Our guest today is Jeremy Miner, a sales expert and the founder of 7th Level, ranked the number one fastest growing sales training company in the US for two years running. Recognized as one of the highest earning sales professionals globally, Jeremy’s innovative approach blends behavioral science and human psychology together.
Propelling over half a million salespeople in 161 industries to 3x, 5x, and even 10x their sales results. He’s also a contributor to Inc Magazine and has been featured in Forbes USA Today and Entrepreneur. Jeremy is also the co author of the book, The New Model of Selling, Selling to an Unsellable Generation.
Jeremy, welcome to the RunGPG podcast. Thanks for having me on. I appreciate it. Thanks for being here. It’s good to have you. I’ve been looking forward to speaking with you for a minute because your name kept coming up. Your name kept coming up as a suggested guest, especially among our younger entrepreneurs and sales professionals that I talk and work with, or maybe, you know, I could just be getting older, I don’t know, but either way, I kept hearing your name.
so I, I started, Following you and paying attention to you and a seventh level, what you do. And as mentioned, I’ve been excited to sit down with you, but for our listeners and subscribers who aren’t aware of who you are and what exactly you would, you do, it’d be great to get some context for the discussion and a little of your background because your approach to sales and your methodology are, I don’t want to say unconventional, but not typical.
Well, you know, it’s counterintuitive, you know, they don’t like, I don’t like to follow the masses. No, it’s perfect. I love that. disruptor. I think that’s why, you know, you probably become popular. I think that’s why you’re on everybody’s radar right now, right now and getting a lot of attention is because your approach to sales trading is unique.
So I just want to break the ice by asking what is your background? Like where did your career in sales and entrepreneurship start? Or, you know, How or what inspired you to become involved in sales training? Yeah, so, so I had a, you know, I had almost an 18 year sales career, but, going back, I got my first job selling home security systems door to door while I was going to college.
my, major was behavioral science and social dynamics, which is really the study of the brain and how human beings make decisions. Why do they say yes instead of saying no? There’s a lot more to that, but on the sales side, what that means, but, that probably gave me a, an unfair advantage when. When I got into sales, because I, when I got into sales, you know, as a 21 year old kid going to school, you know, company gives you some scripts, they give you some books by the sales gurus and they’re basically like, you know, go make some sales, like it’ll be easy.
Right. but I, I quickly started to figure out that the techniques that they would say to you is that, you know, they would work here and there. And you’d make some sales, but it was more like a numbers game. And everybody was like, oh, sales is a numbers game. Well, the way my brain works is I’m like, well, why?
Because like, as a behavioral scientist, I’m like, well, why? Like, I’m always questioning, like, well, why is that? Right? What causes it to be a numbers game? I just never accepted that early on as like the, the thing to just accept. Like, oh, sales is a numbers game. I’m like, well, why is it a numbers game? Like, if the prospect has problems and your solution solves those, Why are they not buying?
Why is it a numbers game? And so as I started to break this down in my mind, you know, realize that it’s hindsight’s 2020. I can see it better than when I saw it, you know, when I was a 21 year old kid, but I started to realize that really it’s a numbers game because your, your skills are very marginal.
Like you don’t have the skill game, right? So it’s like, if Steph Curry in the NBA was like, Oh, basketball is a numbers game. You know, as many times as you can, eventually you’ll hit one. He would have never made his varsity basketball team. So Steph understands that basketball is a skills game, not numbers, right?
Skills. So he’s working on his technique every day. He’s working on his, you know, his elbow movement and line up the basket and his wrist and his, you know, his hips and his body and everything. And To hit, you know, what, 50 percent from the three point line, whatever it is, 45 percent or whatever, but he’s focused on the skills game.
So I started thinking like, okay, well, what if I focused on the skills game? Because the skills games of sales is not just dialing a bunch of calls and reading a script like a telemarketer or knocking on a bunch of doors and just, hi, my name is, I’m with XYZ. The reason why I came out to your neighborhood or, you know, just going through the motions, but it was the questions you’re asking.
Okay. It was the tonality you’re using with different questions for different reasons. It was how to use your body language to influence. And as I started building that skill level from some of the world’s, I would say experts with my behavioral science background, selling became, you know, very, very easy, very quickly.
And, you know, it’s where you can even make multiple seven figures a year as a W2 rep for companies and industries where, you know, the highest earners were making 300 grand a year. How could I do, you know, 200 grand a month in commissions? It was because I focused on the skill game rather than just the, the numbers game, if that makes sense.
And so that’s what we bring in the seventh level is we’re not just gonna, we don’t come in and, you know, to companies or individual salespeople and be like, okay, we gotta set goals. We gotta, you gotta be motivated, you gotta get thick skin. I think most salespeople understand that. Right. For the most part, but what salespeople crave and like, when I go do a keynote and there’s 2, 500 people there and then I leave, I go out there and there’s like 1, 500 of them that come out and mob me or want me to sign a book is because we actually give them what they want.
And what they want is they want to know what to say. They want to know what to ask. They want to know how to use their tonality to influence. They want to learn body language. And typically, you know, from not everybody, cause I’ve got some great friends in, in sales training that do great jobs, but a lot of sales trainers just kind of teach goal setting and motivation, and here’s a few rebuttals and good luck, you know, numbers game.
No, I appreciate the, the breakdown in the context there. Sales was a numbers game. We’d all be, you know, millionaires, right? If it was right. So we’d all be in the competitive advantage. You’re just going to work harder than the next guy. That’s your competitive advantage. I’m going to work. Instead of nine hours, I’m going to work 12.
And then this guy works 12, I’m going to work 18. Like it just doesn’t make any sense. It’s why salespeople, the sales industry has the highest attrition rate. Sales people get burned out because they, most people as a human being, we are not wired to constantly get rejected all of the time, right? We’re just not wired as human beings emotionally to be able to do it.
Very few people in the world can do that. And so I’m like, well, why would you even want to do that? When you don’t have to do that. That doesn’t mean everybody’s going to buy. But it’s, it’s how like, you know, it’s getting the prospect to let their guard down and emotionally open up to you. And if you both find at the very end that it’s, it’s not going to solve their problems, then that’s completely different than.
Getting into the conversation and the prospects like, Hey, enough with the questions. Just tell me the price. I’ll tell you if I’m interested. Or you make a cold call and they’re like, Oh yeah, solar, not interested or whatever it is. Right? So we’re triggering that reaction from the prospect. And so what we train salespeople to do along with many other things is how do you disarm the prospect from the first words out of your mouth that actually get them to let their guard down and become open to what you’re offering.
It’s very interesting. I do want to ask about the specifics of the methodology in a minute here, but I, I just want to unpack a little bit your background in behavioral science and human psychology because I think that’s what’s really fascinating about what you do. So what exactly does that mean and how do you apply those principles to the sales process and the methodology that you do teach?
Well, I want to work with human behavior rather than work against it. So let me just give you a few different techniques that most salespeople probably miss. Okay. So typically most salespeople will say like. Because a lot of us, and I went through the same training when I was younger, like, oh, you got to get them to say yes, you know, 17 times in the conversation.
If you do, they’re, you know, 73 percent more chance they’re going to buy. The problem with those stats, even though they sound really cool, is there’s no data to support that. It literally comes from a sales training company in the 1940s that did their own internal stats. Right? Whatever that means. And pretty much every salesperson has copied and pasted that and put it in new books going forward.
There literally is no scientific evidence to suggest that. Okay? Now, I, in many cases, I actually am trying to get the prospect to say no. Which actually leads to them being open to the yes. So instead of me saying like on a cold call at the very end, you know, would you be open to having a conversation?
Okay, I’m going to say, would you be opposed to having a conversation around that? No, I’m not opposed. Now, why would I do that on a cold call? What’s the big word that most prospects already want to say? No. It’s hard for them to say, yes, I’m opposed. Okay. So that’s an example. Let’s say if I’m training a fundraising team for like a political candidate, right?
Are you going to let X, Y, Z come into the white house and be able to take advantage of over you in the country? No, I’m not. See, I want them to say no. See, so that’s working with the brain. Like I’m already triggering that emotion where they already want to say no, but that leads to what? Them contributing to that fundraising more.
It leads to the yes. So that’s just like a little example of what I mean by that. And it could be different body language. Like I’ll show you an example. Let’s say, do you have any, do you have any kids yourself? Yeah, two daughters. How old? 24 and 21. Yeah, I got a 23 year old. So I know a 23 year old, a 20 year old as well.
I got a 23 year old, 21 year old. But let me give you an example. Let’s say your daughters, you know, three, four years ago when they’re in high school, probably did something crazy. It just That’s how kids are, right? Teenagers. We all did. And you walk in as their dad and you’re like, I’m so disappointed in you.
How could you do that? I can’t believe that. And your arms are out like this and you’re using that type of tone. Typically, what am I going to trigger in them? Defensiveness, right? They’re going to get defensive, but dad, I, and they’re going to try to get defensive, but I, if I come in and pay attention to my tone now, and I use more of a concern tone with my hand on my chest and I come in, I’m like, I’m so disappointed in you.
Now, what am I triggering there? I’m triggering that I’m disappointed and upset, but it’s because I love them and I care for them, which that’s going to disarm them or they open up to me more, rather than get defensive and close down. All I did, I said the same words, all I did was lower my tone into a concern tone, a tone that shows empathy, and put my hand on my chest.
That’s a body language. You know, human behavior 101, right? This shows I’m concerned. That’s an example of that. So if I’m in a, in a prospecting situation, let’s say if I’m sitting in a boardroom, okay? And there’s 10 decision makers and let’s say I’ve only met with a couple of the C level executive. It’s more of an enterprise account.
The other eight people are ready for the pitch, right? That’s how it kind of works in, in that type of environment. And let’s say if I see Karen, No offense, Karen. I’m sure I’ve trained a lot of Karens, but I see Karen over there in the corner who I’ve never met. When I go through the 17th slide, Karen goes like this and kind of looks up and kind of gives like a grimace on her face.
Well, as a salesperson, I have a choice. Do I just keep going through the presentation, hope and pray at the end that, you know, it’s all going to work out and I’m going to get Karen and everybody else on board? Or should I stop that and say, Hey, Hey, Karen, Karen, Hey, I noticed when I went over that last slide, you seemed a bit hesitant.
What’s, what’s, what’s going on with that? And I just kind of soft tone, concerned tone. Well, I didn’t understand what you meant by this and I’m not sure if we can integrate it here. Ah, that’s a good question. You want me to go over that? Yeah, now I’m there to help him resolve the concern. So, it’s just being able to read the body language, human behavior.
Of that prospect to understand that that something might be going on there rather than taking a chance and hoping and praying it’s all going to work at the end. Now I control that boardroom rather than like hoping and praying she’s not going to say something to that or decision makers when I walk out of it.
It’s just little examples like that. Oh man, that’s fascinating. you, I’ve also heard you talk about the verbal pause and how important pausing is in your communication. Do you mind breaking that down? Yeah. So typically in any type of situation, most salespeople, when they ask questions, they get a lot of vague, generalized surface level answers, right?
Now, part of it is, is the actual questions themselves they ask are too like surface level. Like, can you tell me what you’re looking for in a solution or, you know, what’s two problems that are keeping you awake at night? Just dumb questions that every salesperson has always asked them that’s ever sold anything, right?
So they just label you as salesperson trying to sell me something and they shut down emotionally. So part of it’s that, but a lot of it is how you ask the questions. And when you ask questions really fast, what happens is it gives your prospect no time to internalize What you’re asking. It gives them no time to think deeper about what you’re asking.
So, what you want to do, and I’ll even show it here on the, on this, Vi Board if I have it somewhere, is you want to, yeah, let me show you this. So, you want to be able to have, there’s really three, three rules of this. So, you’ve got, let me show it to you real quick. You’ve got what are called verbal, verbal cues, okay?
So, verbal cues are just sounds out of your mouth while the prospect’s talking. Okay. About every 8 to 12 seconds, you’re like, uh huh. Ah, now you’re not, I’m just exaggerating that. You’re going to 8 to 12 seconds. Oh, really? Okay. Ah, but what actually happened after that point? See, what I’m going to do for, for me to sound like I’m in a natural conversation, I have to be able to use verbal cues.
Okay. That bridge. from question to question. This is called bridging, all right? Because if you don’t bridge using a verbal cue to go from each question, ah, and how long have you been doing it that way? Oh, really? But what happened then when you did this? See how I’m using a verbal cue like, ah, really to bridge into the next question?
Because what most salespeople do is they ask a question, they sit back and listen, we’ve been taught to listen, and then at the end they pause a second or two and they go, okay, cool, gotcha, gotcha, let me ask you, And it sounds like you’re just asking the next question on your script. So what happens is your prospects, you’re going to notice, unless they’re a lay down, a lot of them start to emotionally shut down.
They just start emotionally shut down. Okay. So if I’m bridging from question to question, your verbal cues, it keeps the conversation feeling very natural with the prospect. Like they’re talking with a friend that builds massive trust in the prospect and it helps them to feel comfortable enough to emotionally open up.
And that’s where the sales made. That’s just verbal cues. Now, the second thing we want to work on is we want to work on, like you just said, verbal pauses. Okay, so these are called verbal pauses. I’ll give you an example of a verbal pause right here, because I can actually dictate, I can cause the prospect’s brain to think about certain things by how I verbal pause.
It’s kind of crazy. So I can say, let’s say if I’m going to use, this is called an NEPQ. A probing question, okay? As an example. Now, for all you spelling bee Nazis, I’m writing this out fast, so don’t get angry at me. Okay? So, I could say, let’s say they say something, you know, like, oh, we really need to do X, Y, Z.
I can say, okay, so, why is this so important to you now, though? Why is this So important you now though now that verbal pause right after and the little verbal pause right here Emphasizes this like the thing they just said okay now I control their brain to stink why this like whatever the thing why this is important now now I can also change it.
I can also say well. Why is this so important to you now though see now? I can emphasize this now. I have to do a verbal pause before that. Why is this? So important to you now, though. See how I’m controlling the now. So now it’s a time thing. I can do emphasize that by just having a verbal pause right before that.
You see what I’m doing there? Unreal. Yeah. Yeah. You can literally control the brain of a prospect. Once you learn what we train you to think different things like to focus on different things. Well, why is this? So important to you now though. Why is it so important to you now though? And now it’s a timing thing.
And I just, I said the same sentence, but now I’ve got them focused on two different things. Yeah, the crazy thing this all makes sense and it’s it’s actual science. You know, this is actual science, which I find fascinating What a breakdown I’ve also heard you say when it comes to the verbal pause I’ve heard you mention that Obama was a really good communicator.
Yeah, do you know? Because he’s really an expert. Somebody’s trained him. You’re not born with any of these skills. Like nobody’s born out of your mother’s womb with advanced verbal pausing skills, right? Like nobody’s born out of your mother’s womb with advanced questioning skills or advanced tonality skills or advanced objection handling skills.
These are just acquired skills that you learn, right? So Obama was taught that. President Obama was taught that. Another good person that is really good at that, Tony Robbins. So the reason why he can make the whole room emotional is when he walks out, he’ll, he’ll start off like really emotional and talk about something, then he’ll just kind of pause for one or two seconds, and it like helps him internalize it, and then he keeps talking and everybody’s like, ah, you know, so President Obama would be like, you know, he’d talk about hope and change or whatever it was, I don’t remember all the speeches, but he’d be like, you know, we as a nation, we need to work together, whatever.
Now, you might ask, how do we do that? See all those little verbal pauses? I don’t know if he actually said that. But those little verbal pauses causes the audience to hang on to every single word he’s saying. And it causes their brain to stay engaged. Whereas like the current president, probably not as good at that.
He just kind of talks and talks and it’s the same monotone stuff. And you just kind of tune out. That’s why he’s not as popular as like a President Obama, right? So you’ve got other presidents that are just much better communicators like Ronald Reagan. I, I study, politicians for communication. I don’t really care about the politics.
I’m kind of right down the middle. I’ve voted both ways a lot. But like President Reagan was really good at verbal pausing, verbal cues, and actual like verbal, pacing. Verbal pacing is another thing as well. So when I ask the question, I have to pace it out. Now I can paste it out using verbal pauses because if I ask the question too fast, the prospect has no time to internalize what I’m asking and I’m going to get a knee jerk reaction.
Like let’s say if I sell in a furniture store or retail or car dealership and the prospect comes in, what’s, what always happens? Hey, welcome to the store today. How can we help you? Just looking. See, you say it too fast. You say the same thing that everybody says in retail, and you get what? Just looking.
Even though they might have like, just ready to buy a car, they’re going to say that because you’re triggering that. But if I go like this, Hey, hey, welcome, welcome in the store today. Are you guys out just kind of looking around today? Yeah, yeah, yeah, we are. Okay, do you know what you’re possibly looking for?
And see how I’m like pausing it and I’m like getting into like a, kind of a curious, confused tone to draw them in? So did you see how I fed them the objection of just looking by saying it to them? Are you guys just out kind of looking around today? See, I’m giving them the objection that they would normally give.
Like, yeah, yeah, we’re just out looking. Ah, okay, and you know what you’re possibly looking for? See how I’m doing that? I’m pausing, I’m pacing out the question. That’s just an example of verbal pacing. I have to use verbal pauses to pace it out. Okay. That’s what I’m talking about. Man, that’s crazy. And to get the objection out of the way before it comes up is interesting.
That’s called objection prevention. See, top, top 1 percent earners and salespeople, or even like top 0. 1%, we’re, we weren’t really focused on, I mean, we’re focused on objection handling. But that’s typically because we did something wrong in the process that triggered the objection, right? We’re more focused on preventing the objections from happening in their mind, whereas most salespeople are like, I’m just going to go through my thing, my pitch, and then just rebuttal, rebuttal, rebuttal.
And I’m like, well, you can do that. It just drags out the sale, your, your, your sales percentage of closings go way down. You go through a lot of rejection. You feel like you’re in a boxing match every day. But if I can, you know, do things like verbal pausing, verbal pacing, verbal cues to get them to emotionally open up and I build a massive gap from where they are to where they want to be, I reduce my objections by probably 60 to 70 percent plus.
I just don’t get that many, if any at all. Man, that’s really interesting.
You mentioned Tony Robbins and I heard you say that there was a light bulb moment for you when he said you will fail if you don’t learn the right skills necessary to succeed. So, and he kind of touched on this, but it made me think to ask you, like, what are your thoughts on the phrase natural born salesperson?
Is there such a thing as a natural born salesperson? I mean, it sounds really catchy, but what scientific evidence has there ever been a study on how a person is a natural born salesperson? Like any scientific data that comes out like, Oh, we’ve done this test and based on their brain waves and the DNA, they’re a natural born closer.
Like there’s just a bunch of BS. It just goes against the data. Like literally ask yourself this question, who on here listening or watching us was born with advanced questioning skills? Nobody. Who on here was born with advanced body language skills? Knowing how to position your body, your hands and movements, truth playing, like my good friend Mark Bowden talks about, you know, on the behavioral panel.
who on here are watching was born with advanced tonality skills and knows how to go from a confused tone to a curious tone to a challenging tone to a concerned tone to a playful tone. Who was born with that skill? Nobody. So this fact of like people are more natural salespeople is just because people think that people who talk a lot are good at sales.
But there’s no scientific data that shows that the gift of the gap. I’ll tell you what the gift of the gap, actually, I would suggest probably hurt salespeople because they talk too much. They don’t know how to listen. They don’t know how to question. They don’t use their tone. They’re just talking, talking, talking facts and features.
And typically with those type of salespeople and companies, they are usually average salespeople or below average and we have to train them how to slow down. So this fact of like, oh, people are born natural salespeople. Show me the facts. Show me the data. Show me the scientific studies that prove that.
Yeah, I’d agree with you actually. It’s funny because, you know, I’ve been in, you know, the real estate industry for, you know, 25 years. And, you know, one of the things we, we find is the people that are most gifted at conversing with people, you’d think, right, they should be knocking it out of the park and they don’t.
And I find it’s because they rely on themselves too much. They go, I got, you know, I’m good at this. I know how to talk to people and they don’t know the science behind it. You know, They’re just, and that’s why one week they’re up the next week they’re down. So they’re all relying on their charisma and winging it.
Exactly. And one week they’re a little bit better. The next week they’re down. That, that is not somebody who has mastered the art and science of, of sales and persuasion and influence. Right. Do you imagine if you saw Tony Robbins up there just yet, you know, talking, talking, talking, talking? No, he understands the body language.
He understands how to shift his tone. He understands how to use verbal pauses and verbal cues. That’s why so many people, he’s like a magnet to people because he understands the science behind it. Exactly. Not just out winging it every event. You know, it’s funny because sometimes you see people and you’re like, they, you know, they’re a natural born salesperson, but their numbers don’t show that the results don’t even look.
It’s true. I don’t even know what natural born salesperson means. I’ve been glitching. I’m like, where are you born with advanced tonality skills? No. Where are you born with advanced objection handling skills? No. Where are you born with advanced objection questions because now nobody’s born with those skills.
Those are acquired skills that you learn. A hundred percent. Yeah. I couldn’t agree more. We have introverts. It would barely talk that outsell everybody else 10 to 1 on the floor because they know what questions to ask, they know how to use their tone, they understand the psychology behind it. Right?
They’re not just winging it every day. A hundred percent. Yeah, I agree with you. Is there, what like, what’s the biggest mistake you see salespeople making? I think the biggest mistake salespeople make is they come across way too enthusiastic in the beginning of the conversation. Now that does, I want to make sure everyone understands, that doesn’t mean you’re timid.
That doesn’t mean you come across boring. You still come across assertive, like we’re talking right now, but you come across more as an expert, more, neutral, more unbiased. You’re not quite sure you can help yet. You don’t know enough about what’s going on. You don’t necessarily saying those words, but you’re coming across as somebody who’s detached, who doesn’t need the sale.
Cause you’ve got lots of clients, right? So many salespeople come across way too excited. Hey, how’s your day going? I’m so excited to be on the call with you today, Mr. Jones, and I’ve got a great deal for you. And the problem is, is you’re literally saying the same thing. Every single salesperson says that has ever talked to that prospect from selling them a vacuum cleaner.
To selling them a car, to selling a life insurance policy, to selling cyber security to their company, you sound like everybody else. And what happens psychologically in the human brain is that triggers what’s called fight or flight mode in your survival part of your brain. Because you’re hearing the tonality before you even interpret the words and what they mean, right?
That’s where it all starts, your reptilian part, your survival part of your brain. So the tonality when you get a telemarketer calling you and within 10 seconds you’re like, oh I’m good, oh I’m not interested. I’d, I’d be highly suspicious if you got off that phone eight or ten seconds later and could tell me what words they actually said, because you just heard their tone and the tone triggered fight or flight mode in your survival part of your brain.
You’re like salesperson trying to sell me guards up. Right? And you try to get rid of them. That’s, you’re triggering fight or flight mode. That prospect didn’t plan that to happen. They didn’t wake up that morning like, you know what, if a telemarketer calls me today because they asked me, hey, do you have two minutes of your time?
I can show you a very special deal. I’m going to go into fight or flight mode and tell them I’m uninterested. No. That’s a triggered reaction based off the salesperson’s tonality and what they’re saying that caused that reaction in that prospect’s brain. Super interesting. I love the breakdown of that.
This is like, you know, it’s mind blowing for a lot of reasons. These, these are some, you know, principles and some methodology that you might not hear on a typical, you know, coaching call now is there on the other hand, is there a commonality or a singular trait you see in the most successful salespeople you train and coach?
I would say the commonality is. really successful people is they’re committed to their craft. Okay. They didn’t get into sales. So after two or three years, they could just, Oh, I want to get promoted and be a manager. Like I’m just doing the sales thing right now to just get promoted in the company.
They got into sales because they look at that as like a fun thing. Now that doesn’t mean that they don’t want to be eventually a VP or, you know, a chief sales officer or something, but they’re like, they’re in sales because, they’re committed to mastering that craft. So, you know, as my good friend, Bradley always says, is training something you did or is training something you do?
Well, it’s something you do on a daily basis. I don’t care if you’re an NFL coach, I don’t care if you’re an NBA basketball player, I don’t care if you’re a Fortune 500 CEO, I don’t care if you’re one of the top neurosurgeons in the country, I don’t care if you’re one of the top cancer doctors in the country, if you’re an athlete, a CEO, entrepreneur, it could be a parent.
The ones that are the very best are the ones who train on their skill every single day. The ones who are average or below average are ones who did it a long time ago and just don’t have time for it now. Because they’re too busy listening to Taylor Swift while they’re driving down the road, which, hey, Taylor, we love you, but we’re just saying, or they’re too busy watching shows all the time, or movies, just stuff that doesn’t really move them forward in life.
Or if they’re an historian. They’re always studying, right? That’s why they know the most compared to the other people who are, you know, not, so they don’t get the best job. So if you want to be the top 1 percent of anything, especially sales training is something you do on a daily basis, not something where they bring in a sales trainer once a year, and you listen to a three day seminar and within two weeks, you’ve already forgotten 95 percent of it, which is.
What happens after 30 days you won’t even retain 3 percent of what that trainer told you if you just show up to an event. That’s just like an overview of training. It’s, you gotta do constant training on a daily basis. If you want to be great. I agree more. I mean, fantastic. yeah, now getting back to the topic of understanding psychology and human behavior for a minute, I’ve heard you say that the biggest driver of change in a human is pain.
Pain drives change. Right? So why is that? Well, yeah, there’s two, the two biggest emotional drivers in a human being that causes them to want to change our pain or the fear of future pain. Right? So if I can’t help a prospect. Emotionally open up and relive their pain of their current situation and problems, they don’t feel any need to change.
And when they don’t feel any need to change, that’s why you get so many objections and that’s why you lose so many sales. Because you don’t know how to get them to emotionally want to open up to you. Asking surface level questions is not going to get a process, especially if it sounds scripted. is not going to cause your prospects to want to emotionally open up unless they are a laydown sale.
Like, I, I, we can, we can, we don’t need to train you how to sell the laydowns, the 5 percent of the prospects you talk to. We’re just training you how to sell like the other, typically there’s probably about 10 percent you’re never gonna sell to because they can’t get the funds or the funding ever, no matter what.
But that leaves like 85 percent that are just kind of right there on the fence. And depending on your sales ability, depends on what side of the fence they fall. Do they fall on your side of the fence, which in reality is their side of the fence, because now they get their problem solved. And they get the results they want, or do they fall back on the other side of the fence where they stay in status quo, their problems stay the same, and nothing ever changed.
Because I always ask people, you know, if I’m doing a keynote or that type of training, is, you know, if I asked you to describe the word sales or selling in one word, what would that word be? And there’s always like, solution, closing, making money, blah, blah, blah. I love all that stuff. But really all selling persuasion is, is about change.
It’s, it’s one word. It’s about change. So, it’s about how good you are getting your prospect to view that by changing their situation, and that means purchasing what you’re offering, whatever that product or service is, is far less risky for them than them doing nothing at all, staying in the status quo and the problem stayed the same and nothing ever changes.
But here’s your problem. Human beings don’t like change. Even though we say we do. And why do we not like change? We don’t like change, especially when it’s initiated by some pushy salesperson that’s ready to pitch their stuff too early in the conversation. But repeatedly, human behavior shows that we value something that is more traditional, something that is more familiar to us.
Even if we don’t really like it that much over something that is new or foreign and unknown to us. And I always give this example, who do you know? I mean, you don’t, don’t give me their names, but everybody has the, the person that in the family and that they work with, or maybe somebody at church or just somebody they know that always complains about the relationship they’re in.
You know what I’m talking about? They’re always complaining, like, she said this, he did this, like, they’re always complaining. And then you always wonder, why do they stay in the relationship? Because they’re afraid of what? Change. They’re afraid of the unknown. That’s human behavior 101. So that’s what you’re going up against with pretty much every prospect you talk to, to different degrees, is that they kind of want to change.
They still have that fear of change. So it’s your job to help them overcome that fear of change so they can move forward, get the problem solved, and get what they want. That takes. Tonality skills, that takes the right question skills, it takes objection prevention skills, body language, and the better you get at that, the easier it is to help most of your prospects overcome that fear of change.
Here’s a question. What do you do with leads or clients that are ghosting you? Okay. So let’s say you’re in an environment where it’s not really a one call close. Let’s say it’s a two call close, or you could be selling B2B and it’s a nine month sales process. Typically the first problem that a lot of sales people get is they, you know, especially if they’re in B2B is they’ll go through like a demo.
And then they want to do another, a third call. And the process was like, Hey, okay, this is great. We love this. Let me go back to the board. We’ll talk about it and we’ll get back to you later in the week. And they’re like, okay, I’ll see you then. And you never hear from them again. Like they go MIA. First of all, you always have to have a next step, like micro commitments, next step on the calendar.
Otherwise that’s not going anywhere. That’s usually the problem of, of people ghosting is we never set a next step in a timeline, right? We don’t know how to do that. Now let’s say that we do that and let’s say it’s virtual and they just don’t show up. Alright, that happens here and there, especially if we don’t know how to build a gap, right?
So there’s a whole process of what I’m going to do, alright? It’s not, you might have seen a reel or something where, and that’s the problem with reels, people are like, oh, I watch your reels, I love it, it’s great. Well, a reel is 60 seconds. You don’t know the process before. You don’t know the process after.
You just saw like one little email and it’s going to work sometimes, but you need to understand the context before and after. You need to understand all the moving parts. You need to understand everything A to Z. And right now you’ve got a little sliver of A. You’re not going to like triple your sales from like free basic reels.
I hate to tell everybody that. I love that. It’s just not going to happen, right? I couldn’t have done that. So I might say, let’s say if I’ve called a few times, left a few voicemails. Okay. and they haven’t got back to me, then I might send an email or maybe I’ll leave a message. Let’s say I’m going to send an email.
Okay. I might say, try to reach you a few times because here’s, let me preference this. Most salespeople do what, Hey, John, been trying to get ahold of you to follow up about X, Y, Z. We’d really love to work with you. You got a great team over there. I know it’s going to be a great match. Can you please call me back?
Oh, that’s, that’s horrible. First of all, you’re lowering your status by saying, can you please call me back when you have time? Because now the prospect views you that their time should be far more valuable than your time. So your status just got lowered. All right. So I want to raise my status. I’m not going to write fluffy emails because nobody reads those.
What do you do when you get an email that’s two or three paragraphs? You don’t hardly ever read it, do you? You read the first sentence, you’re like, done. Unless you know them and love them and already trust them, you don’t, you, I know you will not read more than one or two sentences and it’s, it’s going away.
Even if it’s the best thing since sliced bread. So I’m going to email them very short and to the point. Hey John, tried to reach you a few times. Left a few voicemails, but didn’t hear back from you. Dot, dot, dot, dot. Then I’m going to scroll down two lines. I don’t want to be, I don’t want it to be an all one paragraph, score down two lines.
How should we proceed from here? Question mark, send. That’s it. You’ll be shocked typically how people fast. It’s because it’s almost like you’re getting rid of them, right? Where they’re like, Oh, Oh, so sorry. We’ve been really busy. we want to go forward with it or, Oh, I’m so sorry. My mom just got in the nursing home.
I’ve I’ve been busy or, you know, we decided to go a different direction, but whatever it is now, you know, what’s going on and you can, you’re back in engaging them. Okay. Now let’s say that, you know, 20, 30 percent of those now, is that going to work as well? If you’re like hardcore closing, pushy, high pressure, buy or die.
No, because they’re going to say F you, right? It’s not the percentages are going to go down, but if you know how to build a gap, your emotional open up seven out of 10 times, they’re going to respond to that. Now for the ones that don’t respond, I wait, I’m not going to just email them the next day or call seven times.
Cause all that makes you look like is what desperate. Needy salesperson, not an expert for sure. So I might make four, five, six, seven days and send out an email. Hey, John, tried to reach you a couple of times. We didn’t hear back, dot, dot, dot, dot. You had mentioned that you were wanting to, and then I’m going to go solve XYZ problems.
I’m going to repeat the problems, not just say problems so that you, let’s say if I’m selling business consulting, I just throw it out there. You had mentioned that you guys were, you know, wanting to have a better operation staff so you could scale to 12 million a month. Then I go down, did you end up giving up on that or whatever happened?
Okay, and that’s another ammo that goes out maybe a week later. So it’s a whole progression, but it’s more like, you know, like you’re focused on their problems and getting them where they want to be. They’re very short emails and you’re getting them to react off those, not just sending a four or five paragraph email.
That is the kiss of death in sales. It absolutely is. We, you know, we had a Chris Voss on recently and he was talking about less is more. So you, he was saying actually, however you end the email, put that at the top and delete the rest of it. Shorter is better, right? You get more of a response because they actually read it.
Yeah, I mean, it’s, yeah, it’s wild. People don’t read that anymore. I wanted to ask about your thoughts in the future of sales training, like looking ahead, what trends do you anticipate in the field of sales training and how is seventh level position to stay at the forefront of those developments? Yeah.
So we, we feel that with AI, it’s going to replace like lower level salespeople selling small ticket items. I’m talking about stuff that’s like anywhere from, you know, five 50 bucks or something that I’m not even talking about life insurance agents where it might be 200 bucks a month. I don’t, it’s not going to replace that because the FTC is going to freaking regulate the crap out of AI.
Can you imagine the first time a prospect complains that insurance sales policy, that robot sold me something I didn’t need, bam, freaking regulators that are going to come in and just wipe that out. So it’s going to be really, really regulated. I think a lot of people that are so heavily in AI, the AI, they don’t, they just don’t remember the FTC is like the gods of regulation.
Like it, consumers will complain. They’ll say the robot manipulated their brain or whatever, and it’s going to bam. So I don’t think it’ll ever, it’ll never replace, salespeople that sell larger ticket items. It just won’t because it’ll be regulated too much. Because people feel like they’re manipulated and a lot of people like, Hey, I only want to talk to a real human.
You’re going to be surprised now. They’ll be like, I just want to talk to a real human being. They want to talk to a real salesperson, not the robot. That will happen psychologically. I do think it’s going to replace stuff that might be 30 one time or 50 one time or a hundred bucks one time. I do think it will replace that.
So companies are going to have to license out methodologies that AI can actually use. Because AI can’t just go in there and just. Make stuff up, they’re going to have to license out different methodologies. Most sales trainer, trainers do not really have a methodology, it’s just the person. Okay, we have a methodology.
NEPQ, Neuro Emotional Persuasion questions for every industry now. Okay, we train out of 163 industries. in the subcategories, we’re in 161 of those. Okay, so we’re positioning ourselves to be able to license out our methodologies to different companies that will use that for that. That’s one thing we’re doing.
One thing we’re launching in 2025 is a recruiting and staffing agency because we have, we have, we have like 1. 3 million just on our email list of salespeople. We got millions of social media followers all asking, where can I get a different career chain? We got employers. Hundreds of them emails today.
How can we hire certified salespeople that have gone through your courses? And so we’ve just never been able to monetize that, you know, we’ve got like 150 some employees or whatever it is now But we have to build the foundation to do that. So we are going to roll that out. We’re companies We will never charge the salesperson Companies will pay for that talent and we will put them together.
So staffing and recruiting agencies, you got some of the biggest in the United States that do anywhere from 5 to 15 billion dollars a year. So we don’t view ourselves just as a sales training company. That’ll always be the foundation of seventh level, but we will get into the other vertical because it makes sense.
We’re not going to go sell tea stands, right? Nothing to do with sales training, but sales training company or sales, sales people wanting different career changes. And employers wanting to hire people that are certified in our training, put that together. And it’s, you know, it’s a pretty, pretty large business, man.
That’s impressive. Well, you answered my last question, which was what’s next? What’s the projects on the go? but you answered that, fantastic. Jerry, Jeremy, very, insightful conversation, valuable conversation. where can the people find you or where do you want the people to, yeah, you know, Good place to get us.
if you want to join one of our free Facebook groups, we’ve got several, but probably the, the best one is sales revolution. pro sales revolution. pro. there’s 115, 116, 000 people in there. we go live in there two to three times a week, different Q and A’s, different trainings. we give you nibbles, little golden nuggets.
And then if you want more, obviously more advanced training than just basic free content. they can just message my account in there and somebody will get with them on some different options that I’m talking to. Maybe one of our account managers. We have like 36 different sales training programs. We don’t have like one program with one price or anything.
And then we didn’t have time to get to the book, but where do we get the book? They want to get our Barnes Noble bestseller, New Model of Selling. Go to barnesandnoble. com to pick up the book. It’s like 17 bucks. Me and Jerry Acuff, the co author. Great guy, runs a big consulting firm on the East Coast.
And it’s even in Spanish now. We’re having it, all these publishers, all these publishers, I think this is Spanish. Hopefully, I don’t know, maybe Spanish or Portuguese. I’m not sure. But, it’s being published right now in Portugal, Taiwan, I believe France and Brazil. There’s some other countries where it’s, it’s, we’re working with different publishers there that have reached out.
So, but barnesandnoble. com for the English version. Okay, perfect.
