What if the way you’re trying to sell your services, products, and programs was backwards?
What if the way you were taught to pitch things is being done in reverse order of how to influence people? As far as I know there’s no class in high school on how to influence people and there’s no courses in college that teach you how to sell.
So what do most people do because of the lack of education, knowledge, and training in this area? They work for someone that does know how to sell so they can get paid, but not you.
If you own a business and you want to scale you have to learn how to influence people and how to sell. For some people they are naturals at it and have picked it up easily. For me I had to put some work into it. I remember back in 2009 when I first realized that I wasn’t very good. I was speaking at Rocky Mountain Power about nutrition. I first started out as a fitness coach. This was one of my first speaking engagements of my career and I was super pumped. I spent weeks preparing for the presentation by mapping out what information I wanted them to learn and started putting together all the powerpoint slides. I probably spent way too much time with the animations that made the words bounce across the screen as I scrolled from one slide to the next. I wanted so badly to do good!
I asked permission to sell a $19 dollar nutrition program that included a very detailed breakdown of exactly what food they needed to eat. My plan was to sell this program at the end of my presentation. My mind started to soar off into the future. I started visualizing all the money I was going to make from selling it, because I knew it was worth the value I was asking for it. I started doing the math in my head. I thought that at least half of the 150 people coming would buy it. Which meant 75 times 19 dollars would equal $1425. That wasn’t bad considering I was already getting paid to be there.
After the presentations only 2 people ended up buying the program. I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe that with an amazing offer like that only 2 people purchased my deal. I was happy that I presented, however I felt this awful feeling inside my gut and I started questioning myself. The managers thought I did a good job and asked me to come back again in a few months. Again I had an offer that ended with the same result. I said some mean things to myself. I thought, “If I can’t sell a 19 dollar program with all the education and knowledge I have then maybe I’m just not ever going to be good enough.” I saw other people doing it so that must mean I can too.
Looking back I kind of laugh at myself because the problem wasn’t that I didn’t know enough or I didn’t offer good value. The problem was in the way I presented what I knew. As I’ve invested into speakers, coaches, mentors, and attended masterminds I realized I was making every mistake in the book. One of my mentors told me, “Travis, no one really cares how much you know or how smart you are. They want to know how much you care.” He was right. I needed to start telling people my journey instead of what I learned after the journey. I was short changing my audience by not sharing my journey and experiences that brought me to the facts I was teaching.
I had focused so much on knowing the right facts instead of HOW TO SHARE THE FACTS THAT ACTUALLY INFLUENCE PEOPLE. When I was presenting to Rocky Mountain Power I was killing them with information. That’s why school was so boring is because you have a system that grades you on how much information you know. The teachers have to have certain grades within their class so they are dependent upon giving you information to pass these tests. Which means we have been taught our entire life how to teach wrong. As I started to learn about how our brain works I realized that information is not what people need, it’s what they say they want. Our subconscious brain is the “PowerHouse” of the brain. It’s responsible for 95% of our actions. The conscious brain is responsible for 5% of our actions.
The conscious mind is referred to as the AWARE BRAIN and it’s influenced through logic, information, and data. That’s why people GO TO INFORMATION so quickly is because they are aware of it however that’s not what drives human behavior and it’s not going to drive people to want to buy your stuff. The subconscious mind is referred to as the UNAWARE BRAIN. Hence why it’s called, “SUBCONSCIOUS.” It’s below our awareness. The goal as marketers is to speak straight to the SUBCONSCIOUS MIND and the best way to talk to the subconscious is through emotions & feelings. The reason why stories sell is because it’s communicating to the subconscious brain aka “THE POWERHOUSE.” That’s why I always say, “Fuck Your Information.”
Learning the art, science, and steps of telling a powerful influential story has transformed our business. Not only learning how to tell stories but being able to visualize in story form. One of the stories I had visualized years ago was being on a sandy beach with my wife after we made over 100k in one week! I held onto this story and was able to make that story come true. A big part of that was being able to share my experiences in story form that sold our services. I invested thousands upon thousands of dollars to learn the art of storytelling. A little different than only $19 right?!
If I can do it, you can do it. I struggled for years because I was just trying to work harder and put in more hours. You will never be successful following bad strategies and tactics to build your business. Remember it’s a business. You must make money to create more influence in the world.
Facts tell, stories sell.
PS
We have a 6-Figure Business Mastermind coming up May 5th-8th in Las Vegas! We will be breaking down your Story That Sells Step by Step with me personally! It will be a game changer! I promise! Let me teach you what took me years to learn.
Check it out: