This One Word Can Instantly Improve Your Close Rate

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What's going on everyone? I want to give you what really can feel like an instant cheat code to close way more of the people that you're already talking to without changing your leads, without changing your prices, or learning some cheesy closing line. Absolutely every single sale, especially in B2B, rises and falls on trust. For example, if I said, "For every dollar you give me, I'll reliably send you back $10." And you'd actually believe that deep down, you'd give me every single dollar you get your hands on because logically there's really no reason not to.

I'm just [music] duplicating your money. And most deals fall apart not because the offer is bad, but because the prospect doesn't fully believe you. They don't fully believe themselves, or they don't fully believe the vehicle that you're selling. That's why referrals are so damn easy to close. By the time they talk to you, somebody that they trust has already loaned you their credibility.

So, the question is, how do you create that level of trust with a stranger who just answered a cold call or clicked on your ad? One of my favorite ways is something called a damaging admission. And I first really noticed it in the movie 8 Mile. In the final rap battle, instead of bragging, Eminem actually spends the first part of his verse admitting all of his own flaws. So, by the time he's done, there's nothing left for the other guy to say.

He wins by owning his weaknesses. We're going to use that same psychology in sales, combined with one tiny word that acts like an amplifier in your prospect's brain. It's the [music] word but. Most sales people accidentally use but to hurt their pitch. They'll say something like, "You're going to make a lot of money with this, but >> it's going to be a lot of work."

And what sticks in the prospect's mind is now the work. The simple fix is to flip the order. You go negative first, then but, then your strongest true payoff. Because in the prospect's mind, everything before but >> shrinks, and everything after but is what gets highlighted. So, instead of saying, "You're going to get a lot of prospects, but you're going to have to give us an insane offer [music] and basically give away sandwiches for free."

Instead you flip it. "You're going to need to give a good offer and, you know, give some sandwiches away for free, but you're going to get a ton of business because of it. So, you're using the same exact ingredients, but a totally different impact. I hope that makes sense. So, let's make this concrete.

Let's say we're selling ads base on a large shared postcard like I teach many of you to do. The weak version sounds like, "You're going to hit thousands of homes and make a ton of money, but it'll cost you $500 and it only goes out once." That sentence frames the cost and the limitation as the main thing. >> The stronger damaging admission version sounds like, "This is not a magic button. You're going to spend $500 with us.

You'll be on a postcard with other businesses, so you're not the only thing in the mailbox, [music] and your offer can't be totally terrible. You still have to give people a reason to call, but this gets your business physically into [music] thousands of homes you'd never reach otherwise without hiring an agency, learning complicated online ads, or dropping $5,000 on a solo mailer. And our advertisers who stick with it do it because the phone keeps ringing." Notice how I'm not hiding the downside. I'm saying it first.

The more honestly damaging the admission is, the more believable the upside view is. You see this with reviews, too. If I tell you, "My program is perfect. Everybody loves it." you don't believe [music] me.

But if I say, "We've had people quit. We've had one-star reviews from people who wanted it to be effortless, but we've also had a ton of long detailed five-star reviews from people who actually followed the steps and got results." Now, [music] it feels real. It feels like I'm being honest because I used the damaging sentence first. I can assume most of us would rather go to a place with thousands of reviews and it has an average of 4.

7 [music] stars rather than a place with two reviews and it happens to be five stars because the little bit of damage, the 4.7 stars instead of five stars, makes it more trustworthy because they have thousands of stars. That's the difference. There's even that famous warning on the Viagra bottle, "If you experience an erection lasting more than 4 hours, contact your doctor." On paper, that's a side effect, but every guy watching heard, "This stuff really works."

They turned a risk into proof. >> You can do literally the same thing. Warning, "If this works for you like it usually does, you may have to deal with a lot more customers than you're used to. We're not responsible for your increased tax bill for making way more money. It's funny, but it's real and it reinforces the promise.

A lot of people worry, "Won't saying the negatives scare people away?" And yes, it will scare away the wrong people, the ones who want magic without effort, the ones who stay after you've been honest. Especially in the 9 by 12 business, the advertisers who stay after you've been honest are usually the better clients anyway. So, here's how to use this the right way. Step number one, list the top two or three reasons someone might be hesitant to buy from you.

The price, the work required, the fact that you're not the biggest company in the space. And then step two, turn them into clear sentences. We're not the cheapest option, or this is going to take 60 to 90 days before you really feel it, or you will have to respond to the leads we generate. And then step three, follow them with but and the strongest true payoff you can offer. Like this, "We're not the cheapest, but we are obsessed with making sure you actually get a return."

Or, "It will take 60 to 90 days to really feel it, but once it hits, you have a simple campaign you can rinse and repeat whenever you want new customers." Or, "You'll have to respond to the leads, but we structure the offers so that the people calling are already pre-framed and closer to ready to buy." You can use that structure in your sales calls, your DMs, your cold emails, your landing pages, use it everywhere. And now here's the last piece that ties this all together. For this cheat code to really change your income, you need to be selling something that's actually valuable.

Ideally, something mid to high ticket with a clear meaningful outcome. If you're selling something tiny where even doubling your close rate doesn't move the needle, you're playing a small game. That's one reason I like models like the large 9 by 12 style postcard. Very simply, you choose a town, design a big shared postcard, and sell ad slots on it to multiple non-competing local businesses that each pay you $500 for an ad space. You collect the money up front, you pay a printing and mailing company to send that card to 5,000 homes, and the difference is your profit.

So, for example, there's 16 ad slots on this card. If you charge $500 each, that's $8,000 collected, and your all-in print and mail cost is usually around $3,000. So, that means you're left with $5,000 in profit when all is said and done. Of course, results will vary based off your execution, but that's basically all I talk about on this channel. So, you'll execute properly if you subscribe.

Anyways, the math is simple, the model is simple, and it's proven. It's straightforward, and it can be repeated month after month, and it works really well with this exact persuasion tactic that we just talked about, because you can be totally honest about the work, the calls, and the follow-up, and still point to a very real payoff. If that kind of simple, mid-to-high ticket, repeatable offer sounds interesting to you, and you want to see how this postcard side hustle or business works in detail, I've got another video that walks you through the whole thing step-by-step, including how people structure it to sell out a card and aim for about $5,000 profit, like I said, in their first month when they execute it. If you're serious about closing more deals, and you want something solid to sell, go watch that video next. It should be right here on the screen or linked nearby, and pay attention to how often you hear me use this exact negative first, but big payoff structure, because once you start using it, you'll never look at the word but in sales the same way.

Watch that video. Good luck with your sales.