You know that pitch is coming. It’s like the unwanted guest who shows up to your party and won’t leave! The key to a successful presentation? Transparency!
- How I sold $333,000 of training in 15 minutes.
- Why naming that mouse upfront will have your audience on your side.
- How to get the audience’s permission to pitch.
- Why strategizing and manipulating is killing your success.
Check out Name That Mouse! Our Kickstarter Campaign launched on June 15th 2021, and we’d love your support! Visit NameThatMouse.com
Transparency lets people know you’re not trying to hide anything from them (and that makes a HUGE difference).
– David Wood
To find out more about Aaron J Armstrong and view the full episode, go to https://www.armstrongventuresllc.com/all-episodes
Liked this episode? Comment below.
– TRANSCRIPT –
David Wood: [00:00:00] Alex Mandossian is a great marketer. And he taught me when I was just starting to speak on the stage and to sell something from the stage. He taught me about transparent selling. And this is another example of naming that mouse. When I get up on stage, if I’ve got an offer at the end, everybody knows that I want them to buy it.
And so they call it a pitch fest. Right? You get up there, I’m going to tell you stuff and I’m going to try and sell you something. If I don’t name that, it’s weird. It’s awkward. It’s icky. And the people in the audience are probably going to be folding their arms. So what I started doing with Alex’s coaching is I’d tell the truth.
I’d name my mice up front. Hey. I want to do everything in my power to motivate, influence, and inspire you to continue your training with me, because I’m going to give you some amazing information today. But information alone isn’t going to cut it. And I figured the best way I could do that is to give you the best information I have.
And then you can decide at the end, if you’d like to continue working with me or not. Does that sound fair? And the audience they’ll go. Yeah. Okay, great. Now they know what’s coming. They know I’m going to pitch them. I’ve got their permission to do it. I’m going to give them value. And then at the end, I’ll say, I said at the beginning that I wanted to motivate, influence and inspire you to continue your training with me.
Would you like to know where to go to get more help with this? And a bunch of people in the audience would be like, yeah, I think it’s upfront, nothing hidden. And then I lay out what I’ve got. Here’s the pitch. If you want it, go and grab it. And I tell you what, the first time I ever did this, I thought, what if I sold $10,000 worth of product, I could hold my head up high and say, well, you know, we did all right.
We sold $127,000 of product in 15 minutes. 15 minutes. One woman leaped onto the table. I’ve got a video of it, leapt full length over that table to try and get, I had these tokens where you could get a thousand off and there was a stampede to the back of the room. The second speech I did, this was my first big speech.
The second one, we had less people in the audience. I refined a few things and we sold $333,000 of training in 15 minutes. Wow. And I say that was largely generated by the fact that I was naming my mice. I’d even be up on stage, and I’d noticed that I’d made a big mistake. Instead of glossing over it I’d tell on myself, I’d say, oh my God, you notice how I keep turning around and looking at these big screens behind me. So I see where I’m up to in the slides. After 40 minutes of talking to you, I’ve just noticed the monitors down in front of me. I could have been just glancing at that, consummate professional that I am.
I just laughed and laughed and laughed and they laughed with me. Now I’m with them. I’m not trying to pretend to be something. I tell you, naming your mice is the doorway to connection, confidence and leadership.
Aaron J Armstrong: [00:03:07] I agree completely. You’re already disclosing the awkward uncomfort that comes with some, you’re listening to motivational speaker. There’s going to be a hard sell here, you know? And then you’re like, well, I’m going to sell some things today. And if we have a great discussion and then now you’ve taken the defense off them.
I think it’s a great sales tactic because you’ve removed this defensiveness. Now they’re oh, okay, he’s cool. Like he’s with us, you know, it’s really brilliant.
David Wood: [00:03:30] The temptation, in life generally, is to strategize and manipulate. And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. It’s just that it isolates us and people are smart enough to recognize a lot of manipulation.
So if you kind of surprise them at the end with this sale opportunity, they might resent it. They might feel pressured. They might not have had time to think about it. I’d rather tell them upfront. Give them 60 minutes to think about whether or not they want to work with me. And then at the end, they’re much closer to being ready.
So this book is about un strategizing. Here’s one reason why. The brain doesn’t have one billionth of the information it needs to make the right decision. We have very little information. We don’t know the future, for example. So a simpler way is tell the truth and let the universe work out the rest.
And I think this can work with sales as we’ve demonstrated. If you just be straight, I would like you to buy from me. I like, you know, I’m dating right now because I’m single and I’m looking for a relationship. I’d rather be. It can be fun to be up front. I’d like to spend some time with you.
There’s one woman recently I asked, she’s single and I said, are you looking for a relationship? What’s going on. To disclose I’m single and I’m looking and you seem like a really high quality human. And I’m interested in spending more time with you and seeing if anything develops.
Now, all my cards are on the table. Right. And if she says no to that, then that’s what she should say. This should be a no. We shouldn’t be hanging out, with me pretending it’s going to be something else, while I’m definitely wanted to be something else. That’s the old strategy method.
I say, let’s put our cards on the table. Let the universe work out what should happen.
