Graham Cochrane (00:04.534)
If you think selling is about scripts, closing tricks, overcoming objections, well, you've been lied to because here's the truth. People don't buy because you said the right thing. They buy for one reason and one reason only because they feel like it.
Graham Cochrane (00:49.72)
So if that's true, the real question isn't how do I sell harder? It's how do I make someone want to buy without pressure, persuasion, or chasing? In today's episode, I'm breaking down the number one sales tactic that lets you...
Graham Cochrane (01:22.188)
In this episode, I'm breaking down the number one sales tactic that lets you sell literally anything and why most entrepreneurs completely miss it. Stick with me because once you see this, selling gets a whole lot easier.
Graham Cochrane (02:15.246)
So I don't know if you've seen those videos where a sales guru asks his or her protege to sell me this pen, right? Like pick up this pen, they hand it to somebody and say, sell me this pen. And the whole idea is what are you gonna say to get me to wanna buy this pen? And there's a lot of...
tactics and strategies that are taught in these sales guru clinics and videos and trainings on well you have to just create a story around the pen and if people saw that the pen really once belonged to Abraham Lincoln now it's worth $30,000. There's all these these things to get someone to buy the pen. You also see sales gurus teaching here are the top
five objections that people are gonna have. So when they have this objection, here's how you counter that objection. So then it eliminates the objection. So they no longer have an excuse to not buy your thing. And then you basically walk them through this journey where you tell them, so now that you see that I've pretty much answered all those questions, those are no longer issues. Would you say that you're in a position to buy and they kind of feel like, I guess so. And they feel dumb because there now is no reason not to buy.
All of this is a bunch of garbage. mean, do you want to be sold a pen, a $30,000 pen that you didn't want? Do you want to have your objections obliterated and feel guilted into buying a thing? Because do you now no longer have a logical, justifiable reason to say no? No, you don't want to experience that. So why do you want to put other people through that experience? It doesn't even work, by the way. You actually...
might close the deal, so you could say that does work, but you lose the customer for life. You lose the integrity of your brand and you miss out on something so much more powerful. So I'm gonna share with you that one, number one sales secret in a minute. It's the complete opposite of what you're being told out there, but before we do that, there are two really important things that you gotta understand that makes selling so much easier. Number one is only sell what people actually want.
Graham Cochrane (04:37.492)
I mean, have you thought about that? Instead of sell me this pen, nobody wants the pen. Why get in the business of selling something nobody wants? It's only gonna make your life harder. So I know from experience that I thought I was bad at sales, but it was only because I was selling something nobody wanted. My first job at a college was selling radio advertising for country KCY in 98 Rock in Harrisonburg, Virginia.
and I was supposed to walk around town and talk to local business owners about how they should have commercials on our radio stations and how we could get them more business. Now, this never made sense to me because I thought, well, A, I don't know who listens to the radio anymore. I kind of do sometimes, and this was 20 years ago. But even if they do listen to the radio, who really listens to the commercials on the radio? I don't. And even if they did listen to the commercials,
who's gonna take action on those commercials? And even if they did take action, how really is that business owner gonna know that the money he or she spent with us at the radio station was worth it? Like it was the most vague hope and a prayer of an ad strategy that didn't make any sense. So I wasn't very convincing as a salesperson because I didn't believe in the product I was selling. Now these days, I've sold close to $20 million of online coaching
and trainings in two different businesses and it's been the easiest thing I've ever done. Is it because I'm a great salesperson? No. It's because I'm selling stuff people actually want. In my first business, I was selling online training in communities and coaching around music recording. People who were on a budget who wanted professional sounding recordings, but they didn't know how to do it and they didn't have the money to spend to get into a big studio. So I sold them the ability to create
Incredible professional-centered recordings at home with a budget. Easiest things I've ever sold. These days I help business owners make $100,000 a month working 20 hours a week or less. And it's not hard to sell to those people because it's what they want. They want to make more money and cut their work hours in half. I mean, don't you? Wouldn't you like to make a hundred grand a month consistently working 20 hours or less in your business? Probably if you aren't
Graham Cochrane (07:02.348)
already doing that. So the most important part of selling isn't selling, it is your offer. So the mistakes people make are they try to sell what they want to sell, or they try to sell what they have, or they try to sell the thing that they built, as opposed to what people want to buy. So they go away into their little cave and they build an online course, which nobody wants by the way, or they build a coaching program that they've never asked if anyone's interested in.
or they build some app or some SaaS product that they're not sure anybody, they go and build a thing and then they try to sell it. And that's backwards. You wanna find out who you wanna serve. Most important question. The number one question in business is not what or how, it's who. Who do you feel you are meant to serve? Who are you most capable of serving? Who would you like to serve that would bring you a lot of fulfillment for the next 10, 20 years? Who do you wanna serve?
That's the most important question. And then once you know that person, you reverse engineer an offer or product for them based off of not what you wanna sell, but what they wanna buy. And that's usually gonna come down to either their number one pain or the number one dream that they have. Can you eliminate their number one pain and can you facilitate or manifest their number one dream? If you can do those things, that's what people are gonna buy. So for example, people don't wanna buy coaching.
They don't want to buy a course. They don't want to buy a book. They don't want to buy a mastermind. Those are formats. Those are fulfillment. Those are things. That's not what people want to buy. They want to buy their pain being relieved. They want to buy their dream coming true. So think about the who you want to serve. Think about what they struggle with, what they consistently bump up against.
And if you could wave a magic wand for them, what dream outcome would they want?
Graham Cochrane (09:02.35)
Does this make sense? So let's talk about, just real quick, because I'm gonna get into the next point is gonna get even more specific on this, but if you are struggling to come up with an offer, like if you're like, don't even know what my people want. Well, I gave you a little bit of a clue as to where to start. Start with the who. But why don't we just fix this once and for all? We can do this next week. I'm doing a five day coaching experience where I'm gonna help you design your
Irresistible $10,000 offer. $5,000, $20,000, the price doesn't matter. I'm gonna show you what it takes to craft an irresistible high ticket premium offer for your industry niche. Doesn't matter what you do, who you serve, you can have a $10,000 offer. The key is not just to raise the price, the key is to craft an irresistible offer. And there's a formula, there's a recipe for how do you make an offer.
that when your ideal person hears it, they immediately have to have it. That's what I will help you design next week. The dates are below if you go to 10koffertchallenge.com, but we're literally running this live next week, depending on when you watch this, but you'll see the most updated dates, but you should get a ticket. This is not a free training, it's paid, but it's very affordable. This is not a recording, this is live, I will be there.
And if you get a VIP ticket, you get to come an hour early each day and do group coaching with me where I can answer your actual questions. I can review your offer. I can help you personally. But I'm gonna teach you either way when you get a ticket how to craft an irresistible high ticket offer. If you get this right, and when you get this right, you'll literally walk away next week with your offer done. When you get the offer right, selling is so much easier because you know it's what people wanna buy. You just talk about the offer and they go, my gosh, I want that.
not only is it easier to sell, but your confidence skyrockets because now you're not like, okay, do I say the right thing? Like, I'm so worried about them like reacting to my price or what if they're not interested? Like, you know they're going to be interested so you can talk about your offer boldly knowing that it's irresistible. Like, they will be salivating. And then the question will just be whether they're ready to step forward with you or not and invest. So if you want help with that, click the link below in the show notes or the description or just go to 10 KOfferedchallenge.com.
Graham Cochrane (11:21.304)
Come grab a ticket. The VIP tickets are limited by the way. Those are first come first serve. So get your ticket and they're already selling out. The way I like to think about it is if your offer disappeared tomorrow, would anyone be upset?
Graham Cochrane (11:37.162)
Like really ask yourself if this offer went away that you created, would your ideal person be upset? If no, it's probably not a great offer. That's exactly what we fixed inside of the 10K Offer Challenge. We make sure that your offer is either dialed in or fixed or you create a brand new offer that if it went away, people would be like so upset they didn't take advantage of it. And when people do take advantage of your offer, they feel like they won the lottery.
All of this has to do with you better understanding your prospect than you currently do. Knowing them and coming to them with an offer from a place of service. How could I actually serve this person? None of this, sell me this pen. Let's just say the right words and someone's gonna wanna buy this pen. That's how inhumane could you be, right? That's selling is service when done right. Because what I sell to my prospects,
improves their lives and the same should be true for you. So the work is worth doing and instead of you trying to figure it out on your own, we'll just do it live together next week. 10koffertchallenge.com. number one, you know, sort of set up here is just only sell what people want to buy. The second thing related to it, when you are selling, this has to be clear and then I'm going to share with you the number one tactic to help you sell literally anything. When you're selling your thing, the biggest mistake I see people,
doing, whether it's on a sales call or it's in their sales page or they're selling on a webinar or whatever, is over explaining how it works, listing all the features, all the things you get, the workbooks, the modules, the calls, over teaching instead of selling. The thing that's going to get someone to buy if the offer is good is you talking about the payoff.
What is the payoff? If I buy your offer, how does it benefit me? I don't really care how we get there. I don't really care if we jump on calls. I don't care if I have to swallow a pill. I don't care if I have to do a little dance. How we get there doesn't matter to me nearly as much as you making the pain go away or you getting me to this outcome I want. Does this make sense? So,
Graham Cochrane (13:59.052)
The most powerful language you can use is language around the outcome they're going to experience. So stop talking about what you're going to do for them. Stop talking about what they're going to get and start talking about what is the payoff they're going to experience. Does it make sense? People are not buying your method. They are buying their outcome. They're not buying what you're selling. They're buying who they want to become and who they're going to become. They're buying their future self.
When I was in the recording space, in the music production space, people were buying professional sounding recordings. They were buying confidence in sharing their music on Spotify or with family or friends. They were buying their dream of having their song out there on the world, web or on CDs or whatever it was. Even back in the day, we still had some CDs back in the day. And it's sounding just as good as their favorite records. That's what they were buying.
They weren't buying my course, they weren't buying my membership site, they weren't buying my weekend retreat. Those are just methods and formats and fulfillment to get to the outcome they wanted. So I had to orient my language around the payoff. My coaching clients right now are not buying a book, they're not buying a coaching experience, they're not buying VIP coaching, they're not buying an event or a mastermind with me. They are buying $100,000 months.
and 20-hour work weeks. They're buying more money in their bank account, more time in their calendar, and more purpose and meaning in their lives. They're buying flexibility. They're buying a lifestyle. They're buying getting their marriage back, getting their health back while their income skyrockets. They're buying waking up again and loving their work and feeling excited that it's a Monday. They're buying their dream week that prints a million dollars a year or more.
Do you see how those are all payoffs? That's what you wanna talk about. So you gotta have a good offer that delivers a good payoff and then you gotta talk about that payoff. Okay, those were just all setups for the number one sales tactic. And I hate to use that word tactic, but it actually is something you can do. That is the most powerful thing you can do in selling. You ready?
Graham Cochrane (16:26.35)
Okay, I hope this lands. We're gonna unpack it because this is so powerful. Give them an out.
Give them an out. This is the secret sauce of selling.
and it's little counterintuitive. We talked about this a little bit last week. One of the things that makes your brand really attractive, it makes you really attractive, is by creating resistance and making it harder for people to buy from you. We talked about having an application. We talked about having minimum requirements for your clients to work with you, sort of stiff arming them and not being needy, okay?
All of that creates, it's insane what it does, it just makes people want you even more. Related to that though, if you're on a sales call with somebody or you are presenting an offer to people, one to many, or even on a sales page, the moment you give them an out, an opportunity to walk away and say no to your offer is the moment you actually make them want
to buy. Here's the counterintuitive truth. Pressure kills desire.
Graham Cochrane (17:49.304)
Freedom creates desire Pressure kills freedom creates The last thing you want to do with a potential client is to pressure them into buying a thing It actually is literally pouring water on the fire of their desire You're snuffing out their desire every time you use some high-pressure tactic But the opposite is true every time you give them an opportunity to say no
you actually create more desire. People don't want to feel trapped. Do you? Do you want to feel trapped into buying something? Do you want to feel trapped in life at all? Do you like being stuck in a closet or a small room with no way out? Do you like the idea of being trapped in your car? No. My oldest daughter is afraid of being trapped in an elevator. She's afraid of being trapped in a bathroom stall. It's like a fear she has and she was a little girl.
People don't like to feel trapped. They want to feel in control. They want to feel in control. Don't you want to feel in control? When you're making a buying decision, don't you want to feel in control? If you're going to buy a car, you're going to buy a house, don't you want to feel in control?
People want to feel smart, not sold to. Right? They want to feel smart. These are all feelings you want your prospect to experience. Freedom, control, feeling smart. Remember how I said at the very beginning of this episode is people only buy for one reason, because they feel like it.
I can't make somebody feel something, but I certainly can help set the table so that the right feelings are there. So what giving them an out sounds like. This might not be for you.
Graham Cochrane (19:53.752)
How simple is that? You're presenting an offer, hey, this might not be for you, but here's what I take my clients through. Here's my coaching process. Here's my program. This might not be for you. This does two powerful things. Number one, it communicates to them that you are not needy and you're not stupid, that you actually are a mature, wise business owner that realizes that his or her offers are not for everyone.
I know that my coaching offers are not for absolutely everyone on the planet. And if I said, this is perfect for everyone, well, that already makes people go, really? He's just trying to sell his thing. So the moment I say this might not be for you, the client or the prospect goes, he already knows that his offer isn't for everybody. Okay, I respect him a lot more. Number two, it gives them an out because now we're talking about fit.
this might not be for you. We're talking about is this the right fit for you? I have something good and if it's a fit for you, it's gonna be a fit and we're gonna know. If it's not, you're not gonna want it. And what this does, Jay Abraham, who's one of the most brilliant salesmen in the world, says it this way. He says, you should view yourself as your client's trusted advisor. Meaning, you would only advise him or her to do something that's in their best interest.
So part of selling as service is to make sure what you're offering is the right fit for the prospect. It's all about fit. You can be confident that what you have is very good, because you're only selling something people want. But now you're just trying to see if this is a good fit for them. It's all about fit, right? I have a great article of clothing, I have a great jacket, I have a beautiful pair of pants, beautiful dress, and we can all say objectively, beautiful dress, beautiful jacket, great pair of pants. But if it doesn't fit me,
I'm not gonna buy it. So we wanna make sure it fits and looks good on you. You see how this makes sense? Both can be true. Beautiful jacket doesn't look good on me. Beautiful dress doesn't fit me right. But if it does fit, I'm all about it. As opposed to like, this jacket looks good on everybody. No, it doesn't. Come on, bro. It does not look good on everybody. So you could say this might not be for you, blah, blah, blah, blah, This is a power one right here is you don't need this.
Graham Cochrane (22:22.37)
You don't need this. Who would say that? Someone who's confident in two things. One, confident in your potential client's ability to win with or without you. Let's put a pin there. You have to believe at a fundamental level that the person you're talking to is smart enough, talented enough, and capable enough to get the outcome or payoff your offer delivers without you.
I believe inherently that the people that are thinking about buying my coaching programs or working with me or hiring me could get those results without me. It's possible that they could get those results with another coach. It's possible that they could get those results without a coach, period, just figuring it out over time. I really believe that in my core, that my clients don't need my offer. But...
The reason I can say that confidently is because it doesn't diminish the value of my offer. My offer, I personally believe is better than anybody else's. Of course I'm biased, but I also know that my offer collapses timeframes. So for example, if I were a fitness coach and I were helping people lose weight and get in the best shape of their lives, I could tell a prospect, look, you don't need this coaching program.
You work out more, you eat less, you dial this in. You can figure out how to get in shape. People have been doing that since the dawn of time. You don't need me. However, I know if you join this coaching program with me, I can get you in the best shape of your life in the next 90 days. Well, that's powerful because now the offer isn't just the payoff, it's a timeframe around that payoff. And that's really, really powerful. One of my clients,
actually someone who came to the 10K Offer Challenge. He teaches Spanish, how to speak Spanish. He's a Spanish teacher. And he came to my challenge and created a $5,000 offer to teach Spanish. Now, he can confidently say, you don't need my offer to learn Spanish. You could go to Spain or Mexico or anywhere you want that they speak Spanish and just live there long enough and interact with people. You'll start to speak Spanish. Or you could...
Graham Cochrane (24:46.004)
use Duolingo or you could use Rosetta Stone or a book or a million ways you can learn Spanish. You don't need me, but I can get you almost virtually fluent in the next three months instead of you spending three years trying to figure it out. That's powerful. So just by saying you don't need this, you immediately give them an out, which sets them at ease. So you're giving them permission to say this might not be a fit and you don't need this. Here's another one. If now is not the time,
That's okay. How is that for a counterintuitive sales tactic? Typically, we are told to create urgency and we have to say things we are told, like you have to buy now or, or, no. Most often, they don't have to buy now. I don't like being told I have to buy this expensive thing now, especially if you're gonna create a $10,000 offer, which you should, every single one of you.
can and should have a $10,000 offer no matter what industry you're in. I've had songwriters create $30,000 offers. I've had Spanish teachers create $5,000 offers. I've had piano teachers create $10,000 offers. I've had artists sell $50,000 offers like visual artists. Anything you can imagine, you should have a $10,000 offer.
If you're gonna try to sell something expensive, like a $10,000 offer, the last thing people wanna feel is pressure to have to buy that thing right now. And the fact that you think you need to say that shows that you don't understand what actually gets people to buy. Giving them an out, which you think is gonna turn them away, is actually the opposite. It makes you more desirable, it makes your offer more desirable because now the person is operating from a place of control, freedom, and feeling smart and in the driver's seat.
and that is a good feeling for them. Now they have a really positive interaction with you and now they can make a decision for themselves.
Graham Cochrane (26:47.17)
When people know they can walk away, they relax and relaxed people by.
Not stressed out people, not tense people who are like, gotta get out of this sales room or get off the sales call as fast as I can before I lose 20 grand. No, relaxed people by. Someone who did this really, really well, in my experience, was one of my mentors, Myron Golden. Almost a year ago, I applied for his VIP coaching, which is a $375,000 offer, by the way.
I applied, I got a sales call with his brother Jeff, and it started from the sales call process. On the sales call, Jeff didn't pressure me to buy it all. We just talked about my business, we talked about life, talked about Myron, we talked about Jeff, we talked a little bit about what comes with the VIP coaching, but not a whole lot. It was the least pressure I'd ever felt in a sales process. The next day I went to Myron's studio, because I live in Tampa, he lives in Tampa also, went to his studio.
where he films his YouTube videos, just so can go meet him in person. And I really expected him to not sell me hard, because that's not who he is, but I expected him to shake my hand and say something to the effect of, hey man, can't wait to work with you this year. I think we're gonna blow up your business. It's gonna be amazing. Jeff told me all about you. I think we could do some great stuff together. I thought he was gonna cast some vision.
Right? Instead, I went up to him afterwards, introduced myself, hey, Jeff probably told you I applied for your VIP coaching. And it was very awkward. goes, great, that's awesome. Well.
Graham Cochrane (28:40.376)
Happy to have you if you want to join, happy to not have you if you don't want to join. No pressure, my man. Glad you could be here today. It was like super awkward, right? It was like, if it's not for you, it's not for you. It's all good. And it was the most counterintuitive experience I'd had. was like, wait, don't you want me to join? Don't you want 375,000? I know you're admiring Golden, but I'm sure you can find a use for an extra, like don't you want my money? It goes back to...
What I talked about last week on stiff arming a little bit of creating friction, it made me want to join even more, because I got the sense that he didn't really need me to join. He was like, I'm cool either way. And you really want to be that way. You really want to embody that in your sales process. Like, I don't need this sale, so I'm not going to pressure you. In fact, I tell my clients, I'm not going to pressure you to buy. If I'm about to present an offer, I'm like, look, I have an offer for you that's going to help you do X, Y, and Z.
But there is no pressure to buy it. If it's not right for you, you're gonna know. And we can still be friends. And if it's right for you, you're gonna know. And it's gonna be awesome. So I give them an out so they can walk away. Now they're relaxed enough to actually lean in and listen before I present the offer as opposed to having their arms crossed, whether virtually or in real life.
and their kind of walls are up and they're looking for a way to say, yeah, that's not for me. But if I give them an out so they already know it's not for them, then they can just be a normal person and just listen. And isn't that what you want them to do is just listen and see like, is this offer for me or not? And if you design your offer the way I teach you in my 10K Offer Challenge, it's going to be a clear signal to your ideal person that they absolutely have to have it. So you don't have to convince. Like I don't do any convincing. I just share the offer I have with people and they go, my gosh, I want that.
So safety, and that's what giving people an out creates, by the way. Like here's the exit, you can leave at any point. Safety increases desire.
Graham Cochrane (30:44.578)
Giving people autonomy, meaning giving them the power to say no or walk away, autonomy increases trust. What do you think happens when their desire to work with you increases and their trust in you increases? Your conversion rate goes through the roof. How cool is that? So you're not convincing anybody, you're inviting people. Remember we said this a few weeks ago, stop selling and start inviting.
And an invitation always has an out. You can say no, there's no pressure. This might not be something you even want to come to. You might not even want this. The three magic words, would you like, would you like this? They can say no. Give people the respect that they deserve, but also the opportunity to hear you out, see if there's a fit for them, and decide if they're ready to move forward or not. Because it's going to happen that all people are going to fall into one of
three categories. They're either not going to want your offer and then great, why would you spend their time or your time trying to convince them to buy something they don't want? Great. Two, they're going to want the offer but it's not the right time either because they don't have the margin to invest in themselves and take it seriously or they don't have the money to invest in themselves and take it seriously. So they want it but it's not the right time. Great, they can come back another time when it is the right time. Or three, they want it and it is the right time.
I mean, it's as simple as that. Either they don't want it or they want it and they can't really move forward right now or they want it they can't move forward right now. It's gonna fall into one of those three categories. And by giving them an out, now they can self-select. And it makes you more attractive, it makes the offer you're creating more attractive, and it allows them to be relaxed, which is the most ideal situation you want someone to be in to be a buyer. No pressure, no tenseness, no...
judgmental brain, just a human deciding if they feel like buying it or not. And simply by offering something they want to buy in the first place, speaking about the payoff they're going to get as opposed to all the stuff they're going to get, and then giving them that out from the moment one, it actually increases their desire for your thing and your likelihood to convert them. Isn't that wild? Isn't that counterintuitive? So,
Graham Cochrane (33:13.87)
Stop convincing people. Stop using, you know, scripts, call scripts, sales scripts. Stop listening to or listening for objections and obliterating objections. You don't need any of that. You just need to create an offer that's actually irresistible. Focus on the payoff they're going to get if they say yes to that offer and apply what you teach in that offer and give them an out. Number one sales tactic to make
gobs of money is actually give people an out so they can walk away. It changes the game. Again, if you need help crafting an irresistible offer that people actually want to say yes to and they're willing to spend $10,000, $20,000 on, $50,000 on, get a ticket to the 10K Offer Challenge. We're running it Monday, next week. It's live.
I will literally help you craft this offer. You will not walk away from this challenge without your $10,000 offer designed, priced, and irresistible for the ideal person. On top of that, I'm also, I have a whole extra day in there where I'm gonna teach you how to actually sell those things without having to do sales calls, if that's appealing to you. Because I don't like to do sales calls. So I'm gonna teach you how to do that. The details are below. Go to 10koffertchallenge.com. And if you're really serious about doing this, get a VIP ticket while they're still available. There are limited spots for VIP. General admission.
it's unlimited, but VIP is limited because I want to work with a small number of people and actually answer your questions. You get a whole extra hour with me each day next week and you also get to come and ask me your specific questions or run your offer by me and I get to review your offer, answer your questions or help you anywhere you want in your business. Grab a VIP ticket, stop playing around. If you're serious, just get a VIP ticket and let's do this thing. And then when you are presenting your offer, whether you come to the challenge or not,
Make sure you give people an out. From the moment one, it just lightens the mood, changes the atmosphere, it helps them become a person who actually feels like buying your thing. Isn't pressured into it, doesn't feel their arm twisted, doesn't feel like they're waiting for some manipulative tactic. Everybody relaxes and your conversion rate skyrockets. I hope this episode helped you and blessed you today. Have an amazing week.
Graham Cochrane (35:33.144)
Hopefully I'll see you next week in the challenge. apply what you learned today, my friend, and let me know how it works for you on your next sales presentation. Bye for now.
