Jeremy Pope is a former clinical and stage hypnotist who now helps entrepreneurs build scalable high-ticket businesses. He’s been a top salesperson, sales manager, and sales trainer for international businesses, including the direct-marketing giant Guthy Renker. Now, he helps small business owners repair broken discovery calls. You can join the free Facebook community at salescalloverhaul.com/join.
Possible talking points/controversies
-Why he hated marketing and resented sales for the first year of his entrepreneurial career, and had to learn it the ‘non-talented’ way.
-If you’re like most salespeople, you don’t know HOW to pay attention to your prospect. Here’s what hypnosis can teach you about ‘sales mind-reading’
-Why ‘asking for help on price objections’ will seize up your sales engine every time
-3 Commitments that will help you close 15% more sales tomorrow
-How one prep mistake causes most business owners to lose great potential clients
-What many salespeople do that’s like ‘putting on makeup without a mirror’
-How using the wrong credibility factors can squash your sales
-Don’t know your numbers? You’re closing 15% lower than you think, maybe on every step
-3 Simple factors to decrease your sales cycle time - awareness, call prep, and commitments
-Why most people ignore the most effective changes to their sales processes: unsexy is your secret weapon
Giveaway/Bonus for your audience: Sales Console
www.salescalloverhaul.com/join
The Sales Call Overhaul live show is a weekly event in our free Facebook group where we rebuild broken sales calls live on the air - this is our $1800 offering, and we give it away to one winner every Friday. All group members can participate! (9 different factors)
[Podcast Transcript Using Artificial Intelligence]
Umar Hameed 0:01
Are you ready to become awesomer? Hello everyone! My name is Umar Hameed, I'm your host on the No Limits Selling Podcast where industry leaders share their tips, strategies and advice on how you can become better, stronger, faster. Just before we get started, I've got a question for you, do you have a negative voice inside your head? We all do, right? I'm gonna help you remove that voice and under 30 days guaranteed, not only remove it, but transform it. So instead of the voice that sabotages you, there's one that propels you to much higher levels of performance and success. There's a link in the show notes, click on it to find out more. All right! Let's get started.
Umar Hameed 0:04
Hello everyone. Today I've got the pleasure of having Jeremy Pope, who could be the Pope of Sales on the program today. Jeremy, welcome to the program.
Jeremy Pope 0:48
Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here.
Umar Hameed 0:50
So Jeremy, one of the things you said before we went on air is that you know, half of your job, maybe more of it is therapy, because what stops people from executing at a higher level is usually right here in their mindset.
Jeremy Pope 1:02
It is. Sales therapy is what I call it. I'm not a therapist, but I...
Umar Hameed 1:09
Would you play one on TV? Right, right.
Jeremy Pope 1:13
I've done an awful lot of fixing broken offers and fixing funnels and fixing sales calls. And that's kind of what I do with sales call overall, we break down problem spots in sales goals, and then we fix them. And on the podcast, we fix them on the air by reenacting that sales call.
Umar Hameed 1:34
I love it. Because you know, there's nothing quite as powerful as working with something real rather than something theoretical.
Jeremy Pope 1:40
Yeah.
Umar Hameed 1:40
So tell me about the offer. Because oftentimes, you know, people, I'm just writing a sales letter right now and I'm having to continually go back and re-craft because we know what we're selling but oftentimes you don't know what other people are buying. And there's a disconnect between what we think and who's way more important than us, our customers what they think. So give me an example of maybe...
Jeremy Pope 2:01
Yeah.
Umar Hameed 2:01
...someone you helped, what offer they had, and what you got them to, how you got them to clarify that message?
Jeremy Pope 2:07
Hmm, okay. Well, there are a few different things. There are a few different places where you need to clarify the message. Let's talk about a recruiter. So I work with recruiters fairly regularly and they've got two sales to make, one is to the candidate, and one is to the client who's paying for that candidate.
Umar Hameed 2:27
Yes.
Jeremy Pope 2:28
So they've got to keep two avatars in mind and that's, that's always fun. But with them, they need to, let's talk about the client side of that, with their funnels to get a client, a lot of times they're very outreach-based. So their initial messaging needs to be on point, their tipping point, needs to be as early in their funnel as possible. So that it goes from an outreach funnel into, "Oh, they're interested now they're coming to me," kind of process. And sometimes it takes a long time to get to that point in a funnel, it depends on what kind of funnel it is but you want to push that as soon as you can reasonably and still not kill your numbers. And so all of that's about messaging and timing, and then you need your application process, you need your, your qualification process to frame things very well. So that when you get into that discovery call, or a series of discovery calls, even for enterprise type sales sometimes, then you're having the right conversation. So if you're not having the right conversation with people, then you're not going to make any sales, you can't turn a non-prospect into a prospect, just by wanting them to be. You have to make sure that you've qualified the right people.
Umar Hameed 3:56
Absolutely. So how do you go from that total stranger to building up enough trust to go into a discovery call?
Jeremy Pope 4:02
Hmm. Well, there are a lot of people that talk about the know, like trust factors, and I don't really like those, I prefer to talk about reach relevance and resonance. And they kind of handle the the know, like trust stuff for you, when you get those right but reach is making sure that you're talking to the right people, you have the right people in front of you in the first place, you have access. It's all about access to the right audience.
Umar Hameed 4:34
Right.
Jeremy Pope 4:35
And knowing that you have access, you kind of need to know that, that you're talking to those right people. And then the relevance is, are you solving a problem that they need solved? It goes beyond just the right people that you know, can buy your stuff but are you obviously solving a problem? Do they know that you're solving a problem that's relevant to them?
Umar Hameed 5:01
Right.
Jeremy Pope 5:01
And then resonance, are you solving it in a way that resonates with them. Now, a lot of a lot of times, I mean, no, like trust never hurts, it never hurts.
Umar Hameed 5:12
Yes.
Jeremy Pope 5:13
Because that's a part of a foundation for relationship but it's not everything. I think that the reach relevance and resonance is a lot more important for making sure that your marketing gets you into the right conversation in the first place.
Umar Hameed 5:30
Okay, so let's break that down a little bit know, like, trust. So the know and the, like, lead to trust?
Jeremy Pope 5:39
Sometimes, maybe. My contention is that, that does not happen a lot of times,
Umar Hameed 5:47
So let me get.
Jeremy Pope 5:47
No someone like somebody. There's a lot of ways of trusting and trusting their intentions, okay, that's fine, I mean, I can trust someone's intentions without trusting their judgment or their skill set or their discretion at all. And it's a lot harder to trust someone's judgment than it is to trust that they're just, you know, they mean, well by me. And so I'm not a big fan of the know, like trust for that kind of reason. I just don't think it covers nearly enough ground.
Umar Hameed 6:18
Going back to that. So no one like leads to trust and a certain amount of trust. And it depends on the context, but reach relevance and resonance, basically, build up the trust that we want. Because you're actually connecting with people what they want, what the problems, are you solving it. So we're still going through the same factor at the end but you just do it more strategically and more purposefully, because ultimately, it's about the person you're talking to, and not the fake of, "Hey, you're going to know me, you know, like me and we'll get a little bit of trust," is more like by having the three that you're saying you actually go into much deeper conversation?
Jeremy Pope 6:53
I believe so. Yeah, it's, it's very much more than focused and people like it. When you focus on them, they trust you when you focus on them, they don't care to know you, when you're focused on them, they know themselves, they know their problem that they're trying to solve, you can get to know each other later, plenty of times. But yeah, I think that accurately sums it up. Thank you.
Umar Hameed 7:18
And I think just very much so connecting with people in that way, kind of reminds me of a saying that I heard once it was like, "Do you know why God invented fleas, to give dogs something to do?" And I think what this reach relevance and resonance does is give salespeople something to do so rather than flailing around on, "Oh, you and I went to the same college," or some other kind of desperation, this is more like reach, how do I know I'm reaching the right people in the right way, it gives them something to do and it gives them some, some thought behind the call, they're about to make. A relevance, you know, I need to know what your problem is, I need to know that I'm solving it and I need to know that it's important to you, because you probably have a lot of problems, Jeremy that you don't care about, but some that you're deeply passionate about and then of course, that resonance. So I think it's a brilliant technique that you've got that lets mere mortals become master salespeople.
Jeremy Pope 8:14
Well, strong words, but thank you. I'll take it.
Umar Hameed 8:18
Absolutely. As so we've got a conversation with someone, we're talking about these things. And where do we go next?
Jeremy Pope 8:26
Well, in our sales call overhaul process, we talk about a few. We actually grade a discovery call on nine different axis internally.
Umar Hameed 8:38
Wow, interesting.
Jeremy Pope 8:39
And some of those are simple. Like we have one called misfires and that's just, are you talking over people? Are you having a technology issue that's causing you to interrupt each other or some kind of lag, and we experienced this all the time with zoom and podcasting and the remote workspace but if you're, if you're out of sync with your prospective client, they are not accustomed to it or if it's just so bad, hey, if you have these problems five times in a row, deal with your technology and move on this is that's not an acceptable thing to be letting, letting it get in the way of your sales. If you're if you miss a sale every other week, because of bad technology, ask spend another $50 a month and get the right technology for you, or upgrade your internet connection or whatever.
Umar Hameed 9:32
Stop right there just for a second Jeremy, because what you're saying is common sense. But you and I both know, there's lots of salespeople out there, and other people in just you know, the general world, there'll be a problem that's solvable but for whatever reason, they won't solve it. What do you think people get to that place of, "Oh, it's it's the connection, is my message that's more important," that we convince ourselves not to take those small actions that get in the way of us connecting in a deeper way and actually getting people over the finish line.
Jeremy Pope 10:00
I think that the reason a lot of people don't pay attention to these things is that, they're accustomed to accepting the world around them. And just oh, well, that's how it is, that's how Zoom is, or that's how my phone system is and that's not okay. You just have to be willing to say, "No, any problem is fixable. And I'm going to take the responsibility for fixing that." But it's almost like our brains just gloss over it on a subconscious level and so just bringing that back up to people's attention, yes, it's absolutely common sense, and yet, it's almost like people forget to think about it but it can be a big factor in missing sales, I mean, that can, goodness, if your internet is unreliable, for instance, that can kill your sales for the day because of the stress that it puts you under. So yeah, that's it, that's why the first thing that we talked.
Umar Hameed 10:59
And then you broadcast it that's it suddenly. Absolutely. So we were talking about avatars earlier on like, but I think it's a really useful tool from the place I come from, is if you're a one person show, oftentimes, you're seeing the world in one particular place. So my wife, she was very detail focused and when I went to do Umar things, she would go, "No, this needs to be better, that needs to be better. You can't do this to people." So if you don't have a spouse that's doing that for you or a manager, what you need to do is figure out who is that one person out there that would operate at a higher level, even if you don't know them, people have a good sense of well, how Steve Jobs would see it, all you need to do is what would Elon Musk do, or maybe you had a coach in high school, how would coach Jones see this, it's a, 'Get off your ass and fix that thing." And sometimes just being able to kind of see what you're doing through whoever your mentors eyes are, is a simple tool to kind of correct the things that need correcting.
Jeremy Pope 11:58
I like that technique, Todd Herman talks about that in his alter ego book, just...
Umar Hameed 12:04
Interesting!
Jeremy Pope 12:06
...on an alter ego, and who can answer this kind of question, who can, who can do things the way you want to do things there? And I like that, when I'm saying client avatar, typically what I mean...
Umar Hameed 12:23
I got what you meant, I was just using that general idea. I was actually coaching this one gentleman that works this company is like, "So tell me what you do?" And he was like, "Well, what we do is boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring." I said, "Okay, just for a second, put on the mask of your CEO", who I happen to know is very charismatic, and a great communicator. He goes, "Oh, okay," I said, "Put on his mask, now, tell me what you do?" "We are da da da da da," It was just magic came out of his mouth. And it was just by the illusion on of the mask of the CEO. So we know the answers in here but sometimes we let how we think about ourselves dictate how we show up, and we don't need to do that.
Jeremy Pope 13:03
Yeah, yeah. That's, that's a big part of what we like to deal with as well is the mindset behind the problems. A lot of times, we'll see technical problems on a sales call, "Opps, don't say that, say this instead," "Oh, don't frame things this way, frame it that way instead." But then the second call rolls around in the package, and they do it again on the second call. And so that means, oh, there's some fear in the way of...
Umar Hameed 13:36
Yes.
Jeremy Pope 13:36
...of saying the right things. Or there's some, there's some resignation, like, "Ah, this isn't gonna work out anyway," or some kind of a money thermostat issue, where people are just, they've kind of given up before they even started, so that they don't, so that they don't have to be afraid about it later on. So most of the time, it comes down to a fear, and so we have to address that really, specifically and really, thoroughly to make sure. But I find that most of the time, people are missing a couple of things in their sales calls. They're missing a really good agenda with upfront contracts, and being able to set the stage safely for the prospect. So when you have good upfront contracts with the prospect that often refers to locking or trying to lock in a prospect to making a decision at the end of the call, and...
Umar Hameed 14:41
Yes.
Jeremy Pope 14:42
...maybe, maybe that's appropriate, maybe it's not it really depends but most of the time, it should be about making the prospect feel safe, to be honest with you.
Umar Hameed 14:54
Yes.
Jeremy Pope 14:54
And once they're safe being honest with you, then you can both relax and let the tension grow the way it ought to instead of pressure. Pressure and tension are very, very different things. As anyone who has ever been in a romantic situation understands viscerally pressure is not the same thing as tension that you need tension, you should not ever have pressure. And so that, that's one of the big things that I find is fear-based unless it's just a bad habit is pressure versus tension. So we eliminate the pressure and let everything rest on tension.
Umar Hameed 15:35
One thing I find is, this three places where people get stuck. One is a limiting beliefs somewhere in their unconscious. Because if they knew what the belief was this getting in the way, most people go, "Oh, that's dumb. That maybe made sense when I was four doesn't make sense now," but a lot of that stuff. The second way is something called inner conflict, where one part of them knows that I'm going to do exactly what Jeremy said, this is the right way. And but there's another part of their psyche that basically goes, "Oh, it's wrong shock about money", or "You're not good enough." And one of the ways to uncover that is when they're talking about what they want to do is like, "Jeremy, I know I'm going to do this, this week's gonna be different," strong voice, strong gestures, then this hand comes up. But you know, I don't want to be bothering people and the tone of the voice changes and the second hand comes up, and it's got weaker gestures. As soon as you see that, you know, okay, two parts of the psyche are at war, getting in the way. And then the third place is something I call hot wiring, where if I was on stage, I would this part of the presentation, go find some young female in the audience and go and say, "Hi, my name is Umar," I put up my hand to shake her hand, and she would shake my hand on unconsciously sheesh, shaking hands a million times before, but her reptile brain is looking for is this safe to shake that person's hand, so there's a bunch of processing going on in the background. And the same thing happens in sales sometimes, where they get this inner process that comes up that sabotages their efforts, so they go back to the default, old way of doing things and not the new way. So once you get over the fear, how do you, how do you get them over the fear?
Jeremy Pope 17:08
Oh, it depends. I described a technique before, it only rarely, only rarely, it's unusual in these in these days of Zoom, yeah. But typically, we're looking at a lot of different techniques, I mean, the NLP toolbox and various other we've got several mindset coaches in the program,
Umar Hameed 17:32
Nice.
Jeremy Pope 17:33
And so they use whatever technique they want, I do not limit them, because I found that you know, the same people is policy, you get really good people in and you let them do their thing, and they do, they do they can, it's safe to, it's safe to have initiative in that kind of program. And so they've got backup, if they need backup with someone, then I can hop in and help out, or one of the other coaches can hop in and help out as well. But most of the time, I don't even need to get into that stuff, I mean, we'll use all kinds of techniques for resolving things though, from processes that look vaguely similar to the core transformation type stuff from Connie Randress, to anything from the NLP toolbox, Tony Robbins loves the circle of excellence kind of stuff. And...
Umar Hameed 18:30
Yes.
Jeremy Pope 18:30
...all that and the alter ego kind of thing is fun as an instant hijack for helping someone just understand there are more possibilities than what they've been using. But the visual Squash technique is one of my personal favorites, because of exactly the kind of thing that you talked about with the on the one hand, on the other hand, we just take that so literally with a visual Squash, and we say, "Okay, well, let's resolve it, let's put those hands literally." And it's just beautiful, the all the faces people make while you do that stuff too.
Umar Hameed 19:07
What's kind of interesting, at least from my point of view, is that you can have two people come in with the exact same problem they can articulate the same way. And this technique is gonna work really well with Person A, and another techniques to work with Person B. And it's just goes back to that cold call you talked about, it's our ability to connect with the other human being where you just kind of pick up the vibe as, "Oh, but Jeremy is going to be this and for Jane is going to be that." and so there isn't one solution for everybody. And that's what I like about what you're doing is you've got different coaches, different techniques, just go play, go figure out what's gonna work best.
Jeremy Pope 19:41
Right. Right. We make sure that someone can handle the technical side of the sales. Once they can handle the technical side, then that buys them time to deal with other mindset stuff. And our mindset coaches are welcome to keep on working with our clients afterwards, that's totally fine. But during the program, we're making sure that they can hit the nine points and do really well in a sales call. And I mean, that buys them time that buys them money so that they can afford to do whatever they need to do later on. But that just giving them the option, giving them that springboard right off the bat, that's just so powerful. And where most people are falling down is either in framing, framing the call well, a lot of, a lot of newer people in the high ticket sales world that I've kind of come from over the past few years, it's not really all that high ticket for enterprise sales, for instance, this is pretty low tickets.
Umar Hameed 20:50
Yes.
Jeremy Pope 20:51
But most of the time, when it's micro b2b, or micro business to small consumers or coaching programs, we're talking about, you know, 3000, to $25,000, things like that. So, in in that world, there's a lot of people who come in, and they, they learn a script, and they learn a particular method that everybody seems to use and who knows where it come from, maybe it's a Click Funnels type thing. But it's sort of a, it's very easy to inject arrogance into that situation into that frame and trying to over authorities yourself, instead of being relaxed...
Umar Hameed 21:38
Yup.
Jeremy Pope 21:39
...here. And you can come in and frame it weekly and you can come in and frame it over strongly. And making sure that you've got, that you've got a good frame, frame with integrity is very important. And that's probably the trickiest thing, psychology wise in these calls. But then, what's...
Umar Hameed 22:04
Tricky how so?
Jeremy Pope 22:07
It requires more learning than some of the other things, more learning. And it's not particularly hard emotionally for the salesperson to do, it just requires a little bit more subtlety than some other things, so I guess it requires more subtlety is what I mean by by tricky. And then the the other place where they typically are going awry, is by not getting to the emotional, and not not really getting any emotional ought into that call, I guess there's one other place. This is turning into a money Python, Spanish Inquisition sketches and for, forming finishing position but...
Umar Hameed 22:52
What have the Romans ever done for us?
Jeremy Pope 22:54
Exactly. So aside from a poor frame, and lack of emotional horsepower, getting weird about the clothes, getting weird about the clothes asking for the sale, it's so important to be explicit about this is the sale, this is the decision to be made, what do you want to do. And it doesn't have to be complex, that should be very simple, way simpler than most people make it. But I find a lot of people are coming into these calls with this adversarial or this hiding kind of mentality and so they hide from the big topics, they hide from the elephants in the room, they refuse to raise their own objections, and they wait, trembling for a prospect to raise an objection. And then they've got their scripts for rebutting those objections and things like this and oh, I hope it works. What do you mean, you hope it works? Come on that's, why don't you just talk about it first, if it's something you're concerned about, talk about it before the prospect does and you'll relax yourself tremendously. And then you'll take off the pressure and you'll let tension pull you both along through that call and it's it's so much nicer that way. I can give you an example in a minute after this question, if you want.
Umar Hameed 24:22
Sure. I'll give you one first, then we'll get your example. I'm going to go back to Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky.
Jeremy Pope 24:29
Hmm.
Umar Hameed 24:29
It's like when it first came up if he had said, "Yep, I had sex with her. I'm feeling really bad about it," would have been done right up front rather than denial, denial, denial, you know, is going to come out at some point, and it just creates this big, hairy, scary thing where if you just talk about the issue that's there, no one dies. We don't talk...
Jeremy Pope 24:49
Would have been embarrassed by it. It would have been embarrassed but he had been impeached.
Umar Hameed 24:54
Yeah, and not that he had any less embarrassment being on the stand and going through like months and months of this. And so we can all learn lessons from that but you had an example to you're about to share.
Jeremy Pope 25:05
Well, one of the things inside a sales call when, when you're having a serious call, like the decision call, or a strategy call, discovery call, things like that, then there's so many times when I'm a nervous salesperson can relax themselves by just co-opting their prospect and it's so easy to do. For instance, if I have something that I'm worried about, say it's how long it takes me to deliver, or my price, a lot of people get hung up on price, let's talk about that one. So, if I were concerned about price, and I know I'm going to have a little trouble in the clothes later on, oh, excuse me, I've got a delivery apparently. So if I've got a, it's got, if I've got an issue that I know about, then I need to bring that up, and I'll just say, "Do you mind if we talk about money first, I'm not the world's smoothest salesperson and I'm getting all weird about it. Can we just talk about thatsSo I can relax later on? And they'll always say yes.
Umar Hameed 26:17
So let's pause there just for a second. And what you suggested, of course, is brilliant.
Jeremy Pope 26:21
I do need to pause. Yeah.
Umar Hameed 26:23
Okay.
Jeremy Pope 26:23
All right.
Umar Hameed 26:25
So Jeremy, that's brilliant. Talking about, you know, what you're nervous about upfront does. A lot of people see that as a sign of weakness, but it really isn't, is just basically saying, "Hey, this is what's going on for me, and it makes you human." And people want to save people, people want to help people. I was at this wedding before COVID hit, and the priest that was about to do the ceremony said, "You know, Father, so and so was supposed to do this, but he could make it so I I'm doing it. And I just graduated from seminary school two weeks ago, and this is my first wedding," and 300 people in the wedding, in the church applauded him said, "You know, Hey, no worries." And he did a phenomenal job, he got the worry out of the way. And had he been worried about it, he would have screwed up three or four times, but because he got it out of the way, just a job. So if that's your biggest problem, bring it up front makes perfect sense.
Jeremy Pope 27:13
Huh, wonderful. It was not a delivery, it was a pickup. Alright, what was the last thing that we got?
Umar Hameed 27:25
I often think about since the dawn of time, I can imagine the marketplace in Egypt 5000 years ago, and some guys selling camels better than the other camel dealer. And the third camel dealers, like, you know, "Hey, I got to figure out what that guy is doing," and "Hey, Akmed, what are you doing?" I mean, this, these conversations had to have happened a long time ago and he's like, "Hey, I get nervous about camel pricing so I bring it up front." I don't think anything much has changed in the grant technology has changed but the human condition has not.
Jeremy Pope 27:56
Right.
Umar Hameed 27:57
They don't exist.
Jeremy Pope 27:58
Right, right. And that's, that's one of the most powerful tools that like, easy hijack kind of tools that i've been able to teach people and it comes from Sandler sales, I mean it's it's an old school kind of thing, almost as old as NLP but it's...
Umar Hameed 28:19
So I do something similar where I tell people what my superpower is, is the ability to create a safe place between me and Jeremy, that lets Jeremy go on a journey. And then what are the tools are don't really make a difference, I can have the best tools in the world but if I don't have that safety, that trust, they may work for a little while, they may not but if I've got massive amount of trust, I can say, "Hey Jeremy, you know, let me tell you this fable," and it could be just a fable that's quite silly could do the trick and you'd be happy I'd be happy to change your life forever. So at the end of the day we're human beings we need to connect. Jeremy, thank you so much for being on the show and let me tell you what I really, really appreciated about our conversation was this, is that you have no new ideas except the most important idea, which is to value the person you're connecting with, of building those connections with them, bridges with them and creating that connection and certainly going back to the first thing you said about reach, relevance resonance, is all about honoring the person you're talking to and really connecting with them in that way. So thank you for reminding everyone that we need to realize as a human being on the other side and what's the best way I can be of service to them.
Jeremy Pope 29:31
Yeah. That'll be my pleasure. I've got a list that I'm building right now that I'd be happy to share with you and thank you thank you.
Umar Hameed 29:44
If you enjoyed this episode, please go to iTunes and leave a five-star rating. And if you're looking for more tools, go to my website at nolimitselling.com. I've got a free mind training course there, that's going to teach you some insights from the world of neuro-linguistic programming and that is the fastest way to get better results.