Straight Line Selling Technique
Chris Lynton from Tribefit.co talks about how to improve your sales conversion rate and how to get more online personal training clients FAST
G'day there, it's Chris Lynton from Tribefit.co. I hope you're all having an awesome day, a successful day, in the lead up to Christmas.
Today's video, as you've seen in the title of the video, is the number one sales secret that I learnt from the Wolf of Wall Street, Jordan Belfort.
If you have any questions or comments during the video, make sure you comment below and I'll make sure I get back to you as quickly as I can through the video.
In essence, like I mentioned, Jordan Belfort, most of you have probably heard of him. If you haven't, you've probably heard of him through the book, The Wolf of Wall Street, or alternatively the newer movie with Leonardo DiCaprio. Fantastic movie, if you haven't seen it.
If you haven't seen the movie, if you haven't read the book; basically it's about a guy who made it really successful in Wall Street, was a phenomenal salesperson and was also a phenomenal teacher of other salespeople. He was able to teach his successes, his techniques, onto other people to turn them into phenomenal salespeople. Basically, through watching a number of his videos, a number of his pieces of training of the course he does, he has a sales technique, a sales concept, called the straight line selling process.
Yes, if you've seen the movie or read the book, yes he did a lot of dodgy things to get to the heights of success that he had before he went to jail, but those dodgy things only increased his wealth 20-30%. What he did to get to where he was prior to doing those dodgy things he did through the techniques through the sales processes, the sales success he had and the ability to teach that to other people and turn them into phenomenal salespeople so they had a very good chance, a very good high closing rate of prospects, turning them into customers or into clients.
As I mentioned, he had a technique that he used to teach to everyone that came on board with him and, like I mentioned, it's called the straight line selling technique. In essence, what he talks about is when you speak to a potential client or a customer, when you initially speak to them, you connect with them at point A and your goal is to get them to point B; point B being a customer or client of yours.
Generally, in a sales conversation or sales process the potential customer or client is going to take you off that line and their goal is to ask loads of different questions and kind of go off what you're looking to do. And as quickly as possible get from point A to point B and obviously that is a straight line.
It gives an example of a junior that came into one of his businesses when he was first starting and I think it's a really good example. Basically, what he mentions is someone had started and been there for about a month or so and they weren't having the greatest results. As a result, day to day, he walked into his office and listened to his salespeople just to try and pick up on cues, help them, etc etc and he heard this person speaking about golfing. Obviously, all of his salespeople are there to speak to very wealthy people and help them invest their money to try and get a better return on their retirement funds or their investment or capital, whatever it might be.
He heard this sales junior, that wasn't having great results, speaking about golf and all the specifics around golfing or whatever it is. Then after the sales call, he called that person into his office and quite bluntly said: "Why the hell were you talking about golf?" The sales junior said "I was trying to build rapport. I spoke to this older guy, obviously a very wealthy guy, and he mentioned he had an interest in golf and I have an interest in golf too, so we started talking about golf, courses, clubs etc because I was trying to build rapport. I was trying to build a relationship, a friendship with this person before trying to sell."
It's a concept that's kind of been overused, this rapport building. Everyone talks about building rapport in the sales process. Basically, Jordan Belfort said to him "Don't talk to him about any of that shit. All you're going to talk to him about is point A and point B and as soon as he goes off, you want to find a way to get him back to the line, the process of what you're looking to do."
The reason why people are talking about rapport, talking about spending time and finding a connection, a relationship, with all of these people and his point of view is it actually devalues yourself. The more time you spend talking with someone about something that's totally irrelevant to the reason why they reached out to you in the first place, totally irrelevant to the point that you're actually trying to help them with, you're actually devaluing yourself in the eyes of that person. The reason being is because you're obviously not a busy person. You obviously don't have loads of people chasing you. You have too much time on your hands to talk about total irrelevant crap. As a result, that person doesn't see you as an absolute expert.
Obviously something, for example, as difficult as investing and someone handing over a lot of money to someone to decide what to do with that money to make decisions around that to make them more wealthy, you want to have the best, most expert person possible who is going to handle your cash. If you're speaking to someone about golf, then you obviously don't have people chasing you.
What he talked about is the straight line process - if you don't spend too much time with that person, you only talk about the concept of what you're on the phone to talk to them about, you're increasing your perceived value, the person thinks that you're in high demand and as a result will see you as more of an expert in what you do and as a result be more likely to trust you with the decision and moving forward.
So in essence, what the concept is like I mentioned, it's a straight line. Point A. Point B. The fastest way from point A to point B - and that is connecting with a prospective client and then turning them into a customer or client - is a straight line.
The prospective client or customer is going to do this (gesturing up and down) the whole conversation. What your goal is and the way to increase your conversions of turning prospective customers or clients into actual high paying customers or clients is whenever they try to go off the line, without being rude, bring them as fast as you can back to the line and back to the process. That way you're controlling the frame.
It's a very important thing, you've probably heard it a few hundred times if you've read anything in regards to sales or done any sales training, it's about controlling the frame. Don't let them control the conversation. Don't let it go off the line into topics like golf, the weather, what they're doing on the weekend. Don't try and find something to connect with the person that's totally irrelevant. They've obviously reached out to you in the first place because they've got a problem, they see you as an expert, they've reached out to you thinking "This person might be able to solve my problem and help me and that's the reason why I'm reaching out to them." But if you start talking about irrelevant shit, all of a sudden they're going to decrease the value, decrease your own value and they'll start thinking "This guy's too much time on his hands, he's obviously not getting chased by people, he's obviously not important, he's obviously not the best expert at what I'm looking to get. So I'm going to price-shop him. I'm going to talk about other things. I'll speak to four other people and I'm not going to make a decision quickly." As a result, your conversions will be very bad.
So as I mentioned, Jordan Belfort called this person to his office and what he did is he literally fired him. That was his story. He said "Get the hell out of the office. I don't want people building rapport, talking about things. I want you straight line process."
He gave all of the techniques to these people when they first came on board and basically what he said, as he walked through the office, if he heard anyone talking about anything other than that person giving them their funds to invest and helping them build their wealth and giving them the trust that they're the right person, the most expert, he would literally call them into the office and fire them the next day. They had the techniques and they weren't following the techniques in the proven format.
Jordan Belfort, phenomenal salesperson. If you've got 5-10 minutes, I suggest Googling it, check out on YouTube any of the videos. He's got a lot of fantastic sales training videos on there and he also has a great course, the straight line selling process.
It's a common thing that a lot of people do like I mentioned, thinking rapport, rapport, rapport. Everyone's talking about rapport these days. Screw that! You should have a quick conversation with people. Control the frame. Show them that you're an expert and if they're just kicking tyres, you've got another ten people waiting to get your value, to allow you to help them get rid of the problem, the pain that they're in, and get them from where they are today to where they want to be.
So use that technique. I like to keep it top of mind, put it on the whiteboard every time I'm speaking to someone and look at that before getting on a call with a prospective customer or client and keeping it top of mind all the time.
Like I said, straight line, as soon as someone starts talking about something else - and they will, it's inevitable because their goal is to do this (gesturing up and down), get as much information out of you as possible and then price-shop four, five, six, ten people - then your goal, if you are an expert and you can actually help them and it's a good fit, your goal is to get them from point A to point B as fast as possible. Turn them into a customer or client and then start giving them phenomenal value and giving them the results that they came to you for in the first place.
So that's it from me today. Hopefully, that technique helps. Keep it top of mind whenever you're having a conversation with a prospective client or customer and literally, you'll find your sales conversations, your sales period, your period from initially speaking to someone to turning them into a client, giving them great results and then seeing the results thereafter will shorten. You'll have much better success in your business and those customers will see you as a really high end expert and as a result will stop just talking about general stuff, wasting your time, because they know that your time is valuable.
So that's it from me today. Chris Lynton from Tribefit.co. If you've got any questions, like I mentioned, PM or comment below and I'll come back to you ASAP.
Have an awesome day. I'll be speaking to you real soon.
Bye for now.
