#135: "You can't master selling by reading books" Mastering Tonality

What do you see as like the most like three important things that somebody's got to master? I think most salespeople, they don't really understand the psychology behind how the brain actually makes decisions. Me being in behavioral science and human psychology, like I geeked out on the stuff at university and I studied it like a mofo.
With any personality, I'm focused on how do I disarm the prospect where they let their guard down? How do I disarm them where they start to emotionally open up?

And a lot of it is just strictly with your tonality.

So tonality and obviously even the structure of the question, right?

Yeah, I was still learning skills all the time.

And the biggest factor that that took me from the jump between door to door

to more B2B high level was mastering tonality. Hey guys, in today's episode, we're going to be interviewing Jeremy Miner.
Jeremy, as you guys are going to come to find out, is an absolute stud when it comes to sales training. In this episode, we dive into the psychology of sales, what it is to really understand tonality.

This is something that isn't being taught by any other sales trainer out there.

You're going to absolutely love this episode. Let's dive in.

What's up, everybody? Welcome to another episode of Next Level Pros Podcast.

Today, I have the opportunity to be here in beautiful Scottsdale, Arizona with a friend, associate, but more importantly, an incredible businessman, Mr. Jeremy Miner.
So a lot of you guys have seen him across different social media channels. He is most well known for training in the sales space, which for me is incredible because I absolutely love the sales aspect of any business.
That's where I always just had my fingers on the heartbeat of any business. Jeremy, during his 17-year career, he was recognized in the direct selling industry as the 45th highest earning producer out of more than 108 million salespeople selling anything worldwide.
That's pretty phenomenal. Jeremy's earnings as a commission-only sales rep were multiple seven figures every year.
That was after alarms. After alarms, yeah.
That wasn't happening in the door-to-door space back in the day, I'll tell you. So he owns a company called Seventh Level.
They were ranked as the largest B2C sales training company in the world and the third overall largest sales training company in the world for B2C and B2B combined by the prestigious Selling Power Magazine. I know you've gotten several different awards.
Not grandma, just on annual revenues. I love it.
I love it. And I know you've gotten several different awards.
You've been in the Inc. 500, 5,000.
What was the highest ranking on that? I think the, we didn't turn it in last year, but the year before, I think we were 132nd or something. I know you were like number six.
We were 12th on Inc. 12th on Inc.
6th. Yeah.
Damn it, I thought I was doing good. 132, 12th.
You know, the funny thing is the year that we got 12th, we would have been fourth the previous year for the same growth. Yeah.
And we were six for Financial Times. Yeah.
Because Financial Times threw out like a few of the guys that were like acquired and stuff like that. Hey guys, it's Chris.
Hey, a lot of you leave comments asking for help. Do me a real quick favor.
Shoot me a text at 509-374-7554. That's 509-374-7554.
Shoot me a text. I'll answer and help you with whatever you need.
Don't worry. I got you back.
Let's go back to the show, baby. Oh, and we submitted financials in 2021 and 2022, and we thought it was really cool until one day we literally lost a big B2B deal because they looked at that it's like oh you guys are going too fast oh and i and it started thinking like oh i thought like us growing so fast people companies would be like they must be doing something really good but in larger corporations that's a little bit of a risk because as you know sometimes you go too fast right you go out of business because you don't know how to run the business.
So in 2023, we're like, we're not submitting to Inc. 5000.
We don't care about the fast thing anymore. It's interesting, right? I love it.
Never thought about it. Yeah.
Interesting. It was a pretty big deal.
Yeah. Yeah.
Well, yeah. So guys, I'm excited to have Jeremy on the pod.
Welcome to the show. It's, you know, I'm a big fan of your work.
fan of your work. We actually have a sales guy that works with us that just loves.
He puts you on the highest pedestal. It's like God, Jeremy Miner.
Oh my gosh. All right.
We got to figure out what course he's in. That's good.
I know he did your NLPQ. Oh, NLPQ.
yeah. Yeah, a while back.
And so he utilizes a lot of your strategies and stuff. Interesting.
Good stuff. Yeah.
So Jeremy, you've been building this incredible business in the sales space, which I would say, I mean, for the amount of revenue and the amount of employees, like is very impressive. Yeah.
Well, you know, I'm just the founder. You know, I don't run the business anymore.
I wouldn't have, I wouldn't say like, you know i'm just the i'm just the founder you know i don't

run the business anymore i wouldn't have i wouldn't say like you know just me interviewing you guys on the show i'm like okay these guys have different skills than than i would have right so you know do i know how to scale a company to you know 100 million or 500 million no i've never done that right do i know how to train salespeople to sell more do i know how to talent? Do I know how to do those things? Yes. So it's like you said, it's about bringing in the right people where you're weakened and hiring them for their strengths, right? Or making them your partner for their strengths.
And that really causes you to grow. That's interesting.
So what would you say? So obviously you're more centered on the sales side, but from a business standpoint, like what are some of the bottlenecks that you're working on and you're hoping to get you to the next level i think you know we're we're at a level where it's like in in revenue you know and i still compare my i always compare myself to like vivant so i always still feel like a small ant you know like oh 160 employees like just so tiny compared to the space that we came from you know what i'm saying so but for our industry that's big um the biggest thing that we're working on is as we're scaling you know we're bringing in department heads and sometimes you know you'll have some department heads that you fully trust yep every it's almost like every decision they make is just gold it's money and it works then you have some other department heads where maybe they got into that position and they weren't as qualified in the position and some of the decisions, you know, set you back a little bit. So it's finding that balance between, you know, still being able to run the business and scale and take a little bit of risk compared to being so corporate that you just don't take any risk and it's more slow growth.
So it's finding that balance. Yeah, for sure.
So, you know, obviously you have the department heads in place. Like what is the rest of your management structure look like? Are you, where are you fitting in? Are you off to the side? I'm the founder of the majority shareholder.
We have a CEO, right? Nice. Business uh, we have CFO, obviously we have a managing director, senior vice president, uh, COO.
We have the, you know, the, the C level executives. And then below them, we saw in some, we have a VP or director of those like director of fulfillment above them would be the vice president of fulfillment.
Um, you know, uh, same thing is basically, you know, we have a CRO, you know, so. So do you still consider yourself like the visionary that you're helping, like, drive the vision and direction of the business? Yeah.
I mean, I'm the face. I'm the visionary of the company.
Yep. And, you know.
Your CEO is more the integrator. More the integrator.
Yeah. Got it.
More the integrator, the business guy that handles that kind of stuff. So when you have an idea, you they're going to go punch numbers with the cfo does it you know sounds like a great idea but you know we punch the numbers like maybe it's not so profitable for that so you i think yeah you have to have that so like you know when you first started you're like hey i got all these great ideas you're the visionary like just go spend spend spend but then you don't, oh, it's not so profitable what I just did.

So what does this business look like in five, 10 years? Like where do you, where are you trying to land? So when I started seventh level, I knew we would never be just sales training. On the front end will always be sales training because that's what we're known at.
That's where we've gotten so much results. On the back end though, we have the assets now.
So in the third quarter of 2025, we are now going to have a division that's a recruiting staffing agency.

Awesome.

On the company side, because we probably, you know, we have a big Facebook group, Sales Revolution, about 160,000 people growing every day.

And we probably have, I'm not exaggerating, probably close to 100 employers a day that try to post in there like hey looking for 10 reps for a medical device looking for could be solar whatever and so they come to us like literally offering to pay us for like certified reps in our training programs for their industries and we just don't have an infrastructure to even offer that yet right we have an email list of over a million sales people yeah so a done a done for you agency from a recruiting standpoint is no brainer it's not like we have to start doing cold right in staffing and recruiting uh that's a huge industry we already train it yeah so we we already understand that space like the background we train tons of companies in that so it's just kind of a natural fit to have that back-end model, kind of like a Grant Cardone has sales training, but then real estate. My buddy Pace Morby, you know, selling, coaching, how to do real estate.
But then on the back-end, every client brings him deals and they split them 50-50, you know? So it's that back-end revenue. So we've created the assets for that the last five years and now we're bringing the right people to run that.
That's exciting. So seventh level, what's the meaning of seventh level? You know, it's interesting.
I've only had a few people ever ask me that. So I went to UBU, Utah Valley University, and my major is behavioral science, human psychology, but I minored in world religions.
And so in every world religion, you know, I'm LDS like you guys, every world religion. So I'm talking about, I'm not talking about religion now.
I'm talking about like ancient Christianity. So maybe from, you know, 30 AD to maybe 350 AD.
I'm talking about Islam at the beginning. I'm talking about, you know, even Buddhism, Hinduism.
I'm talking about even religions in Mesopotamia. They had had this one core belief that pretty much it was a universal belief that there were different levels of heaven okay not like one heaven and hell like a lot of religions believe now and at the highest level the seventh level like look it up it's crazy god dwelt in the seventh level and to attain that level you had to be perfected like god overcome the world, you know, do those types of things.
And so that's where I came up with the concept of seventh level of communication, perfecting your communication skills. We're going to have to have a separate conversation about religion off camera, because I have some very interesting beliefs that probably differ a little bit from exactly the way I was raised.
I'm an active member of the LDS faith. But yeah, it is interesting when you go and you study these world religions and really able to identify different truths that come from different.
Yeah, I think there's every religion has a lot of truth in it, for sure. Mixed in with some man-made stuff, including our own faith, you know, a little bit of man-made stuff here and there too.
So I'm, I'm all about talking about, you know, I believe in some crazy things too, that might be outside the norm, but I think that's good. And whether they're right or not, I guess we'll find out at the end of the day, you know, we'll all find out.
Yeah. Yeah.
Happy to talk with you. Like I said, a little bit more offline.
It might not be very entertaining for the group. I've got a question for you.
So, so look at the industry, the sales industry, what, uh, what businesses are, are needing salespeople the most? And then as a salesperson, what are the best opportunities that you see? Um, if you're looking for a good opportunity, this is a, this is a hard one, um, for me because we, I mean, we're in every vertical at this point in the subcategories, like Tommy's vertical, like home improvement, home services. You got garages, doors, windows, carpet, countertops, everything.
And that's a huge industry where we see a ton of our clients crush it. Right.
And you would even think like, oh, cabinet salesperson's making 500 grand a year. But there are a lot of people out there that do that.
Solar is a huge opportunity. It's a big space we train in.
Life insurance, huge. Whereas a lot of life insurance agents might suck and don't make any money.
We're like, well, the industry is doing trillions of dollars a year so it's based on

their skill level right whereas door-to-door is a huge opportunity you might have a lot of people that don't do well at it but still huge industry so what's different skill level for sure medical device sales i mean i could keep going on it's it's it's such a it's a hard one to answer because most of it, unless you're selling $10 magazine subscriptions door-to-door, is based on really your earnings are going to be based on your skill level. Yeah.
So would you say there's like a ticket size that if you have a ticket size of at least this, there's a level where you'll make… I see a lot of truth to that. Also, but I could sell… I've got, you know, we have life insurance reps in our training program that do over seven figures a year in commissions wow you're you're selling 150 a month life insurance so are these guys just uh figuring out how to get to one to many versus a one-on-one type sale a lot of it is just one-to-one and then maybe they start building out teams and we teach them how to recruit and they get overrides as well so it it's such a hard one because then, you know, we have solar sales people.

You know, as you know, you might have a solar salesperson that can't sell anything.

And then you got a guy come in that makes, you know, 1.5 million commissions next year.

Is it the industry or is it the skill level?

Sometimes it's a little bit of both.

But I think higher ticket stuff on average is a better opportunity.

You just have to have a higher skill level to be able to sell it. You know, it's different than going from like pest control to solar.
Right. You have to have a higher sales ability.
Yeah. $500 revenue or ticket value versus, yeah, $48,000.
Exactly. It's a little bit different.
So I would say higher ticket. I don't want to give a straightjacket interpretation of that because I see life insurance and others, but I would say say higher tickets going to be a better opportunity.
Got it. Most industries.
So when you talk about skill level, like where are, what do you see as like the most like three important things that somebody's got to master? I think most salespeople, they don't really understand the psychology behind how the brain actually makes decisions. So me being in behavioral science and human psychology, like I geeked out on the stuff at university and I studied it like a mofo.
So when I first started in door-to-door, like you guys did, when I knock on a door, if they slammed the door, said no, most reps in door-to-door would be like, oh, you know, this neighborhood's bad or they're all broke. They have a bad mindset.
But I was thinking like, oh, like I said, what did I say or what did I do there that triggered them to react that way? Right. Because I wanted to get inside their mind.
Right. Because I figured like if I can learn what triggers somebody to say no or what triggers I want to think it over or what triggers I need to talk to my spouse.
And if I could learn how to like get rid of that out of their mind, by default, I'm just going to sell more. So I always focused on like, how do I prevent these objections from happening rather than like, how do I handle them? Because if I did get an objection, I'm like, oh, I did something wrong upstream that triggered them to think this way.
Does that make sense? Yeah, absolutely. It's like Tom Brady, right? It's like in the NFL, the more interceptions you throw, the more fumbles you lose, less likely you win the game.
So I always looked at sales the same way. Like the less mistakes I make, right, I'm unlikely to lose the sale.
The more mistakes I make, I'm likely to not give the sale. So I just I thought about selling differently.
So I think the first thing is understanding the psychology behind why a person buys or doesn't buy. Would you say that has to do with like so what I teach is like the four different type of buyers, like the buying personalities.
Right. You have aggressive and social and different.
Like, do you think that i think there's a lot of truth in that uh i focus more on like with any personality i'm focused on how do i disarm the prospect where they let their guard down yep because if and that's with any person especially with an a-type right because you know the a-type start to bowl you over so like how do i disarm them where they start to emotionally open up and a lot of it is just strictly with your tonality right so like I would say let's say the the prospect like yeah come on in or whatever and I literally would do this all the time I'd be like now hold on hold up before I come in like you're not gonna get mad at me if I can't end up helping you are you oh god we would never get mad at you see how I'm triggering them to like pull me in because I'm using like this concern like tone right and they And they're like, oh God, I would never. Or I'd be like, hold on.
You're not going to get angry at me if I don't take off my shoes. Like I don't want to.
Oh, we would never get angry. So I'm just triggering them to like come to my side and pull me in.
So by the time I get to anything, they're just already bought in. So a lot of it is your tonality.
So tonality and obviously even the structure of the question, right? Yeah. Hey guys, it's Chris.
Hey, a lot of you leave comments asking for help. Do me a real quick favor.
Shoot me a text at 509-374-7554. That's 509-374-7554.
Shoot me a text. I'll answer and help you with whatever you need.
Don't worry. I got you back.
Let's go back to the show baby and it's it's it's not even because we you know when we train in epq the you know how to ask these questions we see a lot of new clients where they come in and they're like i've just got to ask these questions on my script i've got to memorize these canned lines i'm like that's good you need a script but you need to understand how to be flexible with set script because you have to learn, like once you understand like, okay, I need to ask, let's say we call them connection questions to take the prospect out of price or cost-based thinking, immediately start to get them to results-based thinking. And I also need to get them to let their guard down.
So what if the prospect tells me something different from my first question? Do I need to ask this next question there? Not necessarily because then it sounds almost like I'm scripted, like I didn't really listen to what they just said, right? So you have to learn how to take what the prospect says and be able to tweak your next question and tie in what they just said to that question. And if you don't understand the psychology behind where you're at in that sales process, you're just going to sound scripted, monotone, like a salesperson, and then their guard is up and they stay surface level.
So as a salesperson, what, when was your biggest jump or what was your biggest jump in commissions? Like from one year over the other? Yeah. So my, my best summer doing alarms, I've managed an office.
Okay. We, we did, I think we did a couple thousand accounts, which back in the day, that was like, that was crazy.
I think we were the second office in any company that ever done a couple of thousand. And that was with less than 20 guys.
Wow. 16 guys at the end.
Wow. But the, you know, the average guy's doing 150, 180.
That's wild. Yeah.
It's good because we, I just trained them all the time. I go door to door.
And I, I, myself as a manager, I installed three, I think three and an 80 some accounts that summer myself, like installs, but summer. That was my best.
Now that was back. I don't know what you guys were getting paid, but that was me negotiating.
You're probably making 350, 400 a deal. I think 480 a deal.
And then when I got with Apex, which later became Bivint, when me and Jared, like half of, sorry, Pinnacle, half of the company with us over to Vivint, I think we had to sign an NDA. Probably out of the NDA by now.
It was like $6.50 a deal. And we were just like, oh, I got rich, $6.50 a deal.
This is crazy. It was like $80 or $100 in override.
I don't know what they get paid now. Right.
So that was a jump. But then I just got, you know, Jared ended up staying as a regional manager.
I just wanted to get out because I was tired of, I had three kids at the time. I was like moving around every summer.
I'm just like, dude, like I've got these skills. I need to go do something else.
And you went and did what? I got into B2B enterprise. So I started selling debt relief services.
Okay. So now I went from door to door selling to consumers, right? For what, 50 bucks a month or whatever is for a three or five year contract.
Same day installs to then I have to go learn how to cold call to companies. Some, you know, some fortune 1000, but primarily more SMB.
Okay. Like companies that were doing anywhere from, let's say 20 million on the low end to maybe a couple hundred to 300 million a year on the top some some larger companies but mainly that so you know getting them out of debt and stuff like that cold calling so these were much bigger deals longer sales cycles so i had to learn but the same concepts were the cases door to door how do i interrupt their pattern on a cold call rather than the door so i I just, you know, I had to learn that.
Okay. And then that next year I made close to 800 grand in commissions.
You made 800 grand and then you, you got up to like multiple seven figures. Yeah.
Then the next year I went to like 1.3 million a year. Then I went to like 2 million a year.
So what was like the biggest thing that bridged you from 800 grand to 200 million or 2 million? Like what, I mean as a single sales rep were you managing teams at this time and getting overrides okay so i didn't want to get into management right because i made way less right so so what like help identify what got you there i would say just i was still learning skills all the time and the biggest factor that that took me from the jump between door to door to more B2B high level was mastering tonality. Like not kidding.
And it sounds simple because salespeople always come to us like, what's the best closing line? How do I close them? I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Nobody makes a buying decision when you use some option close at the end.
You want to install Tuesday or what? Like not when they decide to buy if they say Tuesday that means they already decided to buy before you ask that question it's not like that caused them to buy right so I had to I really because it's not really taught in door-to-door right so when I was in door-to-door though I started I hired an acting coach in Hollywood. And in the offseason, I would literally fly out there every other weekend and spend a Saturday.
I paid this guy a lot of money to teach me tonality. So we focus on the five core tonalities.
There's a curious tone. There's a confused tone.
Right. Like you're not understanding something.
So you draw them in, in certain contexts. You have a challenging tone.
Once you build a gap, you build trust. You're not going to challenge somebody at the very beginning.
Then you have a concern tone, a tone that shows more empathy, right? And then you have a playful tone, right? Now there's subcategories of all this tone. There's like the familiar tone when you cold call.
So I had to learn like how to become familiar, right? So the prospect and B2B, it's fun. Like, you know, XYZ, you know, company, this is John or whatever.
Like, yeah, hey, John, it's Jeremy, Jeremy Minor with XYZ Company. And I kept going.
And what does that do in their brain? Like, who's? How do I know this guy? Yes, because I sound familiar. Yeah.
Right. It's like if somebody calls you, you're it's amy amy smith how are you daryl and you're like i'm great how are you versus versus like hey is daryl is this daryl yeah daryl this is jeremy with xyz the reason why i called you so it's a pattern rubbed so i had the principle was there so but i had to learn more tonality like the familiar tone.
And so you attribute this to this acting coach. Was there anybody else that taught you tonality along the way? I just kept learning tonality from just different people.
You don't learn tonality in books. The biggest fault that salespeople, the biggest thing that stops them is they think they're going to master sales by reading books.
And we've got a couple, you know, we get bestseller books but i always tell them like look a book is an introduction it's an introduction you can't master selling by reading books because they're just words and you know why you can't master i'll give you an example uh this is really clear what's your favorite song that if i said sing that song you could almost sing it word for word like literally i love i love a lot of things uh tim mcgrasso don't take the girl yeah so you sing that down what's yours my favorite song yeah just you'd almost sing it word for word i mean i don't know why i started thinking of garth brooks but i was more when i was young okay so let's's say a Garth Brooks song. You just start singing off the top of your head.
You love the song. You've heard it.
It's in your subconscious, so it comes to your consciousness. What's your favorite book you've read multiple times? I mean, I love a lot of different books.
I would say Atomic Habits. Okay, and you've read that.
What about yours? Outweaving the Devil. Okay, so you've read it several times.
Youweigh the devil okay so you've read several times for the song several times there's about 330 words in an average song and in one page of the average book it's about 330 words can you recite word for word any page of your favorite book no just a couple concepts but that's it yet your favorite song has the same amount of words and you recite it word for word why tonality the tonality and the melody causes your brain to retain the information that's why salespeople they think they're going to buy a book for 27 bucks and like quadruple their sales but they can't retain it because there's no tone there's no melody even when you're doing the the book audios you can't really teach tonality in a book audio because like the way it's set up you have to basically that's you the person to read from the book word for word right so you can't teach tonight that's why you have to have video courses you have to have in person you have to have virtual and that causes your brain to retain it because they hear the tonality. So you would attribute tonality as like the number one skill that a salesperson needs to.
Yeah, because your tone is how the prospect interprets why you're asking the questions, like the meaning behind your questions. Right.
So there's not a lot of sales trainers to talk about. I know Jordan Belfort talks a little bit about tonality, but for me, I can have the worst script ever.
And if I master tonality, I'm going to outsell those reps that have, let's say I write the script for them, the best script, and they don't know it's tonality. I'll sell them five to one just with the tonality.
Yeah, I agree with you. I mean, I've studied a lot of sales gurus, read all the books and everything else, and very few people address it.
Some live trainings a little bit, but it's more of like mirror the customer, right? Like that is addressing tonality, but not in the same exact way. Yeah, and I like mirroring.
The only problem with mirroring that I found, this is just my personal thoughts, is that when you're talking to a friend that you trust would it be awkward for you if they started repeating back everything you said yeah so that's why i don't understand why salespeople think that if they repeat back things that the prospect says that the prospect is somehow going to trust him because it doesn't sound like a natural conversation right it sounds salesy right so what i learned how to do is to get the prospects to mirror me. So a lot of people are like, you got to mirror the prospect.
Like if they move in, you move in. I'm like, well, why not learn how to get them to do what you're doing? Because then they're qualifying to you rather than you qualifying to them.
Because I always say, who has the problems? the prospect or you? The prospect has the problems.

You are the one that solved them.

So why are you qualifying to them?

I think one of the things I learned early on in my sales career was I would near the customer.

And then I would have it shift to where they would near me.

That's why you were more successful.

And that's when I knew that I had the control.

Or I had the influence.

They were starting to qualify to you. And what you guys were saying earlier is you were detached from the outcome.
The biggest thing is when you get to a certain skill level, you are far more detached because you're in control of the conversation. The prospect feels like they're in control, though, but you are really the one in control.
And a lot of people will be like, oh, you know, NEP it's it's just it's not aggressive enough I'm like actually it's the most aggressive methodology out there because the prospect never feels like they were sold yeah so when you're aggressive the prospect feels the pressure they feel like they're being sold that's why they get triggered that's why they throw out so many objections but if I can prevent most objections from happening because they don't feel like they're being sold they almost feel like they're trying to convince you to let them pay you to solve their problems that's pretty damn aggressive because they don't feel like they're ever sold it's like the chinese like the art of war right it's like they win the war by getting the country to self-destruct from the inside without firing a shot right that's the most aggressive war. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
And our, in our organizations, one of the things I always help is like, we call it identifying the pain and it's just through questions. Right.
And, and really like helping the customer identify where they actually sit. So they're looking for the solution.
Like they're just begging for the solution. And it's getting them to be open enough to tell you their pain.
Because I think a lot of questions that every industry asks, you know, that are just the standard questions, like the prospects know where those questions are leading. So they kind of go surface level because it's like, you know, the water filter sales guy that cold calls you like, do you like drinking water? Yes.
Like that's a dumb question, right? So instantly you're triggered. Like it doesn't make any sense.
Right. So it's just, uh, it's, it's, it's asking the question, but it's, it's kind of like reversing the frame.
So like, let's say if I sold, you know, let's say if I sold life insurance, you know, a life insurance salesperson standard question, be like, Hey, you know, uh, what, what are you looking for in a policy or, you know, what's, what's's a what's an issue you're having that caused you to come to us and well the most prospects know where that leads to so i might i might lead with a different question not the first question might be like okay so help me understand you've already got this sixty thousand dollar work policy i mean what's what's caused you to feel like that's not going to be enough well i mean it's not enough because now they're defending themselves on why it's not enough and why they need more. See, I'm getting them to defend themselves and qualify to me why they need me.
Whereas other salespeople are trying to convince. The prospect now is convincing me why they want what I have.
You know, it's interesting. You're saying this in regards to sales.
I think this applies also to recruiting. Yeah.
Right. You want the people to defend why they should be a part of your vision yeah and your company rather than trying to out pay the next highest bidder it just doesn't make any sense so it's a very applicable yeah principle but it's also the tone and how you ask that because notice i'm kind of using like kind of a skeptical like why am i even here tone compared to most people compared to most people, they'd be like, so I don't, I don't understand.
Like you've got the $80,000 policy. What's caused you to feel like it's not going to be enough.
It's just like monotone flat. It doesn't trigger any motion.
Right. But I'm like, I'm not understanding.
Like you've, you've already got the $80,000 work policy. What's, what's caused you to feel like that's not going to be enough.
which is beautiful because because yeah it gets gets the customer to defend

why work positive what's what's causing you to feel like that's not going to be enough which is beautiful because because yeah it gets gets the customer to defend why they're on the phone or talking with you yeah but i think more importantly as you already brought up it detaches you from the end result right like the customer doesn't feel like yeah that you're just trying to sell me right and which which I believe is like one of the biggest mistakes that salespeople make is like so, like they are so scared of the no. Right.
That they will do anything to get a maybe or even a yes. Yeah.
Or I want to think it over. Yeah.
The maybe, right. Think it over.
The could be. They love it.
It's like getting solar. You know, when solar salespeople companies would come to us, they'd ask all these yes questions to get them to always say yes i'm like those are really good questions however the prospect knows where those leave and so that's why they're they're like clamming up at the door or virtual so you know let's say if i'm finding out about their bill a lot of solar ships would be like oh your bill is really high right with all the rate hikes and even if they really they are the most process unless they're late ends of like they're not that bad and they're good because you're like up playing something which they know why and so they downplay it so we were teaching startups like and this is a little bit in the conversation so tell me a little bit about your bill i know i know a lot of the year it's pretty low but what have they been making you pay lately and so i'm downplaying it and then i'm saying, what have they been making you, making you, making you pay lately? Like I'm concerned.
See that tone, the shift in the tone. Like tell me about your bill.
I know a lot of the year it's pretty low, but what have they been making you pay lately? See, I'm downplaying it so they upplay it in their brain. Right, right.
It's beautiful. Listening to you, I know one of your top students.
Oh, who's that uh tony bianco oh yeah i actually know tony was one of our first 500 clients literally i interviewed him on uh on a podcast he's a couple years ago he's great well i can say he sounds so much like you okay yeah he mimics the the tonality for sure yeah does a really good job we on tonality, right? Because like I said, that's how the prospect is interpreting the meaning behind why you're asking them something.

So if I'm like, if somebody's on the fence and they're just not moving forward, and this could be in the industry, I might lean and be like, hey, can I ask you something?

It's like concern tone, very soft, right?

Lower the tone.

They're not going to say no.

They're like, yeah, sure. What going on what um this is off the record i'm not gonna go post it on facebook what's what's really holding you back but it's the tone it's that concern tone that shows empathy because if i'm like hey uh let me ask you a question like what's really holding you back oh i don't know it's just a bit it's interesting I teach something very similar it's a little bit different is is asking for permission to slap them and essentially uh what I teach is I say hey is it right if I bro down with you for a second like is it right if I shoot you straight yeah because now you're like real right right and and all of a sudden the right whenever you ask for permission or this type of thing it's like it's like true is it right and and it's not even to ask a question like hey can i shoot you straight real quick yeah and then like i don't think that's your real concern yeah right like and like everything you've told right like it's it's one of the biggest things that helped transition my my sales like whenever my guys and my ladies that that do sales yeah uh just remove that and ask for permission it completely changed it's so true because a lot of sales people like hey let me ask you and they just bulldoze right right and use the prospect you know if you're bulldozed you're kind of you're resistant right and so are the prospects but if you ask for permission, like, can I ask you something? Nobody's going to say no.
No, you cannot. But it's how you ask it in that tone, right? So if they call like, you know, hey, we really liked your presentation, but, you know, now's not a good time.
Right. You know, most of us, we were like, well, why is it not a good time? And I tried, you said you needed it, blah, blah, blah.
And they just argue and then it's over. Numbers game.
I might be like, yeah, that's not a problem. and I try you said you needed it blah blah blah and they just argue and then it's over numbers game I might be like yeah that's not a problem can I um can I ask you something before we get off the phone so I'm selling the exit selling the exit yeah sure go ahead how can I communicate to you that you you might be making a mistake without you getting upset with me nobody's like you can't see now I'm opening them up but'm using a concern tone, a tone that shows empathy.
If I used a curious tone, it wouldn't land. I love it.
Let's shift gears. I love this just as far as sales skills and development, but I think there's another aspect to sales that some people talk about, some don't, but just the mentality, what mental frames are internally uh because you know it's one thing to have the skill to sell yeah and it's a completely different thing to like hold yourself disciplined and not be satisfied and everything else let's let's talk about a little bit of that my mindset when i was in sales from from very first door i knocked on to to even now't I don't use selling as something that you do to someone I believe it's something you do for someone and it's a big mental shift right because when I was on the doors and they're like yeah you know whatever we get into it and they don't buy or whatever I'd be like oh sorry I couldn't help you and I just go on in the next door like I literally didn't even think about it right after that.
It's like Tom Brady throws an interception. He just goes back.
He doesn't think about it 10 seconds later. He just goes to the next, you know, the next play when he gets the ball after that or whatever.
So I think you have to have a mindset of like, you don't necessarily really care if the prospect doesn't buy because it has no impact on you. You're not the one that has a problem.
So yeah, removing your identity from the situation. They're not attacking you.
They're just saying no to the offer or whatever. Yeah, it's just like, but I would always, I'd go back and be like, okay, but what did I say? What did I not ask? Because they had problems.
Yep. I could solve those.
So the missing link was me. Right.
Not them. I never blamed the prospect.
Never. I think the kiss of death for salespeople is blaming the leads, blaming the prospect always blame myself what did I say what did I not ask that caused them to react that way that caused them not to buy so what what kept you going so you know one of what am I what I would call elite superpowers is not being satisfied right like because I think that's probably the kiss of death for most elite salespeople right like because you go and you start making 800 grand a year 800 000 a year as a salesperson for any product is considered elite right like and that that is phenomenal and so to go from 800 grand to 2 million a year there had to be a mental shift that kept you going what was that to me to me and i because i played high school sports i played college baseball so to me like i was very competitive now i'm not a person that's going to talk about that i don't i like to keep that to myself it's like an internal driver like i'm not gonna be like oh we did this we do that like i'm just gonna keep it to myself and i'm like i don't know who said it uh steve martiner like become so good that they can't ignore you.
That's just how I grew up as a kid because I grew up on a catarache. My parents weren't wealthy.
Nothing was ever given to me. You know, playing football and baseball in high school, I wasn't the most gifted, but I was extremely competitive and I would outlearn other people.
So my batting stance, I would have better techniques because I'd spend more time on it, right? I'd analyze different pitches coming from the player's hand compared to other people would just get up there and hit or not hit, right? They didn't care. So to me, it was all about commitment to being number one.
I could never be number two. And sales was the same way.
That's one of the biggest reasons why I left alarms my last year because i started getting to a point where i was like this is too easy it's boring i don't even care if i'm the number one rep anymore and that's when you know like i need to go do something else and that's why i wanted to get into a completely different industry and everybody told me at apex and my friends at pina were like oh you'll be back next year you'll be back you can't make this type of money outside of door-to-door there's no way and that was like a chip on my shoulder it's like oh really I'm just gonna freaking move back to Missouri and you'll never hear from me again and they never did and this I made way more money I love it this actually brings up another aspect one thing I've found with like most successful salespeople is that they have painful moments in their lives whether it's little words that they hear or whatnot that they draw upon to stick to the course to keep working to push like what are some of those painful moments in your life that you use even today to draw on to keep it rocking yeah because so i i went to become a psychologist which so this is which i also want to ask you why i i was just fascinated my first year i was uh like physical education major because i was playing sports but then i started to realize like oh they don't make any money so i need to do something different and i was always fascinated with the mind and the way the brain works because it's always like i wanted to get into the pitcher's mind like i wanted to see what was going what was he. Like look him in the eyes and like see what he was thinking.
Because a lot of times I could like pick up like what type of pitch he was going to do. Like real quick, my eyes were just like that.
And I played center field. So if you're out in – did you play baseball? I played baseball.
What did you position? Second base usually. Yeah, okay.
So don't have – second base is harder. But like out in center field, you can literally see where the pitch pitch is going outside, up, down.
So it's like you get a jump on the ball. Like you're already moving towards like when you start seeing the pitch come out of the hand.
So in my mind, like I was always fascinated with just everything, why things happened. So when I got into sales, I'm like, well, why did they give me that? I want to think it over.
Like I was thinking, why did they tell me they need to talk to their spouse? Like I wanted to understand why they thought that, why they didn't buy. And so to me, it was fascinating just to learn about the brain and why it made sense.
And I had one of my, I wasn't saying my uncle's best friend or something was a famous psychologist and he was charging like a thousand dollars an hour per session. He was really, really good.
Got big results. And so I'm make money you know i'm not gonna go pro what am i gonna do and so that's why i've been in that but as a psychologist going back to this the your chip on the shoulder i believe everybody has a chip on their shoulder some people just don't activate it my chip on my shoulder and a lot of it comes from as you as a child from the ages of four to about 13.
That's where your whole world view usually is shaped by the people you're around maybe the church you go to maybe what you watch on tv kids now influenced by influencers on tick tock that's their world view okay which is dangerous so as a kid my stepdad lost his job he became disabled he got lupus and went from like a middle-class family to like broke and poor. And my mom had to go become a waitress because she didn't initiate to go back to college.
And we had, there was five of us boys. And so around the age 11, we became very poor.
And I remember going to baseball practice, still remember this. And my parents couldn't afford the Nike cleats anymore.
And I had some brand from like Walmart or something. I feeling so stupid right and I'm just like I'm never gonna feel poor and so from that day forward like something I don't know something shifted where I'm just like it was like I was I was afraid of like ever being poor and probably till like my early 30s until I went to like Landmark Forum I didn't know why I was so motivated to succeed succeed, but it was like a fear of loss.
Like I want to be successful so I never feel poor again. And so when I, if you're, you guys ever went to Landmark Forum? It's really good.
It's like, it just kind of helps you understand, it's personal about, helps you understand why you do what you do. I've, I've, I've heard about it.
Yeah, it's really good. And so then I'm like, okay, well, I don't have to, I don't have to want to be successful because I'm afraid of being poor.
I need to switch that. And I want to be successful because I want to help more people.
I want to be able to have more impact. And so it was a big shift for me.
But everybody has a chip, just most people don't activate it. Hey guys, it's Chris.
Hey, a lot of you leave comments asking for help. Do me a real quick favor shoot me a text at 509-374-7554.
That's 509-374-7554. Shoot me a text.
I'll answer and help you with whatever you need. Don't worry, I got you back.
Let's go back to the show, baby. Yeah, I think we all have something.
I think that's been one of my also superpowers is being able to draw on different chips or different scenarios from my life or whatnot. I had an instance my junior year where I should have been the starting quarterback and ended up kind of what I felt like was being taken from me and I had no control over.
I did everything that the coaches said that would, you know, validate there or whatnot. And, you know, I had a decision to make in that point in my life where I had to completely shift, like who I was to be able to attain the goal that I had.
And like for a long time, I drew off of that painful moment and then my bankruptcy. Here's the thing your shoulder.
Here's the thing if that hadn't happened to you you might know there's then where you're at. 100% I wouldn't be like those chains of events and like those those dark times of my life are been have been the most powerful to me that have kept me motivated on the doors, kept me motivated to keep going in the business, kept me motivated on my relationships.
You know, it's just, yeah. And I think it's the way you look at trials and tribulations.
I believe that God gives us trials and tribulations. So, you know, scriptures, we turn our weaknesses into our strengths.
And I think a lot of people don't do that, though. He gives them the trials and tribulations, but they just, like, settle with, like, well, it's just the way it is they're just gonna be weak and i think you know guys like you and i we want to take those weaknesses and like how do we make them strengths like how do we overcome them because we know when we overcome uh when we overcome that fear of change everything we've ever wanted is on that other side of that change absolutely i would say would say that some people suffer to feel dignified.
And so they hold on to the suffering. Other people go through the suffering to learn so they can move away from it.
It's all what you do with it. Are you going to learn from it? And you look at it as like, hey, this sucked, but what am I going to do about it? Or are you going to be like, this sucks and my life is horrible.
It's just, it's two different paths. Jeremy, I appreciate you sharing your knowledge.
Like there's absolutely incredible nuggets in here with psychology and sales practices. And just, I mean, what you're building is just absolutely phenomenal.
Would highly recommend it for anybody that's wanting to really scale up their sales program and, and Where are the best places for people to utilize your content and the different programs that you have? Yeah, just follow me on Instagram, Jeremy Lee Minor. That's my verified account.
We do a lot of reels there. You can also go to BarnesandNoble.com.
Get our best-selling book, New Model of Selling, Selling to the Unsellable Generation, the big orange book. And then if they have questions, they can just text me.
So I'll even give you the number. Yeah, that'd be great.
480-637-2944. Every day for an hour or two, I sit around with a bunch of my sales trainers and we answer questions.
So they're welcome to text me. That.
I think, I think it's a great business practice and the fact that you're opening yourself up that way is, is fantastic. I appreciate it.
Yeah. And they want more advanced training.
They can always reach out to us. Awesome.
Guys, appreciate you jumping on, listening to this podcast, another, another episode of Next Level Pros. As always, for if you're looking at joining the Premier Program or just seeing what it's like, you can get a $47 10-day trial over at gonextlevelpros.com, in which you're going to be able to have access to me, Daryl, and our team, in which you'll be able to ask your questions, be able to utilize and see what it's like to be a part of our community.
Once again, head on over to go next level pros.com. It's in the show notes.
Appreciate you guys until next time.