember when, I mean, I sold into empty gyms multiple times when I would do launches.

• 19:26Alex Hormozi?

  And so like, I would rent out a space, there would be literally nothing in it, vanilla shell. All right, for those of you know, like vanilla, there's nothing in there, white walls, concrete. And I would set up a card table with two fold out chairs and I would hold court. And we'd sell a hundred grand out of there for a free weight loss challenge with no gym. And so the gym only existed in the minds of my prospects based on what reality I set. And so I bring this up because right now I'll bet you, this may be one of those things that could take your sales to a completely different level. This is an order of magnitude shift in terms of how good you are at closing, how good you are at selling.

• 20:07Alex Hormozi?

  Because the best closers, the best salespeople, it's like, they, people don't feel like they're being sold, they just buy. And so that's what you want to engineer, is you want to engineer the environment to maximize the likelihood of purchase. So that you don't need to, you don't need to overcome obstacles. Because would you be overcoming obstacles if you were oversubscribed? Hear me out. Of course, I teach that stuff because I think sales 101 and sales 201, it's good to know that stuff. But the G's, the guys and gals who close, who sell way more, the superstars, they live in a different reality. They are the trainmen. They set a different rules of engagement. And so maybe this is, you can send this to your team,

• 20:50Alex Hormozi?

  or maybe it's used for you if you're entrepreneurs still selling. Ask yourself, what else would have to be true? And that will change how you talk and make your environment match that reality that would maximize the likelihood that the prospect buys. And anything that does not match with that frame, you cut out. I look at sales processes and I would say that like the typical sales close rate, if priced appropriately, some were usually in the neighborhood of like, call it 30, 35%. That's kind of like a benchmark. Sales is for like a phone sale for a B2B service, like fairly typical somewhere in there. I try to find ways of getting over 85% close rates. Now you're like, how is that possible?

• 21:34Alex Hormozi?

  It's possible only when the person doesn't feel like they're being sold. I had over 90% close rates on supplements because it wasn't a sale. This is just what you need to do. I had an 83% close rate on people walking in the door because I didn't feel like I was selling them. I was like, I'm just getting you signed up. You already said you want it. Why wouldn't you sign up? Obviously, you are overweight. We saw weight loss. What's the problem? If you have that frame of like, well, obviously you're going to sign up. Why wouldn't you? That's what everyone does. And so think about it like that. What else would have to be true? Would every other person, if every other person you spoke with that day had bought immediately, that week, that month, every other person, before you get into the conversation with the prospect, how differently would you speak?

• 22:18Alex Hormozi?

  Great, then talk that way. Because all of that is you, not them. But they will take your lead. You will set the frame. This is, I am the trainman. These are the rules. With that being said, you know, forward this to your, your salespeople. Maybe it's you. If you found it valuable, let me know on, on the gram or wherever it is that you share content. It means the world to me. I've been trying to make more of these audio first podcasts, kind of like between meetings and stuff. I hope you enjoy them. Otherwise, have an amazing day and I'll see you in the next one. Bye.