Module 8: Build Your Referral Network

Alright, it is good to have you back. We are going to be talking about something like super awesome, but rather than tell you, I want to show you. So like right away, I'm just going to invite somebody up here, Mars, I asked you to pop up earlier on. Now what we have here is we have like a super huge law book. This is West business law and somebody probably paid a lot of money for this at one point, but I just want to demonstrate something for you and it's going to be important that both Mars and I are in the camera here.

So Mars, go ahead and put your hand in the middle of that. Now notice, just hang out here for a minute, did I tell you to push back? No. Well, why did you push back? Because I didn't want the book to drop.

You didn't want the book to drop, right? So one more time, put your hand up on it, okay? And look at that, without any instruction, he pushed back. And the reason that he pushed back is because it is in human nature that when someone pushes on you, you push back. And let's be real, when you're in a sales context, how many of you have had a pushy salesperson, come on, raise your hand if you've ever had a pushy salesperson push on you.

What's your natural reaction? Kick him in the shins. Get him out of here. I hate that guy. I never want him around.

Thanks, Mars. Everyone, round of applause for Mars. If you're at home, give Mars a huge round of applause. So what you don't want to do if you're out there trying to influence people is you don't want to set up a situation where you create a contest like we just did. So years ago, when I first got into the business of selling, and let's just back up for a minute and let's talk about what selling is and why you want to listen.

So selling is nothing more than getting your story out there. It's nothing more than ethically influencing the people around you. And why do you want to learn it? Because I don't care what your passion is, I don't care if you're a coach, I don't care if you're out there building teams, I don't care if you're out there and you're a chef and you want to reach the people with food. You have to learn to influence people.

And if nobody buys anything, you're not going to make a lot of money. You may not even be able to stay dedicated in your passion because the piggy bank is empty. You shake it and there's no coins. You've got to be able to influence people. So why do we do it?

We do it because ultimately we want to help people for a living. We want to unleash our passion. We want to do the thing that will change the world. But until we learn to invite people into our world in a way that they want to come and not in a way that they resist, will they actually show up? So when I first got into the world of selling, I was 18 and I took my first job selling knives.

Dave, do you remember this? So I went out and I went for a job interview and I bought myself a kit. It was a giant bag with a bunch of knives and then I would go door to door selling knives. Hi, I would like to sell you a knife. And my first sales training, there I am holding my butcher knife.

May I come into your house? Come back later. But my first sales training, I asked my sales manager and I said, I really want to be successful at this. I want to learn this world. And he said, let me tell you a secret, son.

Sales is 80% closing and you got to close them. And then he gave me this big book. It was like the art of closing sales. And it was this giant thing about how to pressure people into buying your stuff with sophisticated verbal binds and other linguistic tactics. And if you've ever been exposed to something like this, if you're in the sales world, raise your hand.

You've seen something like that, a few of you. It's a really uncomfortable way to sell. And it wasn't until years later that I found a better way. Now, it's no surprise to anyone that when I started selling and I was out there and I was promoting myself as the knife guy, which is not my passion, not where I was, but it's where I started. I had to learn the hard way that when you try to close people that way or when you try to get business that way, as soon as you push, you get pushed back.

And so then the question is, how do you do it in a more natural way? In the early days when I first started off, I was lucky if I got one out of ten people to say yes. It wasn't until years later that I learned the secrets that I'm going to be teaching. And I really think these are secrets because I see almost no one doing this the right way. And so, if you want to learn how to ethically influence people in a way that they actually come to you and they ask you to participate and it's easy and closing isn't the focus and it's just a super simple natural conversation, I've got good news for you.

What I'm going to share with you over the next little bit is literally a formula that's taken me like 20 years to learn and I've gone now from having one out of ten people say yes to today where nine out of ten people come into my office and for my services, for my passion, for my passion, people say yes over and over and over again. Almost everybody. In fact, today I turn away as many people as people say no. Meaning by the time they come in and see me, by the time they sit down, by the time we're done with the interview, that person actually wants to do business with me. Years ago when I was studying judo, and I'm not like a world champion judoka, but I love the martial arts, and I was studying in Oregon when I lived there and there was a judo instructor who'd been around for a long, long time and he taught a lot of people.

And one of the early principles that I learned is that if I was fighting a larger opponent, for those of you that saw Mars here just a moment ago, Mars is a bigger guy than me. If we came down to a pushing match, there is a strong possibility that he would push me over. He's bigger, he's stronger, he's more manly, and he's got that awesome beard. And so he would probably push me over. But the question that my judo instructor asked was this.

He said, if someone pushes on you, instead of pushing back, what if you just gently pulled? What happens then? It completely reverses the entire situation. A very small person can now move a very large person. That's learning how leverage and human psychology works, and if you understand how leverage and human psychology works, you can help people naturally make the decisions that they need to make.

Because again, let's be honest. If somebody is seeking you out, if somebody wants your services, if somebody is attracted to your message, and you can help them, it's your job to do that. So here in a minute, we're going to go ahead and we're going to spend some time learning how to ethically influence people and how to have sales conversations that actually result in a very comfortable situation and result in closing business easily and effortlessly without taking any kind of adversarial tactic. So let's go ahead and we'll come back in just a minute, and I look forward to sharing the first secret of five secrets that are going to absolutely rock your world.