64: WHY Your Pitch Feels Awkward...

Secret MLM Hacks Radio

Steve Larsen: What's going on, everyone? This is Steve Larsen, and you're listening to Secret MLM Hacks Radio. So here's the real mystery. How do real MLMers like us, who didn't cheat and only bug family members and friends? Wanna grow a profitable home business, how do we recruit A-players into our down lines and create extra incomes? Yet still have plenty of time for the rest of our lives? That's the blaring question, and this podcast will give you the answer. My name is Steve Larsen, and welcome to Secret MLM Hacks Radio. What's up guys? Hope you're doing well. I know I've been a little bit sparse, as far as publishing here lately, but anyway hopefully it's been a great week so far. Funny enough, I say that, and it's literally Monday morning. Monday mornings are my favorite time of the week, which is weird, I know, but it's true. I'm so excited about what I get to do every day. I wake up just smiling. Funny enough, most people wake up and luckily those of you guys, you know, you're in this game, you enjoy it. If you're still in the 9 to 5, I've totally been there before, I understand where you are and if you're like, "Man, I really wanna get outta here." I got a message, I think it was yesterday from somebody reaching out saying, "Hey, Steve I listen to all your shows and just so appreciate it, it's awesome, do you really think that I can make it though." I was like, "Yeah." And he's like, "Is it weird for me to just know that things are just gonna get better and I can just" ... yeah it's not weird at all for you to just know it's gonna get better. First of all and have some gumption about it and that's okay. Number two, if you don't feel like it's gonna get better, that's an issue. But, the biggest thing is that you can't just feel like it's gonna get better, you have to force it to get better. You know what I mean? Anyway, so I was gonna tell him that a little bit. Hey, I got something cool for you guys today, I wanna share with you something I noticed. I've been at a lot of event recently and so I got a piece of feedback about the event that I ... one of the events that I was at, I'm about to go to a fourth one in the last month. I've just been traveling like crazy. Speaking, traveling, more speaking, more talking, more selling, it's been fun and I've really enjoyed it. Great to have those guys who are in the Secret MLX program. We've had some great, great, experiences there so far, it's been a lot of fun. Anyway, hey guys, I wanted to tell you guys some feedback from one of these events and one of the reasons I'm telling you that I've been to so many events lately, it's because I don't want you to guess, which event I'm talking about. Because it's not necessarily negative, but I can see how the person would be a little bit embarrassed, and I'm not doing this to poke fingers at somebody, I'm not doing this to put anyone down. I'm trying to make this a learning opportunity. So, what I wanna do real quick, is I wanted to walk through a pitch that I recently saw from stage. I've watched a lot of people pitch in the last month. So again, please don't try and guess, I'm not trying to shame the individual, I just ... this is a very powerful learning experience and I hope ... what I hope helps you guys understand is ultimately, why people feel weird when you start pitching your product to them, okay. I'm gonna tell you why, and I wanna walk through and I wanna teach you the ... I wanna teach you the reason ... how should I say this, I wanna teach you how to get around that, so that it's not weird when you pitch people your product, okay. You know that awkward feeling? There's a reason it happens. I was at an event and it totally happened. This guy got up and he was talking, then all of a sudden he started talking about prices and these different things, and I was like, "He's pitching? Weird." I was like, I turned to my friend and I was like, "Is this guy pitching right now? I would had been none the wiser, I had no idea he was pitching, huh." That right there, is one of the major reasons why people feel weird when you start pitching your MLM, right, or we start pitching our MLMs product. They don't even know, it's completely from left field. They have no idea, so how do you get people to accept and be okay with you pitching? And know that you're pitching? Right, you know what I mean? How do you do that? There's very, very interesting, clever ways to do it. So what I did, is I started talking with a whole bunch of people and I was like, "Hey, watch what this individual is doing right now. Watch what they're doing, because learn about what this person is ... you guys wanna know why he's not nailing this, and this is why." And I wrote out a big list. I just wanted to say this here on this podcast, but please again understand that I'm not pointing fingers at any individual person, I'm not pointing at any individual company, I've been in a lot lately and it's straight out of a learning thing that I'm trying to do in this case. So I'm not gonna say any names, I'm keeping this completely anonymous, and please do not come to me asking because I would tell you, okay. So, number one thing I noticed from this person as they started pitching is that first off, we didn't know that he was pitching. It was really, really awkward. Really, really weird. I'm sure you guys have been in those scenarios before, when you're in a home meeting or you've been to those kinds of things and someone's doing a great job talking about their MLM, they're doing a great job talking and telling some stories about it, which is very, very powerful as well. Then they get to this pitch, I love being pitched, I am a sucker for being pitched. I don't even care if the pitch is bad, I like buying stuff. Usually good entrepreneurs are good at buying stuff and it's one of the reasons they know how to sell, it's because they buy so much stuff themselves. There's some major truth to what I just said there. There could be a whole episode. Anyway, get good at taking your wallet out and buying some stuff to see and how they're selling people, you know what I mean. That's why you buy stuff frequently. Anyway, I was watching this guy and first of all, I did not realize that he was even pitching. Second of all, there were ... the entire thing happened and I'm watching them sitting there on stage and ... or I'm sitting there and I'm watching this guy on stage and there was literally no testimonials, literally no testimonials. Again, you ever been to those awkward home environments where you ... you get to suddenly the spot where you're gonna start pitching and talking about prices and things like that, you get all awkward, red face, your blood starts to boil, you start talking fast, your throat starts seizing up, you can't stay relaxed, you know that everyone can see that you're not staying relaxed, you talk real fast, you'd be like, "If you want [inaudible 00:06:33]" and you kind of just get off talking about it. I'm sure you guys have done that before, I have. I had to learn how to pitch, I had to learn how to do this in a way where it wasn't awkward for people to listen to me, and I had to do it in a way where I didn't feel weird about it either. So first thing I notice right, is that first of all, I didn't realize he was pitching, and he totally did that. He started to get all nervous and start talking fast and he was hard to follow, he was jumping around all over the place, "What's going on?" "Oh my gosh, this guy's pitching and he's slightly train wrecking it." "Oh interesting." And found out he closed like not even 5% of the room. Anyway, there was a lot of people in there, he should have made a crap ton of money, he did not. I know because I walked up to the back and I bought because I wanted to see what they were selling, figured out I kind of coaxed it out of the person, I was like "So, how many people bought this?" And like, "Oh, enough." And I was like, "No, no seriously though, is it like 10, is it like 20?" He's like, "Don't worry about it." I was like, "Is it like maybe less than 30 though." They're like, "Yeah probably around that." "Is it like more than 10. Yeah." Closers are usually good at getting information out of people, regardless. Anyway, first of all there was no testimonials, if you are literally telling your entire thing and you have no other person that you can talk about results for, that's gonna be a problem and a huge issue because ... if you're your own word, you know what I mean? If they know who you are, okay that's a little bit different, but I'm trying to teach you guys how to pitch people who you've never met before, that's like the whole purpose of Secret MLM Hacks, the actual program itself. Is that it teaches you how to pitch one to many, instead of one to one. Talked about that several episodes ago. Second thing is that, the individual was selling with logic and not emotion. Nobody buys off of logic. So if you're selling logically, which means you're getting feature based, like "Well the product has this feature, which means it's better than anything else over here." It's like okay, those are like very, very, very minute things that maybe will pull someone over the edge after their kind of considering to already buy it. Nobody buys off of features, don't get feature driven about the products that you're selling, I have no idea why certain products I take, like what's under the hood, like what actually ... I just know that they work. That's all that someone usually wants to know, unless you're selling somebody whose as engineer. Typically, engineers are harder to teach, are harder to sell to because they're so logically brained, they have no emotional part of their noggins, they're extremely smart but they're hard to sell. They usually have a hard time selling also because they can't get emotional. So, if you're selling logical, it's not gonna work. Next one, there were no trial closes, meaning he was not getting us to say, "Yes." Does that make sense? You guys understand what I'm saying? You guys see how this is gonna apply to your life? You're starting to understand why this is actually a better way to pitch? You're starting to feel it? I'm trail closing you right now, how many times did I just get you to say yes? It doesn't matter when I get you to say yes to, it is shown, it is proven. I did that on the door-to-door sales ... when I did door-to-door sales I did that on the doors like crazy. It's a nice day out isn't it? Oh, man it's amazing out here, right? Do you guys like living here, it seems like a nice place, right? I just got them to say yes like five times, and it matters. The first time that you're asking them to say yes to you should not be when you're asking for their credit card. What's funny enough is I would nod to people on the doors, and I wouldn't even be asking a question, I would just slowly nod, and they'd start nodding with me. There is an element of truth to that. It's not like, what makes the sale, but there's an element of truth that day, there was a zero trial closes, we were just being talked at, not talked with. Does that make sense? Don't talk at people, talk with them. So what they were doing, this person was doing ... wasn't really doing what's called a stack, I think he was trying to. A stack is where you sell one thing and then you give a bunch of bonuses away, also win. So you would normally have to spend a crap ton of more money to actually get all the stuff and you're getting it as a big price deal, well this person wasn't really pulling it off. Meaning they didn't convince us that the price was worth what they actually said it was worth. So when they did a big price drop, it didn't matter anyway. It was like, "Ah, well you didn't price [inaudible 00:11:11] it to literally anything." Anyway, then there's two more I wanna say and let me wrap this whole thing up here, I hope this is making sense first of all. Please apply this to what it is you were doing inside your MLM, I should have just chosen one or two or three things here. But, I wanted to go through the list. I literally wrote the list down, because like, "Oh, please observe what this individual doing is wrong, because that's a big lesson." One of the biggest things that they taught us how to do the very thing that they were selling, rather than what it is. The problem with that is that there's literally no reason for me to buy it afterwards. There's no curiosity, the moment you take away curiosity, there's no reason to purchase. Curiosity, urgency, scarcity, those are the tools that you have, those are the weapons you have as a salesman. Please know you are a salesman, or woman. You are. Okay, every person is. Doesn't matter if you're selling a product, or the fact that you should go to this movie versus that one. Everyone's a salesman. Own it. Don't be ashamed of it, it's the most prestigious, I don't know career that I know of. Salesman, I was brushing my little girl's teeth, she's four years old, I'm totally indoctrinating them. Like, "Look. Look little one, besides mother, besides wife, besides things about the family, besides things about individual progression, salesman is the most prestigious thing you can be." My wife started laughing and I started laughing too and my little girl was laughing, she's like, "Okay, daddy." I was like, "But there's actually some truth to that, I hope you know that." Anyway I know that sounds kind of weird, but it's true though. One of the reasons why this person did not sell hardly at all, and I think he just got some mercy sales, was because he taught us exactly how to do the very thing he was selling. Because of that he dove into each one of these pieces and he was trying to logically show us how much value there was inside of it, that's not how stuff sells. If he had just told stories and showed some testimonials then built up the value and convinced us throughout that it was actually worth the amount that he was saying it was worth. When there was a price drop, there would have been more people going to the back, but he didn't do it. It was one of those awkward pitches I've ever seen in my life. It was so stark that I had to talk about it with my team. I was teaching the lessons to and I was like, "You know, I should just kind of talk about this everywhere." But I don't want to ... I don't want this to be something that goes back to the individual and I'm not trying to be like ... Anyway, one of the biggest things that I started this out by promising to you guys that I'd show you how ... I wanna tell you guys how, real quick, to actually start pitching somebody without it being awkward. The easiest way to do it is to literally ask permission. But you don't start saying like, "Hey, do you mind if I pitch you for a little bit?" Everyone is gonna say, "No." Instead, just say, "Hey, do you mind if I spend 5, 10 minutes going over something cool I've put together for you?" That's it. Now they're expecting it. That's it! That's literally the magic question. If you come and even watching my web class, selling secret MLM Hacks, that's how I ask it. I don't wanna get weird, I'm just open about it. Rather than trying to hide it and do the slide up hand thing, like little bait and switch thing. Just be open and honest, "Look, I got something cool, can I spend a few minutes telling you about it." Yeah, and if you built up the value and you've told stories and you've open, a little bit vulnerable here and there, it's not weird. Then I could stand in front of somebody and I can say, "Look, I've got this and this is the value of it, and heres why, I've put it together this way and then I got this, and heres the value of that. I decided to toss it on there, this total value of this, but you know if you just get it now, it's only this amount." Now they're okay being pitched. You've literally asked permission, they've literally said, "Yes, please tell us your thing." One of the reasons ... oh my gosh, it's one of the major reasons MLM ... and I'm being open and I'm being real. One of the reasons MLM sometimes gets the wrap that it does, when sometimes someone get embarrassed about it or feels weird about it. Is because they're not asking permission to pitch, and because of it, it makes the other person feel awkward, they're just trying to get out of there. Then it shadows the confidence of the individual who was pitching. Now they don't wanna do it anymore. So the easiest way to go around pitching this as far as top level structure, I know I've told you guys several of the tips things like that throughout this podcast show, but one of the easiest ways to do it is literally tell the story, the story of why you are consuming the product yourself. I don't mean talk about the freaking features. I mean what was your life like before taking the product, take us through a journey, then when you get to the end, be like, "Do you mind if I tell you about it, just five minutes here, just tell you about the cool thing I got going on?" Most likely, even if they're polite and just say, "Yes." It is now no longer awkward. You can say, "Hey, thanks for listening, look they got ... usually it's this amount, but they got this cool promo thing going on." Every MLM thing's got promos going on, right? "It's got this cool promo thing going on, if I can get ... if you want to, just try the product now, this thing is until tomorrow or whatever, it's like half off or something. You wanna try it?" "I don't know." As soon as you do it that way, oh my gosh you guys, it's so much better. It's one of the greatest secrets to me pitching that I could ever give you. When I was first taught this I was hiding in the basketball stadium box office seats of the college I went to. I was sitting ... the reason why I was hiding up there is because it was good internet, it was dark, literally no one bothered me. I could stay there, I hid up there because I would stay up there way past the building close time. I only got caught a few times and they got mad, and they're like, "Don't come back." And I just came back for a year and a half, everyday. I would go up there and I would hide up there and I was listening to someone talking about how you pitch things, both in person but also on the internet. Learning that literally by just asking permission it takes aways all the weirdness. In fact it was funny when I learned it, I was like, "Oh, that's why I was good at the door-to-door sales thing." Because I would never start talking about price without them saying it first. Meaning here's what I'll do, on the doors, when I was a door-to-door sales guy, I would literally ... even when I was a telemarketer, guys. I was good at telemarketing, this is one of the reasons why, it's one of my tricks for all of it. It doesn't matter what you're selling, it's one of the tricks. Is getting them to ask the price from you, okay. That was one of the ways I got them engaged in the sales process, that's a buying question. Meaning their intent is they're asking about the buy, they're asking about the possibility of purchasing. So, now they're starting to ask those kinds of questions. When they start asking those kind of questions you know that 50% of the time at least they're gonna be closing that person. But you can't lead with that, you need them to ask those questions, you need then to have the epiphany in their head and start asking, "Well how much is it?" As soon as they ask that, oh man, it's gonna be pretty easy to tell them. They've already sold themselves at that point. So I'd go up on the doors and I would say ... and I would start talking about how cool it is and how much ... and I would start telling stories, and I'd talk about their neighbors who do XY and Z with it, and I'd say ... and as soon as they say, "Well how much is it?" I would never come out and say. "Here's the actual price ever." Instead I'd say, "Well ..." the answer is always, "It kind of depends. How big is your home.[inaudible 00:18:51] pest control" "It's about this size." "Oh, awesome." I'd stand there and I'd step next to them and I'd turn the focus over to a price sheet, so the focus is no longer on me at that point. When I had that, man it's awesome. That's when I'd close them really, really quick. So anyways, that's all I'm trying to help you guys understand with this is that if you guys have been having these awkward experiences pitching your stuff, it's because no one is giving you permission to pitch them. That's the reason why, and if you want to get past that, ask permission. I'm not saying you got to literally say, "Can I pitch you?" But if you literally say ... you start telling your story, you talk about it genuinely how it has actually helped your life, and if your product has not, it's gonna be hard to sell it. You better have some great testimonials from other people, you know what I mean. I had ... there's been several people reach out and well [inaudible 00:19:36] how to XY and Z, it's like, "Well man, you change MLM." You know what I mean, if you're not gonna adhere to the actual stuff that sells stuff the best, business only stays in business if you get more leads in sales. Anyway, guys that's all I got for you today. I'm just trying to help you understand that literally, literally this whole game gets a whole lot more fun and it's no longer awkward when someone gives you permission. Don't assume it. What you gotta get good at is two things: number one, telling stories, because they will pull someone along emotionally. Then number two, is literally the transition into the pitch. The transition is easy as the saying, "Hey, I got a quick question for you..." Or I don't know, "I got this question for you, do you mind if I spend like five or ten minutes just telling you more about a cool package that I have for this?" And if you can say that, or a version of it, confidently, and not be weird and just be open and real about it. And you've been to an emotional place prior, it drastically increases their chances. I have rarely had anybody ever tell me, "No" to that question. When they tell me the answer to that, then I say, "Cool, yeah I just don't ever wanna tell anyone without them giving me a little permission first." And I say that. I don't wanna assume, and I'll say that. I'll be nodding while I say it, they'll nod with me, it's another trail close, and then we'll move one and I'll say, "Well cool, it's this, it's called blank, blank, blank. And this is what it does. The reason they did this ..." and I go back into a story about it. I tell some more testimonials about, more experiences about other people about it, that's me pitching. That's how I do it. It's very, very effective. It takes away the awkwardness, and you no longer see people as just people to just pitch to. You need people to pitch to, but they need to give you permission. Or else you get that weird feeling, and they get that weird feeling and it gives you some weird internal feedback and then you never wanna do it again and it starts to wreck the entire process. Anyways, guys hopefully that was helpful to you. Again, I'm not trying to bag on the individual at all, I just wanted to be very, very open about why that person bombed so hard. There was a lot of reasons, but that was one of the major ones. Alright guys, go practice that. If anything, what I would do if I was listening this for the first time, I would write that down. Literally write your story, write the transition, meaning you asking the question, "You mind if I spend just a few minutes just going over this?" "Awesome, yeah", and I don't wanna assume or make it awkward or anything so I don't like to do it unless someone says "yes". A few minutes here and "it's called this" and I jump right into it. Then they're in an emotional state, so when I actually do the price drop, it's actually effective. That's what I would do, I would write it, I would literally go write that down and write through your process it stick it in your head. I would read it morning and night for a while, and start getting better results that way. Anyways guys thank you so much, appreciate it. Thanks for being a listener, this podcast is becoming wildly popular, and I appreciate the listens, I appreciate you guys tuning in, and hopefully this has been helpful for you and your [inaudible 00:22:45] inside this awesome industry. Awesome guys, talk to you later. Bye. Hey, thanks for listening. Please remember to rate and subscribe. Whether you just want more leads or automated MLM funnels, or if you just wanna learn to get paid more for your product. Head over to secretmlmhacks.com to join the next free training today.