Young and Profiting with Hala Taha - Richard Moore [Part 2]: The Laws of Selling | Sales | E54

Episode Date: January 27, 2020

Get ready to amp up your sales skills! Today we have a return guest on the show, sales expert, Richard Moore. Richard was featured back in Episode #26, "The Laws of Selling." Listen to that episode first or even after this one to soak up all of Richard’s amazing sales tips. Richard is a sales and business coach with 17+ years of experience in online, in-person and phone-based selling. His clients range from startups to 9-figure businesses, and he’s grown a massive influence on platforms like Linkedin and Instagram. Rich has also been featured in publications like Forbes, and the Huffington Post. In Laws of Selling Part 2, we’ll cover the difference between leads and prospects, the interplay between emotion and sales, his perspective on discounting and setting your price, and the art of closing a deal. Fivver: Get services like logo creation, whiteboard videos, animation and web development on Fivver: https://track.fiverr.com/visit/?bta=51570&brand=fiverrcpaIf you liked this episode, please write us a review! Want to connect with other YAP listeners? Join the YAP Society on Slack: bit.ly/yapsociety Earn rewards for inviting your friends to YAP Society: bit.ly/sharethewealthyap Follow YAP on IG: www.instagram.com/youngandprofiting Reach out to Hala directly at [e-mail] Follow Hala on Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/htaha/ Follow Hala on Instagram: www.instagram.com/yapwithhala Check out our website to meet the team, view show notes and transcripts: www.youngandprofiting.com  

This episode of Yap is sponsored by Fiverr, a marketplace that over 5 million entrepreneurs used to grow their business. I've been using Fiverr for years. In fact, I got the YAP logo made on there, and if you've seen my cool audiograms with animated cartoons, I get those images from Fiverr too. They have affordable services like graphic design, web design, digital marketing, whiteboard explainer videos, programming, video editing, audio editing, and much more. They have over 100,000 talented freelancers to choose from, and it's super affordable. Prices just start at $5.5. If you're interested to give Viver a shot, hit the link in our show notes. You're listening to YAP, Young and Profiting Podcast, a place where you can listen, learn, and profit. I'm your

host, Halitaha, and today we have a return guest on the show, sales expert Richard Moore. Richard was featured in episode number 26, The Laws of Selling. I'd suggest to listen to that episode first, or even after this one, to soak up all of Richard's amazing sales tips. Richard is a sales and business coach with over 17 years of experience in online, in-person, and phone-based selling. His clients range from startups to nine-figure businesses, and he's grown a massive influence on platforms like LinkedIn and Instagram. Richard has also been featured in publications like Forbes and The Huffington Post. In The Laws of Selling Part 2, we'll cover the difference between leads and prospects,

the interplay between emotion and sales, his perspective on discounting and setting your price, and the art of closing a deal. Hey Richard, welcome back to Young and Profiting Podcast. Thank you so much for having me back. Gosh, it's been like seven or eight months, so it's really good to be here, and I'm a big fan, so thank you. Of course. We're so lucky to have you on here.

I'm really looking forward to putting out the Laws of Selling Part 2, because when you came on last time. I was so impressed with your knowledge of sales and so are my listeners. I got so much positive feedback about that episode. So I know everyone is going to love part two for context for people who don't know. You came on the show last May and during the first 10 minutes of your episode we covered your career journey in great detail. We talked about how you became an entrepreneur, what you were like as a student, how you have over 17 years of selling experience. And so anybody who's interested in that detail, you can go back to listen to Part 1. It's episode number 26. And for my listeners who don't want to go back to episode 26, could you just give a brief

introduction of yourself and let us know, like, what you do today? Absolutely. I won't go full live story. Yeah, so just in a nutshell, I kind of move between about two main areas at the moment, which one is I mostly train corporate sales. So I'm going often into London and I coach professional sales teams on, you know, face-to-face selling and often a lot of it being big ticket and really the art of getting it right and being effective in that. Kind of the other part of my world is whilst doing that online, I also do a very big focus on the way in which people should be marketing themselves with a view to getting meaningful engagement, which actually stems very closely from sales as well. But then the other side is really for fun and a hobby,

but also to drive money into local charities. I run entrepreneur business live, which was kind of half-ledging when we last spoke, but it's been a rocket last year, and I really enjoyed that too. So it's nice to have these events around the world. Very cool. Yeah. So Richard is a selling expert. He's a community building expert online. And now he's an expert on live events. So lots of cool things that you do. Thank you. I thought a fun way to kick off this episode and for our audience to learn more about you and who you are would be to cover your reflections from 2019. So you put up this really neat post on LinkedIn, it was like a slideshow where you outlined six elements that helped you make 2019 a success. You called out, collaboration, community thinking, partnerships, travel, and listening.

Could you go through this with us? I think there were some great valuable lessons in this, and I'd love to hear what you have to say. Thank you. Yeah, it was a good reflection, I think, at the end of the year. And I always do a bit of an audit. My year, actually, my head always ends on my birthday. I always do my 12 months from there. And it does means I don't get too wrapped up in the New Year's resolutiony kind of thing. Still, on calendar years, it was really nice to look through what happened last year because it was a very strong one for me

and the thread running through most of it was working with different people and communities and the results I've had totally have a foundation of, I've got to be careful when I say building communities it's more inhabiting a community but having an audience that pays attention to me and sticks to me. And I think I disproportionately spend a lot of time

with the individuals strategically, I'm careful with who it is I focus on, but I make a point of spending a huge amount of time each day interacting with individuals because that really has driven things like the awareness of events, people then saying, hey, I'd love to host event, it'd be an honour to speak at one of the events, because, you know, you're putting the work in in terms of the human connection. I think another one of the things I put in that post was partnerships as well, so doing intentional and carefully placed collaborations and partnerships with other business, and with other people has been a really nice way of levelling me up because partnerships with businesses such as subtitle who out with captions has been a really nice way of firstly funding some of the events but secondly helping my proposition but then also collaborations with really important people and fantastic influences has meant that my ability to penetrate further and whip up an audience

has been has been effective I think the thing that I got the most from the year was just really trying to prove I was being legit by travelling. And I think I travelled about 10 times last year to different countries for different events of mine. And that really kind of made the point that I was serious about building the events. And when you build communities online, we've both experienced how powerful it is when you meet them face to face. And I remember the photo I put on that post was of, in fact, only about a week away from today last year, January 24th was New York, our first international event and seeing so many familiar faces who've been part of this community I was building and interacting with online, flying in and having this event with them was really

powerful. And the travel really reinforces the intent behind wanting to engage with people and really just kind of, I say, it solidifies that community. It's been a really wonderful past 12 months. Very cool. And, you know, next time you're in New York, let me know. I would love to attend one of your events. It sounds so much fun. We're looking at May, so hopefully soon. Oh, awesome. So we're going to continue on the sales theme of our previous episode. Selling is tricky. Everybody wants to have a technique and methodology, but then there's also a balance you have to take to be organic and natural. So from your perspective,

you're a selling guru. Do you think that selling is more of an art or a science? That was a great question But for the record I've not called myself a guru That's very kind of you to say But yeah I think that it can be made as science But you really

Really win when you Understand that there is an artistry to it And there's an elegance That comes through the experience And if you think about it If you've never done sales before By the time you're say aged 20 A really good way of putting it

Is that you're a master Of the art of communication by then. I've got two young daughters and even the youngest who's four is phenomenal that understanding nuances and pattern in the way people interact just alone understanding how people speak. That's an artistry to it and selling to develop the art side it's about a high amount of exposure to being on the pitch basically. The more you can be doing it and interacting with people, the more you will subconsciously pick up on those little nuances and things. Stuff that you're not aware of, that something in your brain that understands and files away

and remembers for the next time and those little nuances develop. I can sit down and give people great formulas that will really level them up. You know, for instance, here's how you pre-qualify and even find the best person to speak to in a sea of a thousand people looking at your content online, for instance. And things like that will make a large difference to your results if you, if you're coming from zero. But the truth is it's always a human sport. And so to move to a place where people are thankful that they get to buy from you and they're warmed up to the point where an onboarding phone call, if that's the way you do it, for instance,

is like a validation that they were going to buy from you anyway. That requires a lot of elegance. And I think that it does come from just feeding yourself with enough interactions with humans, just like if you network enough, you get the hang of it. If you speak to people enough, you get the hang of it. All this stuff really is just practice and time on the pitch. So in many ways, my success now comes from the fact

of just been doing it a very long time. Whilst at the same time, I'm a bit of a student of it all as well. so I'm a big fan of the formulas and the systems that do work. Yeah. So typically a sales process or formula is usually like five to seven steps. It varies slightly, but usually it's like prospecting, preparation, approach, presentation, objection handling, closing, and perhaps follow up. Let's start at the basics.

What is prospecting? How do you define prospecting for people who are new to sales? Yeah, it's difficult because it's so different for every product. and every type of sell you're after. But the idea with prospecting is, even if you go a little bit of a step further back, in fact, it's looking at pre-qualification. So how can I, in any way possible,

before I've even engaged with anyone, apply some kind of intelligent filters here to ensure I'm going to be as effective as possible? How do I essentially minimize the amount of approaches that won't take me anywhere? And it can be simple things like, if you're approaching a business, are you actually speaking to the top person?

Because whilst there's a number of routes in, if you do get the top person and the ultimate decision maker, you're always in a better place than someone who's going to go and internally sell on your behalf, for instance. So that can start. And then really when you've fully got the right person, it's doing a modicum of research to at least to make sure that you're seeing what your angle is.

If you can answer these three questions, why now, why us and why change? those three things are innately being asked all the time by the person you're about to speak to. So like when you can answer those in the first few sentences, they really get it. And before we get to that point of the pitch, we just need to be thinking, how do we warm them up? And that's very 2020 now, I should say, this idea of saying, well, how do I position myself that if I am to approach someone and engage with someone, they're going to say, oh my God, yeah, I've seen you around and you are.

Like, I mean, we're already halfway there, and I think that's where there's a whole world of exciting ways in which you can warm people up. But, you know, being careful with the first message perhaps, perhaps, or how you deliver that, maybe use a voice memo instead of text, and maybe the things you say is a little bit more of a tease rather than just ramming a PDF down someone's throat as the first point of contact. Really thinking about how you'll warm them up and get them saying, okay, I'm showing some receptivity now. now let's move to that first point of conversation or a meeting or something along those lines. Yeah, let's dig into that warming up a little bit. What do you mean exactly by that for somebody who's unfamiliar with the term? Sure. So as much as possible, if I'm going to pitch someone, want them to feel warm and receptive to me. People have always hated being sold to, but because nowadays, if you approach them out of the blue,

there tends to be a conditioned cynicism that you're going to sell them and people don't want that, to gain a bit of trust first because everything hinges on trust and so the warming process is about you validating that you're someone who's going to bring them some value and that might be emotional value in that you're a good person and an interesting person to interact with or practical value because you can actually help them in their business and it can it can take a number of forms and it can be as simple as leveraging a mutual contact so if I say I think I've mentioned this in the last

talk we did, you know, if I talk about someone that I'm connected to that you know, that validates that I'm a bit more legit and you're more likely to want to lean in and listen to what I have to say. It might be that I tried the approach of putting out content and directing it to people like you so that the content warms you up and makes you think, hey, this person can really help. And literally yesterday, I received, as usual, DMs in response to my content, which is part of the sales warming process and the guy said, I see you as the person to come to in terms of sales and now's the time and that's warming people up. It's so that they decide, they self-select, they decide that they want to buy from you or at least they want to hear what you have to say.

And people say people by people, but what it really means is when there's trust from one person to another, there is the platform for receptivity to happen. And that's, and that's That's the best place to begin a pitch. And without warming up, the pitch is very difficult and awkward for both. Yeah, that makes total sense. Sticking on some definitions, what's the difference between a lead and a prospect? I feel like a lot of people get these terms confused. Yeah, it is hard because it's semantics.

And I can go to two companies in London that I coach and they will use different terms from different things. But Lucy speaking, a lead in my world. represents someone who technically could be sold. So there's an element of pre-qualification but probably I've not engaged with them. So if you for instance said to me, Richard I know someone who totally could benefit from whatever it is you do or if I said Haller I know someone who would be a great guest on your podcast that would be class as a lead. For me a prospect is something of an

opportunity and that's where I've taken the lead to a where maybe I've engaged with them a bit and it's looking like there's a level of receptivity. And then of course we have other nomenclature for when they've gone further into the sales process and have been pitched for instance. But essentially for me a lead is technically that person is, I've applied a couple of filters, the demographic is right, the role in the business is right, and probably there's an element of need there. And essentially I'm looking for can they control budget? Do they have the authority to spend it? And is there probable not? need for what I have to sell.

Got it. Makes sense. And so you talk about something called a power base, your sales power base. I thought this was really cool. Could you explain that to our listeners? Yeah, a power base in basic terms. And this is kind of a bit of a borrowed phrase from many other people and everyone from Grant Cardone to anyone else uses this term or not in sales.

The idea is that's your closest circle of people. And if you look at, for instance, the entrepreneur business. group on Facebook that have run this will be its fifth year in in August they've been running that group that's a group of 4,000 plus people who are part of it but within that there's a tighter group like a hardcore of maybe fans but certainly those who are receptive to what's put into the group and that's like that's a power base that's one where I if I'm stuck for leads I'm stuck for business for example I could go there and that would be what other people might call low-hanging fruit. A power base when you start a business is

probably friends and family and what that means really is is hitting up the people again who are easy to speak to who are already receptive to you because you've earned the right to speak to them and ask them if they could do your favour because you've lived with them or whatever and say you know hey do you know someone who might be able to help and so a power base ideally will grow virus-like as you experience more and more community inhabit them and engage with people. But your power base is always a place you can go back to.

If your pipeline's looking a little thin for the month and you feel like business might be a bit low, who would you send a message to? And the message wouldn't be, hey, do you need some work? What you would say is something like, you know, do you know anyone who might need help with this? The people you naturally could go to first, your inner circle, that's the power base.

Always worth checking in with them and keeping them on side, perhaps once a month or so. That is really great advice. Let's move on to the sales approach, focusing on emotion and sales for a few minutes. Dale Carnegie once said, when dealing with people, remember, you're not dealing with creatures of logic, but with creatures of emotion. And while the logical details of a sale are important, your buyers really make decisions based on how they feel about you and your product.

And so you're a proponent of starting the sales process with emotional value and not practical value. Absolutely. Could you explain the difference between the two and why you choose to start off with emotional value? The reason why is because I'm selling to people and I'm selling to creatures that operate in a particular way. And it seems intuitive to give someone an intelligent grown-up decision-maker. It seems intuitive to give them the logic and the facts, right? We're trying to be helpful, we're trying to be clear. But the truth is that's not how the human animal's brain works.

The human brain starts with a real kind of animal, instinctive, an emotional centre that is like the gatekeeper to use sales analogy before getting to the logic centre. So if I want to interface with anyone, I have to go through the emotional part. part of the brain first. No matter how logical that person is, they might be famous for it. It all starts with emotion. And very loosely speaking, and I'm not a psychologist, but I just have gleaned this from being around enough people over the years. If you're approaching someone cold, they're subconscious, because it's a subconscious part, this isn't an internal conscious dialogue, they're subconscious part of their brain will receive whatever approach you give them. This is most, moments into the first second and make a judgment on if you are a threat or if they might win here in some form or if they should be indifferent to you.

And the reaction is chemical and it's happening inside their brain and that's where they decide if they need to leverage the intelligence center of the brain, the logical part because that actually takes a lot more energy and your status of your brain. is always trying to keep it like minimal use of energy essentially so whatever part of your brain is I think it's called the limbic brain the old part of your brain the kind of the some people call it the lizard brain or the crock brain or the chimp brain the real animal part that's not evolved from you know 100,000 years ago or whatever basically says am I in trouble or could this be really great for me if it's neither of those then discard and lose interest so when you do something or say something that lights that up you access the the logical part and now you've earned the right to speak to someone because now they are receptive and paying attention, insurface the brain is switched on. And that's why logic first is a mistake because the animal brain doesn't respond to that so it is indifferent to it. And that's why great example, Haller, is recently I worked with someone who started their sales process through

emails. They were trying to be helpful. Their first email took cold process. was over a page long, loads of stats, underline bits, cute little URLs, an attached PDF, bold writing here there and everywhere, and no one was bothering to look at it. We broke it down and it ended up being two lines along the line of would you like to be published in this thing. I'm around tomorrow for a coffee between these times as that work from you. The reason why that first line worked is because that instant win of, oh, I get to look good. I get to be published, this would be amazing. And I remember she came to me, she was like,

I've only sent three of them so far, and I'm three of three. They're literally like, cool, let's go, let's try this. And that has to be done the right way. So you've got to understand with empathy how the person the other side of the table is going to receive you. And when you get that right, and it is psychology, and it is understanding behaviour, you can be so much more penetrative, and you don't make an idiot of yourself,

because you haven't got people going, oh, this is awkward, I don't want to engage with you and then, you know, people don't ghost you and things like that. And it's the world's a nicer place when you engage people emotionally first. So essentially you're proposing that whether it's an email or an in-person conversation, like the first couple lines you say is really trying to get the person to feel better, right? As to elevate their emotional state. So I call them the wins.

There are four main ones. I think I cover this before. But save time, save money, make money. Sure, that can help. but really the main one is look good or an extension or variation of look good because that feeds the ego. And the nice way to do this is to leverage a peer or a mutual contact. Because if I was to say, I can make you look better online, Hala.

The problem is we've got too much cynicism there. But if I talk about how I've worked with a mutual contact, then that makes it much more believable as well. But I'm playing to your emotional centre of wanting to do better in this world, look good and be accepted by people. Now, I know you're not that shallow, but the emotional side of your brain is. Everyone's brain reacts in the same way.

Can I look better in some way? Not necessarily in terms of fashion labels or whatever, but generally speaking, does this improve social status for me? And if there's any kind of inclination towards that, then that gets a little bit of a light flash in the brain. And so those winds are crucial to gently kind of put in at the entry point. Totally. And so there's lots of emotions that drive buying behavior.

For example, like greed. If I make a decision now, I will be rewarded. Fear, if I don't make a decision now, I'm toast or I'm going to be fired. Altruism. If I make a decision now, I'm going to help others. So everybody has these different motives to buy something. How do you suggest that you uncover. what those motives are. Yeah, it's always interesting because you will understand what makes people

tick is different each time and some people are motivated by money or saving time and others just don't care. And that happens over the process of engaging with people and as soon as is possible, once you've earned the right to speak a bit more, as in you've got some sense that they're acknowledging you're of value here, you need to get into questions and get the person speaking really. Again, this comes down to warming them up, and ideally if I was, for instance, sending an email, I'd want to do that little win and start and suggest, you know, that we meet or speak on a phone or something like that. And when we get them on the phone, there's that receptivity because we've decided to have this and they've agreed to it, and now I can ask them some really light questions to get the ball rolling.

Because there's in conversation, if you study the way people interact, not just in business, but in general, in conversation there's momentum and momentum comes from both people is kind of difficult when you have an interview because it's not entirely the same as an average conversation would be but typically there's momentum in that there's ebb and flow and back and forth and dynamics and so on but in essence if you're approaching someone

you want to condition them to speaking and naturalize them to the idea that they are going to be speaking because if you talk at them non-stop, you condition them that they're not going to be speaking. So the way you do this, the way you open people up is with closed questions. So closed questions being simple yes, no answers or singular word answers just to begin with. And the more specific, simplistic questions you ask someone, the more they will answer them. And the more they answer questions, the more they answer the next question and the larger question.

And you can appreciate that the more interest they ask them, take because they're speaking, the more you earn the right to ask the bigger questions. So what's like an example of asking a question in the right way and then asking a question in the wrong way? Well, in fact, the best thing to do is think about the smallest possible questions because they're the ones that nudge it along nicely. And the smallest questions you can ask are what's known as acknowledgement questions. And acknowledgement questions are ones where it's almost not actually a question. It's just things like, does that make sense? or right or it can be in just tonality or a pause and i've just done it there to get that

from you so it's things inside what i'm saying so the way you do it is you ask so does that make sense or you put tonality at the end like that so it goes up at the end of a sentence to to suggest a question or you leave a pause and those three things can almost puppet master someone into speaking and just the little noises to start with can get the ball rolling but but Ideally, I want to move to a place where I'm asking something slightly larger than an acknowledgement question, which can be almost anything, like, within 10 and meaning, how are you and how are things? Or did you see I'd send that email? Or do you know, Hala, who I spoke to the other day?

Or, you know, whatever it might be that you're in, I would use that. And that's your commonality that you use to begin with. And this is no different to, if I sit down with someone at a, wedding and next to that person and I've never met them before I use the commonality of the fact we're at the wedding and my in is you know how do you know the bride or something like that and as that person starts the first few words of speaking I'm not over the top with it but a little bit of encouragement and those acknowledgement questions oh right and things like that just to nudge them along and so what you're doing is you're you're setting a little spark and you're starting the process of

tenderly stoking a little fire, it really is how it should work. Because in the main, when you approach someone in business cold to sell them, you need to take this approach of a kind of really nurturing the little flame of a fire of a conversation, if you like, because after a while it really blossoms, but you've got to put the work in essentially. Totally. And so I know that when you're building a relationship in sales, your main focus is really to build trust. And you say it's really everything to get the human in front of the prospect. And nowadays, online, it's very impersonal. A lot of it is automated, text-based. So how can we be more human online? What's your perspective on that? One of the things I am really behind is because people are trying to leverage direct message or

private messages to warm people up is to use voice memos. Because all the platforms, even the likes of LinkedIn now, you can voice memo it. And it's the way I operate. Firstly, you are so much more productive when you use voice memos because you can get so many more done rather than sitting around typing all day. But secondly, those little nuances, so intent, emphasis, dynamics, meaning, emotion, it comes through when you speak. And that's why we're not doing this interview via text, we're doing it through audio so people can hear what I really mean and we can really get the meaning behind your questions as well. So voice memos are massive because they're very positively disruptive because firstly no one can make a judgment on if they

will even bother responding to it by reading it because they can't. They have to click on play and it's like a little treat that you gave someone when they get that little voice memo so they click on play and it's a nice little bespoke message just for them. We're not quite in a world yet where people are automating that and using bots for them. So using voice memories is a really good example of giving yourself and showing more of the human because the more of the person, the face, the voice, the way you move, so video as well, is a great way of building familiarity. And if there's familiarity, that's like the seed of trust. That's why I do my live shows and that's why I do video because someone who's never

met me, just like you and I, if we watch in our films and TV, we have a sense of who that celebrity is. We have a sense almost like we know them. That's where the connection is far more rapidly made than if I just did text. Yeah, we have a super unique company culture. We're all about obsessive excellence. We even call ourselves scrappy hustlers. And I'm really picky when it comes to my employees. My team is growing every day. We're 60 people all over the world. And when it comes to hiring, I no longer feel overwhelmed by finding that perfect candidate, even though I'm so picky, because when it comes to hiring, Indeed is all you need. Stop struggling to get your job post noticed. Indeed, sponsor jobs help you stand out and

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There's no need to wait any longer. Speed up your hiring right now with Indeed. And listeners of this show will get a $75-sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at Indeed.com.com. Just go to Indeed.com. slash profiting right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash profiting. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring Indeed is all you need. Yeah. You're leading me to my next question, which was about your live stream. So I noticed that

you leveraged live stream in such a cool way. You end up going live on multiple platforms at the same time and you actually take that content and turn it into microcontent. How has live streaming worked out for you, has it been effective for you so far? It has because although you don't directly get R-O-I in the sense that someone goes, hey, can you sign me up and can I buy something in the actual live stream itself, it does happen if I'm, for instance, promoting an event, people then go and buy, or I use it often to promote, like, sign up to the newsletter or the soft stuff, but I don't sell high ticket courses or anything like that.

But the reason why it's worked so well is precisely what I've just been saying, it validates who I really am. We've done 181 weeks of it now consecutively. I'm not that good an actor to sustain being someone different or to front as a certain type of Richard. I am totally just me and basically I'm there for those who want to show up each week for the person that I am. And so I love to riff. I love it when it's raw because I'm just for an hour every week I'm just being me. And if that works for people. It's not a surprise at all, actually, that those people tend to be the ones who follow me elsewhere and end up buying things as well. So it's the best way of showing people what you're really like. And that is what is probably the main upside to doing lives.

Yeah. I think that live stream is the closest thing that we can get to Human Connection online until like VR is commercialized, right? Yeah. Yeah. And so if you can leverage it, you definitely should. I'm really excited because I just got access to LinkedIn live. And so I'm going to start, yeah, thank you. So I'm going to start doing some of my interviews live and I'm going to be doing a similar strategy to you where, you know, you kind of tab your long videos and then turn it into short-form content. Yeah. Thanks for the inspiration. You're welcome. And the thing with LinkedIn is, I've been doing it for years on Facebook and Instagram and a bit on YouTube. But the thing about LinkedIn is, it really is a nice place to court a business audience as well.

And it's just that much closer to kind of, if you're going at things from anything to do with the commercial aspect at all, then it is a really great place to win. But the bandwidth is better on LinkedIn too. You get a lot more people by comparison to the other platforms. So I'm pleased with it. Yeah. Let's stick on social media for a bit.

Let's talk about your connections, right? You've built a big community on multiple social platforms. how do you actually go about taking those connections and following and turning them into clients? What's your strategy with that? So it's an interesting one because a lot of the people who I interface with are the entry points to their own network. So there's a lot of content creators and people who are maybe doing something similar to me who are not necessarily going to close. But the reason why I still engage with them is that knowing that they have a network, some of their people, will be going through to see my content and they will kind of sell themselves a bit.

To kind of answer your question directly, I don't do outbound. I create a map back from a situation where people can't help themselves and want to send me that message to say, I really love what you do and I've essentially self-selected myself to need help from someone like you, what are the next steps? And what that looks like is being every, you wear as much as you can through a system of repurposing and microcontent so that it appears that I have this abundance even though I'm not actually online all the time and being useful to

people against a very particular subject area so it takes time you know it's been almost two years I've been doing it on LinkedIn now but it moves you to a place where you're in people's conversations you're in people's posts they post about you they tag you and so on and you and you create that name and it takes time, as I say, it moves you to place where you get known, not just reputation, but you get known for being the guy that does that thing. Yeah, so it's almost like word of mouth. Yeah, and I'm relying on that. And the truth is that I could gain it more.

I could get into more DMs and close more and more people, but actually it is really fulfilling to create a world where I'm being useful to people and validating that I'm good at what I'm doing. And so those that would buy from me decide when it's right for them to reach out. And that is the best organic way to do it. And you see, if you're okay, you know, if you have enough money to survive,

I suggest this be the approach. You can do outbound, but it's far better to say, I'm actually good. So let's focus on being useful to people and let them come to me. And of course, when they do come to me, I will then move to a sales or closing process. But in the main, I kind of create as much as possible a situation where they take the first step because I think that feels good for everyone. I love that advice.

I think it's great. How about we go back to the sales conversation? As we are doing your research, we notice that one of your favorite phrases to use is, I'm your man. Why is this phrase so powerful? Because it short circuits that part of the brain we talked about that suggests there might be some fear or overthinks things and worries. I'm your man requires a microsecond of thought, but you basically say it if it's technically something you could do, then it's a yes. And it's a great way of learning how to jump. Too much overthinking paralyzes you and throws up that, oh, but what if this happened and that happened?

and I personally find it exhilarating to work a lot of things out as I go, but I also back myself to be able to deliver certain things really well. And in the main, if someone comes to me and says, hey, Richard, are you available to come to our company and speak about this? This is what our company do, it does. It's like, yeah, I'm your man. And then I'll work it out from there. And it doesn't mean I'm winging it or making it up fully as I go.

It's that I know the answer will be, I can do it in the end. And I know that I will do a good job. And so let's jump because that saves me going through any hassle of thinking about the downside too much. I am very much a jump and build the plane on the way down kind of person. So what I'm trying to articulate here is that the amount of thought I do put in is small, yet it is focused on, is this technically in my sphere? If it is, it's a yes, right?

Rather than, oh, I don't know, because there are different ways in which we could look at this and therefore I might not be quite right. It's like, no, come on, let's make this right for me. And if it off-piece, then totally not what I do, then of course it'll be a no. But I tend to be asked stuff around what I do. And the best thing to do is jump and say, yep, I'm your man. And that's fun. It takes you to some really exciting places.

Yeah. So it basically just like eases the person's concern, right? Yeah, because time fuels fear. Yeah. The more you think about stuff, the more that animal part of your brain says you don't want to do that because you might be, you know, socially ostracized and that would be bad because your tribe wouldn't be there to look after you and it's all of these instincts that are against you that actually aren't relevant in 2020 in the world we live. So you want to short circuit that so you don't have the fearful animal

talking to you and making decisions. Salespeople often get a rap that they can be really aggressive, right? And I think that the aggressive approach really never works. It's such a turnoff. How do you advise that people be aggressive in terms of being proactive, but not necessarily turning off their customers with this aggression? Totally. The answer is that you need to be aggressive, but you're aggressive with yourself. What that means is you push yourself and drive yourself to engage with as many people as possible. You're aggressive with your research.

You're aggressive with making sure you're displaying some empathy, that you plan how you say those first few lines and so on. you know, spend as much time as possible training yourself too. And that's the key is that aggression lies within you for yourself and being ambitious, but it certainly shouldn't go out to the people you're trying to engage with. The difficulty we have here, and this is why people get spammed, people always say, you know, well, why are they doing it? Why are people starting a message when they've never heard of me before,

never met me before with a cell? The reason why is because that if you get one point, of receptivity in 800 approaches, that's confirmation bias for many. And rather than auditing the effectiveness, they're saying, do you know what? I got a yes, therefore do another 800 and I'll get another yes. It's a, that confirmation bias drives the kind of worked with companies where it's hundreds and hundreds of phone calls every week per person. And the majority of people aren't interested, but two a day will show an interest.

and one a week will buy, therefore do it and all the time. And it's kind of soul destroying, but if it makes you some money at the end of each month, then that confirmation bias perpetuates it. What we really need to think is, rather than doing volume, put more stock in in being effective, it's far more fulfilling. But, you know, the truth is that sales typically is a money game as well, and when commissions involve, people don't want to put work in, they want their money. and so they cut corners

and in a world like LinkedIn for instance you've got 600 million people there so because volume is a feature you can afford to be an irritant because enough people will say yes if there were only 13 people on LinkedIn you'd appreciate the approach is to be far more effective and that's the problem is that people

know that there's always another phone number they can call or another person they can email and you should act as though there is maybe only a handful and treat them like they're going to be your best ever customer. The truth is though everyone knows this is just that it takes time and it requires effort and you know the very very best salespeople that I've been fortunate enough to engage with and meet and see in action over the years those that make millions every year none of them do the spammy volume approach all of them put the effort in and understand the importance of empathy for the actual individual,

researched individual that they're trying to reach out to. Totally. How about we talk about closing a deal? There's so many differing opinions on how to close a deal. What are your top tips for that? Yeah, it is interesting because a lot of people feel that you should always close and you should always ask regardless of how it's going. And the classic approach, which is so out of date,

is ask for the deal and that will throw up the objections and then you can handle them. But what that is is a very reactive way of selling in that you're basically you're just throwing an offer at someone expecting a problem and then trying to handle the problem itself. It's far better to be more preemptive and the best closes come when you've already warmed that person up and you've courted the emotion a bit more and you've got them feeling that you're someone worth trusting in, someone that's confident, and that's got this and someone who can look after them. One of the most crucial elements in closing is that idea

that you're going to look after that person. And it's interesting that the natural or human approach is often one of a butler, right? So I'll do everything for you. Here are all the options. You decide you're in control. But the truth is, invariably, buyers, emotionally prefer a seller to know what's what and to know what to do and to be able to prescribe a

solution. If you think about a doctor or an airline pilot or a barber or a tailor, all these people, you don't look for options as much as someone who is in control and knows what they're doing. So that assurance emotionally that you have got this in terms of understanding of goes a very long way. In addition to that, I think it's very important to understand that being on the same kind of wavelength as that person, so being able to get along with them, banter if there is some there, and having an awareness of the little things that is going on between the two of you. So maybe there might be some things to research. You have some commonality. Maybe you went to the same university or, you know, you lived in the same place or you know

a bar around the corner from where their office is. All that extra research is, available online and having that to really make the point that you're here as a trustworthy person goes so far when it comes to the closing side that there's this element of do you know what you seem like a person who's not going to take my money and run so that trust thread is running through it all but if I can be really practical because I feel like I feel that this could be a really good opportunity to give your listeners some real direct advice in terms of stuff they can do there's a really important point which is that you should separate the value from the price when it comes to closing. So what I'm saying here is really simply once you've described and summarised what it is you want to offer someone,

at that point you should just check in and say, you know, in principle, what do you think? Well, as a concept, does this feel good? Before you're giving them the price, you get them to say, Richard, this is awesome. You know what, this is just what I'm after? they have to earn the right to hear your price is a good way to look at it rather than giving them the price in the package altogether it makes far more sense to get them sold on the point and the value in principle because if they're not sold at that point you're just going to give them a price for something they're not sold on yeah and they will

subjectively then say well that's too expensive so you check first that they emotionally and it may be biologically as well, feel solid that this is a great value proposition. Then they earn the right to hear, great, so that runs for 12 months at this price. Sound good? And now you're seeing the contrast or difference on now how they feel about something based on the price. So in short, if I'm getting someone saying, this is exactly what I'm after, then I've legitimized giving them the price because I know they'll say, yeah, I totally see why you charge that. but if I've got someone's like

I suppose I mean I don't really I don't know it kind of could help I suppose there's no way I should be giving them the price that's not going to progress the call it's going to ruin it and what it will do is it will take the level of interest down and it's definitely turning them off

I'm not there yet I need to loop back and be a bit more candid and just understand like where did I drop the ball so be careful don't close on the price until they've earned the right to hear it and that's them selling you that they're convinced that your value's worth taking the conversation further. Speaking of price, I came across something very interesting that you've said in the past. Essentially, you say that people should raise the price point every time you get a sale.

What's the logic behind that? Because you could just get infinitely high in your price and become uncompetitive. So tell us about that. Yeah, let me put some parameters in there. It certainly is for certain types of products. because you may be in an industry where actually that's not a good way to do it. So if I sold, you know, forward focus every time I sell one I put the price up because someone's been willing to pay it is going to soon get me to a point where I get a lot of resistance on it.

What I'm going with that is certainly with the high ticket products and services side of things. And what I have experience is if someone's keen on coaching, for instance, and someone's seen huge value in it, then giving them a price point where they're like, yeah, sure, that makes a lot of sense. It's validated that someone's willing to pay that. So you should test, well, what about if I went up by another $500 or what about if I went up by another $2,000 or something? You should test it because it's a really good way of seeing what your prices should really be. It's a good bit of market research, really. And when I started doing online consulting with startups, I started at quite a low price

point simply to validate to myself that I could close sales in this way. And then every time I got a sale, I just put the price up until I got to this point where I thought, okay, do you know what? That's the kind of price point this deserves because that's the bit where people are like, yeah, totally get that. I'll pay that. And it's just a good way of testing if you're going too low or too high. But it requires a volume of sales to really get a handle on it, if that makes sense. Yeah. I mean, I think that's a great strategy, like you said, to find the right price point and And to also not sell yourself too short. You can be charging a lot more for your services, but you'll never know if you don't ask, right?

Exactly. And I think it's important to understand it. It's all about the individual because value is a subjective thing. It's a perception. It's in the eye of the beholder. And I've been in meetings where I've done, you know, two hours of coaching to a senior team of salespeople. And they thought it was worth every single penny. And I charged more than I were charged for a month of coaching because I knew that the

this was solving this one problem they had right now. It was literally putting out their fires right now. So the value to them was totally worth it. And of course, there are other ones where it's maybe not quite as necessary. And so the price point reflects that as well. It's always ebb and flow with this kind of thing. It depends on the individual and there certain circumstances right then and there. Continuing on the topic of price, what's your perspective on discounting your products? Is that ever an effective strategy? It's the case typically that everyone technically can afford your product unless you haven't done that pre-qualification we talked about it earlier. So if I'm approaching people with a very low level of income with Lamborghinis, I'm not doing my pre-qualification correctly. But in the main, if you've done that bit right, people can afford your product.

So therefore, it's feedback if they say your price points too much that's sub-demeanor. objectively, they feel your value doesn't match what you're asking them. It's your fault you haven't sold them properly. And so I'm very happy that I've got a system that works where I massively go all in on warming the audience first and they organically choose themselves and come to me and say, I'd like to buy your product. That means that the discount thing doesn't come up really at all. The reason why discount typically is thrown at a seller is because if you don't have any point of differentiation, then you tend to find that the person's looking for a point of differentiation. So they'll say something like, well, what about if it was a lower price point?

If you don't resonate with that person, if you don't get on with it on the same wavelength, or maybe if the need for your product in and of itself isn't entirely there, that's where sometimes a discount kind of makes sense to the, to the buyer, again, to basically differentiate and say, you know what, maybe we could make this in some way valuable or interesting, because if they're not sold on you or and or the product, then lowering the price might make it feel a bit more validated. But in truth, you shouldn't have to discount someone who is a qualified lead. So someone who technically could buy, totally the case. That makes sense. So I have a lot of friends who are in sales. And sometimes, And sometimes I hear the excuse that they think that their product isn't good enough or it's not sexy, it's boring. And that's why they have trouble meeting their quota each month.

What is your advice to people who claim that their product is too boring? Work on the basis that that's an excuse. Okay? Always work on the basis that that's an excuse. I've had some really tough stuff to sell in the past and still managed it because sometimes you've got to take a step back and say, I need a different approach. go and do some research, find some other people, get some different opinions from good salespeople on how they might attack it. And you've always got a map back from the wins for the buyer.

How would they win as a result of making use of your product or service? And are they going to look good? Are they going to save time or give them convenience? Are you going to make it the case that they make more money or save money? That's something to think about. But you've given me a specific example here and I think it's really good one, those that feel their product or industry is boring, and it's such an important one. The truth is, people by people. So if you feel your product is boring, no problem.

Don't talk about the product. Talk about you. Express yourself. Do skits about the subculture of your industry. Poke fun at it. Whatever it is, do something that's going to draw people to you because one of the most powerful things you can leverage is human curiosity. And it's the same as when you meet, think about it in the social context, because this is where

I got the idea from, in the social context, if I meet someone at a bar or whatever in, in, just in social environment, that I find, you know, interesting or stimulating. Job one when you say goodbye to them is you check them out online. You go to Instagram, you go to Facebook. What? This is, this is, what's this person like and it's no different in business if you can do things that make people think who's this guy this is interesting a good number of them won't be able to help themselves they will click on your name now on your profile and if you signpost it enough they will find their way to what you do those that might need you for the thing you sell the widget you sell that's really boring when they need you you're the one and the reason why you're

the one is because buying your product, boring though it is, is at a time when they need it, and it's an example of another way in which they can consume you. So people show up, for instance, for my show, and for some, it's like, deadly, boring. Like, how are you doing a show every week on selling and business? It's so dull for some. But for those who enjoy the way in which I do it and my vibe, when if the time comes they need something I'm the one they think of because they like me more and so the science shows it's best part of 60, 65%

of the reason why someone decides to buy something boring or not is down to how they've interfaced with the brand or person so the advice is really simple do things that make you more stimulating to them and it might be a longer play in terms of content or if you're approaching people directly one-on-one be the fun, interesting guy. And that earns you the right to talk about the boring thing

because if you've identified the right person and they technically could need that and win from it, well, then now they will want to hear from you because you're a cool guy or an interesting woman. You see what I mean? So lead with being interesting. Yeah. It's really great advice.

And just to hit it home from my listeners, if you think you have a boring product, you yourself, you need to be the interesting. one, right? And you're the one who's going to draw on the customers. And then if they need your product, you'll be the right person to contact. So, yeah. Makes total sense. Richard, this was such a great conversation. I really enjoyed it. We always end our show now with this last question. What is your secret to profiting in life? Okay. I think, good question. It's thinking a lot about how my future self would act, but also think.

thinking a lot about how my past self would act if they were in the room with me right now watching what I'm doing. So my past self, the one who had to graft and grind and bleed through his eyes to get here, imagine if that person is sitting here right now watching whatever task I'm working on or not. And to get ahead in life, I feel you need to ask yourself what, because that's the greatest accountability is to yourself. If past Richard was sitting right here right now. Would he say, good, I'm glad you're honouring all the work I put in, or would he be really annoyed at how I'm slacking off? Likewise, is the future Richard also saying, like, seriously, can you just get on with it so that I can start to exist? Or would he say,

awesome work, well done. You're going to make me a reality. So thinking in a weird way about these multiple Richards has been a really good way of deciding if the thing I'm doing right now, is a worthwhile task to be working on. I love that. We've never heard that one before. And where can our listeners go to learn more about you and everything that you do? Sure. So it can all stem from my website, the hub, if you like, so the richardmore.com. Or I'm very active on LinkedIn. So I'd love to meet some of your guests there. If you go to Richard James Moore, all our word on LinkedIn, I'll be there as well.

I'd love to speak to some of them. Awesome. Thanks so much, Richard. You're welcome. I really enjoyed it. Thank you so much. Thanks for listening to Young and Profiting podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to leave us a review or comment on your favorite platform. Follow Yap on Instagram at Young and Profiting and Profiting.com. And now you can chat live with us every single day on Yap Society on Slack. Check out our show notes or young and profiting.com for the registration link.

And if you're already active on YAP Society, share the wealth and invite your friends. You can find me on Instagram at Yap with Hala or LinkedIn. Just search for my name, Hala Taha. Big thanks to the app team, as always. Stay blessed, and I'll catch you next time. This is Hala, signing off.