Jan. 12, 2022

How To Best Overcome Your Fear to Make Sales More Easily - BM304

How To Best Overcome Your Fear to Make Sales More Easily - BM304

Do you want to know how to best overcome your fear to make sales more easily?
Listen as Ari Galper, the world's number one authority on trust-based selling shares his wisdom to help you overcome your fear of selling so you can even enjoy the process.

Do you want to know how to best overcome your fear to make sales more easily?

Listen as Ari Galper, the world's number one authority on trust-based selling shares his wisdom to help you overcome your fear of selling so you can even enjoy the process.

In this week's powerful episode "How to Overcome Your Fear to Make Sales More  Easily" you will discover...

  • What is the "old" and "new" mindset to selling even if you hate the thought of selling
  • Why building relationships and building trust with potential clients are mutually exclusive
  • What is a  "trust asset" and how to create your own
  • What questions to ask so you can have a sales conversation that builds trust

And a whole lot more...

Here's how to contact Ari to find out more about her services.

Get more gems from other guest experts, when you become a Book Marketing Mentors Premium Member today!

Transcript

Susan Friedmann:         Welcome to Book Marketing Mentors, the weekly podcast where you learn proven strategies, tools, ideas, and tips from the masters. Every week, I introduce you to a marketing master who will share their expertise to help you market and sell more books. Today, my special guest is Ari Galper. He's the founder and CEO of Unlock the Game, and is the world's number one authority on trust-based selling. He's been featured in CEO Magazine, Forbes, Inc. Magazine, Sky News, and the Australian Financial Review.

                                    In his best selling book, Unlock the Sales Game, Ari describes his revolutionary sales approach, based on getting to the truth and why having a mindset of focusing on deep trust, instead of the sale, is ironically 10 times more profitable. Ari, what an absolute pleasure it is to welcome you to the show. And thank you for being this week's guest expert and mentor.

Ari Galper:                    Thank so much, appreciate you having me and looking forward to our conversation.

Susan Friedmann:         Ari, as the world's number one authority on trust-based selling, let's talk about that sales mindset, especially, as so many of our listeners are first-time authors and consider sales a four-letter word. What do you have to say about that?

Ari Galper:                    Well, I think we've been conditioned over the years by the old gurus and all the old training we used to have that makes selling a very dehumanizing experience for everyone involved, where we have to chase people and chase ghosts, and really sacrifice our soul in that process. I think that's wrong. And my mission is to help people sew that up so they feel comfortable and authentic offering their services without having to sacrifice their soul. The story behind that, best [inaudible 00:01:50] that's really what this is about. It's about how to, with integrity and authenticity, how to offer your services without compromising your integrity in the process.

Susan Friedmann:         In your book, Unlock the Sales Game, you talk about the old mindset and the new mindset. Is that what you were referring to here?

Ari Galper:                    Yeah. We teach a way of thinking, a different mindset where the goal of the process is not to focus on the sale, but to focus only on deep trust with people, where they feel vulnerable enough to open up to you and describe to you what their problems are, because it's almost like a doctor-patient relationship. That's what we teach. How do you diagnose someone's problem and have them trust you at a very deep level, so you're not perceived in any way as selling in the negative respect. The old mindset is, your goal is to persuade, convince and move them towards a sale. Our goal is to build enough trust with someone in the beginning of the process, so the truth comes out to determine whether we're a fit or not.

Susan Friedmann:         Of course the next question is, how do you do that, which it begs that question, you know that, don't you?

Ari Galper:                    Sure. Well, there's a story behind this concept that I think I might share right now, about how this got invented and it happened to me personally. I was the one, the brunt of this. About 20 years ago, I was a sales manager at a software company and we had launched the first online website tracking tools to track website behavior. Now, it's called Google Analytics. But back then, we had the first product that we were selling around that offering. I was managing 18 people underneath me, sales people, and the big opportunities came across my desk. The leads that were big, I got first. This one call came through. I picked the phone, picked the call up and a really nice guy with a big, huge company. They have lots of websites and if I close one sale over it, it would double the revenue in one transaction. It was a big opportunity.

                                    We agreed to a conference call and a demo to see our products. They finally, came Friday at 4:00 in the afternoon. I was in the conference room with my CEO. I closed the door behind me. Big long conference table in front of us and the old school speaker phones on the table. I hit the dial tone, dialed the number and my contact picks the phone up and he says, "Hey Ari, how's it going?" I said, "Good." And he says to me, "Ari, let us tell you who's with us here in the room." I was like oh, didn't realize there'd be someone else there.

                                    Next thing I hear is, "My name is Jack. I'm CEO." I was like, oh, this is good. "My name's Chris. I'm head of Global IT." This is even better. "My name is Julian. I'm head of marketing." This is amazing. I mean, everybody on this call, Susan, was a decision maker. If this is going to happen, it's going to happen because they're all there at one time. I begin to describe myself, what we do and I gave them a live demo over the web ,of our tool on their websites and collecting all the data ahead of time.

                                    I showed them what it looks like in real of time. I'm showing this and I'm clicking around describing it to them. Actually, there's these noise on the phone call like, wow, this is great. This is amazing. I can't believe it. They started asking me all kinds of questions. How does it work? How do we install it? How do we use it? They had all the right kinds of questions. I had all the right kind of answers. It was a good fit. There was so much chemistry on this phone call. It was like a love fest on the phone. You know what I'm talking about?

Susan Friedmann:         I do. That's ideal. Wouldn't you love every sales interaction to be like that?

Ari Galper:                    Exactly. There was no resistance. It was so fluid. I was like, wow, this is amazing. And the call comes to a close and my contact says to me, "Ari, this is great. We love it. Give us a call in a couple weeks, follow up with us and we'll move this thing forward." I was like, oh, thank you, God. You know. I said my goodbyes and I took my hand to reach for the speakerphone on the phone, to the off button.

                                    As I'm reaching for the off button, by complete accident, rather the off button, I hit the mute button instead. They're right next to each other. A small click happened and they thought I hung up the phone and that's split second. A voice inside of me said, Ari, go to the dark side, be a fly in the wall, go where no one's ever gone before in the world of sales. And I pulled my thumb back for a couple seconds. They started talking amongst themselves, thinking I had left the call. And what, what would you expect them to say after call like that? What would you imagine? They would've said?

Susan Friedmann:         Well, if they were authentic, then they would be talking about how great it is, but maybe not. So it depends.

Ari Galper:                    Well, let me tell you what they said, verbatim word for word, and I'll never forget it. It's why we're all here today. What they said was this. They said, "We're not going to go with him. Keep using him for more information and make sure we shop someplace else cheaper." Knife in heart twists. Susan, I was in a state of shock. I could not believe it, but I snapped out of it.

                                    I hit the off button. Leaned on the wall said to myself, what did I do wrong? I was hard centered. I was competent. I was professional. I wasn't pushy. I did everything I was taught to do by the sales gurus, the books at the home, the seminars. I thought I did what I was supposed to do. The first big epiphany hit me and that was this: somewhere along the way, it has become socially acceptable. Not to tell the truth to people who sell. Right?

Susan Friedmann:         That's the most disturbing part of that whole little vignette that you shared, because it is, it's soul destroying when you really feel as if you've gotten that sale. Then like you said, they're just using you and they're going to get all the information they can and then go with somebody cheaper.

Ari Galper:                    It's just look, they say things you like, sounds good. Send me information. I'm definitely interested. Send me a proposal without any intention of what?

Susan Friedmann:         No intention of buying whatsoever.

Ari Galper:                    Exactly. I've said to myself, what is going on here? This is so not right. To lie, to seduce, to disappoint, to force us, to chase people into a dehumanizing state, to make us hate ourselves and hate the process. That's when I decided to realize how to solve this problem. I realized that there is an invisible river of pressure that flows underneath every competition you have with someone in your sales process. Now you can't see it and they can't see it. Both people can feel it. If you aren't aware consciously how to remove the pressure from the sales process, to build new trust with people, enough that they feel vulnerable to open up to you, then you'll always be playing game with them, chasing what I call ghosts and never really landing your success and playing that game.

                                    That's why we call it, unlock the sales game, to unlock that crazy game we're all living in and to really, shift your thinking away from the sale and to build trust instead. That's our whole premise of our foundation, what we do.

Susan Friedmann:         Knowing what you know now, and you went back to these same people, what would you do differently?

Ari Galper:                    That's a good question. People always ask me that. What would I do differently? If I knew what I knew now, back then, what would've happened was, I never would've had the call, because I would've discovered on the first call with the gentleman, what their plans were, what their agenda was that, I would have decided whether I was going to have the call or not.

Susan Friedmann:         That's fascinating. I always love hindsight. Looking back and that you'd be able to do, I mean, that's 2020, isn't it? Hindsight knowing all the stuff that you know now that you didn't know then.

Ari Galper:                    Exactly.

Susan Friedmann:         Here, you're talking corporations. Our listeners are primarily entrepreneurs. It's me, myself and I in this business. We're doing everything and we're looking to sell books, become an authority in our field. How can we use what you teach to our advantage?

Ari Galper:                    Well, I've got to think that most of your people there, who write those books, I guess provide some kind of consulting of some sort, someone bought their book. They look to hire them maybe?

Susan Friedmann:         They're looking to take their expertise, which was all wrapped up in this book, their message, their value. They need to take it to a target audience, a niche market let's say, and just be able to do what you've managed to do, and become an authority in their field, become the go-to person.

Ari Galper:                    Well, by the mere of fact, they've created what I call a trust asset, which is a book, through you or someone else, that in itself, makes them the authority, because the first word in authority is author. Once you have the book, that's half the battle. The other piece of the puzzle to make the whole thing work is, to have a sales process that's trust based to onboard new clients off the back of the book.

                                    Now, I assume as well, that most of your people who have books, have identified who their ideal client is, because otherwise, you're writing a book to someone who's not the right fit. The real key with this is, identify who's your ideal client, make sure that book matches their exact issues. Then, the back of the book, you'd offer a complimentary consultation to discuss their issues that you discussed. From there you onboard them as a new client. I'm working a new book next year called, The One Call Sale, which is how to compress your sales cycle from multiple steps into one conversation. So you can go from the book, order to a phone call to a client in three simple steps, using trust only. No pressure at all.

Susan Friedmann:         Okay. Now, you've intrigued me. Are we allowed to get sort of some secrets of what's to come?

Ari Galper:                    Oh yeah. I'm delivering this now to my private clients. They're all getting this ahead of time. They're all getting results now. So for sure. It's not like it's hidden. It's just not in book form, won't be until next year, anyways. End of next year. If you want this now, get a hold of me as soon as you can. But the concept is this, that you reframe that consultation as a real doctor, patient consultation. It's not a relationship call. Most of us think in sales, we think, okay, if we get someone to the lead under a phone call with us, our job is build up with them, our relationship, right? How is it going that you, where you're from how's the weather? See, we think our job is for them to know us and like us. If they like us, then somehow over time we'll do business together.

                                    Well, what I discovered was that, relationship building and trust building are mutually exclusive. What I tell my clients is, stop building relationships in your sales conversations. Instead, build trust with them. They're separate. The way you do that is, you remove all the fake rapport stuff like hey, how's it going? Look, they don't want to be your friend anyways. They're not looking for friends.

                                    They want to solve a problem. So you have to kind of reframe your mindset like you're the doctor, they're a patient and your job has diagnosed their problem with empathy, love and bedside manner, where you unpack their issues. You ask the questions, not them and you go, what I call down the iceberg. The iceberg is the path you take them from the surface level conversation to a deep level, but they feel understood by you and they say to themselves, she is exactly who I'm looking for.

Susan Friedmann:         That begs the question. It's all about the questions you ask. Do you have sort of a list of four, five questions that you always ask, to get the kind of information that you're looking for?

Ari Galper:                    Absolutely. Let's do an example right now. In your world, what would be one of the core problems that a potential client would say to you, I've got X problem, what would they say to you?

Susan Friedmann:         Well, for me, they want to sell books and they don't know how necessarily, to sell books more in bulk than in the onesies and twosies.

Ari Galper:                    Okay. Tell me more about that.

Susan Friedmann:         I've got these books and it's interesting, because I had this conversation literally, today with an author and that is, I've got these books, but I don't know what to do with them.

Ari Galper:                    What have you tried so far?

Susan Friedmann:         Putting it on Amazon. Putting notices out on social media.

Ari Galper:                    How long have you been doing that for?

Susan Friedmann:         Maybe a few weeks.

Ari Galper:                    Oh, okay. How are you hoping to monetize this? Just through book sales by themselves or do you have a business behind the book as well?

Susan Friedmann:         I'm looking to build a business around the book so that, that can allow me to be seen as an authority or as an expert in my field.

Ari Galper:                    Tell me a little bit more about your business plans.

Susan Friedmann:         I'm going to say that I don't really have...

Ari Galper:                    Let's keep going here. So this keeps going.

Susan Friedmann:         Yes.

Ari Galper:                    What I'm going to do right now, I'm going to unpack and peel back the onion here, to get to the core problem you are really trying to solve, which isn't necessarily, selling more books, it's getting clients to pay you fees in your business.

Susan Friedmann:         Correct.

Ari Galper:                    Then, I'm going to ask you this question, I'm going to say, is this a priority for you, to solve this problem once and for all or is this something you're happy to live with and deal with over time and not address it right now? I'm okay either way.

Susan Friedmann:         I mean, that's what they want. I'm assuming that, that's what they want right now, but you're right. I would need personally, I mean I was playing two roles here. One as one of my own clients who come to me, but also thinking, well, yeah, those are the kinds of questions I need to be asking, to be able to draw out. Is this something that they really, really want and do they want it now? Because if they do, hey, then we need to be doing business together.

Ari Galper:                    Yeah. Look, they have to own the problem and decide it's a priority, before you're willing to accept them as a client. You're selecting them. They are not selecting you. That's the shift in your thinking. As an authority, you are the one identifying whether you will take them on board or not. Hence, the x-ray machine. I'm putting on these questions to make sure we know what the real problem is.

                                    Otherwise, what happens is, they give you a few breadcrumbs. I want to sell more books. Great. I can help you with that. Just give you what you want to hear and then you go on the next step, and you've missed the whole unpacking the iceberg problem thing.

Susan Friedmann:         Brilliant. Now, I know in your book, you talk about some 10 guiding principles to trust based selling. Can you give us maybe two or three of these?

Ari Galper:                    Yeah, let's do one right now. One of our core principles is, the idea of always be diffusing pressure. Always take pressure out of the conversation. Let me give you an example. What I mean by that? Let's say you're having a first call over the phone, a first conversation. The call is going well, good chemistry call kind of comes to an end. What do you normally say to somebody and end a call like that? What's the typical thing we say to people when the call is going, well, the call comes to close. What do we say to someone? Usually, we say, how about we, what? How about we...

Susan Friedmann:         Schedule another appointment?

Ari Galper:                    That's right. We try and move them in which direction? Forward, right?

Susan Friedmann:         Correct.

Ari Galper:                    That's the old sales mindset. We believe our job is to move someone towards a sale. But what happens, if you attempt to move them forward and they aren't ready yet? What do you break right there with them at the beginning of your process?.

Susan Friedmann:         They're going to resist.

Ari Galper:                    Trust. You break the trust you had before. Here's how we handle it. Our mindset, our languaging, we have our own body work around trust based languaging. So here it is. Same scenario. Call is going well, call comes through a close Brad saying, hey, how about we go to a next step towards a sale? We say this, we say, where do you think we should go from here?

Susan Friedmann:         It's funny, because funnily enough, I had that conversation with a client today, because I wasn't sure where they wanted to go. They told me exactly where they wanted to go and how they wanted to get there.

Ari Galper:                    Yeah. When you say to somebody, where do you think we should go from here, they're usually, in state of shock. They can't believe somebody, businesses would actually, ask them what they want to do, because they're so used to people taking them down a sales process, which connects you now to that stereotype. When you said to someone, they open up to you and that's the real key is shifting the power to them so they trust you enough to open up to you and tell you the truth in the beginning.

Susan Friedmann:         Fabulous. Whoa, let's keep going here.

Ari Galper:                    Let's try one more principle, then. The other one I'll share with you is this one here, the idea of what I call getting to the truth with people. Now, what that means is, having the other person feel comfortable, opening up to you and telling you the truth of where they stand. Everything up front so you're not guessing and playing the chasing game anymore. Let me give an example of this. I would say that someone called my office. They got through my team, got to me.

                                    I picked the phone up and I heard, Mr. Galper? I said, yeah and he says, my name is John Johnson, change the name for you here. He's with a big, huge company and he says to me this, says, Mr. Galper? I said, yes. We're looking to bring someone in to train our sales team and our consultants. We're looking at you and two other people. We'd like to know, first of all, why should we go with you? Why are you the best? And give me your best sales pitch.

Susan Friedmann:         I hate that scenario with a passion. I hate that scenario.

Ari Galper:                    Right? He says this to me, of all people in the world, right? I took a deep breath. I lowered my voice, went to my mindset and I said this to him. I said, well, isn't that interesting? Now there's more. It's coming right now. But that's the first thing I said. Then I said this. I said, over here at our company, we have a very similar process to you, where we ask some questions, gather information to see if we're a good fit.

                                    If we're a good fit, we decide where to go from there. I said to him, would you be open to that? That's all I said to him. Next thing on the phone, not a word, but he actually, breathed across, like he let a sigh of relief out. I can feel it in his voice, he lowers his shoulders. I can feel him come down to earth again. He says to me that, he says, okay, what kind of questions do you have for me?

                                    Next thing I know, we're having a normal dialogue. In five minutes I discover one, he's not a decision maker. Two, he has no budget and three, he's just curious as to what I do. Off he went for some of my stuff online. I hung up the phone. Now what in my process, Susan, just saved me months of?

Susan Friedmann:         The agony of keep going down that road, thinking that you were going to get a sale and having to write a proposal. Then him not looking at it and then maybe, he doesn't answer the phone or your emails or whatever.

Ari Galper:                    That whole degrading chasing process.

Susan Friedmann:         Yes.

Ari Galper:                    I've been caught up into if I had not done what I do best, which is to get the truth. It is funny. It's like this drug in our bodies, when we get calls like that. The drug is called, it's called hopium. You know the hopium drug? You're so excited. You get the phone call proposal, 25,000 books in one package. Wow. You're so excited and you call them back and you get their voicemail. They're not there anymore. You're like what the heck's going on? You go to their email, you write a note.

                                    It says, hi, I'm writing you to follow up, right?

Susan Friedmann:         Yes.

Ari Galper:                    I'm going to ask all your listeners to never again, use the phrase follow up ever, after this recording, for the rest of their career, because what's the only industry in the world that use word follow up? Hi, I'm giving you a call tp follow up. Sales people do that. I'm calling to move things forward. Checking in. Touching base.

                                    These are all 1980s sales language and actually, that stereotype everyone hates.

Susan Friedmann:         Well, that's it.

Ari Galper:                    Never use that word ever again, in your writing or career again. Instead, use this. I'm giving you a call to see if you have any feedback on our previous conversation, any feedback at our last meeting? [inaudible 00:23:28] Any feedback gets the truth. It's going away from the sale, not towards it. It's the opposite of how we've been trained over the years. That's why it's so successful.

Susan Friedmann:         Yeah. I can see that because, especially, in this day and age, it's the fact that we're looking for authenticity. We're looking to build trust.

Ari Galper:                    Yes.

Susan Friedmann:         It's scary, but it's tough to trust. But that's what we want. But I love this hopium. I love that one. Ari, I know that our listeners must be chomping at the bit, to find out more about how they can get in touch with you, because this is dynamite information. I know this is not even touching the tip of the iceberg.

Ari Galper:                    Well, the best place to go is unlockthegame.com. Just like it sounds, I've got a free intro course that you can take right away and reach out to us, just have a chat or on LinkedIn. I do a show there once a month called Stump the Guru, where you can jump on, ask me a question you want live and I'll help you with your sales scenario. Connect with me there. Let me know you heard me here and we'll have a quick chat. I'll be on LinkedIn as well. I'm very accessible there.

Susan Friedmann:         That's fun. I love that. Stump the Guru. Have you ever been stumped?

Ari Galper:                    Not yet.

Susan Friedmann:         Not yet. That's good, because you are number one in the world. It's hard to stop, but people like that, people try.

Ari Galper:                    Let's just say I've heard every single scenario that's possible over the last 20 years. If you got a new one, throw it at me.

Susan Friedmann:         I doubt it. They're all the same. It's just slightly different packaging, but it's all the same stuff. Yes. Ari, if you were to leave our listeners with a golden nugget, what would that be?

Ari Galper:                    Stop selling. Build deep trust, instead.

Susan Friedmann:         Love it. That's fabulous information and I thank you, for taking the time to share your wisdom with us, because this has been outstanding. Thank you all for taking time out of your precious day to listen to this interview. I sincerely hope that it sparked some ideas you can use to sell more books. Here's wishing you much marketing and author marketing success.