Business Innovators Radio - Interview with Ari Galper, The World’s #1 Authority on Trust-Based Selling

Episode Date: February 14, 2024

His new book “Unlock The Sales Game” has become an instant best-seller among business owners and entrepreneurs across the globe.Ari Galper is the world’s number-one authority on trust-based selling and has been featured in CEO Magazine, Forbes, INC Magazine, SkyNews, and the Australian Financial Review.As trust becomes the most important currency in the new economy, the act of selling as a dehumanizing process with endless “chasing”, has been completely re-invented and anchored in the timeless values of integrity and trust – through Trust-Based Selling.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 Galper has been on a mission for the last decade to change the world through trust, starting with the sales and business world.Learn more:http://www.unlockthegame.com/Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saundershttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/influential-entrepreneurs-with-mike-saunders/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/interview-with-ari-galper-the-worlds-1-authority-on-trust-based-selling

Welcome to influential entrepreneurs, bringing you interviews with elite business leaders and experts, sharing tips and strategies for elevating your business to the next level. Here's your host, Mike Saunders. Hello and welcome to this episode of Influential Entrepreneurs. This is Mike Saunders, the authority positioning coach. Today we have with us Ari Galper, who's the world's number one authority on trust-based selling. Ari, welcome to the program. Thank you. Glad to be here and appreciate you having me. You are welcome and I followed your work for a while and I read your book cover to cover.

You know, a lot of people say in one sitting, but I think probably for me it was two sittings, but still it was a really quick read and chock full of great information. So I'm excited to learn from you today and your work with financial professionals. Get us started with a little bit of your story and background. And how did you get into the industry? Yeah, so there's a story around this and how I credit this concept around trust-based selling. Years ago, I ran a sales team and a software company. We sold the first online website tracking tools, the collect user behavior through websites for sales conversion.

And the big leads, the big whales, the big opportunities came across my desk. And this one opportunity came across one day, and I called back to contact. and they were with a huge company, multiple websites, big opportunity, and he agreed to a conference call with his CEO and his key people and myself to do a demo of our product. So I was pretty excited. If I close this one sale, it would double the revenue in one call. That's how big this was. So I was pretty popped up.

And the day finally came, Friday for a coffee afternoon, went in the conference room, closed door behind me. This is the early days we had just a screen and like a speakerphone. And still the internet. But we had the old school, like Star Trek-looking speaker phones, like the corporate ones. And I dialed the, hit the tone, dial the number in their conference line. My guy's there. He's like, hey, Ari, how's it going? I said, good.

And he says to me, Ari, let us tell you who's in the line with us today. I say, great. Next thing I hear is, my name's John. I'm CEO. I was like, ooh, this is good. Good person to be there. My name is Mike. I'm head of global IT.

Perfect. My name is Julie. I'm head of market. Perfect. I mean, everybody on this call, Mike, was a decision maker. Like, this is, if it's going to happen, it's going to happen today because we're all there. So I then started describing myself and what we do. Then we gave them a demo to show them live on one of their websites, live tracking to see the visitors going from page to page. And we all log in together and I start showing this to them.

And they're like, I hear these noises in the phone call like, wow, this is amazing. This is great. I can't see this information. This is all early days, you know, and they start asking me all kinds of questions. How does it work? How do we install it? How do we deploy it? And, of course, I had all the answers.

I was competent technically. I was answering questions. There was so much chemistry on this phone call. It was like a love fest on the phone. You don't talk about? Yes. It's just so much chemistry going back and forth. They're asking me all the right questions.

I've got all the answers. I'm sending myself, this is a done deal. This is so good. I was like high-fiving myself. I was like, man, there's so much chemistry here. They like me. They love the product. They're all there.

An hour goes by. At the end of the meeting, my guy says to me, Ari, we love this. This is great. Look, give us a call a couple weeks, follow up with this, and we'll move this thing forward. I was like, oh, yes, thank you, God.

I was so excited. I was like, man, so good. And so I said my goodbyes. I took my arm and I reached for the speakerphone on the table and I'm reaching for that off button as I reached for the off button by complete accident. Now by divine intervention, I hit the mute button instead of the off button by accident. And a small click habit and they thought I hung up the phone. And that split second. I said, and they started talking amongst themselves thinking I had left the call. Oh, now we're getting real.

Exactly. So I said to myself, what the heck? I'll listen to this for a couple of seconds. I pulled my thumb back and they started talking amongst themselves. Now, you would think I'd hear things like, what? Positive things, right? Yeah. Like, hey, we like this, looking good.

This is amazing. But here's what I heard verbatim, word for word, I'll never forget it. It's while we're all here today. they said 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 part twist Mike I was in a state of shock I could not believe it after all that and I snapped out of it I hit the off button I looked the wall in front of me and I said to myself what did I just happen wrong. Right. I am competent. I'm friendly. I wasn't pushy. I was educational in nature. I did everything I was

taught to do by the gurus. I was built relationship with them. I did everything right. Now, why were they not comfortable telling me the truth? Why did this even happen? How did this happen? Yeah, because if you think about it, all of those big wigs with all the power there, they could have easily said, hey, thank you so much for your time, we're not going to move ahead because boom, boom, boom, and they would have known they could have just crushed you right there. So did you ever figure out, like, what are the two bullet points of why did they say that? Well, my realization from that experience changed my life. I realize that selling has become a dysfunctional human behavior where either one or both parties aren't comfortable telling each other the truth.

I realize what's going on in the market is just like two shifts in the night passing each other, never connecting. And I asked myself, why were they afraid to just tell me the truth? And for multiple reasons, you know, heard of my feelings, whatever. And this problem occurs every day right now deep inside the financial advisor industry. where advisors meet with new clients, they'll report with them, they educate them,

they get to like them and know them better. At the end of the meeting, they say things like, I want to think about it. I'm not ready yet. Send me information. Follow up with me. And they lose the people.

And I'm saying to myself, I've got to help fix this problem for financial advisors. And that's what I invented my approach, based upon trust-based selling. That's now evolved into what I call the one-call sale, where it's a mental model shift from a financial advisor,

to financial doctor. Where you don't give advice, you don't educate, and you do not give value, which is I know so contrarian the entire industry that grew up in the world of no like and trust selling,

which came from the 80s. We were taught to get to know someone. Once they get to know someone, they like you, then if you like you, they'd have to work with you. Well, that was great when the industry was not commoditized.

And you're one click away from your competitor, and they can find all that, quote, unquote, value online. You might think, I'm teaching, I'm educating, I'm being their advocate. But in reality, they just found it on for Google searches and you're just saying the same thing. So what's the, what's the illumination there? How do you become that financial doctor and not give away the value and still hold the role? Exactly. You're right. Information and values now have been commoditized. And on top of that, if you would, you would, attempt to educate them on something, they will view it as persuasion, as you attempting to convince them of your way, which builds distrust. Remember, the market now is shopping you. You are being shopped by somebody. You're a commodity. And you've got to wake up to realize we're now in a commoditized world. And if you're selling the old way like you always have been, and we're now, in a new market, if you don't upgrade your thinking around this, you'll keep losing hiding out with their opportunities and never convert. And I want to think about it, you'll be chasing ghosts the rest of your career.

So the way I've fixed this problem is compress a sales cycle for multiple meetings and steps into one meeting where it's a doctor-patient metaphor where the goal of the meeting is not to get to know them at all or for them to get to know you at all. It's not a lot of basketball. When you met with that surgeon, did he ask what you did this past weekend to get the no-like and trust you? Yeah, I see where you're going to that. That's strong. When you go see a doctor, first thing it says to you is this, where does it hurt?

Yep. And you say my shoulder. He says, let me take a look. Ooh, looks a little sore. Get an x-ray to see what's going on. He gets the x-ray, puts in the light bulb thing and says to you, here's the problem I see. You got that going on, you got that going on, you got that going on. You're like, wow, you feel a sense of relief that you have clarity on the issues behind your own problem that hurts.

Then the doctor walks through a plan for how to fix it, medicine or whatever. Then you walk out the door, you go to the front desk, and you pay. You pay the doctor, not for solving your problem. It still hurts, but only for clarity and a path to fix it. Now, the pharmacist dispenses the medicine five steps down the road, not the doctor. Now, the financial advisors, what are they doing? Their doctor, pharmacist, educator, all mixed together into one in the first meeting. They're dispensing ideas.

They're trying to become their friend. Doctors don't do coffee for a reason. They don't hang out with you. And the irony of all this, Mike, is they don't even have. have to like you to work with you. Yep. That sounds pretty harsh. They just have to trust you.

And relationship building is not trust building pre-sale. Because real relationships take a lot of time to develop. That's real relationship building. Fake relationship building is when you try to add rapport to a short amount of time, when they know the game, they've had other means with their advisors already, they know it's going on. They're just playing along with you because they have to because you force them to be in that realm. So I've got a question for you, Ari, because I'm tracking right along with you. And I, if we could, you know, put a circle around the word trust and put it in all caps and bold,

that's, that's where you're hanging in your hat. And I love it. And if you were to say to a financial professional, I can teach you how to get this trust and you will close more sales. They're going to go, yes, yes, yes. But you're saying you do it in one call. And that is just us. You can hear the tire screeching. What do you say to an advisor? And we don't need to go into your entire strategy here in the next five minutes. But what do you say to an advisor that goes, yeah, I get that. But man alive in one call, how do you develop that trust so fast? Well, you do it. By the way, this is the question I get every time because no one believes it. So it's not like you hear a question. So the way it happens is we have to first challenge

your own thinking and eliminate all the things you're doing right now causing this not to happen. Like educating people, building rapport, talking too much, trying to solve their problem. On top of that, I tell these people, stop fact-finding on that first meeting. Fact-finding is not trust-building. That's cross-examining them on a witness stand. The irony of this, Mike, is they don't really care about how you solve their problem. They assume you can do it because they know what you do. You're a financial advisor.

It's not a mystery. What they really care about and want to know is, are you the one to solve their problem or not? They are judging you based upon your approach, not your value proposition. That's a commodity. They probably already have it a finance. advisor anyways. Yeah. Everyone's got one.

Yep. So here you are saying, hey, look at me and we do this. Here's our philosophy. They don't care about you. Nothing personal. They care about solving their own problem. And if you, in the way we, go ahead. What you just said there reminds me of an old speaker trick that I'm confident that you know,

but I always say this. Hey, what's everyone's favorite radio station? WI-I-F-M. what's in it for me? They really don't care about. I mean, they do kind of, but in reality, let's get down to brass attacks like that surgeon. They don't care about anything but fix me.

Here's where it hurts. Here's where advisors get confused about this. They feel an obligation when somebody describes their problem to them to take it on their shoulders and in their minds start solving it. Because they have what I call the curse of master. They've around so long, but they know their stuff so well. The moment that someone says to them, I'm looking for help in my retirement, their brain goes, I can fix that.

I'm going to show you a way to fix that. Let me ask a couple of questions and let me show how we work. See, they already make assumptions already in solution mode in their mind. Yep. To be a doctor, you cannot make assumptions. The patient themselves may say to you, my shoulder hurts, but they themselves don't know the context at a 360 view as the white hurts they can't explain to you you have to do an x-ray with them a financial MRI i call it to help them see their own problem in a

different way you got to help them see the gravity of it the seriousness of it and the urgency of it you're going to help them see the gaps they can't see inside their own problem that requires you to get out of your head in solution mode and go go into problem central mode and be problem centric, which means doing a deep dive inside their problem and unpacking it and put an onion back. It's called going down the iceberg what we teach our clients to do to give them a skill set to diagnose and not provide solutions because they're going to hire you not based upon your value.

They're going to hire you based upon your ability to provide them clarity on their own problems. So, Ari, it makes me think of something else, and I need your advice on this because I know I'm confident you have to cover this in your teaching. You've heard the saying that goes something like you can't get where you want to go if you keep doing the things that you were doing to get to where you are because you have to, you have to do new and different things. Meaning, when that prospect comes to that financial advisor and you're on their call and you're seeing what they've been doing. At some point, you see where there's a quote unquote problem or they should be doing something differently. how do you get the advisor to communicate with kindness so that that prospect client doesn't feel like you're coming down on them like, oh my word, you shouldn't have never done it this way, that way, or the other way, because you have to point to the fact that it could be done better

without offending and making them feel bad. Right. It's this word called empathy, which most advisors have a hard time to. Most advisors operate from their hands. head, not their heart. And we help them create what we call bedside manner with people, showing they care about them and empathy. Of course they care about them, but they don't have a way to express it.

They're like human calculators. They get the facts, they calculate the answer, and off they go to our next step. That's not trust building. Yeah. That's trying to solve the problem. This is a whole new level of depth that most advisors were never, ever taught their entire career. And never was important until now because previously to COVID, providing unique information and being unique in not being one of many was special.

But now those days are over. Hence why you're being shopped and why you can't convert 100% of your opportunities. And that's our goal for all of our clients is a 100% conversion of everyone is qualified on that first meeting, assuming they fit your model. If they don't, you're the problem, not them. Yeah, there's just not a good fit. You should, out of obligation, just kind of move on and say, hey, there's not a fit because. But you mentioned COVID, and it made me think of something because all of these approaches and mindsets with developing and building trust, it makes total sense.

And if you were sitting belly to belly with someone and someone from the golf club referred someone to you and you sat down, all of these things would make sense. But now it's 10x, 100x more important in the world of virtual. Yeah. Correct. Now, this requires the advisor being very open-minded, being willing to be coached, and to be challenged with their own thinking. This is a transformation that has to occur. This is not sales training. This is trust training. It's never before been available in the industry until now through this model, because no one ever thought this way until now because we didn't have to, but now we have to. Well, so let's kind of think about this or let me ask you this question. I think that whenever someone hears mindset, mindset shifts and all that, it makes me think of the old saying, what's easy to do is easy not to do. So probably when you are teaching and coaching your advisors, this one certain thing and this

technique and that technique, it's not like, oh, I've got to spend nine years mastering it. It's not a hard thing to do. It's easy to do, but it's also easy not. to do. How do you get them to realize the gravity and actually put it into action? Well, first of all, you're right in that this is not take a lot of effort to do or learn. It's not a long-term process. It takes about four weeks. That's about it. It's a quick intervention, in and out. We know how to strategically help the advisor understand and see for the first time they become aware of their old conditioning and their old behaviors getting in their own way.

Once they see that, they go, oh, got it. Then we give them the framework and roadmap for how to be able to unpack and go down what we call the iceberg, to have trust-based questions, not fact-finding questions, to help peel the onion back, to help the prospect feel you care about them, help to understand what I call cost of inaction, COI, not the other COI, but the Kvisk COI, where you help. No, that's the worst model to do because it's not been coming. modern-sized channel also.

But the point here is you've got to help the prospect see what it costs them not to solve their problem. You have to help them see the urgency of the issue and you have to wait until they say this to you. How can you help me? Yeah. That's when you know you're at the bottom of the iceberg. Then we walk you through a visual tool held roadmap to onboard them.

And once you see how simple this is, then that's why it takes a very short amount of time to make the shift and you can test it live. with a live people and they get the result in the ROI, like literally instantly. Yeah. And, and you know, here's something that I would suspect if we were to overlay your framework over the traditional, our quotes, sales training, where it's, you know, report, you know, all, you know, where I'm going, report building and, hey, where do you feel this is, where do you want to be, where you're at now? Oh, here's the gap, you know, and then stick a, you know, put a stick in that and really amplify that. Oh, it doesn't feel good, does it? That gets to be to the point where people are like, this just feels so disingenuous.

And it's just not me taking people to do that. Is your framework and process a free-flowing, comfortable conversation where advisors would feel like, I could do that? This is about being purely authentic with who you really are and caring about people. And this came from my son, Toby, who has Down syndrome. I wrote a book about him called Lessons from Toby. And then I learned how to be transparent, how to have no hidden agenda, and had to let go of my goals and focus only on the other person's goals and dig into their world to help them feel connected. You know what real trust is when you meet somebody and you say yourself, man, he just gets me. You know, you meet your wife or husband.

You say to me, she gets me. That's what real trust is. That's what Toby does every day with people. People connect with him because he doesn't have a hidden agenda or a mental model what to bring something. someone next. And that's what I base this on. So this is about pure authenticity, being honest and open people, and letting go of your old conditioning and being free to be yourself. That is so huge. Well, Ari, I think we could talk for about another nine and a half more hours and still be taking our first breath and moving forward. So I would like to just say, if someone

is interested in learning how to unlock their sales game and amplify that trust-based selling, what's the best way that they can go and learn more about your work, pick up a copy of your book, and reach out and connect with you. The best starting point is to go to my name, Ari Galper.com, and on the homepage is my newest book called Trust in a Split Second. You can get that book there. I think it's still available for free. You can order the book and you can schedule a consultation with us.

We can have a chat with you to do an X-ray on your sales process and figure out what your holes are and see if you're even open to the idea. And I think once you go through our process and see how we handle you, you can mirror that and learn from us just from that alone. So I'd encourage you if you hear this this this intrigues you, go to Ari Galper.com, and just order the book, schedule the consultation. That's complimentary. And keep it open mind.

Don't be skeptical because that's the only way you're going to be able to change. Hopefully that helps, Mike. It sure does, Ari. Thanks a million for coming on. It's been a real pleasure talking with you. All right. Take care. You've been listening to Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saunders.

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